You can definitely start in the old home towns with Gold. It is possible that the combination of drop downs to select home town and starting zone (tutorial or home town) could be a little less confusing.
The starting race there is Human, so you could play a Human mage starting in Qeynos. Humans cannot be beastlords. But that really doesn't matter... You can create any type of character and immediately leave the tutorial at level 2. (Find Arias after you've broken out of prison, click on him and say "wish to leave" to enter the Plane of Knowledge.) Then use the Qeynos stone in POK to start playing there.
Oh okay cool. Hopefully I will have some time to play today. I will just stay in tutorial so I can learn more. I will check out other starting zone later on
Yes, that works. Although spending an hour in Gloomingdeep just raiding the barrels and selling off what you loot gives you a nice starting stake (Forlorn Bows sell for a plat) and maybe a few backpacks and small bags. And you can practice your baking skills for free making rat steaks (+5 HP I think). The troll that tells you about hotbars gives a +run speed totem for sitting through his quick tutorial.
I would suggest getting the kobold skull charm before leavnig the tutorial. No monsters to fight for it. And get the Festive Doll and put in your character's range slot. Gives a boost of 15 to a number of stats.
Alright I will definetly get that doll. I will do all of the tutorial so I can get the gear from it and what not.
Yes on use. Any of the Anniversary merchants. Plane of Knowledge or Nexus are probably the easiest to find (See http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/npc.html?id=25435 ). I think there's one in Crescent Reach also. Yther Ore.
The Festive Dolls are found on anniversary merchants in a number of different zones (generally cities throughout Norrath); they are useable year round, but only available for free during the anniversary celebration (the rest of the year you can only obtain them from other players).
FYI: im amazed no one has said this yet, but all classes and races are ALREADY unlocked and have been since before anniversary launched
Unfortunately I got called in to work tonight =( I don't have to leave until 6 my time so hopefully I can get on for like 30 minutes are so just to try and connect with you guys and get you on my friends list.
Beastlord is a great starter character. They can melee which makes it easy to start. They have a cool pet (different race gets different pet - tiger, bear, wolf, scaled wolf and Basilisk). You get your pet at level 8 and with a merc healer (you can get one at the start of the tutorial for 0 money makes you a killing machine). You get loads of useful spells - pet heals, heals, slows, hastes, nukes, dots. Its like having the whole sweet shop to choose from. You also get Melee tomes as well - not particularly useful until higher levels. The tutorial as mentioned is very much improved even after my sort stay of absence. Probably not perfect for the real newbie but a good starting point. Make sure you do the tutorial quests in PoKnowledge. Cant remember the npc name but about 15 quests which you can find in the achievement list and gives you some nice rewards (aug, house etc....). /achieve
Just wanted to shout out, that it's nice to see new players like this giving the game a good chance instead of getting frustrated and heading to a themepark MMO. Hang in there, weirdly enough, this game gets easier towards the end, not harder.
