Back in the day what made Hib/Mid/Alb zerg work so well, and why was Emain the preferred target?

The Alb zerg, and "Alb speed" AKA walking speed. The Alb zerg back in the day, almost never had speed of any sort. Theurgs were not well liked as pets = mez anchors (earlier patch). Sorcs didn't receive an AE mez range advantage until a relative recent patch, and mez immunity timer didn't exist for this time period. Minstrels were rare as they had difficulty leveling, PvE Minstrel pets, or pets in general were not well understood. Also Minstrels/ smite Clerics were target of crippling nerfs with no respecs available to compensate. So the Alb zerg was Minstrel less, Cleric less, and speedless for the most part, this set Alb zerg to AMG Emain as their furthest extent.

Having the Alb zerg predominately at the AMG Emain was a problem, but it also gave a target for 8 mans and Mid/Hib zerg to farm. Alb zerg fed the Hib/Mid 8 mans, and zergs. With Albs with speed/heals/respecs it changed where the Alb zerg would fight. Fights that generally took place in Emain, are more likely to take place in Breifine or other zones. Anyways, there needs to be an old Emain type aspect to a zone, 1 zone that everyone has a reason to be in, something that Emain currently lacks.

The Albion situation back than was more like this (2001 - 2002):

Minstrel - there had been a lot, since every group had an AFK-Minstrel playing power-song. They became lvl 50 without knowing anything about their class.

Cleric - had also been a lot, most were enh/heal specced anyways, or fullspec smiters with a bit of enhance.

Theurgs - almost all were earth-spec, since you did not get a group with any other spec. Those with different specs were leveled by their friends/guild.

Sorcerer - There was no use for a sorc in ANY group, especially because of noone understood the power of a sorc. There was no pull and mezz targets and single kill, Albion was pull all, tank and PB-AOE or AOE the heck out of them. Sorcs were either Mind/Body specced or Body/Mind, to be at least able to kill something solo. The use for debuffs like str/con was not considered in grps as a dmg increasing mechanic, since almost noone knew about that back then. For sorcs it was a situation like: "Level up alone, but please join our grp when you're lvl 50 and we want to RVR."


In the RVR action it was like: incoming - and everyone did do something and hope the enemy dies. Lots of wizards back then were Fire specced, so you had fire aoe flying around all the time, but it all did not take long and Albion was dead, reasons see below.

The real reasons why Albion lost all the time was: Albion had no endurance replenishment too, so all the offensive melee classes ran around without endurance, trying to compete against hibs and mids with endurance. Hib and Mid both had lots of CC classes, with mezz and stun and all these CC effects had no immunity timers, so it was an EASY farming of albs. All you could do was stand there and watch like everyone was killed one by one, sometimes a mezz was re-applied, stuns were used and the forces of Albion slowly died.

So Albion had only one chance: Quantity instead of Quality. It was impossible the other way around. The hope was to wear the enemy down to the same level as Albion: have no endurance and support classes being out of power to mezz/stun and so on. Then, and only then, it was an even playfield back then.

Good old times the beginning of DAoC and the early patches.


Regarding Emain Macha als main battlefield over all servers -> it was the most convenient zone. You had almost no aggressive mobs anywhere in the open fields and it was easily accessible by all three realms.

Hibs coming to Emain Macha had an almost aggro free way, with open fields.

Mids just had to teleport.

Albs just had to teleport.

(Btw., in the beginning of DAoC there was no bind stone in the border keeps, you had to run to the Border Keep every time you died.)

Imagine Albs running to Hadrians Wall all the time instead, all these hills on the way, often with lots of high lvl aggro mobs too.

Odin's Gate was not chosen because of it also had lots of aggro mobs everywhere, red/purple to lvl 50.

Emain Macha simply was the most convenient choice for everyone.