Sunday 1 September 2002

Pic of the day: From the Silver Knights picnic, er, officer meeting. ^.^ Sorry about yellowing wrong person - that's me in the foreground, as can be expected...

My day in Hibernia

Spent most of the day in Hibernia. Yes, despite not having got the ADSL yet (as if it is even going to work) I was online for hours, playing Dark Age of Camelot. I have two characters going on the Bedevere server: Itlandm is my Enchanter. A very enchanting Enchanter, as he is "specced" (specialized) in only enchantment and no other magic. This already gives me some Glittering Arms, which are not body decorations but a spell that adds damage to all weapons. It is particularly fun to use them on newbies and see the newbie monsters simply wilt when pricked. In addition, pure Enchanters have the buffest pets. My pet can solo monsters of my own level while I chat with guildies. I just have to heal them between each battle, or at least every other battle.

The other character is Greenitland, a druid. It may not surprise you that he is specced so as to maximize his pet, more or less. I have specced Nature 3 : Nurture 2 : Regrowth 1. Nature affinity lets me call on the bigger pets and also gives DOT spells (damage over time) and some buffs (spells to make someone stronger, faster etc.). The rest of the buff spells are in the Nurture spell line, which I also try to keep up with. Regrowth is the healing line. I intend to take it up to cure poison / cure disease, and leave it there. Mostly the point of the druid is to be able to resurrect people, though.

I sincerely believe that Enchanters and Druids are the strongest classes in the 3 realms of DAoC. The combination of uber pets and the ability to enhance their team mates make them good both for solo playing and groups. Despite this, Hibernia is not winning on all fronts. Though the Albion invasion is stopped in its tracks for now. I suspect Midgard has become concerned and decided to harass Albion instead of us. That's how it works, you see. There are 3 realms, and while all of them want to win, none of them wants any other to win. There is no diplomacy, no way in-game to communicate between the realms. You cannot even have a character in different realms on the same server, unless you buy two CDs! But you can see how the war is going, and from level 20 up you get notified each time a castle keep is conquered by a new realm. This tends to encourage just the kind of behavior that keeps the game going infinitely. While no formal alliance is possible, the Middies are definitely fighting Albion now.

Anyway, I have exhausted the Spraggon Den. While I can still get routed if several high level monsters come for me at once, only sheer foolishness can get my character killed. The experience and loot is no longer awe-inspiring, though still decent. So I moved on to another dungeon, TC (I have forgotten what the name was, it was so Celtic). The smallest things there are orange (1-3 levels above me) and few are less than red (the next step up). But killing even one of the orange gives me the maximum experience points for my level. I was in a group today, which is hectic and bad on my hand. I intend to return, if I can, and check it out solo.

***

After playing, I relaxed with Camelot Art, some of which is actually quite good. I am surprised at the sheer level of competence spent on a hobby. Then again, I guess for some people this is more an obsession than a hobby. I'm not known for having a life myself, but I don't refer to outdoors as the "big room with the blue ceiling" either. And I don't say "hail" and "thou" to my work mates either.

To complete my day, I incidentally discovered that there are pretty detailed info on the expansion pack for DAoC, called "Shrouded Isles". Unsurprisingly, you can find details on shroudedisles.com, so I don't need to give you all the news that are fit to print. Briefly, each of the 3 realms get 1 new race, 2 new classes (intended for those races ... not sure if playable by other) and one new island continent. There is also significant upgrade to graphics and user interface, the graphics improvements being basically the same as those in Morrowind. Big surprise there, since they use the same graphic engine. You can still play the original realms, races and classes of course.

At midnight, I had a clickfest uploading all of my September entries for 3 years to my Dreamwater server, so you will excuse me if I stop this now.