Gone for about two/three years, should I just restart?

Stephinie

Title says it all, I've been gone for two or three years, decided to come back today on a whim because I was feeling really nostalgic and wanted to play again but I have no idea what's going on. My skills are totally different, the UI is totally different, a good number of Houses are different, etc. I'm pretty much in over my head and a lot of my old friends/contacts are long gone by the looks of it, so I'm considering just ditching an old character in favor of a brand new one and just grab up the 2000 lesson thing and dive back in.

Anyone care to weigh in on things? For reference, I currently have a house and city-less tritrans Sylvan.

Austere

Make a new character. Don't buy anything yet.  Experience the character.  See what you like and don't like.  If you don't like the character, make a new one.  I would hold off on buying a bunch of things until you know for sure what you want. If you make a Sylvan alt, you can refamiliarize yourself and then bring back your main at a later date

Stephinie

Good point, I think that's what I'll do. I'm not real keen on going to Sylvan again. The changes seem neat, just not what I care to play anymore. I'll poke around and see what other changes have been made and pick a new class or two to try out, get immersed into the houses and cities. I used to play a Paladin and a Runewarden eons ago, that might be fun to get back into.

Jacen

That avatar, so metal.

Airtreia

I came back after 13 years of dormancy. I like my character and starting over can be hard but I decided to do the literal opposite of @Austere 's advice and bought a ton of arties and lessons. I joined a new city and so far I have just started to treat the game like something old but new? I have to learn a lot but some things are familiar (like bashing) enough that I have stuff to do and take the learning a small bit at a time

Tael

While Austere's post is more or less right I think, you're going to miss out on a lot of what makes Achaea great if you don't commit somewhat to a character - I'd be really wary of discarding characters too early. While it might be clear that you don't like a given class for instance, you need to get somewhat invested in orgs before you can really know whether you like them or not.

I think there's a big risk when you try out a lot of characters of trying to find the "best" orgs. But, if you don't get invested, you can't really judge them against one another. And, more importantly, putting in the effort to get invested in an org is sure to pay dividends faster than putting in the effort to try out all the different orgs. I think most people who stick with a character even when they're initially hesitant and get invested in the character and the orgs end up being pretty happy with things. Probably happier than the people who are constantly rolling new characters or switching orgs trying to find some mythical "perfect fit".

Be a satisficer, not an optimizer.

Kei

I came back after ten years. Rolled a couple of new characters just so I could look at the changes in peace for a bit, since I had a few valuables and the like that I was still getting used to dealing with again, but otherwise just jumped right back in after a while. Ended up drifting between a few orgs until I found where I mostly fit in these days, but otherwise I just kind of...jumped back in and tried to enjoy it.

There's nothing wrong with ditching your old character, but honestly, no one is really going to bat an eye two months down the line. The only thing you'll "miss out" on is people will assume you know the basics and you'll skip over some of the more basic tasks in whatever org you join (if you join any). Those might be worth doing once, the new newbie intro is pretty great these days, but otherwise you're not missing anything really by sticking around on an old character.

Either way you decide to roll with it, welcome back, and enjoy your stay!

Dairon

I came back after 6 or 7 years of dormancy. It was definitely challenging at first, but like Airtreia said, I tried to relearn things one at a time. Bashing came pretty quickly, but other things took a while for me to get used to. 

I think the best choice I made upon coming back was not joining any organizations until I knew what I wanted to be. I pretty much spent two weeks just bashing and reading help files. Taking it slow and having fun exploring (without any pressure) was extremely enjoyable. When I eventually did join a city, it helped to not feel like a complete idiot, especially when my character was over 270 years old. 

Airtreia

Yeah it took me about two weeks to figure out where I wanted to go. A lot of that was predicated by the fact that @Kiba was enemied to Ashtan and I did not want to join any cities in serious conflicts.

After I joined Cyrene I found a lot of people to hang out with randomly and in the short time I have been there I decided to join the Outriders. Now I have a lot more tasks ahead! I like that, at least, having goals outside of "get to dragon" which has been my overall goal since a decade and a half ago. That and "collect honors lines"

Dochitha

I came back after like 5 years of dormancy too. I created a new character, changed a few classes and understood the changes (wow where is Shallam) and decided I want to go Shaman.

Logged back into old Dochitha and changed class to Shaman. I play my old character, the new way. Dochitha has arties, lessons, credits and gold on him, and he's a dragon. I just cannot afford to start a new character re-doing everything. But...I am playing everything new on an old character! New class, new house (old house is gone), new friends, couple of old friends who are now leading the orgs, new client, new codes, new keybinds, new...you name it.

It's fun!

Stephinie

Been giving it a go on a new character, really enjoying it so far. Progressing decently in getting my feet back under me, the amount of stuff that has changed is throwing me for a loop, though, especially with the re-structuring of a lot of class skills.