Great question. Worthy post for sure. So many variables and unknowns here so I'll just give my 2 cents as a 20 year vet player here. Start barbarian for the everfrost up to level 10 game. Make your way to crush bone for up to about 21 Then hit everfrost again and farm mammoths to 27. From here it's close between South karana and valley of king xorbb but I'd go south karana to about 34. From here it's all about hill giants baby. Group up and farm rathe mtn hill giant hill til about 44. At this point you'll have to do lguk or nagafens lair to hit 50. Both are good but more camps in lguk. God speed tlp player
Really it depends on the type of player you are. The problem with the 'on rails' levelling zone is everyone does them. It's not so bad now with picks, but often you find with the 'popular' zones there's more players in the zone than actual mobs. If you're the type of person that goes /lfg on and shouts in general for a group, then absolutely all you'll ever get is the 'on-rails' levelling path. However there's lots of great content out there and if you're the type of player who isn't afraid of making a group then go exploring some of the less trodden paths. Befallen, najena, permafrost, runnyeye, upper guk, sol a, paw, kerra isle, mistmoore, kedge just to name a few. sure some of them see light traffic, but they're never the mosh pit the likes of unrest. Of course as you reach closer to 50, you're kind of forcibly funneled to do solb, the hole, lower-guk or permafrost, but by that point, and no aa's you're better actually just going and camping the gear your after. i would recommend avoiding hill giants like the plague unless you have a high dps group capbable of beating the kronoscumlords to the kill... but you'll be competing with a plethora of bots and cheat programs. better to go have fun instead. take a look at the zone level chart on Allakhazam, lots of great ideas for places to go. https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/zlvlchart.html
So unless you want to be a Barbarian i would STRONGLY advise not starting anywhere near there. Honestly i think that his advice is terrible. I have been in static launch groups for almost every TLP since Ragefire. If you want one the absolute fastest routes to 30+ my route will get you that. 1-10 Start FP or any city next to FP. You fight in Nro and clear all the trash till about 10. You then kill the UD ruins in Nro till 12-14. (Depends on group make up really) 12+ Then move to Sro and kill orcs on the beach till 16-18. The reason why IMO these are the best are the zones were revamped and the mobs spawn almost INSTANTLY. So it does not matter how many groups are next to you. There is always something to kill. 18+ You can do UR and try for Fireplace (Hard to do at 18). Or you can go to Sol A. You can also do Uppfer Guk. All are viable options. With my personal choice being Sol A or Upper Guk. UR just can get to busy and unless you get the camp. exp can crawl. 25+ You have Lavastorm basilisks and swirl storms near Sol B (endless spawns). Good for 1 group maybe 2, You can start heading to Lower Guk. Or keep killing in Sol A till 30+ 30+ Lguk is the best 40+ Sol B or Lguk 45+ Goblins in OOT or The Hole when it opens. With Sol B and Lguk being last resort. This path gets you to max level the fastest. Its the path I use with my friends/static group every TLP we play.
It's gonna depend on where you start. I tend to solo/duo often with a few friends but the route I do has taken me about a 2-4 days of leveling but I don't grind that hard anymore so the paths still hold up pretty well. EXP/HR needs to account for mob density and player density. Most places listed are so overly packed with players and box armies that you'll be cycling a bunch of /picks to find good xp and that's time wasted already. Least amount of travel is key too. Anyway my path is usually as follows. 1-20+ Everfrost/Qeynos Catacombs and Blackburrow or Kerra Isle. Nektulos Forest / Lavastorm (There are some higher level mobs here that can probably push you to 20-30+ ish) 20-30 The Karanas (better for kiters imo but EK spiders are pretty money for xp) High Pass Hold and High Keep are my absolute favorites. Lake Rathe is okay, I like the gnolls/undead and goblins tough to find though without tracking. Permafrost and Runneye are some solid options. NOTE: I forgot what level range it was but if we get Cazic Thule 1.0 thats a pretty good place to go as well. 30-40 It gets tricky from here. Kithicor Forest/Oasis (undead/specs) Splitpaw and Lavastorm, OOT. 40-50 If it's unlocked I pretty much hunker down in The Hole. Otherwise you kind of get forced into LGuk, OOT, and Sol B. The Warrens and Stonebrunt are some good low level spots downside is they don't seem to show up until Velious which is really kind of dumb. But that's just me.
1-10 steamfront mountains best spot easy. From there you're not far from unrest OR crush bone, then guk, sol, hole
I've always loved Nektulos Forest for the first few levels because you can kill Halflings there & gain faction with the Dark Elves doing so.
The stanard TLP route is as ez as starting 1 2 3. Your starting era then: 1 10-29 Unrest 2 30-44 Lguk 3 45-50 Hole If you want to do the whole 1-65 cycle you can add 2 more zones. 4. Chardok 51-60 5. PoV 61-65 Tada all done
I highly recommend xping in splitpaw in your mid 20's-30's. If you haven't leveled there you haven't experienced classic everquest.
Its one of my favorite places honestly. Paw 2.0 makes my eyes bleed. I wish they would just revert it and move those mobs to anywhere else.
