This shot is circa December, 2001 and shows what buffs looked like before the more consistent buff redesign.   Notice the styles shown on the top image.   Back then all your styles had the same graphic and it was up to you to remember which was what.  In the bottom image baseline "blue" and specline "yellow" buffs are shown.   After the new buffs redesign, it took people a good while to stop asking for "blues" or "yellows" which confused new players who didn't understand how buffs that weren't blue or yellow at all were called that.

This image is from December 8th, 2001 and is from a keep raid that Ariadne lead with Xlarthen to retake Bolg.   We must have had 80 Hibs in Druim Ligen.  We coordinated into groups and after a while headed to Bolg.   We waited well below the keep aggro range to coordinate a second time.  The call came and we finally approached the keep.   Someone had figured out how to work a ram and we were on the level one doors.   No one really understood how rams behaved so repeated shouts of "get off the door so the ram can work" went out.   Finally the doors were down and we went up to the lord.   A massive pile on ensued and we discovered that only Hilda, at level 42, could even hit him.   Needless to say, the lord fell slowly but we were victorious in the end.

Do you remember when the Parthenon Farm was THE spot to XP?  This picture was taken in January of 2002 when the Parthenon Farm was a heavily camped hot spot with groups around all sides leveling up.

This shot is from January 15th, 2002 on the first day "Moose" was rolled out into the game.  Here you can see Cynder part 2 modeling his new ability.

Back in early February of 2002 the Cursed Forest had mobs added to it.  Prior to that the Cursed Forest was an empty desolate place.    Shortly after the patch we took a group in to check it out.  We were able to take down some of the mobs and were feeling pretty impressed with ourselves.   At the time the highest level person in the group was Cronus at level 42.  Because you can't tell which purple is more difficult than another we decided to try this little Skegashee guy out.  He looked harmless enough.   This is how the battle went:  "whiff, whiff, wipeout."
 
 

We haven't always had all the buffs we do today.   In this image from late February 2002 you can see the new Constitution buff that baseline buffing classes in Hibernia got.   There wasn't a new icon for it so it looked like the AF buff until later.   Notice also the "banana" power regen buff that was given to Mentalists as well.   Yes, at one point there was no "crack" buff in the game!  Retired mentalists were dusted off and started leveling again.
 
 

Also in February of 2002 Triple Wield was added for Blademasters to give this class a much needed boost.
 
 

As RvR became more popular more people begain to carry materials to build rams.   But did you know that originally when you built a ram you got the message below when the craft completed?
 
 

Realm points for killing someone weren't as high as they are today.   This was because most characters weren't level fifty and reaching Realm Rank two was weeks of heavy RvR away.   Here's a shot from April 2002 that was taken because the realm points earned in that battle were at the time "insane."
 
 

Did you know that chat groups weren't always in the game?   Here's an image from early April 2002 when chat groups were added.
 
 

For those of you who've been around a long time you may remember the relic raid Vector coordinated where we took down all the Midgard keeps within a few minutes of each other.   The keep spam was amazing, nothing like it had been done on the server before.   The raid was held on May 25th, 2002 and Hibernia was successful in capturing all three strength relics.
 
 

Here's a shot from the middle of the relic raid with seven rams on the tower door.  Initially there was no limit to the number of rams you could put on a door.  Characters didn't have capped strength and wood weighed much more then before Mythic changed the encumbrance levels on materials so getting rams coordinated was a significant effort.   For this raid and some others we did many runs of wood and ram parts out to hidden spots in the enemy frontier where they were loaded onto mules.  After taking the keeps we would rendezvous at the ram mule spot, have him log in and hand out more rams for the relic attack.
 
 

Strength relics captured!   See how many of the names below on /as you recognize and how many of them are still with us today.
 
 

And last on the list of this installment of Remember When is the rollout of Epic Armor.   At the time it was THE thing to have.   It was much better than most drops available and without Spellcrafting and Alchemy in the game it was a must for players who wanted to be competitive.  This image is from May 9th, 2002 at about 6:30AM in the morning.  When we finally got our epic armor we took time for a quick picture before we all passed out from sleep deprivation.
 
 

 Back to Gallery