I'm a big fan of old school mmorpgs but I never got around to playing DAoC. I'm looking forward to launch tomorrow but I really don't know anything about this game, aside that it's known for epic large scale battles. I did play Warhammer Online for a bit which I hear this game is similar to but I wanted to know what the learning curve for DAoC is like? Is the leveling similar to modern games where you can just solo content or is it more old school where you need groups to level? How does character progression work? Is it possible to mess up a build and have to start over?
This was made for newcommers to the server but would probably help you a lot, some of the terms will probably be a bit alien to you but when you see them in game refer back to it once you get more knowledge on the game. It covers some of the things you can do solo like Phoenix Egg drops you only get while solo. Character progression is lvs 1-50, plus the crafting system. There aren't any nodes to harvest, just buy metal bars from the merchant who has them, walk to forge, craft it.
The second way of progression is Realm Level. You start at (once you hit lv 20 or until you kill your first pvp enemy) realm rank 1L1. Kill a few and you get 1L2, up to 1L9, at the next level up there you go to 2L0 and you are given +1 to all skills permanently, this happens again each 3L0/4L0/etc. Also, you have tabs at your trainer (or remotely just use /train) , one is for all of your main skills your class has, like sword/shield/2handed/etc. Another tab is the realm skills that that give you more life or regen or damage.
The game came out in 2001 and was mostly one of the first of its kind in many respects, so if you go into it with that mentality you should have mostly accurate expectations.
Mobs and items "CON" to you, or how you "consider" them. Grey items/grey mobs are very far below your level, green is barely above that, blue is a bit below you , yellow is at your level or very close, orange is a bit above you, red is a few above you, and purple is very very above you to drastically above you.
There aren't level requirements for items, but if you put a lv 50 sword on at level 20, it will be much less effective in your hands than something yellow or orange. The higher it is above you, the faster it degrades. You can repair your gear just hand it to a <Smith> NPC and he'll fix it to 100% again Condition for a fee. You can use higher level crafters with the Metalwork skill to do this too for anything made from metal. Adjust accordingly for Clothworking for robes, Woodworking for staves/bows, etc.
Items are listed with DPS stat, Condition stat that degrades down from 100%, quality stat which is permanent and is calculated against its base dps, a 10.0DPS weapon at 80% condition at 100% quality will be 8.0 dps until you repair it. A 10.0 DPS weapon at 100% condition but 80% quality is 8.0 dps AT BEST because its a poorly made weapon. Same goes for a 50 AF(Armor Factor) chest piece at ranging quality and condition values.
When you level up you have "baseline" skills that level up themselves, mostly for casters, melee's have to dump points into specific things as they have choices of damage type. If you hit a skeleton with a thrusting wep, it will have a penalty, crushing bonus, slashing neutral.
As far as messing up, you get a free respec you can use if you walk up to your trainer and use /respec all and you get all your points refunded. These free respecs stop at 50 here.
The interrupt system is pretty fierce here, if you are casting and something hits you, you drop your hands and stop casting (unless its very far along and almost done casting). You have a quickcast ability on the 3rd tab i think you get, if you click this, your next spell cannot be interrupted. So if it is about dead, QC another fireball or whatever, if not, then you can QC a root or mez (sleep) spell and run back a big distance and try again.
I hope these tips help and put an accurate expectation of some of the mechanics here. I've played about every MMO out there over the years and there really is nothing like these types of old gems, all the new stuff and cash shops etc, the vision has been lost of what great MMOs are. You'll find your actions matter, people remember you, you aren't some rando that joined a LFG Dungeon that you will never see or speak to again. There's a lot to be said for that in a MMO.
You can also set which client graphics to use in the options. I prefer to NOT use the Catacombs expansion remodels of animations and character skins and movement animations.
Also, make sure you "delve" a lot of items and skills. It gives much more info about what something does. Some items will have a process or "Proc" which is like a fire enchant on a sword, sometimes it will be used and blast the enemy. Certain skills are weaker but snare the enemy movement. Pay attention to all melee skill positioning, some can only be used from the side but they apply DoTs or snares and do more damage. There are also style chains, where using the full chain ends with something like a stun or just high dmg, etc.
There's buffs too that are ranged, so if a cleric buffs your stats like STR/CON (Constitution= health) and you are still around that person usually in the group, you'll live longer and hit harder. Dex affects cast times and dodge chances.
This is starting to get way too long, you'll pick up a lot more along the way, just ask in /advice channel in game.