Uthgard - First Impressions

[Morreion]

Wow, DAoC!

It's been 5 years since I visited here. I rolled up a character in Hibernia and checked things out.

Good old Mag Mell was my starting point. The sights were familiar, though the game mechanics and the user interface felt rather creaky- this is an old school MMO!

One of the first things I noticed is that the first 5 levels went by slower than I remember. New MMOs would burn through those first levels in less than half the time.

You have to pay attention to things you may not be used to, such as encumbrance. If you have too much weight in your pack after looting for a while, it slows you down. Realistic! I can see the kids freaking out at this *laughs*

You have to put some thought into training. You get a free respec at level 5 so you can't goof up when you choose your profession then.

It took me 7 levels to earn my first gold piece. That's twice as fast as it took back in the old days. MMO inflation, eh?

Some commands that are handy: the minus (-) sign on the keypad is the screenshot button. NumLock is autorun. Tab is target nearest enemy. Look under Options on your in-game interface to select 3 hotbars instead of the single default one you start with. '/autoloot all' is a helpful command.

Stats on items aren't readily apparent. You see armor class and quality ratings, but not the more-familiar + bonuses that we've gotten used to.

I'd forgotten about the Rat Boys! Water Beetles, oh my! And all of those Spraggon clones! *laughs*

The sounds...ahhh, they take me back. This is truly a trip down memory lane. There are some quests here and there- must have been added in after I left, since there used to be few of those.

There are typically hundreds of people playing on Uthgard at any given time. A friendly player gave my level 3 character 5 gold pieces. A couple of others threw some buffs my way. I buffed some people myself after gaining the tools to do so. A bit of that great classic DAoC community shines through here on Uthgard. The chat channel has a decent amount of chat- people asking for advice, and advice (often quite detailed) being given. This is not a ghost town.

After the initial rustiness wore off, a happy patience set in. This is the way it used to be- cool! After a while, a slightly disgruntled attitude turned into happiness. I'm going to keep this on my PC. This is like being in a time warp. I'm enjoying this!

[EchoVamper]

Thanks for the impressions. I might be incoming to this. I'm still poking around in Ywain a bit, but could be tempted to strike out into Uthgard, just in the hope of a better community.

Your impressions reminded me of a story. Larep and I were once leveling alts in Ardee and, as was typical in those days, we had reached the levels when water beetles were blue con. I don't know about the rest of you, but it was typical for me to kill water beetles down at Ardee in order to level up to go to the Muire dungeon.

Well, Larep's alt and mine had killed about a thousand water beetles each and we were moaning and groaning about it. So we decided to disband and actually count the number of water beetles it took to gain one level. We disbanded and started dispatching water beetles as fast as we could. Well, we got nowhere fast ... and he eventually made the comment that one water beetle equals 1/10,000th of a bubble. And we started laughing so hard and making up funny quips about beetle parts, and beetle juice, and beetle legs that we never did get the experiment done. We just decided that the number was "a very, very lot" and left it at that. Damn, Larep was a fun guy. I miss him.

And the fun thing about this is that we were doing this all in /say ... so passers by would give us funny looks or join the banter for a bit. Good times.

[Morreion]

*laughs* Great story! You definitely notice the 'old school' elements of DAoC after 5 years of WoW-era MMOs. But the nostalgia of playing is great. I spent a couple of hours yesterday trying to figure out what specs I would want for different classes. It's like the old days in that regard

There were several other players in the starting area- not a crowd, but it wasn't dead, either. I liked reading the advice over chat channels, it makes the whole experience more inviting.

Another thing I noticed- typical running speed is on the slow side. I typically like runspeed classes, this might be a necessity here for me

[EchoVamper]

So specs adhere to the old pre-SI format even though the game uses the Catacombs graphic engine? Interesting.

[Morreion]

Aye, once you hit level 5 and choose your class you have 3 spec lines to choose when specializing. All 3 lines have base skills you receive that are bolstered when you allocate training points into those specs as well as giving you new specialized skills. I was always fascinated by the differences players had in their training choices; going completely into one line and putting the remaining points into a secondary spec, or going for more of a balanced 2-spec (or even tri-spec) approach. The debates over these different options go on and on. Fun in a geeky way!

[elethea]

I interrupt this serious and detailed review with a Woohoo! ;D ;D ;D

<dances around a bit>

[Loendal]

I have, of course, Popo in there. A lil Luri Mentlyist. Ya just can't play DAOC without a bit o' Wormy Root Stew!

I have also created Hemish, a huge clod-hoppery footed Firby with dreams of Warden-hood. I've been putting points in both Regrowth and Nurture with a little bit of Blades. I should probably focus down to one line and work it from there, but I haven't decided yet

[Regolyth]

What are the abilities like? Are the abilities fixed within the SI era? Or are the up-to-date with the live server? The reason I ask, is because a lot of abilities back in SI were broken (be it overpowered or underpowered).

[Loendal]

I honestly cannot answer that question for you. I never delved that deeply into the numbers behind the skills while playing on the live side and I haven't even thought to check on Uthgard.

Uthgard uses the most recent and up to date client from Mythic to run, so I would imagine it's as modern as it can be, skill-wise. It may, so far as I know, even just be the normal game but with areas blocked off (i.e. Can't get to the Instance Dungeons because they've taken out the NPC's that send you into said dungeons). I think I saw some discussion about this question on their forums somewhere (But I will again admit to not having spent alot of time delving into it)

[dotty]

I will definitely create a lil keen mentalist there, but will also make a druid if we need healy stuffs. A keen-druid would be my ultimate character/class/race.

...still waiting on my video card. Ugh!! I wanna play too!