Old SchoolFollow

The other day I was starting a new character, and while I was regenning after a vicious battle against an army of fire beetles(2 of them) I began to think about some things that have changed in EQ over the last couple years.

I'm not sure I think the PoP expansion really made the game better. Now, I have to explain this. The new zones are wonderful, as are a lot of the new spells. I even like the Plane of Knowledge. The issue I have is with the PoK books. There's no longer any reason to hunt around your starting city. Everyone flocks to PC as soon as they ding 10(sometimes even lower), or they run to the newbie zone they like best. I took the time to venture around some of the old Antonica zones, and realized how truly deserted most of them are. The Oasis is lucky to see more than five people anymore, most of which are just players trying to hunt sand giants. Crap, it used to be considered the best experience from 12-20.

Except for Qeynos, Freeport, and Rivervale I haven't noticed a great deal of traffic in the other cities or newbie areas either. The Feerot had 2 players when I went, one of whom was around level 20 and probably just on his way to buy spells. Neither Gukta or Neriak had many more players there. I stopped by Blackburrow, and saw about 7 people hunting there. Two of them level 30+, probably just camping the courier. Yet another zone that used to be considered uber exp and fun.

I don't really see any solution to these books other than removing them, and making the Plane of Knowledge accessed via some other, not-so-convenient method. The nexus stones aren't as bad in my opinion, just because getting to them is at least semi-dangerous to lower levels.

The shared bank is also something I don't necessarily agree with. I guess Sony decided twinking may as well be a standard aspect of making an alt. Being rejected from a group of level 10's because your equipment doesn't keep up with the dual lamentations of the tanks isn't very enjoyable.

A few weeks ago someone made a post about a Velious and Kunark only server, and I must say one of those would probably hook me into the game for quite a bit longer. I guess I just feel like the game is deteriorating from what it once was, whether that was the intention of Sony or not. Travelling isn't even a thought to most players anymore. It used to take a lot of effort to get that Quellious monk of Freeport to Blackburrow for hunting if you really wanted to bash some gnolls. Now you just click a thing next to the city gates.

I dunno, I'm probably just being whiney, and clinging to the old times, but please feel free to post your thoughts on PoK, shared bank, and anything else that's had a significant impact on EQ, as well as the idea of a Velious and Kunark only server. Flame away.

I have to admit that starting in Kelethin or Felwhite is somehow VERY tempting because the Nexus teleport is so easy to reach and even if you get killed (under lvl. 10)while waiting for the travel you prabably be back there from your bind point without missing the next teleport.

Thats DAMN convenient....

Hmmm... Well there's still a reason to hang out near your starting city, but now it's more of an option then a requirement. If you want to get your newbie armor quests, you're going to have to stick around at least somewhat.

Of course, you could just hunt wherever you wanted and pop back when you wanted to complete a piece, so I suppose that's still a problem. I do agree that it was kind of a natural progression to move slowly outward from your starting city. However, that was not always the best since some starting cities were vastly better then others and people moved anyway. How many people really spent any time hunting in Tox? Nope. The first thing you did with your Erudite character was move then to Qeynos. And honestly, most folks that started in the Qeynos area tended to move to FP by about the 8-10 level range (hunting your way through the Karanas just sucked to be honest. How many DEs stayed in Nektulos for very long? How many Ogres and trolls stayed in their swamps? There were very noticable "better" newbie hunting grounds, and people moved to them. It's just that with the books, it's easier to do it without dying.


I think the decision was made to allow players to play together without having to all start in the same area. I remember running desperately across the continent to get my level 4 wizard over to the commonlands so I could play with my friends and all their new characters (we all started some lowbies at the same time for fun). While it was "exciting", it still took quite a bit of my game time, and it was more fun once I got there. I can see why SOE decided to just make it easier for low level folks to move around.

What I wouldn't be opposed to would be some idea of "keyed" books. Basically, once you've traveled to a book and traveled through it to the PoK, you unlocked that book for that character and he could now use it to travel both ways at any time in the future. That would have been better IMO, but would have required more potentially buggy code in order to implement.

Heh. It would also be a pain. Imagine, you're trying to get a raid going somewhere, but 2 or 3 characters never bothered to travel to that particular book before. It would happen, and it would just be a pain. Again, I think SOE has been trying to put things in the game to lessen the impace that travel times put on the game. EQ is a pretty huge area. They did need something to speed things up. Even with the books, you can still easily spend 15-20 minutes running to some of the more remote areas of the game. Let the lemmings all hunt in the same areas. There are better places to go, and those of us who know where they are are at an advantage. Um... It also lessens the impact of PLing. Back when you had lower level characters spread pretty evenly all over the place, it was very hard to find an out of the way place to PL without potentially taking a camp from another group. Today, those out of the way camps are really only known by more experienced players. Thus, odds are, a brand new player, who's following the standard progression curve, is less likely to run into a PL session then they used to.


Not that idiots don't PL in popular hunting areas anyway, but I really feel that the PL issue has been a lot less of a problem in the last year then it was in previous years. That could just be my perception though...

This is an interesting thread. I too remember the good ol' days when you had to run across the whole fricken world to complete some quests and it took a while to do. Waiting for boats... good times.

I look at those times as fun, but I sure as hell don't miss them. I think PoP is the best thing that could happen to EQ. When I started playing again last Feb, I bought all the expansions. Being able to get where you want in just a few minutes is one of the best things that ever happened to the game.

That's what I'm getting at I guess, other than the zone desertion thing. A lot of travel features in the game are obsolete with the books around. Think about it, after getting PoP when was the last time you took a boat, or even waited on the Nexus? Odds are that it wasn't recently. While adding a lot to the game, I think the PoK books also cancelled out a lot of older features. Almost entirely, in some cases.

Now that I think about it there isn't even a reason to take a boat just to zone into OOT or Erud's anymore. We have translocators that do it in a heartbeat. I remember hunting wisps in Erud's Crossing a few weeks ago. I got swarmed, so I went and told the translocator to take me to Qeynos. I was saved instantly. That would've been a helluva corpse recovery a year ago. =p Bah, whatever. I'm just a creature of habit. In this case, old habits.

Mixed emotions on this one. I started my first character shortly after Beta....and in Tox. Journeys to Kerra Island off the coast of Odus was the highlight and a real challenge...cats seemed to come in packs and hey...what the heck is cc anyways. For me the move to Qeynos at level 8 then the progression through Blackburrow and the Karana's were good times and groups at the bandit camps and those lovely sashes were fun....and lucrative. Now days I feel that I have experienced much of the old world and Kunark so I tend to take my new characters on a much different route. In todays EQ I think it would be difficult for new characters to experience the same feel due to the sheer size of the world of Norrath and the fact that most "newbie" characters are controlled by veteran players with better gear and much more experience with the game. Last character I took through the "old route" found himself alone in West Karana almost all the time. Had a buddy come and single pull bandits for me and made a killin in XP and money. Boat travel for the new player in EQ would probably make there life boring and prove too much of a time sink for most....the world is just too large now. It's a shame but I am afraid that the new player to EQ is going to discover a rapid paced game and find themselves leaving PC or DSP without any real exposure to the full content of EQ. Is very sad to me to hear/read so many people asking or stating that they do not know where Befallen, Unrest, Najena or even Lavastorm is because they went straight from "newbie zones" to the moon. As I said....mixed emotions on this one....good for me today when I start new characters but sad for the new folks.

Be safe all
Seeler

I can relate. I used to play EQ back when Kunark was just released. I started in the oasis and moved on to the birdhouse, lake rathe and shadowpaw. I'm now returning to the game as of 2 days ago and I can't find a newbie group to save my life. I went to freeport and could not find but 1 newbie to group with.
So now I faced with wth do I do next? I can't see how I can solo myself to level 50 or so to find groups without it taking half a year or so. I mean I would like to go through it all again but it looks impossible.
So is there anyway to level faster? not necessarily power leveling....
"Everyone flocks to PC as soon as they ding 10(sometimes even lower),"
What is PC? Is that a place for us newbs to gain levels fast?
Man I hope I didnt waste money on buying evolutions....

Well,i think how nobody hunts in old zones is for the most part true. Although at 42 with my ranger i hunt a lot in older kunark/velious zones. There is sick EXP to some of those old zones and i found that out leveling my monk in dalnir (i think it was dalnir). It had a huge exp bonus and for a monk had some pretty sweet/decent loot considering i sold all his gear and started him the "right way" (read not twinked). About the PoK book though, i think they are a great convenience and i understand how it was very exhilerating going on boats to unknown lands or traveling across west commonlands to befallen but the PoK books made EQ life a lot less stressful. If i hadnt started out with the PoP expansion i prolly would've quit the game (my fault though because i started with a troll shaman. Getting to decent hunting places was hard or almost impossible without PoK and i'm glad i got the PoK books to get me places. I do agree with the level requirement PoK book thing though. I think the PoK book should be limited to level 15+.

so does that mean no hope for newbs like myself?
or is it a good idea to solo to level 10 and move to paudul caverns?
I'm guessing there is some good exp for level 10+ there?

Edited, Thu Feb 5 17:53:05 2004 by amphib

Edited, Thu Feb 5 17:53:48 2004 by amphib

There is hope for new players. If you can get over to Crushbone which is north of Greater Faydark (where Kelethin is) then you can also get very good experience from level 7 up to level 15 or so, especially in a group (although I soloed there a bit, especially if someone was very nice with their buffs). And Unrest, which is 2 zones South of Butcherblock Mountains, also has very good experience and if you are careful you can go there around the time you leave Crushbone (but with a group is best)--that place is always empty now too AFAIK, because it's just a pain to get there, compared to most other zones.

Crushbone and Paludal are great experience, and they're also where my newbie Ranger learned to fight in groups. Paludal especially can get very belligerant, but you can still learn a lot. But there are always alternatives...unfortunately they are mostly solo and not group alternatives until you gain more levels.

Game on,

The Oneiromancer

Once again, I do not think we are necessarily saying that we want it to go back to the way it was or that we do not undersdstand the reasons for the change. This thread was really started as a nostalgic look at how things have changed...or at least that is what most of us are using it for.

I think the game would still be viable if there were not books, however. There are many places to hunt that are empty that could support groups. People did not have any trouble finding groups pre-expansion. In fact, I think it would cause the population to be more dispursed, and that might be a good thing. Rather than new continents, new zones of varying levels could have been scattered throughout the existing geography.

One thing that is not as common is getting a pick up group. When my friends were not on I could always go to places like unrest, lower guk, perma or mistmoore and ask who needs a ...whatever class...and find groups just losing a person or just forming. I remember sitting and waiting on people who were "leaving soon". I do not experience that as much anymore, except in a couple very specific places. Although LDON is all about pick up groups and group recruiting.

But, yes, I remember banking my langseax of the wolves for an executioners axe. I was one more-than-macho barb warrior! Had full set of warrior crafted armor...that pale blue-green stuff. Looked so cool. It is rather mundane compared to today's gear. But does anyone remember how hard it was to get the werewolf claw for the crafted breastplate?

Rather than a level limit, or any kind of official "restriction," perhaps each book could be not-so-safe. What I mean is, when that level 5 ogre warrior takes the Qeynos book, he starts off far away from the guards and in a spot where he can freely circle around the area to do what he needs to do. Would people be so inclined to do that if the book brought you within Gehnus' aggro range? Probably not. =p Just a thought.