Hi mates,

I'm just a passer-by for now,
used to play official and Purga shard for a few years (assorted R5-R7 chars etc.)

A quick question - what's up with that "nobuffbot" rule?
I do understand RvR issues, but what about the leveling?..
Is there some other form of XP bonuses, freelevels or such?

Egg. on Purga shard, which was quite alive & fun at some time, we had instant /level 30 and exp multiplication (x5 I think?), not to say of the 2nd-login-buffbots..
Was no real problem to field a 50 quickly there, while still having enough of a noob-barrier in the form of 30..50 exp + champ.leveling...
frankly, I can't understand, why not
or is there some other Fat Bonuses here?..

Purga is purga (actualy was) and Uthgard is uthgard .. there are tones of instant servers, this one is special live like hardcore mode

Well, the pure "instant" servers are too random and no fun, sure;
but no-buff grind is less than fun too.

Had my share of twinks on official, back when..

And, yeah, Purga is long dead too; think like two years now.

Actually you have some EP Boni,if your realm holds the keeps for your lvl and Agra keep it goes up to 100% in DF (so like 2x ep) but that will happen quite rarely.No BBs is to force you to build grps and socialise with your realm...no ego trip playing at Uth if you wanna lvl at a decent speed Also like that it makes sense to lvl a supporter at all cause you will most likely find a grp (with BBs finding a grp as Shaman is quite...well...hard,just remember back at live when you prefered not having an EP leeching Sham in Grp cause you had 2 BBs backing you up).Guess thats a summary of what most of the community and the Staff have to say to this topic ^^

Greetz,
Player of Islana

What's the point with Midgard?

mfassben wrote:No BBs is to force you to build grps...
prefered not having an EP leeching Sham in Grp...

Yeah, thanks, I understand the implications..
I also understand that when there's no live support online (being freeshard and all), that's, well, no support

Mostly the question was "why no increased exp rate?" with "not even a BB in PvE" as an afterthought.

Beats me; why would the devs want the _freeshard_ players to enjoy the same painful grind rate? :-\

About the temporary exp bonuses -- yeah, they're nice, but they're more of a "generic weather effect"
Noobs doing the grind usually dont have means of affecting those "exp bonuses" in any way.

But thanks a lot for answering my main question. (Went and read the whole bonus list now .

Pirith wrote:What's the point with Midgard?

Ah, just a matter of habit;
most of my RvR mains were mids.

Alkanavt wrote:I also understand that when there's no live support online (being freeshard and all), that's, well, no support

I think we can say with proud that we have the best support available in DAoC freeshard scene. Just try /call if you dont do it after midnight when germany sleeps.

Beats me; why would the devs want the _freeshard_ players to enjoy the same painful grind rate? :-\

Doesnt matter whether its free or not, we emulate live servers. Thats the game.

Blue wrote:I think we can say with proud that we have the best support available in DAoC freeshard scene. Just try /call

I meant "support classes" of course, were talking about buffbots vs human-played support (clerics etc)...

As for in-game technical support and advice, you are really doing a fine work, from what I see

Blue wrote:Doesnt matter whether its free or not, we emulate live servers. Thats the game.

Yeah, I fully understand your point as a dev.
As a player, however, I find 40..50lvl exp grind painful and mostly useless.

Personally I believe that freeshards should be generally more relaxed and, mm, "more fun" than official ones... But it's only a personal opinion

some find this slower way of lvling etc more fun and relaxing

Many of us are retired players from live, and since you claim to be one, I don't understand your issues with having to level at an "intended" rate. With proper group compositions it is extremely easy to level up.