The necromancer's modus operandi is to simply have someone else do all the fighting. Similar to (dare I mention) Diablo II, the necromancer is a hands-off, leader-general type of figure. You summon increasingly powerful creatures (proportional to your level advancement) and they do the fighting for you. You can then cast enhancement buffs and even offensive spells directly through your minions. In the early going, you'll probably spend time healing your pet creature, but your minions become more powerful as you progress. It's an innovative twist, although in comparison to building other characters, a time consuming process. The necromancer, because of its ties to the ethereal plane, engages in absolutely zilch hand-to-hand combat (nor would you really want him or her to). Even compared to other wizard-type characters, the necromancer is physically weaker. In my experience, you level up significantly slower and some of the beta testing players I spoke to agreed that playing the necromancer will entail a different attitude and approach to the game.

Customary to most expansion packs for online games, there are new lands, terrain and visual eye candy that you will bear witness to. On the functional side, one important refinement is the speed of the new Shrouded Isles engine, which purportedly takes care of the lag suffered when you engage in large realm versus realm battles. Put ten players on the screen and you'll know what the achilles heel was for the original Camelot. What's worse was the realm versus realm combat, events where hundreds of characters clash simultaneously on screen, usually reducing epic battles into choppy slideshows. Shrouded Isles promises to fix this common phenomenon, although I didn't get a firsthand opportunity to test it, namely because my characters were so low level (the slow advancement of my primary necromancer character didn't help), but also because the test server averages only a few hundred players at most; compared to the thousands upon thousands found on the other ones.

The makeover extends to existing lands as well. Trees, for example, have more volume to them and leaves are better articulated. The most noticeable enhancements, logically enough, will be found in the new setting. Standing grass will dot the marshy landscapes. A better animation system for monsters means sharper looking floating/flying monsters will be more frequent in the new dungeons.