Friday, May 21, 2010

DAOC - Continuing Adventures

My Cabalist's most recent adventures took me across multiple zones (again). Starting at level 5 up until 50 there are NPC's in the main cities that give you tasks. They send you to various zones to make deliveries or kill mobs, and they're great for getting an idea of where you should be hunting at that particular level.

My first task involved a delivery to the Abandoned Mines. The Mines are located under each of the three cities, and they also connect to all the dungeons in that realm. Quests start in the mid 20's and continue through the 30's. It's easy to get lost, but fortunately you can use the mine carts to help you get around.



The next task involved killing toads in Avalon Marsh. While toads aren't particularly exciting, I'm amazed at the variety of mobs found here and throughout DAOC, especially compared to more recent MMO's I've played. Along with the typical marshy type critters like frogs, rats, lizards, crabs, and worms, it's also home to various forms of undead, bogmen, mud golems, marsh scrags, ogres, and other misshapen sentients.



Needing to dry out my boots, I headed back to the city for another task which took me to the Shrouded Isles. Each realm has their own version of the Isles, but I was off to Albion's version. Unlike the other zones, faction plays an important role here and you need to do a bit of research before you start randomly killing. Once faction is high enough, at later levels additional towns become available to you for further questing. My task here involved ridding the apple orchards of some undead.



Despite my best efforts, the undead continued to return so it was off to the New Frontiers for my next task. The Frontiers connects all three realms and on the RvR server this is where all the action is. While there is no RvR happening on the Gaheris server, certain restrictions are still in place here making this not one of my favorite areas for hunting. Run speed is much slower, you can't use your level 10 mount, and you can't use any port stones to get out. So getting around is very slow. But with all the huge keeps, it is pretty neat to see once in awhile and I managed to arrive as the sun was coming up.



I've reached level 33 and still have a lot of content yet to experience. I may start dabbling in the other realms to keep things fresh.

DAOC had a patch this week and with the patch came an oops...Christmas in May! Seems the December holiday activities were reactivated so I quickly took advantage of it with one of my higher level toons and snagged some quested decorative housing items before it gets taken down again. Ho, Ho, Ho!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Nice! I hate the mines areas though - the in game map is horrible and all the change in elevation make it confusing as heck to find your way around. Catacombs content about my least favorite in the game, yet the instances in them make for great levelling and gear upgrading with the currency drops.

Aspendawn said...

Hehe the mines are a bit tricky. The Valmerwolf maps help some. But I was determined to figure my way around this darn place so I manage ok. If I keep going in squares eventually I get where I need to go lol.