DAoC - An Excellent Epic Mythical Adventure

My Experience
When I first purchased the Dark Age of Camelot, I rushed home to create an account. It only took about ten minutes from the start of installation until I was standing in a huge new fantasy world! Of course, I had a credit card ready and I flew through the character generation system with wild abandon.

My first character was a human of Midgard, which is called a Norseman. Midgard is, after all, the fantasy equivalent of the Viking lands of the past. I chose the character class of "Hunter" because I like to kill things from far away. I should have chosen a Kobold as my character, because they make the best hunters due to their agility, but at the time I didn't know that. I definitely suggest reading up about such things in Prima's Official Dark Age of Camelot Strategy Guide. This will give you the upper hand on many of the wandering newbies out there.

I started out in the little village of Mularn outside of the capital of Midgard, which is called Jordheim. From there I found some crabs on the coast surrounding the town and I had about a 50/50 shot of killing them or getting killed by them. I thought: "Geez, if the whole game's gonna be like this, it's gonna be tough going." What I didn't know was that right across the bridge from town was a load of low-level creatures that I could have easily butchered to gain my first five levels. I got more than just game experience out of that mistake, I got life experience: always search your general area before committing yourself.

Another thing I should have taken note of: DAoC has a color-based system that allows you to easily determine what enemies pose a threat to your life. If you click on a creature to target it, the name of the creature will show in a color that warns you about that creature's level. Grey and Green are easily slaughtered, Blue is a little lower than your level but can give you some trouble if you're not good at hand-to-hand, Yellow is just about your level and is probably your best bet for staying alive and gaining levels, Orange is above your level and best not messed with unless you're in a group, Red is high-level compared to you and even in groups it might be too much, and Purple is a definite no-no. If you're color-blind, there is also little symbols next to the name that betray the creature's level: --- gray, -- green, - blue, (no sign) yellow, + orange, ++ red, and +++ purple. Thankfully, these colors and signs also show up when you target another player, so you know which people are best for you to group with.

So after ten levels of pure creature killing I decided to head into the city of Jordheim and see what goes on in there.

*WOW* the place is huge! There seem to be hundreds of players in the city: chatting, trading, planning, improving their skills, and whatever else. So the first non-player character I talk to is the Master Tailor. He offers to start training me in tailoring so that I can make leather armor and capes and all sorts of cool stuff. I accept and I am branded a Tailor's Apprentice. Now this part of the game is really nifty: you can be an armorer, a weapon-crafter, a tailor, a fletcher, and some other cool crafts. When the expansion/patch comes out there will be even more cool secondary-trade skills. What's so great about this? I got the raw materials, like a sewing kit, leather patches, and some other fabrics, and made a suit of leather armor. Then I sold it and made money off of it! I enjoyed this so much that for almost two solid months I was at level 10 because I played armor merchant in the city and didn't do much killing at all. I got my Tailoring skill to about 600 (the cap is 1000) and I could make all sorts of things that other players wanted to buy from me. Being a tailor, I mainly serviced low-level people and casters, but I made plenty of money off of it.

Then I went out and started killing some more because I didn't have anything to do with my money and the demand for leather goods was at a low. Reaching level 20 was a hassle. I definitely recommend getting into a group and leveling that way - solo leveling is really tough after level 15 or so.

At any rate, that's where I am now. I'm a level 28 Hunter, and I'm still playing. I've seen a lot of people give up but that's because they didn't look at all their options. In fact, I almost gave up a couple times, but instead, I just created a new character and played him for awhile. You can have up to four characters per server, which is A LOT of characters. I don't recommend getting more than one for the first few months you play DAoC, or you'll miss out on the high-level stuff like Realm vs Realm.

Helpful Stuff
...You can buy leather/armor dye to change the colors of your armor, shield, cape, and whatever. I don't recommend doing this until you hit level 15 or so because you go through armor so quick that it would just be a waste of money.
...Higher-level players in the wild expanses between towns are usually very helpful about giving you the stuff they've collected off of enemies. They usually already have the stuff or can't use it, so they hand it down to lower-level characters to help them out. Also, in the capital city, lots of stuff is being given away all the time. Be sure to keep your eye on the broadcast messages for stuff you can use.
...CHEATING: There are no money or item cheats in this game - the development team has done an excellent job on server security. However, every once and a while someone finds a glitch to exploit but it is usually fixed pretty quickly. There is one semi-legal way to cheat, and the only reason I put it here is to make sure everyone knows it so that not just a few people use it: eBay. That's right, just type in "Dark Age" or "Camelot" in the eBay search box and up will come listings to buy high-level characters or money from people. I've seen as much as 500 gold on one server go for about five bucks on eBay. That's a pretty good deal considering I never had more than about 50 gold even in my higher-levels. I've also seen a level 40 caster go for about 177 dollars! *OUCH* I don't buy this stuff on eBay - I think the $13 monthly price of subscription to DAoC is bad enough - but the option is always open if you think you need a helping hand when you start this game.

That's All
I hope to see you somewhere in the world of Camelot soon.