Share your classic daoc story - Phoenix Freeshard

Who here has a story that brings back fond memories of by gone days of daoc splendor? Tell us what you love about the good old days.

Mine was November 2001. Went into my local software store, back when they had actual PC games, and saw a box for daoc. I thought it looked slick and brought it home. My wife laughed at me at first but as I started to explore Meg Mell, I kept seeing her face pop over my shoulder looking at what I was doing. Then came the comments. “What is that? Oh that’s pretty. Are those all other people you are grouping with?” Then it happened. She kicked me out of my seat and rolled herself an eldritch. Well, back to the software store I went for another copy, very pleased with myself. I had her finally. We’ve been gaming ever since.

Ah, memories

Fri 28 Dec 2018 9:42 AM by Frigzy

Me and my buddy were in our early teens when we played Classic DAoC. Seeing how it impacted our grades we were struggling to get the subscription paid by our parents, we didn't have a credit card. At one point we decided to put our European DAoC connections to use and asked a Swedish friend (we're Belgian) to top up our accounts by sending him cash money through the mail. I still remember standing in front of the post office together with my mate, feeling all sorts of emotions. Excitement, doubt, confusion.. It got us another couple of months of playtime though!

Mon 31 Dec 2018 4:29 PM by Neehi

WOW had already come and gone, and the guild was back together on Mid Gareth (new server at the time). For some reason (I was a Pac Healer... whatever, I should not be driving) it was decided I would be the driver for our group. We had done a week(end) or 2 already, but some of the group didn't use Ventrilo, so typing commands was common enough that I made a macro that said something to the effect of "/y Stick up, moving in 5". After taking a keep with our group and about 2 grps of others following us, we had a quick bio break and I ended up having to take a dump, which took longer than normal. So I come back and not everyone is ready, so I spammed my macro, not really thinking about it.

It's at this point I realize something may be amiss, as everyone in Vent had busted out laughing. As I started running I asked what was so funny, and someone asked me if I preferred thongs or granny panties (or something like that). I looked down at the chat log and realized my wife had been busy while I was on the throne. It read like this:

You yell, "I wear my wife's underwear and love it!!!"
You yell, "I wear my wife's underwear and love it!!!"
You yell, "I wear my wife's underwear and love it!!!"
You yell, "I wear my wife's underwear and love it!!!"

Laughs were had by all.

Mon 31 Dec 2018 4:58 PM by Afuldan

Started as an Alb Arms just after SI dropped. I had no clue what I was doing. A mix of leather, studded and chain armor. Trained in slash, 2hd, polearms and shield. Ended up having to reroll after I finally figured out how to do Googling and realizing my character was gimped.

Ended up joining a random group that wanted to make a guild, was a GM of Sinister’s Knights for years on Tristan. Played Hib/Lance and Mid/Bors as well.

Stopped after Darkness Rising dropped. It was too hard to template a character between school and my job. I tried Live a few months ago, was super easy to level and template, but RvR felt... odd. Hard to compete with RR14 with a RR4.

Uthgard is its own special beast. I love the nostalgia, don’t like the lacking QoL. Phoenix seems to be the best for my taste with the QoL features of Live that I do like, and the nostalgia of Classic DAoC. Impatiently waiting for Phoenix Live, still undecided on Realm.

Tue 1 Jan 2019 4:29 PM by Tyton

Christmas (2001?). I was approx. 13 years old. My dad gifted me a few boxes of PC games. Surprise--one of them was DAoC. The box looked so cool we immediately installed/subbed. My dad made a troll Viking. He spent 10mins running in circles in Galplen and couldn't find the town gate to exit. I took the reins, killed a black mauler cub and the rest is history.

Tue 1 Jan 2019 5:09 PM by EducatedFool

It was always about the Guild. Ran with a stellar group way back when called "RAGE". Great folks to play with, even made the grinds bearable. Hoping to find something like that again.

Fri 4 Jan 2019 12:51 AM by Sepplord

The first time i ever played daoc was when there was a demo/freetrial on the PCGames(or similar) Dvd. Afaik the Game had just released. I had a blast and holyshit must i have been a hardcore noob

I quit at early lvl twenties with about as many days played.
It was an armsman who was very proud of the one item he possesed that wasn't grey

Fri 4 Jan 2019 10:17 AM by pinhead65

10000 stories, but printing maps was priceless

Fri 4 Jan 2019 11:23 AM by Gnarrg

I remember the really early days of Daoc, when people just ran out in the frontier zone, and nobody had a clue what to do or how to play their class. Nobody wore any proper armor or gear, it was just random drops which were really hard to get back then. The zergs were really that, no sticking, few groups had speed, people just ran around, frantically hitting any enemy they saw. It's really hard to emphasize how little information about the game was available, it was just a really tough chaos and you'd die all the time.

I had so much fun with my little ranger, much of my armor was gray but that didn't matter. I had a quality bow with which I could one-shot enemy casters who wore no armor either. At times I could kill entire groups that didn't understand the concept of hiding behind a tree and hadn't heard of facing their attacker yet. It was just a crazy, wild time, so much fun.

Fri 4 Jan 2019 11:48 AM by chief stingy

Our Guild took out 200 in 6 seconds... more like two players spamming PBAE.

Remember when we did 8 vs 80.

Our love/hate relationship with Candy and Wrath.

Fri 4 Jan 2019 11:49 AM by chief stingy

EducatedFool wrote: ↑
Tue 1 Jan 2019 5:09 PM
It was always about the Guild. Ran with a stellar group way back when called "RAGE". Great folks to play with, even made the grinds bearable. Hoping to find something like that again.

Rage from MLF?

Tue 8 Jan 2019 12:54 AM by Armsmancer

In my early and late 40s on my first high level was a firewiz and I would solo mostly in Pennine at all those trees that were weak to fire in the hills at the border towards Ellyls

I used to get jumped alot by Telesca and Nyonben (Igraine) duo all the time

I never got to say anything to them ever, eventually they toyed with me and didn't immediately kill me, this went on for probably 2 months getting to 50 finally solo

someone eventually asked me if I talked to them on the VN Boards

I said what's that and someone gave me the link

I then stepped into the place where you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy and was never the same again

Tue 8 Jan 2019 3:52 AM by Mike504

My favorite moment was on hib/guin. I had started a new casual gank guild with a friend. It was early only 4 of us on, my mana eld, animist, bard and druid. Was OF and we went to the pve raid dungeon in mid frontiers to look for small fights. As we were leaving a 40 man raid had come in entrance.

We were not in great gear or high RR yet at this point, was epic fight, the four of us killed 35 or 36 of them before we had literally used all our abilities, cooldowns, RAs, etc and could do no more but whack people with our staves.

Was a blast. Were forum posts about it and got our 10 person guild invited to a really good hib alliance. One of my favorite fights ever.

Tue 8 Jan 2019 8:03 AM by Windrunner

Memories......
Oh man where to begin......How about a flashback of moments through the eyes of an old paladin. Sit back and reminisce with me for a moment.
The early years...<Seven> was born on Igraine Albion. very few but very active group with strict orders to level fast! Arian, Chancellor, Belldandy, Tarzan, Khelt, Frolo, and myself. Roaming the frontiers in our 40’s when the rest of the realm was still climbing out of the 20’s. We were a big power play guild. belldandy ended up getting the first “glowy” from the Barrows. A few days later, Saran is the first 50 and decimating foes in Emain. <Seven> quickly attains 50 and the fun begins......

Tue 8 Jan 2019 8:15 AM by Windrunner

Part 2

Started meeting a lot of great ppl along the way that really shaped the memories and fondness of a game that still inspires new games to this very day. Here a just a touch of names that really stood out. (Forgive me if I don’t mention at first but it has been almost 20 years since I first played.
Joker, Armsmancer, Mantra, Muradin, Belldandy, Devilspawn, Chancellor, Vulsa, Promethius, Etalel, Persican, Dallas, Succubus, Fewyn, Kerika, Mysterie, Grax, Tankanurun, Nuchos, Manimal, Bloodryte, Mon, Nancy, Solja, Leafbinder.......yeah the names keep coming

Tue 8 Jan 2019 8:20 AM by Windrunner

Part 3

Ok this is a 2 part memory

1st most memorable moment. Power relic was under attack by Hibs and Albs have yet to respond. I meet up with Tankanurun, whom is going the same way. We make it close to the Relic Keep when an 8 man of Hibs ambush us. The minstrel doesn’t make it and I pull my weapon and shield out to fight for my life while twisting my chants away. I ended up soloing the entire 8 man group with Tankanurun telling me “I hate you so much” lying face down among them. Eventually more Albs responded and we saved the relic.

Tue 8 Jan 2019 8:28 AM by Windrunner

Part 2 of fondest memorable moment

Albs have owned Dun Crimthainn at this point for days. Hibs were putting up a great fight trying to reclaim it but we held strong....until the 4th day. Hibs had mustered a huge offensive force to retake the keep and as you look out over the walls....it’s all you could see in any direction. Doom was impending. The Hibs have arrived and you better not get stun-locked nuked to hell once the gates open. Once the Hibs breached the front gate, the epic battle began. Albs and Hibs were dying everywhere! I was clearing the last of courtyard when I spotted Mon on the second tier. We engage in combat as the last Alb/Hib standing. I came out of it as the last man standing!

Tue 8 Jan 2019 5:39 PM by Korsch

Hib/Nimue. Took an alb keep on what seemed like a slow night. Group was a pbaoe bomb group with 1 light mentie (me). Suddenly a large angry albion zerg appears and wants their keep back! A half group of hibbies were able to sneak in for reinforcements but that was it. Bombers take their positions in the lord room while I do my best to target anyone who makes it around the corner and pick off weakened albs. What seemed like hours, constant bombs, aoe attacks, alb zerg is whittled down to a few stragglers who are quickly dispatched by the melee's. Finally when the dust settled, someone shouted out "Welcome to Helms Deep Bitches!" The Two Towers had just hit the movie theaters at the time.

Someone earlier had mentioned the IGN boards and yes I agree, so much salt from the Alb players after that fight. They particularly did not enjoy the LoTR reference.

Tue 8 Jan 2019 6:42 PM by Pedro

Well let's see...

Started on the very first day of the game as a Celt Hero called Pedro in the Lancelot server, had originally moved from Ultima Online with the guild Savage Truth. Was there for about a year. When DF was first introduced, we made a massive raid to take out Legion and I won the roll for that 1h red "lightsaber". Man the tells never stopped to try to buy it off, all declined, being a s/s Hero I needed it! Sadly the next day I found that my account was hacked and of course the blade gone, the only thing they took.

I decided to stop playing at that point.

About 2 months later the itch was there to play, so decided that instead of playing in the biggest server, I was going to one of the smaller ones, went to Kay and decided to try Albion (due to that childhood dream of being like Prince Valiant...) and made a Paladin. I won't lie I couldn't handle the twisting at that time. Switched to Cleric (Hanamichi) and loved it, groups would pull me to any group regardless of my level. I would jog across the Plains of Salisbury only to rez random people.

I'm the type of player that loves to get "immersed" so I took my sweet time to get to 50, about 7 months, and I played every day! I even roleplayed for a time.

During my leveling "adventure" I joined probably 2-3 different guilds, but the ones that stuck the most were The Covenant with who I spent most of my 50 PvE life, and it slowly died down, so moved to The Forsaken. I remained with them for many years, they were called zergers, because we always RvRed with 30+, but it was very pleasant that when the GM asked who wanted to RvR and 30+ raised their hands, regardless of class and level, he would take them all. And then the Alliance would also join in and make it even bigger, we didn't care, we all just had fun. We zerged and got zerged, had massive keep sieges for hours! Some of the keep spam was 300+ enemies in the area...those were the best times.

After about 6 years of being a cleric in Alb Kay. surviving ToA, the "classic servers" came out, and then I went Midgard. Made a troll BD and join Solum Contego (nemesis from hib kay). At some point I made a troll berserker (called Pedro) and I joined The Ancients, but that guild never really picked up and for RvR I joined Myth. I stayed with them and RvRed 24/7.

We dabbled as a guild in other MMO's (like EQ2, WoW, GW1) but always came back.

My DAoC adventure ended when Warhammer was in closed beta and I got in, then I fully focused on that until EA botched it releasing it before it was ready...then Rift, Aion, GW2, NW, and the list goes on. No game has ever caught my attention and my passion for gaming and fantasy like DAoC.

Wed 9 Jan 2019 2:53 PM by Neehi

Yeah, miss old Pibbsy, Mygwen, and all the others from the Forsaken crew! Our 'rivalry' was a blast, and many of them joined us when we did Cry More Noob on Alb/Tristan. Good times!

Wed 9 Jan 2019 3:06 PM by Afuldan

Pedro wrote: ↑
Tue 8 Jan 2019 6:42 PM
Well let's see...

Started on the very first day of the game as a Celt Hero called Pedro in the Lancelot server, had originally moved from Ultima Online with the guild Savage Truth. Was there for about a year. When DF was first introduced, we made a massive raid to take out Legion and I won the roll for that 1h red "lightsaber". Man the tells never stopped to try to buy it off, all declined, being a s/s Hero I needed it! Sadly the next day I found that my account was hacked and of course the blade gone, the only thing they took.

I decided to stop playing at that point.

About 2 months later the itch was there to play, so decided that instead of playing in the biggest server, I was going to one of the smaller ones, went to Kay and decided to try Albion (due to that childhood dream of being like Prince Valiant...) and made a Paladin. I won't like I couldn't handle the twisting at that time. Switched to Cleric (Hanamichi) and loved it, groups would pull me to any group regardless of my level. I would jog across the Plains of Salisbury only to rez random people.

I'm the type of player that loves to get "immersed" so I took my sweet time to get to 50, about 7 months, and I played every day! I even roleplayed for a time.

During my leveling "adventure" I joined probably 2-3 different guilds, but the ones that stuck the most were The Covenant with who I spent most of my 50 PvE life, and it slowly died down, so moved to The Forsaken. I remained with them for many years, they were called zergers, because we always RvRed with 30+, but it was very pleasant that when the GM asked who wanted to RvR and 30+ raised their hands, regardless of class and level, he would take them all. And then the Alliance would also join in and make it even bigger, we didn't care, we all just had fun. We zerged and got zerged, had massive keep sieges for hours! Some of the keep spam was 300+ enemies in the area...those were the best times.

After about 6 years of being a cleric in Alb Kay. surviving ToA, the "classic servers" came out, and then I went Midgard. Made a troll BD and join Solum Contego (nemesis from hib kay). At some point I made a troll berserker (called Pedro) and I joined The Ancients, but that guild never really picked up and for RvR I joined Myth. I stayed with them and RvRed 24/7.

We dabbled as a guild in other MMO's (like EQ2, WoW, GW1) but always came back.

My DAoC adventure ended when Warhammer was in closed beta and I got in, then I fully focused on that until EA botched it releasing it before it was ready...then Rift, Aion, GW2, NW, and the list goes on. No game has ever caught my attention and my passion for gaming and fantasy like DAoC.

WAR and WoW gutted my guilds population. Never really recovered. The grind of ToA burned a ton of people out too.

Wed 9 Jan 2019 3:55 PM by Pedro

Afuldan wrote: ↑
Wed 9 Jan 2019 3:06 PM
WAR and WoW gutted my guilds population. Never really recovered. The grind of ToA burned a ton of people out too.

Think I was one of the few that enjoyed ToA, hard to do much solo as a Cleric, but it was fun when everyone got together. Some good stories too! Like one night assembling for a ML8, we had a 100 or so BG for it, we all stuck the BG leader, and we rolled out. Halfway through the zone he runs into a lava pool and drags 90% of the BG with him (all afk), I was lucky that I was watching and broke the follow. Man the death spam was hilarious!

Wed 9 Jan 2019 6:21 PM by jamino

I began to play in 2002 on the italian server Vortigern. I played albion and I remeber the the first time i went to Salsbury planes i was something like level 10 and i stil se someone saying in the chat window “be carefull here is very dangerous...” and i feel the fear of all the agro mobs. I remeber when i make my first 50 in Avalon city after 9 moths of playing (i left mu first pg at 30). Then i went to USA server because in Italy the servers wasn’t patched for somethig like 2 years and we had to
Play 1.65 with all the outpowerd mids. In USA i first started to play Igraine Mid and i met TOA. ML were a nigtmare as for us italians we had to play from 2 AM till early morning and then go to work...
I love tie game anyway it’s such an important part of my player life!

Wed 9 Jan 2019 6:51 PM by Dominus

I played Alb Lance and Hib Merlin back in the day. My favorite memory was on my fully buffed Necro just outside the Alb PK in Hib, getting jumped by 3 shadowblades. Long story short, I killed all three and had to change my underwear at the end of the fight. It was an edge-of-the-seat fight I'll never forget.

Our Alb guild to my knowledge started the first stealth zerg, where we'd shut down mile gates. Me on my mins with her slow mez would take on full groups running through.. 8 stealthers would pop and /assist train. Wouldn't work on pro groups but PuGs were fun.

Maluv from Lagged Again was my nemesis. here's a video of him wiping Ice Dragon zergs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnah58qRvnc

Thu 10 Jan 2019 1:41 AM by Drolio

Nimue - Midgard

Me and my friends played white haired dwarves that dyed their armor all red.
All our last names were Claus.
We were the Claus brothers and we terrorized the battlegrounds.
I played Healer,
friends played Thane, Skald and Berserker.

DAoC was my first MMORPG, my friends started at EQ

The End.

Why are words like dwarves and Berserker flagged as misspelled? lol

Thu 10 Jan 2019 2:23 AM by Deadulus

I played pellinor hib pre SI. I was young at the time probably 13 (weren't we all). I had a good laugh with my mom the other day telling her I was getting back into Dark Age. The game the turned me into an avid pvp gamer. I used to mail cash and exact coins for my subscription because I wasn't nearly old enough to have any kind of a bank account and my mom sure as hell wouldn't let me play a game with a sub. They honored it! At least once it was returned (prob too much weight not enough postage) and mom flipped and made me go outside. Tied up the dsl phone connection all day. I was a ranger that tricked a relatively competitive stealth group into allowing me to join, they were 18+ only. We camped bridges and Df. Absolute best time I ever had in the gaming world.

Fri 11 Jan 2019 2:02 AM by Laird_Nessie

I ran mainly on Mid/Perc on two characters, Kohle the Runemaster, and Kolhe the Bonedancer, was in Hel Maor for a while on both characters. My most memorable story occured when I was running in the Mid Frontier, and came across a mid group, and and Alb Group fighting on my Bonedancer. The Alb group included the legendary "Pony Boy", a Minstrel named Andavan (sp?). I added onto the fight, and was able to take out Him, His pony, and a friar.... Good Times.

Also was in a relic raid one time for Alb's Magic Relic, and it dropped right in front of me. I ran over picked it up, and started running as fast as my little Kobold Bonedancer legs would carry me. I think I made it about halfway across the zone before I was caught up to and quickly squashed, but man that got my heart racing.

Fri 11 Jan 2019 3:12 AM by Tattersail

Things I remember - the stuff you just don't see in MMO's anymore - like taking 26 days /played to level my first character - then getting a 100+ personal congrats messages from players across the realm when you did - some even days later.