How annoying is it to be a Dark Elf Mage?
 

So I've decided to give Mage a shot and see how it goes. I'm a bit undecided on the race though

I think Dark Elf look the coolest, so I am leaning towards that. However, the biggest turn off from it is them being an evil / kos race.

So I wanted to ask you Dark Elf Mages, how annoying is it?
Are there many random NPCs that are KOS to you when traveling around?
Are traders in zones not willing to sell to you because of your dark skin?
How limited are your places to bank?
How much more difficult does it make being a solo Mage, if youre a Dark Elf?

Dark Elf Magicians can choose Agnostic, so the issue with being Evil/KoS isn't that big a deal. You can walk into most parts of Freeport for example.

not annoying just kill everyone

Even being Agnostic though, won't vendors ignore you for being a Dark Elf? Like for example, if I am in NK killing guards; I can't sell them to the Gypsy camp if I a Dark Elf, right? Or is that incorrect?

Also, I do plan on soloing like 90% of the time, because I usually play in off peak hours. I'll probably duo or small group a bit here or there when available, but for the majority of the time, I'll be soloing. Also, I can usually only play 2 hours or so a night, so I likely won't be doing a whole lot of dungeons either. So I'd imagine guards will be a pretty common thing for me to level up on throughout the levels.

Benefit to being DE is the ability to hide plus you can always change your appearance by doing a portion of a quest which yields halfling illusion.

My 2c on it

I have a dark elf wizard who’s 51. It can be annoying at times, but frankly being evil is very freeing. Yes you will run into merchants who are dubious and won’t sell to you, it that happens on every race. Frankly it’s not bad, there are merchants that will sell to you within a zone or two of most xp spots. Make sure to have a few cloudy potions handy fit invis (10p in most cities off a merchant) and you’re golden.

Pro tip, you can hide to turn in quest that require indifferent. If the mob is kos you just need a wall or something where they won’t aggro. Hand them the goods, the. Hide and check the con until hide succeeds, then turn in your quest and profit.

Dark elf look and feel very cool. Plus that night vision is no joke. My 2cp at least, it’s totally worth it.

As stated, there are very few places you really have to watch out for as an agnostic DE Mage. There's a cleric in EC huts near Freeport that will wreck you (remembering now that I need to pay her a visit...), the Dorf hanging out at the docks in BBM (already paid her a visit...), 1 or 2 NPCs that hang out at druid rings (not the druids, but their friends), and so on, but you really have most of the world available to you.

Honestly, the most annoying thing is needing someone to buy your level 16 and 20 pets for you in OOT because the vendor won't sell to you. Neriak literally has everything else you would ever need as a mage.

A Dark Elf magician can do the Janam + Rebby quests about 18 times total to be able to buy / sell / bank in freeport. If you are Agnostic, you can walk right into North Freeport without invis and the guards will grumble but leave you alone. In Faydwer, you have Invis at level 8 to use both elf banks in the area and you have the Butcherblock + Steamfont druid ring vendors to buy / sell to, so that takes care of that.

Honestly, because the class has Invis on their spell list it opens up most of the world for travel, and Agnostic gives you a great starting place to do faction work for a location you really feel you need. I'd say go for it, because you get Hide as a racial for extended breaks and they look amazing. Others will scream that Gnomes are superior for door peeping and engineering, and honest, they might not be wrong.

What is good about Engineering? As far as I know, it was just to sell the under water breathing masks, right? Or are there more useful things than that?

Stalking probes are handy, especially to FDers.