Some questions from a new player

[Rayne]

Hello all who are reading this. Im just downloading the game now and have read trough a few boards for info but wow is this a steep learning curve. Just wondered if i may ask a few questions or maybe geta few pointers to start with please.
I notice there are a couple of different english servers but i dont really know the difference between excalibur, prydwen and glastonbury and which one would be best to start on.
I havent got a clue what class to play really although ive kind of narrowed it down to either a thane, valkyrie, warlock or shaman on midgard or a vampir , banshee , ranger , nightshade or bard. Really want one that is easy to pick up while i learn the game, one that is effective solo as i dont know anyone who plays unfortunately and i guess everyone is all high level. So if anyone can giveme any pointers on if any of these are a bad choice , what race would suit best ect that would be marvellous.

Thanks alot and hope to see you in game.

Andrea AKA 'Rayne'

PS Almost forgot if anyone could recommend what to put my skill points in for each class would be a great help. Thanks

 

[Cylian]

Newb section

Prydwen and Excalibur used to be seperate servers, but now they're clustered, meaning it pretty much works as one server now.

Glastonbury is an Alternate Ruleset or "Classic" server, which means there's neither access to the Trials of Atlantis areas nor the items and abilities aquired from there.

For a starting class, guess Vampiir or Warlock are probably best since they're rather independent from others. Assassins like SB or NS are a royal pain to level solo.

 

[Alan]

humm on reading my reply it was way too confusing heres a summary :-

Excal/Prydwen
People who have a L50 character can start a new one at Level 20
You can buff (enhance stats) anyone in your realm
You have access to "ToA" and the quests, items and skills that brings.
The server is established so lack of new players
This is an english server

Glastonbury
ALL characters must start from Level 1
You can only buff (enhance stats) people in your group and in range
There is no access to "ToA"
The server is still quite new so there are players of all levels
This is a euro server, so expect to find people speaking other languages

Personaly Im on "glastonbury" and loving it, its easier to level up a character and get them out into the RvR fields without having to spend more time questing and getting items which result in more buttons to cram onto your quickbars The economy and community is still fairly new.

 

[Azathrim]

Make sure to stay in the starter guild you join when starting a character.

But, do not be afraid to look out for guilds. Try to ask around, see if you can find a large friendly guild, where it's ok to be a new player. Some guilds are very focused on high level RvR and thus don't have room for a player that is just starting out. But, fortunately there are other guilds that have room for all kinds of players - even one that just wants to figure out what the difference between a merchant horse and a DR horse is.

However, don't expect to get leveled to 50 and given the world. But, a friendly place where you can chit chat, ask questions and have fun with fellow players is items that usually is important to most.

Good luck in your quest!

 

[Rayne]

Thanks very much for the info , i guess glastonbury it is althoough it keeps bringing up vague meories of being covered in mud and smoking spliffs in tents in the 90's

 

[MaditioN]

althoough it keeps bringing up vague meories of being covered in mud and smoking spliffs in tents in the 90's

nothing wrong with that ~~

 

[evzy]

Dont believe the Glasto hype - its still got its hardcore base same as Excal/Pryd cluster - TOA expansion gave lots of new items that were hard to get and hence people left for Glasto server where TOA was not available - however TOA (Trials of Atlantis - its a bunch of zones) has become easier to do so its taken a lot of the pain out of it. Also replace Darkspire with TOA on Glasto and you will still have uber items to farm should you want to compete at highest level.

Personally I wouldnt recommend Glasto as its Diet-DAOC but for a new player it probably is not a bad option as there are less areas to explore so less daunting in the respect, prob still got groups levelling on there as well you might be able to join in with.. Excal is harder to get grouped on etc but has more toys to play with once you get up and running

 

[Lamp]

Whichever character, race, and server you choose, the most important factor is

HAVE FUN !!!

Roll something up. If you don't like it, start something else !

Welcome to the game.

 

[Pretarded]

I'd recomend Glaston for one reason - no insta lvl20

 

[Rayne]

Thanks again for the info, just one more quesion , can i make both midgard and hibernia characters on the same server ie glastonbury?

 

[Ryuno]

Thanks again for the info, just one more quesion , can i make both midgard and hibernia characters on the same server ie glastonbury?

no your restricted to 1 realm on each server.

 

[Fana]

You are also restricted to one realm only on excalibur/prydwen as they are since a while back effectively one server and not two (they started as two separate servers back at the dawn of time but since then they have had some zones merged). So you can roll f.ex Midgard on Glastonbury and Hibernia on exc/pryd, but wont be able to roll Albion then (unless you roll on a french or german server, or the pvp server).

Is it the trial version you are downloading btw? If so you cannot play all of the classes (i.e. you cant play Warlock, Valkyrie, Heretic, Vampiir or Bainshee), must have the Catacombs expansion for that. You will want that expansion anyway though as it makes leveling much easier/faster.

As soon as you have chosen a class just get back to us here on the boards if you have questions about it Its a bit hard to give advice on each class as there are so many. Just chose one that appeals to you, you can always reroll if it doesnt play as you had imagined. I would not recomned a primary healing class as first character though (healer, druid, cleric) as they dont solo that well, and you will have to be prepared to solo a bit (even though getting groups on Glastonbury at least shouldnt be that hard).

 

[Forfid]

my suggestion is to go Albion.

Make a necromancer, easiast way to level and learn the game mechanics.

 

[Gorbachioo]

Dont go glastonbury! Its.... just not right

 

[Golena]

I'd recommend glastonbury 100%

Groups leveling up are much easier to find. There's still going to be times you need to solo, especially at the early levels, but on ToA servers you'd be lucky to find any before level 40ish.

Less of a reliance on a buffbot. On the ToA servers most people own 2 accounts, on the second one they simply have a buffing character. This means when you finally reach level 50 you'll probably need to buy another account to buff yourself to stand any kind of chance. On Glastonbury you don't suffer from this.

Less to do before rvr. While ToA is all very fun and new the first time, where the game really excels is the rvr gameplay. Glastonbury will let you go out and have fun rvr'ing earlier than the ToA servers will. (I don't consider getting insta gibbed as a ML0 50 in rogs on a toa server fun).

Lower RR opponents. This is probably the biggie.. while on Glastonbury there's still several high RR people, there's also a lot of newish low RR's to fight against. On ToA servers if you go out you will rarely run into anyone not 5 RR's higher than you, so the whole experience can be slightly frustrating.

Whichever you choose, have fun and enjoy the journey tho!

 

[Azathrim]

Less of a reliance on a buffbot. On the ToA servers most people own 2 accounts, on the second one they simply have a buffing character. This means when you finally reach level 50 you'll probably need to buy another account to buff yourself to stand any kind of chance. On Glastonbury you don't suffer from this.

That is not entirely true. People still use buffbots in PvE, even on Glastonbury.

 

[Gamah]

humm on reading my reply it was way too confusing heres a summary :-

Excal/Prydwen
People who have a L50 character can start a new one at Level 20
You can buff (enhance stats) anyone in your realm
You have access to "ToA" and the quests, items and skills that brings.
The server is established so lack of new players
This is an english server

Glastonbury
ALL characters must start from Level 1
You can only buff (enhance stats) people in your group and in range
There is no access to "ToA"
The server is still quite new so there are players of all levels
This is a euro server, so expect to find people speaking other languages

Personaly Im on "glastonbury" and loving it, its easier to level up a character and get them out into the RvR fields without having to spend more time questing and getting items which result in more buttons to cram onto your quickbars The economy and community is still fairly new.

It's like a giant advert for glastonbury, why portray such a bias answer? I would roll cluster, glastonbury is losing its player base to cluster again.

 

[Alan]

It's like a giant advert for glastonbury, why portray such a bias answer? I would roll cluster, glastonbury is losing its player base to cluster again.

Lol wheres your proof for this ?

The player base on the ToA servers has gone up a little since the patch, but glast is not loosing many players. Surely thats to be expected as people test and play with the new toys and changes

Anyone that rolls cluster now seriously has too much time on their hands, Ive experienced both cluster and glast - when glast was announced i hated the idea of a non ToA server but after playing on the server its way more fun.

RvR fights last longer
If you make a small mistake in a RvR battle the server is more forgiving
No one class as an "i win" or "you cant hit me" button

Farming 5 or 6 items in darkspire is way easier than farming artifacts in ToA, getting the scrolls, then slogging away to level them.

Ask anyone in an established guild on Glast, they will all agree once your character hits 50 it can be out in the frontier within 2 or 3 days at most.

 

[Alan]

Also for me to drop a server environment where PvE was needed more is a major statement. Anyone who played on hib/excal or alb/pryd when I did would have seen just how many PvE, ML and Dragon raids I ran - i loved PvE

 

[Dorimor1]

Lol wheres your proof for this ?

The player base on the ToA servers has gone up a little since the patch, but glast is not loosing many players. Surely thats to be expected as people test and play with the new toys and changes

Anyone that rolls cluster now seriously has too much time on their hands, Ive experienced both cluster and glast - when glast was announced i hated the idea of a non ToA server but after playing on the server its way more fun.

RvR fights last longer
If you make a small mistake in a RvR battle the server is more forgiving
No one class as an "i win" or "you cant hit me" button

Farming 5 or 6 items in darkspire is way easier than farming artifacts in ToA, getting the scrolls, then slogging away to level them.

Ask anyone in an established guild on Glast, they will all agree once your character hits 50 it can be out in the frontier within 2 or 3 days at most.

I'd rather go through all the ToA dungeons then farm in the same, boring and dull dungeon for a week. The patch makes getting kitted out for RvR much faster than on Glastonbury, since the patch I managed to farm gov/cb book (and thats one day). I would have thought the fights on ToA server last longer tbh, with all the abilities from artifacts and master levels but I don't play 8vs8 much so I could be wrong.

Just my opinion.

 

[leviathane]

glastonbury is boring, head on to cluster, more chance of meeting actual english ppl aswell

 

[Tilda]

tbh if I were you i'd roll a vamp or bainshee on glastonbury.
Vamp = tank, and amazing solo, bainshee = caster and still pretty good at solo.

 

[fettoken]

It's like a giant advert for glastonbury, why portray such a bias answer? I would roll cluster, glastonbury is losing its player base to cluster again.

What that guy just said... and its easier to find nice people that will help you out rather than finding out half Glastonbury server is populated with germans running around in tight leather outfits >_<

 

[Tesla Monkor]

Tbh, Glastonbury has settled in it's tracks, and is as rusted shut as Prydwen/Excal. Glastonbury being newer is no longer a reason to pick it.

 

[Gamah]

Lol wheres your proof for this ?

http://daoc.darkzone.net/server/eu/glastonbury/

 

[Alan]

http://daoc.darkzone.net/server/eu/glastonbury/

That shows a steady decline of players on classic since it was released, it does not show a drop in players since 1.82 went live as was hinted earlier.

 

[Huntingtons]

my suggestion is to go Albion.

Make a necromancer, easiast way to level and learn the game mechanics.

you wont learn game mechanics with a necro - its 1 button spam also you need bb to make it go really fast, vampiir will be my suggestion because they can also get rvr grps later on if you decide on that, and if not they are (so it seems) very fun solo

 

[Alan]

since the patch I managed to farm gov/cb book (and thats one day). I would have thought the fights on ToA server last longer tbh, with all the abilities from artifacts and master levels but I don't play 8vs8 much so I could be wrong.

Just my opinion.

And how long to level the artifact ? The thing that I and others love about glast is that after a few days in darkspire (or on the CM) your template is done, TBH you need 1FG to farm your glast template, depending on which artifact you pick this can need 2 or 3 fg on the ToA servers.

Glast is easy mode - and I guess thats my level.

 

[Basic_X]

Come to the darkside!! Join the hippes! :worthy:

 

[Pirkel]

That shows a steady decline of players on classic since it was released, it does not show a drop in players since 1.82 went live as was hinted earlier.

I _hate_ to defend Gamgams but he never said it was ...

"fighting" for your own server is good but try at least to give unbiased information to new players so they don't get stuck with what you think is best for you rather then for them.

I have never thought TOA was to hard I had a mountain of high ml toa'd characters before 1.82 and I'm not a powergamer by a long shot. And since 1.82 I've managed to activate another mountain of artifacts most of which dinged level 10 in 1 or 2 nights of "farming". And by farming I mean everything from helping lower guildies level, farming scrolls to helping people with Championlevel steps etc.

Basicly by advising people to go Glastonbury you're advising them to miss out on a very large and important expansion that adds lots off interesting end game. For people who played TOA since the beginning and who "have been there done that" Glastonbury might be a nice change of scenery... but again ... for new players it's just a server that is lacking a couple of very interesting and attractive zones.