History of Solars

by Zayron

The Name - 2002
The Name Solars came from the original Dark Age of Camelot Albion guild on the Bedevere server. Created in the early days of DAOC the guild rise up to be a well known 8v8 group on the server. I joined after the guild had already made a name for itself so I don’t know much about the early history. I think the original membership had a falling out and they lost some members leaving room for me to join. The Original leader ones told me that the name Solars came from an angelic race from some other game but I have never been able to find any more info on this. The original Solars crew after I joined were a laid back bunch of people and they introduced me into the world of PvP and 8v8.  We had a grate time but then one day the leader just vanished. Some time later he did make a final farewell post on our forums and promoted a new leader. I’m still not sure what was going on there. Around the time that World of Warcraft came out Solars tried to relocate to the new game but WoW was a failure in the minds of some of the Solars members who loved the PvP of DAOC. Solars lost members and ended up merging with another bigger WoW guild losing its name in the process.

The New Solars - 2005
5 members from the old Bedevere days and 1 original member found there way to the new Classic DAOC servers. Hoping to get a new start we formed a Hibernia guild with the name Boon and started to level and gear up. We later found another very small guild of like minded players and we began to group up every night in order to run our 8v8 group. Some were along the way we decided to merge and while I was at work one night the merge happen and the name Solars was voted on and I was voted as Co GM along with Zoobie from the other guild. The beginnings were not always easy and lots of people came and went including the last original member but we became a team to be reckoned with. I think it helped that the guild was made up of small groups of real life friends. After Hitting RR10 plus in Hibernia all the classic servers got clustered so we remade the guild in Albion with the name Solars and played there for a while. Then next we moved to Midgard under the name of Sparkle Motion (because we could not use the same name) and quickly rise to the top ranks ones again. Then one day the server population started to fall and fights started to become harder to find. Our main assist found love and quit the game, one of our healers joined the Navy, and the other had a baby. I found a new job and could not stay up so late anymore and on top of that Warhammer Online was coming out soon. I quit a few months before Warhammer and planed to meet up with everyone again in that game.

Warhammer - 2008
We had a hard time getting everyone together and ones we did we had trouble playing together because everyone was at a different level. Ones everyone got max level things got better. The game was fun but I think we all got bored of it within a year. The game was too much of a WoW clone and the PvP system was lacking. Most quit over time and soon I was talked into trying Aion.

Aion – 2009
Aion did not last long at all. I think I got about 3-4 months into the game before I was sick of leveling. A few others joined me from Warhammer but most got sick of the XP grind before we ever got max level.

DAOC – 2010
One again we find ourselves back in DAOC. The game just has something that other don’t. There were only 4-5 of us so we are just did small scaling with steathers.

Times Change – 2011
DAOC has died off agine. It is hard to play a competitive MMO when our members have babys, new jobs, and getting married and all that fun stuff. We have been playing more casual games that we can pick up and go without a lot of time invested. We still like competitive play and I think we have found a nice balance of casual and competitive in a game called League of Legends that Freaks showed us.

by Zoobie

Way back when... Bunni's brother was playing EQ and got into the beta of DAoC (yes, BETA!). The week the game released, he talked Bunni and Zoobie into coming to play (we had never played a MMORPG before). He also brought along several of his EQ guildies... one of which was Freaks. We started on Mid / Palomides and joined a guild called "Trolls-R-Us". A tight group of us ground hard and got ourselves to 50 (2nd group on the server to 50), and went to RvR. The rest of the Trolls-R-Us guild was behind, and we were under extreme pressure to 'help the guild' (aka. powerlevel the rest of the guild up). In frustration we broke off and about 10 of us formed "Conejos con Queso" (bunny's with cheese!). We were a powerhouse 8-man in the world of stun-guard. We basically mes'd and chain stunned, while we destroyed everything. We slaughtered masses of newbs (this was before the days of any real strategies per se, or the optimized 8-man groups as you know them today). We ran 1 healer who refused to heal (just chain stun / mes) and a shammy that dot'd (and refused to heal, or even to buff... and even worse refused to cast end regen on tanks). So our zerker got about 3 styles in, then just auto-attacked things down while the healer chain AoE stunned them. I played a tall norse RM, and I chain chewed dirt (from over powered stealthers who could 1 shot PA you and not break stealth... and from archers who could crit shot and 1-shot kill me). I hated casters and vowed I would never pay one again.

Bunni's brother got bored of domination and went off to Hib / Galahad. Half of Conejos con Queso went with him, and half of us stayed on Palomides... as we liked RvR, better than the idea of starting the PvE grind over again. Without a real 8-man (and no support classes), many of us resorted to playing stealthers. Basically running around with our massively overpowered shadow-zerkers and killing everything. Except for Freaks, stealthers were never his thing. So he would solo his RM...

Freaks started running with this elitist 8-man called "Eternal Fire" (Insurrection (aka. Bedlam) was the other big 8-man on Mid / Palo). They had what I still view today as one of the best healers I've ever seen. Over time Freaks managed to get the rest of us who were left and running stealthers into their guild. We played with them for quite a while (Zoobie played Shammy, Freaks RM, and Bunni an Aug Healer) and we had a good run (probably #2 8-man on the server). We were one of the first to jump on the Warrior bodyguarding a SM, and grappling, while he PBAoE'd everything down.

When the bluebie invasion of Mord occurred when New Frontiers came out and killed 8v8 (before the island existed), we went there in search of the rumors of 'ultimate 8v8'. We did some 8-man running of the loop, but in general didn't have much success. In that Mord was just too hardcore for many of the players, and they quit (including Bunni)... because it was just too frustrating and childish on Mord. It was also sooo hard to do ML's and get geared up, that few got very well templated. Along with low RR's, we didn't stack up well against the serious 8-mans mord offered with their far superior gear and RR's. As we lost people (many went to WoW), we eroded down to mainly small man (4-mans, etc... ganking around cities). By that time about all the original Eternal Fire guys were gone, in respect for what their 8-man once was... we reformed under a new guild name on Mord called "Rehab", mainly for Freak's love of Angry Angel. Many of us burned out, and we took a break (including myself for about 3 months)

When the Classic servers came out, we decided it was fresh and new... and many of us didn't like what ToA had done to DAoC, with the ML grind and Artifacts. So it was very appealing to have what we viewed as a level playing field. We went to Hib and started leveling up... however, at that point there really wasn't enough of the crew left to run an 8-man. So we started looking for another guild to merge with, and met Quad... and then Zayron's post picks up from there.

When we later went to Mid, this bastard by the name of Flob proved to me that BD's weren't the most gimp class in the game. So I decided to give it a try... little did I expect we would later become the duo cheapness of annoying doom! I remember being teased for having MoC on a BD... until I would PWNZILLA! (BD RR5 + MoC3) and pwn faces, and the VN QQ's would make me giggle. Meanwhile, flob would just pwn them with drunkness and Big Larry.