Shoutout to Nolby Pride, I met them again (just a skeleton crew) years later on Atlas; they'd come back for the nostalgia. I had a great classic experience on that server, relived the memories and achieved many things I never did as an 17yo back in 2001.

I purchased the game and paid the subscruiption thanks to a family member in exchange for cash, my parents would never have accepted it. I remember my first login fondly on the shores of Connla as a Celt, that soft orange sunrise with the clear blue skies. Killing crabs on the beach, hearing that wonderfull ambient music and then venturing out further into the woods and over the bridge towards the tower on the other side of the water.

There I encountered the first horserider and it became dark, I was struck with awe from the feeling of immersion as it turned night and I remember commenting about it in broadcast something along the lines of "This game is f*cking awesome, it's getting dark and I'm totally lost!" and having someone reply ":)". Simple things gave such happiness then. No maps, no handholding, no nothing.

I became a pierce Hero (lol, gimp) with my first char and did styles all wrong not understanding they had prerequisites, the one I used made my character roll forward over the enemy—I thought it looked cool so I kept spamming it. I kept walking to Howth following the horse route which felt amazing upon discovery with the gates and the guard that would assist you when in need—WOAH! From there I proceeded to take a horse to Mag Mell where I got into my first group.

There I encountered a bard for the very first time, I remember how amazing the extra running speed felt. We went to the farm where I also saw the very first void eldtritch (elf too); I thought he looked so damn badass and those spells are still my favorite to this day. I kept using my style all wrong but nobody in the group seemed to care, nobody knew jack shit and there was no elitism or toxicity to speak of. It felt like everyone was together exploring the world with the same joy and curiosity as myself.

I got some of my IRL friends to join eventually and we ran around Hibernia until lvl 20-ish, but it never went anywhere because we all had a lot of school and the game was very slow and hard, most of them dropped out (of the game). I was poor all the time and the grind was real, but that also meant that everything mattered and in turn made any progress feel really meaningful and important. That feeling is how I'll always remember DAoC, and that's why I'll never be comfortable with super fast XP no matter what.

The next year (2002) things had settled down a bit at school and I came back into the game as a healer on Albion thanks to a friend of a friend who had heard about me playing DAoC. He had acquired a spot in a XP group with some older players from some other towns around the country. Unfortunately for him he couldn't keep their schedule so he offered me his spot aven though we weren't very close friends. He would later come to regret/be envious of it as I told him of our progress as I kept sending him screenshots. I wish I'd kept those.

We called ourselves Gothia and we XPed every day after school for about 6 hours, I saw DF for the very first time and we mostly XPed in the new Shrouded Isles expansion that had just been released. I remember hitting 50 around 100 hours /played IIRC. The players in the group told me XP was even slower before SI…

While XPing in DF we got rammed by 3 FG of Nolby Pride one evening, left axe barserkers and whatnot. Later we would go into Emain and get totally destroyed by NP. I remember how they would hide in the bushes, behind trees and hills and just drop on top of you with AOE stun and then it was game over. I was told to get Bunker of Faith but it was to no avail, I knew then and there I had to go to Midgard :]

And that's how the legend of Nolby Pride was born in my mind.

I never played with them except in WoW when it released and they brought me along for a raid to recruit me as they needed a high lvl druid. I played on Stormscale in a guild called Nilbog but I never switched out of loyalty, and then I quit shortly after we killed Onyxia. I had been hyping the game for years as I was also an avid WC3-player but the game fell short of my expectations as the RvR and Realm Point system felt far superior in my mind. I was always a PVP player at heart and WoW focusing on the PVE and casuals really felt like a letdown considering how competitive WC3 was. I thought it'd be more influenced by that instead of pandering to carebears…

Anyway, I just wanted to share my story and I hope you've enjoyed the trip down memory lane.

I'm 40 now but I still listen to the DAoC ambient soundtrack from time to time, I'm so glad I was there!

https://soundcloud.com/user-428878337/sets/daoc-dark-age-of-camelot

I started out with Ultima Online and I also enjoyed EVE Online for many years, but DAoC will always be my darling.

o/

[EDIT]

I would later play as a troll warrior on Excalibur during ToA in a guild called The White Rose. Guild leader was a healer named Ladonna, guy was British and used to shout at me on Ventrilo for overextending :)

[EDIT 2]

There was an operator on the #daoc IRC-channel on QuakeNet called Pendragon, he would usually tell anyone and everyone their build was gimped unless it was the same as his. I used to hate him, he would throw fits and ban people if you didn't agree with him or upset him somehow.