Most underused zones/quests

TLR: we are going to be doing a cross-Norrath adventure of all of the underused zones and quests that seem to be ignored. I want to know what zones you guys think are under used for each level range, we are starting new characters tomorrow night at 8pm EST you can watch along at twitch.tv/coachbrown1 also feel free to join along in game we will be on Coirnav.
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So me and a friend have been longtime fans of EQ, we both played as early as 1999/2000 and have been dabbling in progression servers over the past few years. I have a problem with progression servers because, to me, they should be a huge nostalgia trip and an opportunity to go back and experience content that you may have skipped in the past because your characters never got to really experience them. I.E. My characters were always Faydwer Races (Dwarf, Wood Elf, and Gnome) so I basically had the same leveling experience until about lvl 25ish. Newbie area, crushbone, Unrest, Kunark zones, and it diverged from there. I know this was also a very common experience for people. So I was excited to get back into progression servers and be able to group with people in different zones that I never really got to experience.

Questing was also my favorite part of the original game, struggling for weeks to find everything I needed for ivy etched armor was a ton of fun and really incentivized exploring out of the way zones and even smaller lesser known areas of zones, like minotaur caves in Steamfont and seemingly pointless islands in OOT. Questing really creates a checklist of things to do and places to explore.

Everquest Lore was also super intriguing to me 19 years ago, the fact that we are literally just regular adventurers and not one of a million chosen ones that will save the world is awesome to me because they can tell so many stories within the game through NPCs that most people never even take the time to really appreciate and the background for each zone that just goes ignored as you autorun through it. I have ran multiple D&D games set in the world of Norrath and borrowed several elements from EQ lore so I've done a bit of research on it before, so I have done a bit of in depth research on the lore of everquest but I'd love to hear whatever tidbits of information you guys have to share during the stream.

You can imagine my disappointment to find that the same zones that I've already been through 100 times were the popular zones in the progession servers so far.
So I've convinced my buddy to start brand new characters and go for a completely natural leveling and adventuring experience. We also decided to stream our gameplay at twitch.tv/coachbrown1 and see if other people are also interested in attempting to create a brand new experience in a almost 20 year old game.

During our streams we want the following things:
- Exploration
- Questing
- Lore understanding (i.e. why are there dark elves in Mistmoore so close to high elves and wood elves?)
- I'm sure plenty of reminiscing about the good ole days.

What we need from you:
- zones, areas, quests, that you think seem like really cool ideas that never get attention
- participants: we are going to be doing this live on the internet and would love for you to join us with brand new characters. We will be creating a guild and will send more information out once that's done
- Chatters: come hang out on twitch and help guide us through the brand new eq world.

See you monday 7/23 at 8pm EST at twitch.tv/coachbrown1

Minotaur caves in LFay? I know LFay really well and I know no minotaur caves.

Edited sorry, I meant to say steamfont. Brainfart

http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/quest.html?quest=3215
Favorite isntanced zone in the game. You go inside Shadowspine. Explains how some of the lore between Venril Sathir, DoN and DoDH connects.

If you can get your buddy to stick with it, there are ways to "widen the path". Here's a few I have done, or know people that did:

-A Troll that only played out of Troll-aligned areas in original world. (The Grobb thing happened to this guy so he lived out of Neriak). Pretty sure the guy got into the 50s soloing and only killing Frogloks & Halflings once he got past the level 1-20 newbie stuff. Without doing lots of faction work, questing was limited. This guy dabbled on this for years, but he played other characters differently.

-Play a non-Iksar necromancer (or any Iksar class... necromancer adds a layer because the bone chip quest doens't raise their faction) but play to be aligned and then live out of Cabilis. You will be killing a lot of goblins, bandits and Sarnaks to really complete this (and handing in a lot of bone chips).

-I soloed an Iksar beastlord only in Kunark and Luclin zones and only using plat & drops I earned. Took so long to get something in some slots and even then gear was bad. Way more challenging and kind of fun until level 51 when I got bored of it.

-Once a progression server is into PoP, pretty much all the home-city lower level quests are active. PoP also has the museum collection quests, some of which are nearly impossible to complete (Look up "Fine Antique...). Depending on race/class the newbie armor can be hard to do just because a drop is rare. Some classes have special quests out of home cities (several races of cleric have clicky neck items, etc.). Some classes have Temple of Sol Ro which beyond original era is mostly for flavor.

If you want to take time hunting something that is rarely done, do the full set of Twilight Sea armor. Way more work went into programming this quest line than the utility the playerbase gets out of it (not good enough for the level required to do it vs. what you can get in baz).

Many players have never done the actual lore-leveling paths originally intended. Dark elf mages are supposed to kill in Lavastorm, Najena, the Sols... Barbarians are supposed to chase a lot of stuff in the nooks of Everfrost.

My brother and I once made a checklist of each zone we felt we had beaten and why. This meant getting some key named and/or quest drops and feeling like there was nothing left to kill there. It was best when XP was involved (wiping out Blackburrow as a level 40 isn't the same). It caused us to duo zones way earlier than we should have, but there was accomplishment in beating places like Tower of Frozen Shadow this way. Sometimes we'd have to go get a few levels and then try a zone again.

I really like the idea of a checklist to beating the zone, something along the lines of Learn the lore, what are the important quests and then kill all the major named mobs. It will be difficult to accomplish this with 1 char but I wouldn't mind making alts for all the differnt newbie zones/dungeons.

Here's one for you:

What the hell was Elgnub gonna do with Baby Joseph Sayer? Do you save the baby, or leave him to rot on Elgnubs corpse? That leads into Splitpaw hunting down the parts to finish Gnollslayer, my favorite 25-40ish leveling spot. Can't beat a 25/40 1hs for leveling at 25 in Classic era.

Good question....it's added to the list

Ok we are debating on which TLP to start on. We are looking for a more classic feel and a population that will be interested in playing with us since we will obviously need to group for a lot of this stuff. so agnarr or coirnav?

agnarr will never pass PoP but the low level game is lacking players now.
coirnav master server.

I'd go with Coirnav, it only has up to Kunark unlocked and a very active low/mid leveling scene. I would really suggest one of you play a porting class though, it will be months before even the Luclin gates are available. Also if you're going to organize groups for out of the way dungeons its a huge help to be able to port people around.

Enchanter/druid is incredibly strong and fun, and very good for dungeon crawling. That said, play whatever classes you guys are most interested in because playing something you don't like with the slow xp will burn you out fast.

I did something like this with my friend back on Phinny - we just made a duo and tried to get up to lvl 60 using a handful of rules:

1. We only fought in under-utilized zones. We defined zones as under-utilized as ones that only had a single instance up most of the time. Obviously, this excludes newbie zones at server start.
2. We also steered clear of the "insta-respawn" mobs that have become really popular with the min/max crowd [i.e. North Ro orcs - Lavastorm spiders - OOT sharks].
3. We didn't purchase any gear from other players - everything we had was self-acquired. Extra plat went towards ports and eventually a couple kronos.
4. Non-Faydwer races - we were the same as you, originally, we were always (good) elves or dwarves.
5. At least 1 decade of leveling (10 levels) PER REGION - Faydwer / Antonica / Odus / Kunark
6. Complete at least (1) relevant quest every (5) levels, per character.
7. Complete all relevant armor quests (we did my ranger's Ivy etched)

Obviously there were some issues that arose - most notably - leveling from 50-60 is nigh impossible without the kunark dungeons - all of which are pretty well packed. We only ever made it to 53, in fact - so you might want to ditch Rule #1 once you hit 50, because you really don't have any other options.

It's quite fun to do and takes loads of time - but I think most importantly it gives you an understanding of why certain zones are more utilized than others.

All-in-all it was entertaining, and I just might join up in your voyage for another round. There truly is a huge world of Norrath that goes mostly unexplored, and it's a damn shame.

So my buddy had a bit of a scheduling snaffu (sp?)so he wont be available until wednesday night. But I may get through character creation and grind a few levels out tonight by my self so we can start exploring a bit more on wednesday. Check back for more info or follow my twitter @coach_brown1

I like a lot of these rules...I am leaning towards doing a "How did the developers originally expect you to level without TP" run. Start a barb, HE, Halfling, or Erudite and try to explore and level up only using zones that we can get to without any assistance. that way we cant even use a bazaar or trade with other players without advancing by ourselves to those locations. Obviously if we make an erudite wizard we'd be allowed to TP to location they have available at the given level etc. Obviously we won't be allowed to just run to these zones either...looking for a natural progression using what the game gives us as if we didnt know any of the work arounds that we have learned in 20 years.

Exactly - we tried to play the game "as we thought it was intended". Obviously, you can't unlearn certain tricks, but we tried to minimize the relatively well-known exploits and easy routes (insta-spawn mobs, high DPS charm pets, red wine quest, easy camps, etc.).

Trying to progress naturally from your home city is a nice little extra challenge.

I like the *idea* of making an Erudite Wizard and doing this progression, but, unfortunately, knowing how incredibly weak wizards are until roughly SoL - it's tough to pull the trigger.

Necro has always been my favorite class - but I already maxed out (2) of them on different TLPs and raided thru Luclin on both. IDK.

If you make a wizard, make sure you get the Staff of the Wheel and Staff of Elemental Flux. Nothing like insta-clicky removing any mob damage shield with it.

SolC or caverns of exile is probably the most underused zone in EQ existence. Though I am curious if it's even on some progression servers.

You mean staff of temperate flux? I believe the other one is way down the line.

I had no idea though that the Lower Element clicky removed damage shields

Sebilis monster mission where you get to play as dragons

Yeah, temperate flux, the upgrade in LoY or LDoN (I forget) is the Staff of Elemental Flux.

Maybe I'm wrong and it wasn't until some other expansion? I'm gonna go check tonight and see. It won't be hard to do the Sol Ro quest again for one if it's borked.