What's the problem over there?

I was going to reply to this thread a while back but I have since had an opportunity to play phoenix with hibernians. I have now played roughly 50% of my time with either midgards or hibernians, I started as mids as I I have always been a die hard mid but my friends joined up as hibernians (they were never the smartest of friends) a few months after launch. About a month later I joined them although I was reluctant to leave a rather established mid group of characters.

Over on mid you hear all these horror stories about the hib community, about how hostile it is, its rampant elitism and how expensive everything is etc. First thing first the hib community is not hostile in the least, it was as helpful and friendly as the mid community. I cannot comment on albions community as I have not played albion on phoenix. You always got the odd bad apple and there were the trolls who trolled for fun rather than to be hostile, there is a difference!

However the other two factors of elitism and expense are what is holding the Hibernian faction back and they are obvious reasons why less people play hib then the other two realms. Yes the run out to emain was an issue but not as bad as the other issues in my opinion.

Elitism in hib is aweful. Unless you are a favoured class getting groups is really difficult making the levelling progress slower for those classes. This even crosses over to rvr. I will be on my low rr warden and I will lfg in rvr bg and get a quick invite yet if my ranger rarely gets invites. Its not like that on mid, ok I may have had to wait 10-15 min for invite on my hunter but I would get an invite but on my ranger I could be waiting over an hour. If I start a group on my ranger quite often the players invited will leave when they see my class. My first hib toon was a mentalist and when he is lfg he is often asked am I PoM spec and as he is not (PoM spec is aweful for rvr) I quite often get ignored. Also hibs have it in their heads that casters are the way to go, enchanters, eldrichts and animists wherever you look so tanks tend to get over looked. You can tell players who have played mid more than hibs when you are in thidranki when the hib group of bard, druid and melee train of champions bm's and heros just own everything in sight. I think this has also something to do with playstyle, mids are extremely aggressive and I found especially in thid when I was driving hibs would quite often hold back being more use to the caster playstyle. At 50 I rarely see hib melee train groups which makes it harder for hib melee to advance.

The economy in Hibernia is completely borked and its all because of either animists or the lack of players who regularly run epic raids. Everything is too expensive and this holds players back. The last change to salvage gear drops has just made it even worst. I have played about 2 more weeks on mid then I have on hibs and I have 6 level 50 mids fully template out, good templates too not just basic ones. I also have enough feathers to fit out another 2 characters if I so wish. Hibs I have a mentalist, a ranger, a warden and a hero. My mentalist has a goodish template but none of the others have any template and I got prob about half the feathers available to spend that I spent on my mentalist (think menty was 50k feathers, all my mids were 75k+ feather cost). This is not that bad if you have 1 or 2 characters but for players like me who like to play all type of characters it becomes impossible to play simply because I would get bored playing the same class for any extended period of time. Hib is the only realm where you need a classs to compete. If you not got an animist you cannot afford a template...3p would get you 15k feathers in mid whereas I have seen it as high as 8-9p for 15k feathers in hib. On mid the bd is often used as a gold generator but it is nowhere as effective as an animist. Hibs I feel shoot themselves in the foot, if prices were more reasonable templating would be easier and it would attract players to the faction not cause them to leave or not try hibs at all.

With regards classes I do feel mids edge hibs but that could be more to the fact that I am use to the mid style of play. Seeing pbt and twf on a rather passive class does not seem right, twf should really be on an offensive class in my opinion. Things seem to be a little muddled up but that's prob more to do my inexperience with hibs. I guess every realm has its advantage and sometimes the grass seems greener on other side, lost count of how many times I hear mids complaining about silly range amnesia, every hib and their dog having stun and shrooms everywhere. I hear on hib a lot of complaints about bds (which trust me bds are no where near the power they are on live with bots behind them).

I think the hib players are great and the groups I have been in have been fun but I would had never tried Hibernia due to its economy and if my friends had not tried Hibernia or if they ever stopped playing I would move back to Midgard without hesitation.