I stopped playing AOC in 2009, after logging in many hours, and getting 3 characters to level 80.
Last time I seriously played was right before the combat/stat revamp. Now, I did peek in for a bit afterwards, but was so overwhelmed by how different everything was, I realized that I would have to put in a lot of time, and research, into AA's, factions, new gear, new raids, so much stuff for my old 80's to have to do just to be relevant and not get stomped out of existence trying to do some of these new things on my own! I was just clicking things to see what they were in the feat tree, and didn't even realize I was adding the mass of points sitting there, waiting for me, thats how confused I was...
I've seen many posts on here regarding returning players, searched through the forums, and haven't seen much evidence of players in my position. I'm guessing that I will have to start all over again, and scramble my way back to 80 on a fresh character, just to find out what the hell I'm supposed to do, but that seems daunting, and tedious to me.
My barbarian was my main, and he was a dps raid killing machine. Managed to get most of my T1 gear, and was lucky enough to even get a few T2 pieces when my guild started doing the freshly introduced wings in kesh... oh nostalgia! Now, it seems that all that stuff is junk, that will hardly get me by in newer zones, and my dual wielding meat grinder, is no longer valid.
I guess after all this long windedness, I do actually have a question, and I humbly ask; what do I do now? Have I been gone too long? Is there any hope to relearn the game/earn better gear, for someone who was hard-core into it, and can only now return as a casual, at best?
Where can I get a good resource on how different things are, compared to how they were?
I have an 80 barbarian, an 80 assassin, and an 80 necromancer. Are they lost to me?