Well there has been 2 box expansions and 2 free downloadable expansions since you left the game (actually all can be downloaded now, but you have to pay for 2 of them still).
Trials of Atlantis (ToA) added Master Levels and Artifacts to the game, which add powerful abilities to characters, making it very hard (i.e. impossible) to compete for someone without access to these. Or at least if you like highly competative play such as 8vs8 and 1vs1 etc. Getting "toa'd" takes alot of time, and many find it frustrating and boring, although i would say that the first time you do it its rather enjoyable (and its also alot easier than it used to be). There was recently introduced, on the US servers only so far, a servertype without ToA, for easier access to bigboy rvr.
The Housing expansion is free and you download it. Having it is optional but there is no drawback to having it and its very usefull. It adds personal houses to special housing zones, where you can buy and furnish a house of your own. There are 4 size houses with the 2 first beeing intended for personal use and the 2 largest for guilds. You have to pay rent on houses otherwise you lose them after a time. Housing also added a feature called Consignment Merchants, that lets players place items on npc merchants and set prices for these items etc. Other players can then browse a Market Explorer and find items they want to buy off the consigners. Very handy, although the search functions could be better Be prepared that prices have gone through the roof however (many attractive items cost from 10-50p today, although money is also easier to get these days).
New Frontiers (free, downloadable, non optional) replaced the old rvr frontiers. Its one huge area divided in 3 sections (hib alb mid) with ocean in between, and its littered with keeps and towers. Each keep (7 in each realm) has 4 towers that can also be sieged and taken, and taking towers close to a keep makes it easier to siege the keep etc. Siege became alot more involving than it was in old frontiers and generally takes alot longer. Some like this, some dont. Ownership of Darkness Falls is now determined by the number of towers each realm has. New and/or reworked Realm Abilities were also introduced. On the US servers there is now and island in the middle of the ocean between the 3 realms without any keeps and towers etc, and built to remind people of old emain macha - i.e. its a zone for roaming rvr. We will hopefully get it in a couple months
Catacombs is the lates expansion, and adds 2 new classes to mid and hib and 1 new to alb. Its a PvE expansion that basically makes leveling easier and faster, and also introduces a new gfx engine that make player models and some mob models look much better. Generally considered a good expansion with the possible exception of the introduction of some of the new classes, which in certain situations are pretty much overpowered.
There has also been a minor update to old world town gfx, that make them look alot better, as well as adding a new tutorial part of the game for new players (very nice). Can be downloaded as well.
Now we are awaiting Clustering within the next few days, which will make Prydwen and Excalibur share rvr areas, and give the option to travel to the other servers ToA areas. This is because the game has lost some players over the years.
Next expansion will be Darkness Rising, which is in beta on US test server atm. It will add player controlled horses, champion levels (minor boosts to your character that will allow it to gain minor abilities of other classes such as small heals, buffs, debuffs etc), and an upgrade of Darkness Falls among other things. Seems like a nice expansion.
Still a great game, and actually getting better and better atm with a string of good pathes and decisions by Mythic of late
Couldn't say it better myself. ToA has been a huge drawback in my opinion as you'll need to do it for every single character you want to take out in rvr, but catacombs boosted leveling a lot. NF is good, specially with the new island.
Daoc still remains a top game, nothing better in the market.
well toa isnt as bad as it used to be if you can get a guild that can get a fg together you can do all of your artifacts with help from guild, the only downside i see is farming 3/3 scrolls
imo toa was a good expansion its just one mythics no win situations, they had to add somthing like toa, as getting 50 and a decent template had become too easy and they needed to add more depth to the game, just it had a few flaws like ml steps ect which most now have been ironed out, and now we have some good patches on there way, if the game had stayed the way it was without ToA it would have become stale.
posting here asking if you should come back is like saying your coming back already though isnt it?
Thanks for all the info - I have to say Im not looking forward to the grind again, how much easier is it to level? Do you simply get more xp per mob or how does it work?
you get a free level every 7 days (if you've dinged in the past 7), with catacombs there's millions of miniquests that are fairly quick to do and give you xp/a break from killing monsters.
Task dungeons give it a bit more point to splatting monsters as the aim is to wipe out the dungeon or kill the named, plus there's instances to fight through to get to the bosses.
If you just want to kill monsters you still can and the camp bonuses are higher these days.
Plus there's battlegrounds for levels 1-44 though generally there's only people in the 20-24 35-39 and 40-44 ones for some reason.
Camp bonuses increased
Free levels once in a few days
Some groups have master level abilities for easier leveling
You can level in the Battlegrounds (from level 1 to level 44)
At higher levels, RvR missions give both OK xp and some RPs
While you level you can also farm scrolls for money / for activating your artifacts
Instances make leveling even easier (instance bonus, dungeon task rewards, etc)
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