Hello,
I started DAoC during the open beta and stopped right when Trial of Atlantis came out, I tried the official paid server few years ago but this was not DAoC...
Yesterday I found this and I'm very happy to be here asking questions in order to have a good DAoC experience with a friend that never played a paid by month MMO and is also not the best at gaming.

We will be a duo and for the leveling time we will constantly be together, we do not plan to be a Duo-only RVR and we will gladly join groups, zergs... Our goal is the max level RvR.
Everything about DAoC is very far and I have a hard time remembering the important things but what I remember is that DF was an important place, seals and money from mobs were good, so here are my firsts few questions :

Is there a realm that almost always have DF ?
Is there a real that Almost never or rarely have DF ?
Is there a realm that is constantly destroying everybody ?
Is there a very weak RVR realm ?

My goal is to have a fun RVR experience, I do not want to have the biggest challenge because of with a casual the game itself is already challenging. Back in the days I left all my max level characters to switch server in order to go in the most imbalaced realm, joining Hibernia (I dont remember which server) it was fun but very hard, challenging as hell and sometimes very frustrating.

The goal is that me and my friend have to join a balanced or strong realm in order for him to have fun learning things and if he really likes the end game then we will see what we do next.
If you feel like telling me important informations, just do it.


Thank you for reading.


Edit : -Forgot to tell, we are from EU.
-Also the main question shall be : Is this server can provide a good RvR experience ?
I've seen some posts about the lack of people for RvR, as Im ready to invest time I do not want to do it and be disappointed by empty RvR zones.

EU times are far the most populated up to 1100-800 at times, NA is lower population can be up to 500- 200. Alb has most players, mid second and hib the least. If want tons of enemies to kill hib is where to go. but due to population reasons getting groups etc is more difficult unless joining a large guild with a large alliance. check the Hibernia forums on uthgard.net for recruiting guilds.

If Hibernia as such a low population they should rarely have DF/relics which may weaken them right ?

I will be with a casual player that had hard time leveling in world of warcraft in Wrath of the lich king
I want to avoid hard challenges in order to have a fun experience with my friend.

Hjaws69 wrote:If Hibernia as such a low population they should rarely have DF/relics which may weaken them right ?

I will be with a casual player that had hard time leveling in world of warcraft in Wrath of the lich king
I want to avoid hard challenges in order to have a fun experience with my friend.

Hib may be the one with the lowest pop but with the best leveling community.
We have stuff like BogZerg (easy lvling from 5-35) and so on.

DF switches alot between all realms. So no realm where I would say they have it the most.

Hibs are obsessed with the power relics so go for them often, and defend them like crazy. currently, hib has all the power relics and 2 of the strength relics. But df can sometimes be an issue. either we got it often or not at all for long periods. But if you choose a melee or sneak type in hib going to have some leveling issues. some reason hibs kinda shun tanks for leveling but want a couple for rvr or high end pve. and sneaks well, is same about any realm for finding pve or rvr groups ofc. bards and druids always wanted. elds and ments being second most wanted rvr classes. warden,chanters, valewalkers and animist are the red headed step celts of hibernia for rvr.

But in the end hibs are generally inclusive with different classes for pugs or peve groups when you are guilded. and as mentioned we run animist xp zerg to help people get past rough spots when leveling. we can use more bodies for rvr and high end pve that is for sure.

edit to add: if you are a level 45 bard or druid, you may find yourself in big boy rvr, due to the need for the classes even untemplated.

Thank you very much for the informations, so now I have few more questions about duos as I'm going hibernia.

To be honest I was planning to go Mid or Alb (I remember that I did not like very much the hibernia environements, but it does not really matters)
Mid would be like : Skald with a Shaman or zerk or warrior
Alb would be like : Necro for money, then Minstrel with maybe a cleric
For Hibernia I had no plan at all.

Would you suggest me some good RvR duo and as for farming toons ? (we are not against joining PVP group but the duo is the most important part I think)
I think for the farming it will be Ench+Mentalist, If I can remember Ill have the ench pet to pull mobs, wait for reflect damage then PBAOE while the mentalist is here for mana regen (if we find a druid along the road it would be very good XP)

For the PVP part I think I need high speed, crowd control, damage, I cannot remember good hib pvp duos.

Edit: If I remember well pretty much everything is good with a bard.

The duo's you listed are good ones, but for hib the enchanter ment would be good, or bard with any melee or caster is good. but finding duo action maybe the real trick. will be run over any realm by fg, zergs and larger small mans. emain arbitrary rvr rules are bit weird atm.

quick edit: remember we are at the si patch level without the si lands atm. so the grind you forgot about with no fonts of power, bots or campfires is back. be prepared for this. grouping is by far better xp than solo, your duo will do ok. but can not beat a fg of regular xp, group xp, baf xp, rvr land xp, keep bonus xp, and camp xp. and need to observe the 50% power rule for faster mana regen, something that take some off guard at first. very old school leveling.

Ok, then for the PVP we gonna go for Bard+BM for CC , endu, speed etc, also good for joining a 8man RVR group.
The money machine will be Ench+Mentalist.
I remember that I did not level in Shourded Isles, I had all my character max level already and was doing PVE in DF for money and that's it, so my experience about Hibernia leveling was about grouping with people and doing AOE in many mobs xD

Also Im not english and I cannot understand what you mean by "baf xp" "keep xp" "camp xp" and what is the "50% power rule for faster mana regen" If you could explain briefly it would be appreciated.

I think these are my last questions, thank you for your time!

There are different types of xp types to be earned regular xp ofc, and camp xp for how long mobs have been up before killed. rvr xp is for xping in the frontier zones. and keep xp is for your guild owning a keep and the mobs around it and the relic keeps get a 25% bonus for xp. and Baf or bring a friend xp is when a puller pulls mobs and larger your group more mobs you get and larger the baf or more mobs you get and higher the xp.

the 50% power rule is like this. keep your power at 50% or higher and it regens much faster twice as fast if it is below 50%. if your mana is 30% will regen slowly, if say 75% will regen twice as fast. why observing the 50% power rule as much as possible is important especially in pve. power ra's and potions help offset this ofc.

There are french guilds, german guilds and lot of english speaking guilds around and ofc mixed guilds.

here is herald stats for you.

http://www.incguild.com/herald

Hjaws69 wrote:If Hibernia as such a low population they should rarely have DF/relics which may weaken them right ?

I will be with a casual player that had hard time leveling in world of warcraft in Wrath of the lich king
I want to avoid hard challenges in order to have a fun experience with my friend.

You may have just described the opposite of Uthgard leveling. It is a tedious, boring grind. Expect 150 hours played before you hit 50 and i'm not exaggerating. That's 6.25 days played. Uthgard is not exactly casual friendly.

Oh yes casuals nowadays are more looking for fast or "modern" leveling but we are not like that so 150 hours or more is ok, it's not that much, in vanilla wow my first character has done max level in aprox 11 days /played,it's 264hours and a long learning road is perfect for my friend.

despite the lower NA time pop there are still fights and fun to be had. seems like a higher % of people online are in RvR during these times. At least in hibernia.

Hjaws69 wrote:Oh yes casuals nowadays are more looking for fast or "modern" leveling but we are not like that so 150 hours or more is ok, it's not that much, in vanilla wow my first character has done max level in aprox 11 days /played,it's 264hours and a long learning road is perfect for my friend.

But you have to realize, this is 125-150 hours WITH 17 years of DAoC knowledge. Expect it to be much longer if you're not a seasoned vet. Also, NA time zone the game is pretty dead and hard to get groups. Invaluable tip is to type /who 10 15 to see who is in those level ranges and then try to invite people.

Just trying to give you a realistic expectation. By all means play if you're having fun!

yea if you consider you will need almost 200 hours of time before you net enough profit out of the ment/chanter duo to be able to template your bard and bm, you may want to just skip the ment/chanter duo part, and farm for an extra 200 hours on the bm/bard and you will probably be ready in less time.

having alts is cool though.

that is why I made a sorc first instead of a necro. the pve population back when I was leveling my sorc seems massive compared to what it is now, but leveling my sorc 40-50 was definitely easier than leveling a necro since I was able to get in FGs in LB and DF.

my sorc can farm plat just as fast as a necro at the scaled fiends. so I didn't really see why I should invest a bunch of time into a necro to farm plat, when I could do it with my sorc and also rvr.