Nostalgia, but where?

[Vicora]

This game has always been, like for a lot of people, THE first true mmorpg for me.
However, i feel like a lot of people, devs including, have forgotten what nostalgia truly is for some people in Dark Age of Camelot. I'll tell you what it is for me and perhaps this will hit your nerve as well.

I remember making a character, Cabalist, as my first character ever. I remember starting in Cotswold with a lot of people running around, active chat full of people looking for groups or specific class to level with.
No Exp items in sight, no tutorials to skip first 10 levels, no Buff or Movement NPCs around. A situation, when every class had a purpose on this leveling journey. Buff classes, Power battery classes and movement speed increasing classes were wanted.
Leveling was the true journey for me. It took a long time, even with efficient group, but it was amazing. You logged in, searched for group to start leveling. "Perhaps today i can get couple levels and meet new people, Tomb of Mithra was harsh and spent hours in there". You could take a brake from leveling and take your leveling group into Battlegrounds for a little fun. You KNEW there were always people in those battlegrounds, 'cause leveling was really slow. Glorious!

Slowness of leveling, meeting and leveling with new people, THE journey until the end, getting attached to your realm and friends, is what brings out that true Realm Hero spirit, at least for me.
I feel like leveling is a massive thing in this game and it was stripped away over time. So you are left with people who just want to RvR, there's no Realm dedication. Now a days, you can just jump into any realm, do couple days (even one day in some cases) of leveling and hit Lv 50 and repeat whenever you feel like it. Game feels hollow.

"This is RvRvR game, what are you talking about?"
- Yes, it is PvP game by design, it just wasn't all about that for me. I PvPed a lot, but in the end I am relatively casual player, so even when i reached Lv 50s over the years, i always went back to leveling, helping other people to level. It was my thing.

PvP for me, was stress relief. I had PvP characters in every Battleground, but my focus was elsewhere. This is nostalgia i am longing for and it's gone. When talking about nostalgia, Dark Age of Camelot is part of it, but that same DAoC doesn't exist anymore.
And lets face it, it wasn't just all this i mentioned. I was also younger, everything in game was so much more exciting for me and no devs can bring that back.

Perhaps someday...

[Vildi]

Your right in some way, some of the best times i had we're in xp groups, sitting in Keltoi chatting shit between pulls. That's where friendships and bonds made. Roll on 20 odd years and people really don't have the time anymore, lives, careers, kids etc. I'm guessing that's why they made the changes they did.

The problem with nostalgia is it quickly wears off and those roses tinted glasses quickly steam up.

[gothmog]

You are right.

[fabsley]

I totally feel you, buddy.

To say it with the words of Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. But I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey, and reminds us to cherish every moment because they'll never come again."

All these very special moments of our first steps in this game, our first guilds, friends, RvR encounters and all of that, they are all gone. There is no way to bring it back exactly how we remembered it.
For one thing that is because time has changed. MMORPGs were not as famous yet, things werent figured out in todays dimension, and the few information we had, wasnt as publicly available. The game and everything around it was much more of a mystery.
Furthermore, we all had more time and were more willing to spend it like that. Playing one or more months to get to 50? No problemo... Don't go to school and still get up early to get on the Cursed Forest Fin waiting list? No problemo...

There were/are freeshards that try to emulate that experience by recreating the conditions as they were back then, Uthgard for example. However, these servers usually dont have a very long life span (Uthgard has a very low pop atm).
In my opinion, if one factor of an equasion changes, you cant just leave the other part as it was and expect the same outcome. So in order to get an experience as close as possible to the ones we made 20 years ago, it is only logical to change the server settings, since we, the players, also have changed.

And that is what's happening here. Things are getting adjusted, but the goal is to get as close as possible to the DAoC we all love, even if it is different.

[Kadorna]

This game has always been, like for a lot of people, THE first true mmorpg for me.
However, i feel like a lot of people, devs including, have forgotten what nostalgia truly is for some people in Dark Age of Camelot. I'll tell you what it is for me and perhaps this will hit your nerve as well.

I remember making a character, Cabalist, as my first character ever. I remember starting in Cotswold with a lot of people running around, active chat full of people looking for groups or specific class to level with.
No Exp items in sight, no tutorials to skip first 10 levels, no Buff or Movement NPCs around. A situation, when every class had a purpose on this leveling journey. Buff classes, Power battery classes and movement speed increasing classes were wanted.
Leveling was the true journey for me. It took a long time, even with efficient group, but it was amazing. You logged in, searched for group to start leveling. "Perhaps today i can get couple levels and meet new people, Tomb of Mithra was harsh and spent hours in there". You could take a brake from leveling and take your leveling group into Battlegrounds for a little fun. You KNEW there were always people in those battlegrounds, 'cause leveling was really slow. Glorious!

Slowness of leveling, meeting and leveling with new people, THE journey until the end, getting attached to your realm and friends, is what brings out that true Realm Hero spirit, at least for me.
I feel like leveling is a massive thing in this game and it was stripped away over time. So you are left with people who just want to RvR, there's no Realm dedication. Now a days, you can just jump into any realm, do couple days (even one day in some cases) of leveling and hit Lv 50 and repeat whenever you feel like it. Game feels hollow.

"This is RvRvR game, what are you talking about?"
- Yes, it is PvP game by design, it just wasn't all about that for me. I PvPed a lot, but in the end I am relatively casual player, so even when i reached Lv 50s over the years, i always went back to leveling, helping other people to level. It was my thing.

PvP for me, was stress relief. I had PvP characters in every Battleground, but my focus was elsewhere. This is nostalgia i am longing for and it's gone. When talking about nostalgia, Dark Age of Camelot is part of it, but that same DAoC doesn't exist anymore.
And lets face it, it wasn't just all this i mentioned. I was also younger, everything in game was so much more exciting for me and no devs can bring that back.

Perhaps someday...

Mate Uthgard2 is the server you are looking for => patch 1.65 with old frontiers
Go ahead and feel the "classic experience"...after espend 3 moths to ding 50 come back and tell us about the nostalgia.

[Druth]

You wont find a 1.65 classic server, with big population, so you have to choose... population or 1.65. Sadly...

People, in majority, don't want the slow leveling, and mostly lack of quality of life things on Uthgard.
Also people mostly don't like OF RA's.
Granted, now Uthgard has a +200% xp bonus, so leveling is actually very fast. But it has no SI, no Dragons... (yeah...), and like I noted, no quality of life things (like hastener tokens, but the list is longer).


Strangely enough I managed to be in a 8 people leveling group yesterday, on Uthgard, but mostly you're leveling alone, or being powerleveled...

[Greenangel]

I know how you feel .

Just been playing bit this server seems bit strange like i cant put my finger on it.
But TOA bonuses for casting speed and casters in generel gives it a toa RVR feel where they dominated. Might as well bring out warlocks with one shot kills if they want casters dominate so much.

The old RVR i remnber was the tank trains dominated before toa and casters got there bounses then it swaped around.
This server reminds of TOA RVR really with casters dominating.

New frontiers is still kind souless but clinical rvr like it always has been.

The pve is the same as most other freeshards .

After playing both Uthgard and phonix servers i say seems something off about casters on here