So after having fun in Albion and seeing what's changed there, we decided to check out Hibernia, our home away from home. Because we had characters on Percival, we picked that server. I was a little "grumbly" that for some reason even though I deleted "Velea" I couldn't recreate with a character named "Velea" right away, but I guess the name doesn't clear right away.

What has been the best part of starting over is that the first 20 levels go FAST! (And no, I don't mean because we used the /level command.) We started again just looking for quests in and around Tir na Nog. Not only did these quests provide us armor and weapons, by the time we were "done" both our characters were around level 14. And we'd only spent about 12 hours playing over the couple of days. (Again, keep in mind that some of this time was spent just relearning our way around the world and exploring some, so other's might be able to move faster.)

So having pretty well exhausted our possibilities in Classic Hibernia, we descided to move on to the Catacombs. Minor mistake, unfortunately. The Veil Rift is great if you want stories and enjoy questing for storyline because there are TONS of quests, but for us the experience we got wasn't worth the time spent. Many of the quests required killing grey mobs, spawns that had to be camped, and completing the quests became more of a chore than it would have been if we'd just going to do kill tasks in SI if we were after coin and experience. None of these quests have items as rewards either, so we were finding that we were quickly outgrowing the armor and weapons we had, so needed to do something different. With a few gold pieces in hand, we headed to make some purchases and then to SI to run tasks.

Kill tasks have changed since we last played too. When we played last we you'd have to find the right guard for your character and your level. Now it seems that all guards will give you tasks, and you can pick one guard to do tasks without having to change guard when you level. Kill tasks give you a huge bonus to your experience when you finish one. The guards give you a task to kill something that cons anywhere from green to yellow to you and tell you what general direction to find the mob in. You might not always be able to FIND a mob that cons between green and yellow (sometimes all you can find easily is a grey con, and rarely an orange con), but they do exist. It isn't the experience from the kill which really counts, though, it is completing the task without dying. Thanks to kill tasks, we finished leveling to 19 before our long weekend was out.

At this point we decided to see if there was anyone in the first battlegrounds. Midguard was in control of the center keep, and not all that well guarded by NPC's. We'd hoped that by attacking some of the NPC's and killing them, a notice that the center keep in this first battlegrounds was under attack and we'd get some defenders, but apparently that doesn't happen. If we were really committed, and wanted to spend a lot of time, we might have even been able to take the center keep with just the two of us, but as there were no rewards (no experience and no RP's) for fighting NPC's, we left the battlegrounds for bigger and better challenges.

Unfortunately kill tasks stop at level 20, but we finished up and got our "ding 20" before the weekend was done. Personally I'm pretty happen that in one long weekend we were able to get 2 characters each up to level 20. Things slow down signifigantly now, unfortunately. Kill tasks no longer exist. There are no quests for level 20 exactly, though they kick in at 21 again. Those quests haven't given much experience in the past, however. We'll see if that's changed. There are certian mobs that drop items which you can turn in for extra experience to some NPC's, but last time we tried these "collection quests", the drops were so rare that they didn't make much difference. And, of course, the next issue will be finding level appropriate equipment for our characters. Neither of us wants to craft this time around, and we don't know anyone on Percival to buy crafted gear from, so it might get interesting. I'll let you know.

So it has been a couple years since I played DAoC. Having gotten a character to level 50 on Gaheris, and life changes, took me away from the game. News of massive changes over the last couple years and the latest expansion (Labyrinth of the Minotaur) brought me back. More on the Minotaur later.

So the first descision upon return was what to play. Having had the most experience in Albion, my husband and I first decided to go back to there. I was amazed to say the least at the new content. The first thing that struck me was the tutorial. I don't even REMEMBER a real tutorial when we played before. And while there's a lot of things missing from it (we had to ask someone how the heck you "use" an item when we had to do that in a quest), it is a good start. Since I'm not sure when they added the tutorial, I'm going to hope it is just a recent addition that is still being worked on.

When we got in to the actual gameworld, we discovered that everyone starts in the same area now, and of course, there is a "newbie guild" (I think this was added just before we left, but never had a new character in it). We started in Cotswold, and while it looked vaguely familiar, the architects have definately been busy rebuilding and redesigning the towns. There has also been a population explosion in Cotswold, with many new people willing to give quests.

One of the things that used to bug me about DAoC is that there just were not a lot of quests. Now you can easily level on quests alone, at least through level 10 I've been able to. I started with a cabalist, wanting something that would be both good solo or in a duo. The first four levels were WAY easier than I recall them being when I last started a character, requiring only a couple hours of play time to complete. The longest part of that time was spent trying to figure out how to do things that weren't in the tutorial. We had an awful time figuring out how to fill a bowl with water for one of the quests, for example. The "use" interface in the game is still highly counter-intuitive. Instead of having a "use" button when you right click on an item, you have to have the item picked up and type "use" into the chat window (the shortcut for "use" doesn't work). It wouldn't seem to hard to add buttons on the same window where you have the "info", "salvage", and "repair" buttons that say "use" and "equip" to make the UI a bit easier.

One of the best changes is the "quest indicator" that shows up on the map and under NPC's that have a quest for you. It makes it SO much easier to find something to do that is level appropriate. The quest indicator on the map can be turned on and off if you don't want to know, but personally I love this feature. A red dot also shows up when you have a quest to give you an idea of where to go to complete a quest. If you don't know a realm, this REALLY helps. And there are many new quests for every level. The new quest interface it great too. For many of the quests, a single window comes up which tells you the storyline of the quest (or at least a summary of it), you can see the reward ahead of time, and then decide if you want to take the quest. No more guessing what you will get from a quest, or if the reward is "worth it". And the new quests are most definately worth it, I think. One of the quests gave me a full set of level and class appropriate armor. Others give out jewelry, and accessories to fill in around the edges. And, of course, experience to level with. We also felt as though there was more coin in our pockets when we finished the quests than we'd had last time we leveled up new characters.

Now I have to confess, the reason why it took me years to get to level 50 with one character is that I flip flop... a LOT. So though we spent much of Thanksgiving Day playing in Albion and refamiliarizing ourselves with the game, by this morning we'd decided to try our luck with Hibernia, our 'second home'. More on our time there to follow...

Well I figure it's about time I said something on behalf of DArk Age of Camelot. I've been doing some things, but posting my thoughts on the game have been on the, "lets not bother with it tonight."

As with all things, I've made Legendary in Alchemy, which was a high mark. My ranger has made Level 50, making it my third level 50 character. Got his epic armor and is able to use his bow now, that was hampered by the level restriction.

Beginning Tuesday the 14th, the new expansion will be released meaning there will be a log jam as players load up files. For those not in the know, it is called Labyrinth of the Minotar. I'll most likely get it, but am in no hurry atm to buy it.

With that I'll end this small blog and say bye for now.

It finally happened. A few nights ago the Wolven Fury Guild on Guinevere imploded when one of the guild managers tossed out the alliance and removed all the players. Since we had a plan in place in case of this happening, things worked out where the losses ended up being minimal.

A new guild had been formed called Orders of Justice the evening before all this occured so our active members could transfer over. The new guild has only two managers which is fine since we can now make decisions that would take days to approve. When we had three managers that person would take forever to show up to vote on any changes. This frustrated plans that needed immediate attention.

We recovered virtually everything that was part of the old guild, including vaults, npc merchants, and craft tradesmen. one thing that was good about the change, was that we had the inactive members cleaned out.

I am sorry to see the old guild dissolved, but the future looks good for the new one.

Back at it again trying to gain a new master level. At this point I achieved getting master level 6. What I needed was 6.5 which is a solo step, but was not sure I could complete this as Foremond is somewhat gimped when it comes to tackling certain colored mobs.

Fortunately what I took on was yellow, plus the occasional orange mob. That helped significantly and I was able to complete 6.5, which gave me ML6. Now I just need ML4, ML5, ML7, ML9, and last but not least ML10. Oh joy, half way there!

Well, I've been slow in doing any blogs on what I've been doing lately. Sometimes you just have nothing really enlightning to say.

Dualle, who is my ranger made a mini ding a few days back, plus the Co5 quest. The only thing left to do is finish that up by doing Crom, getting his bow, and finishing up his epic to get the armor.

As for crafting, Foremond's alchemy stands at 974. Only 26 points left till I finally hit 1,000 and become legendary. Oh the pain!

I haven't said much in DaoC lately due to the fact that I have been working my way slowly to LGM for alchemy. At this point in Foremond's crafting he finally got as far as 965, That is more then I have had in a long time. It puts me at only 34 points from getting 1,000 which is the LGM tag mark for crafters.

By no means is it the end since there are higher alchemist items, but at least I can slow done again after I reach the LGM mark. The timer is what is killing me though. Each crafted item is running between 72 - 75 seconds to make. If you fail seven or eight times in a row, that eats into your playing time. As things stand, Mythic is making another expansion which is slowing down the patches to correct problems in the crafting system as it stands. Oh well, what can I say.....

Well, the patch went live and people are all ready drooling over the changes to the crafting area. Some of my guild members want the new bows, since they have elemental properties.

We have new potions increased to 3, 6 , and 9 charges meaning we can carry a lot of the different ones now without them taking up space. New tinctures and reactives to apply to player made armor and weapons are among some of the add ons. Even timers have been extended on potions to make the effects last longer.

New armor that can be made are among a few things that are making people happy. head on over to Camelot Herald for a full read on what is instore for this patch.