Dark Age of Camelot - Memorable Realm Conflict

Third week of Dark Age of Camelot on Merlin at release. I was Lv31 or Lv33 at the time, spent solid five days simply living in Forest Sauvage. Highest on our server were around Lv36 at the start of that week. However, never saw my first yellow-con Albion until late that week. Most were grey-con, with a few green the odd blue cons. In general I just loved the atmosphere of not only raiding an unexplored and dangerous enemy territory, but being one of the very first to do it.

I still remember specific battles too. Sitting behind one tree below that first road bend and watching two solid groups of grey cons fighting treants. Can only imagine their suprise when for the first time, they met someone from Midgard, and were greeted by 12 massive flaming sprears impaling them from the sky. God I wish I had an Albion bot to record the death spam and their reaction back around the realm. Another fight I remember had me being chased by a group of green Albions, all decorated in bright colors with their torches left on. My kobold in dark grey (black was too expensive!) cloth eluded them for about half an hour, and I slowly picked up most of the group. Here and there, a straggler would seperate and I'd quickly drop him with a runemaster bolt. Was a ton of fun, the atmosphere was pretty killer and sneaking around that region was a ton of fun. Used to say something a lot, the sneakiest DAOC characters weren't rogues and hunters with invisibily prancing through open Emain, but lone and fragile mages covered in greens and blacks, darting between trees.

Another thing I really enjoyed a lot was when we took the first DAOC keep ever. We being mostly PRX and Conquest but a few others like myself were invited to coming along (no idea from Plow is now but he was damn fun to have as a realm mate). The keep raid itself wasn't what made it memorable for me. More so it was simply controlling a dymaic object in a PvP region. That keep was ours now. I spent the entire night solo outside of that keep solo'ing pigs for crap XP, but I had a blast. I was totally immersed into the game. Patrolling the region around our recently captured keep, scouting the roads ahead, keeping the fields near by safe of hostile animals. The night was lost in dreams of patrol caravans coming from the portal keep, hiring new NPCs, building seige on the walls, and everything else war-based PvP MMOGers have dreamt of for years.

Now of course, that never lasted long. It would be many months before even the most basic keep features were added, and over two years before the frontiers are finally getting the upgrade the deserved at release. But definitely still hold these few memories dear. My time on Merlin was sadly cut far too short for technical reasons but what can I say, the realm warfare I experienced in the first weeks are definitely among the most fun I've had in a MMORPG.