Rating: 
Summary: Hamster wheel greased?
Review: The graphics are very well done. The idea of realm vs realm warfare is appealing. Each realm is well built and distinct from one another. Mythic tries to fix and tweak the game as needed and is pretty good at communicating with the players. Their website is informative and has a nice layout.Some are content to sit for an hour or more and level. In order to participate in the 'end game', realm vs realm (RvR), one needs to be level 45+ and have good items. The 'end' is level 50. (possible to attain in a month) When I buy a game, I buy it to be entertained. At first the game was very fun. I'd run about killing 'mobs' and chatting it up with other people. Most people are nice, some aren't. Some try to roleplay, some don't. Leveling. It is what the game is about. You need to kill kill kill to get experience(exp). If you die you get a penalty and lose exp and constitution (determines amount of life you have). The ammount of exp you need each level goes up exponentialy where at level 40-ish you need millions. (hours of killing) The games is kill, level, go to trainer, kill, level, go to trainer- until you hit 50. There are quests that give you items and exp, some have a good story, some were broken. Classes- There are a variety of classes to choose from each with its distinctive attributes and 'flaws'. You could be an armsman from albion decked out in plate armor and carrying a big pike. Gotta get close to deal out damage. Or you could be a Wizard with powerful magics at your command, but a strong gust of wind might kill you. Or you could be a healing class that can heal and resurrect! And you can buff! Buff's are benifical spells that enhance your and other players stats. Most players are generally nice about asking for buffs, some demand them and get indignant when denied. You could be a support class. Some have well defined roles. Some have a mana-regeneration spell or song that replenishes the groups mana, which is required to cast spells. Or some support classes have crowd control. Crowd control helps stop 'mobs' and players in thier tracks allowing your group to easily dispatch the assailants. For most every class there is a yang to their ying. Some classes hardly anyone plays or they get another account and have a buff-bot. A buff-bot buffs his main account and sometimes friends, then gets auto-stuck to his master or left in a safe location. RvR can be very fun and entertaining, but it also can be very fustrating. Mythic put in battlegrounds, each with level ranges, so that players could get a taste of RvR. RvR's fun things: You can siege a keep! You can built siege weapons! You can fight other people! You can fight realm guard npc's (non-player charectors)! You can hunt down the umpteen solo-ing assassin's, and look for their hidden buff bot! RvR's not so fun things: On servers with population disparities you can face 10 to one odds. He who mashes the crowd-control spell button or any other button for that matter first wins. Almost done! There is the EPIC ENCOUNTERS!(EE) There are EE's for each realm. The EE consists of fighting mobs to get to the uber-mob. These uber-mobs have uber loot(items/weapons) which would be benifical to get. The drop, when the monster dies and the loot appears, is random. In order to slay such a baddie the realm needs around 100 players. The baddie only has a few weapons. Loot distribution becomes interesting, usually it is decided before the mass goes to the EE. Going to an EE is an all day event, and it is very likely for you not get anything. I played Daoc on and off for about a year. If you find good people to play with it can be fun. I'm not into running on a hamster wheel.
Rating: 
Summary: Quite good!
Review: The biggest complaint about the otherwise good game Dark Age of Camelot was a lack of content. (This was, of course, usually when being compared to EQ plus its four expansions.) Well here's a lot more content and it's very compelling. The creatures fight better. They look better. The locations are more interesting. It also has an upgraded game engine which is makes the game look far better, even if the affects are subtle. It's a very worthwhile addition to what was already the best MMPORPG out there.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent add on to the great MMORPG
Review: Shrouded Isles is the first expansion for the massive multiplayer role playing game "The Dark ages of Camelot" or DAoC for short. To understand a bit about the game's back story, DAoC makes wonderful use of three seperate mythologies: English, Celtic and Norse. You can create a character in any one of these lands. Mythic, the company behind DAoC, made a wise decision in basing their game on actual mythology, as it has both an accessibility and a richness and resonance not found in the competitors. Those people drawn to the role playing elements of the game, have more to work with, and it's easier to fathom what constitutes an acceptable name, for example. The lands reflect the research and forethought which went into the design of the game. For example, each of the lands has a capital city. Obviously there's camelot for Albion (aka England), but in Hibernia (Irish/Celtic mythology) the capital city is Tir Na Nog, or the celtic land of the fairies. If you've ever travelled in Ireland or england, you almost can't help but smile to see landmarks on the map like the cliffs of Moher or the Salisbury plain, with a dungeon entrance inside a strange but familiar set of stone monoliths called Stonehenge. As for game mechanics, this is probably one of the most hotly contested issues within the DAoC community. DAoC has a large number of classes spread amongst the three realms, and one of DAoC's innovations was the design of the game as a player vs. player environment. As a new player you choose a realm, and a character class and proceed to age or level your character via combatting NPC creatures alone or in groups, or by doing quests and tasks. You could if you chose to, never leave the safety of your home realm, and avoid ever having to deal with the unpleasant prospect of being attacked or preyed upon by other players. In general home realms feature a lot of cooperation and esprit de cour, and DAoC offers enough guild functions to support the concept of persistent player organizations within the realms. Eventually, most people want to taste combat against these other realms, and DAoC provides an ingenous mechanism which allows players to enter these dangerous frontiers when they choose to, yet still retreat safely to their homeland when they want to continue to gain experience or engage in the local trade economy. In many ways Guild features are the backbone of the RvR system, since the guilds and alliances of guilds really are the engine which drives the ebb and flow of player vs player combat. DAoC does feature large scale combat, and in fact, really requires that substantial numbers of people work together in forming armies for sieging and attempts to steal and hold enemy relics. Each realm's frontier zone contains keeps which can be sieged and held, and castles containing relics which can be stolen and held to the benefit of bonuses for magic users or weapon yielding folk throughout the land. The realm vs. realm or RvR combat continues to undergo constant tuning, as popularity and success in combat of the various realms and classes reveals ways in which some classes are either bugged or too powerful. In SI, part of the value of the expansion is the introduction of two new classes in each realm, with distinct capabilities. Depending on your outlook, Mythic is either ambitious or crazy, but no one can accuse them of being complacent or risk averse. Although not specifically a part of SI, Mythic also installed spellcrafting around the time of the release, as part of it's continued commitment to providing a robust tradeskills system and economy. Spellcrafting and alchemy allow players to train their skills in adding magical properties to the player made weapons and armor, and allowing them to compete with the rare item drops which previously often required dedication to endless hours of killing NPC creatures. One of the quaint touches in DAoC was it's somewhat antiquated engine, and the rendering of terrain and objects. One of the things SI provides is an enhanced graphics engine, which ostensibly provides performance improvements, but also is harder on and less forgiving of older graphics cards. There's some noticeable eye candy like reflective water, but the graphics engine really isn't really the main point of interest in SI, in comparison to the new lands available for exploration, and the new classes. SI is really an evolutionary step, and one which every DAoC player will no doubt want to invest in. It's not a 2.0 game, although I commend Mythic for working to make what in essence amounts to an unlocking of new content, a worthwhile purchase that also addresses issues with the game. They've also designed SI so that it can still coexist in relative peace with those DAoC players who don't want to spring for the add-on. But it's probably worth noting that Mythic has continued to earn the dedication of its customers, by adding in new content, and capabilites, as well as special interest server types ever since the release of the DAoC. In addressing the complaints and shortcomings of the RvR system, they had, prior to Shrouded Isles, introduced a massive dungeon called Darkness Falls, which also added a new wrinkle and importance to the possession of frontier keeps. It seems to me that Mythic continues to consider itself the underdog in the MMORPG wars, and as such is working very hard to make their game the best it can be. There really is more nuance and variety to DAoC than that offered by any of it's competitors (with the excepction perhaps of Anarchy online) and that has kept players interested in the game, and Mythic's subscriber revenues solid. Shrouded Isles requires DAoC, but someone new to the game would not have a problem finding the base game and the expansion for the price of the original game. As many people have been playing DAoC for over a year, someone new to the world of DAoC would no doubt find an immense world to explore, experiment with, and learn about. With Shrouded Isles, it's now got an updated graphics engine, new classes, and lands and epic dungeons to explore.
Rating:
Summary: The first step in any 12 step program...
Review: Highly addictive and well worth the purchase.
Rating: 
Summary: While the game idea itself is a great one
Review: Mythic Entertainment failed it. Once it been a great game, but then the developpers decided to nerf classes left and right. Instead of nerfing them to bring them inline with other classes they nerfed them into oblivion. Issues which are uncovered in beta state don't get fixed till way after going gold. Issues with classes (such as enchanters) don't get fixed for at least half year though many customers complained about it. Little tip for new players: Don't start on servers where you have more than 2000 players playing during prime time. You'll experience bad lag and even worse: you'll experience crashes of the whole server so that you won't be able to play the game for another 10 minutes (and then it's not safe to assume that the server won't crash again).
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding Expansion
Review: A all together outstanding game. Mythic put together a awesome group of programmers and art design crew for this expansion. The updated graphics engine made the difference between the old DAoC and the new expansion. Not only are the graphics improved but Mythic has expanded the horizon of classes and races. If you are a big MMORPG player I highly recommend this expansion to DAoC.
Rating:
Summary: AWSOME!!
Review: This is a great expansion to an already great game. More critters, items and quests. Interesting new classes to play for a refreshing new spin on things. DAoC is an awsome online game and this expanison just makes things stretch even farther.
Rating:
Summary: Don't buy
Review: Buy Dark Age of Camelot but not the expansion unless you have a last month top o line computer. Couldn't play it and when I tried to get support from Mythic all I got was err...uhhh... you computer doesn't meet the minimum requirements. I bought my laptop not even 4 months ago and I know alot of people in game that have had similar problems. I got so tired of it that I quit playing DAOC alltogether. Maybe eventually I will go back to it but I have quit until I can get over my anger at Mythic
Rating:
Summary: Definitey worth the money
Review: This expansion, with it's new classes, races and zones, makes a great game even better. The new graphics engine has improved the frame rate in large RvR events and the starting cities in the new zones are some of the best hunting grounds for lowbie characters. You will also find new "epic" dungeons in the expanded areas and a large "outdoor dungeon" crawling with some of the most challenging PvE mobs in the game. And if you are a crafter... here, you will have access to crafting towns with *all* materials as well as forge, lathe, alchemy table and vault. If you are serious about Dark Age of Camelot, you will D E F I N I T E L Y want this expansion.
Rating:
Summary: I like Shrouded Isles MCsquared
Review: LALALA shrouded isles is the best. New races classes and even new continets to explore.if u liked DAoC before u will like this even better it is a little frusterating at times but its fun. lots of emotes (/words to make your person do something like wave). I also am writting a book(not about DAoC) and it is going to be called THe Silver MAre.
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