I miss old Freeport and the original eastern and western common lands. Whoever decided these classic zones needed to be revamped should be fired. Favorite city(s) still goes to Kelethin with Rivervale being a close second.
Original Freeport. It felt like "home" for me - even though my character was from Felwithe, but I moved to Antonica at L7 or so and Freeport was my anchor until Kunark. A facelift of FP would have been ok, I guess, but replacing it with that hideous sprawling slum just made no sense to me.
I loved Kaladim simply because it's home! I grew up there and it's always somewhere I have happy memories of. However since then the best "foreign" city has to be Katta Castellum simply because of the wonderful architecture.
Kelethin, Rivervale and Felwithe, my hometown is Kelethin and Felwithe was close. Sure I fell out of the trees a lot and died in Kelethin at an earlier level, I'm sure everyone did that was a good class. Once I got accustomed to where things were in that city I can find pretty much anything now and this was back way before SoE decided to have maps in the game, before that I printed a ton of them out and had a binder full of them. Felwithe is easy to get around and probably the easiest city in my opinion. Rivervale was revamped yes, but not so much that it wasn't changed horribly like Freeport.
Original Freeport too but that may be just feelings of nostalgia. But I did like it because it was fairly easy to get everywhere. Revamped Freeport just added a lot of filler to make getting from one place to another more difficult. Maybe this thread should have been Best Loved City and Why and Least Loved City and Why. It wouldn't have been a completely positive thread which is probably part of the intent but it may have give more info on what players are looking for/not looking for in cities.
Original Freeport, mostly North since I was a paladin. It was home. It was where I banked after making a deal in the East Commonlands tunnel. It was where I sold all my loot since I had the best faction with the vendors there. It was where I would tradeskill, making banded armor since the smith was right next to the bank. I went to the Jade Tiger Den when I logged out since, well, it felt appropriate to log out in an inn. I'd pay a damn expansion's worth of money just to have those three zones back on EQ Live.
Cabilis! I remember the travels from the City of the Iksar (Cabilis) to the Old Bazaar at Commonland (Tunnel) and the others great meeting areas in the World of Norrath. Sincerely, Zokaniz 'The Icedragon' <Spirit Council> General (Leader).
Freeport just had so much content! The newbie zone->North Ro or East Commons trash->EC Deathfist camps->NRo Dervish camps->Oasis orc highway/crocs->Highpass->Highkeep progression was as easy as it got back in the day. You could do ~20 levels bound in Freeport, then move to two city zones until the early 30s. And that was important in a time when you had to train with a guildmaster to get new skills. Not having to run halfway across the world to put your first points in Parry or Dual Wield made everything so much simpler. I actually held off playing a Ranger until, like, Luclin came out, just because the only Ranger trainers were far away or dangerous to get to (until Halfling Rangers/Paladins became a thing. But I don't remember when that was).
I have yet to meet anyone who likes the classic zones that have been revamped. Especially for us old timers, it's a huge part of what made eq amazing - no longer there. I would honestly be happy if new content were pushed back a week so these zones could be reverted to their original states - or at least give us the option of porting to the original zones. Old nek forest, old east and wear common lands. Old Freeport. Old misty thicket. Classic content should NOT be touched.
The quality in the zone revamps varies so much. There are some that do a very good job of capturing the spirit of the zone and keeping landmarks. Others are a complete re-imagining of the classic zone. The major thing that all the revamps do is change the scale of the zone and change the sizes of doorways and tunnels to one that is not easily blocked by an afk ogre. While it doesn't make realistic sense for the Mist -> RV tunnel to be 20ft wide, the gameplay benefits are enough for me to overlook those changes. Freeport is the easy target for being terrible, it doesn't fit the feel or layout of the classic zone at all. Lavastorm's revamp is weird, because the general zone is well done and in the spirit of the original. But the Solb entrance and landmarks aren't right. I could completely buy this as another section of Lavastorm, but it fails at being the same place as the old LS. Misty and Commons both feel close to the old ones in some amount. I can navigate them by landmarks still, but it's not quite right. The scale is off and there's other changes that make the zones not quite correct. In Misty the druid ring and the RV zone don't line up the same way, and that throws me off every time. Toxx and Kerra isle, Toxx feels pretty close. Kerra Isle underwent a huge change, though. Not gonna say worse, just that it's different beyond updating objects and graphics. It still feels like a kitty village, there's just more going on and everything is bigger. I did like the PoFear revamp for HoT. It did a good job on the landmarks and zone atmosphere. I might be a bit biased, because a see-invis attacked me at zone in the first time I went in there. So it clearly got the spirit of PoFear down. But out all the time I spent exping in there or doing offering to thule, it always felt like I was in PoFear. Not an exactly copy of the classic zone, but the sickly trees, walls of fire and such always gave me the same impressions that the old one did. Steamfont is another good one. I've spent a lot of time in both versions, and the newer one never felt wrong. All the landmarks are there, even though there's more things in the zone, and again, everything is larger. I feel fine running between my major landmarks of the druid ring, akanon, windmills, lfay and mines. Nothing ever says to me "This isn't Steamfont", even though it takes longer to run between those and there's more things in the zone.
The 16th Anniversary missions should use the Original Freeport skin instanced. Crawl from East Commonlands Gate to North Ro Gate fighting against a Epic 1.0-wielding counter-raid (original race skins). You could include fun memory-invoking checkpoints like a 1-on-1 duel in Arena (against talkative NPC), charmed Griffon, Hill Giant train, or "scammer" at North Freeport Bank (Hail a NPC GM to attack NPC scammer), pick up 100000 copper, collect Rusty Weapons, sell Velium weapons, fish at EFP docks, etc. Reward could be teleport item to Ocean of Tears druid ring.
Most of toxx is fine, I dislike the entrance to Erudin, it no longer has its expensive marble feel, it just looks like they used cheap stone on it now.
Agree. I'm not a fan of revamps at all. /mourn Freeport, oasis etc etc If I had to pick a fave city it be felwithe.
My first and now my oldest toon was an Iksar Monk. Because of that I have always had a fond place in my heart for Cabilis. I also liked the original Freeport. I worked faction for a long time to be able to bank in North Freeport. That was back when the center of trade was in the EC tunnel (Ayonae Ro server). Chardok makes an honorable mention as I was maxed ally faction and was able to run in to bank and buy throwing weapons. Now if we are talking about cities to hunt in. CoM, KC and Seb would be my favorites.
Original Freeport had an amazing layout - much more intuitive than the new design. Kelethin was just a cool concept, I loved it.
One thing I noticed after reading through this thread is the lack of responses calling Crescent Reach a favorite city. I understand the reasoning behind it, but I'm absolutely not a fan of this being the default starting city, and required starting city depending on your subscription level. The classic starting cities just have so much more flavor. In the old days I always had a strong wanderlust, and rarely stayed in one city/area for more than a few levels. My travels took me to so many different cities, all with their own people (both players and NPCs), music, newbie areas, monsters, and quests. I know we'll never again see the days with 30+ players in most cities, and even more in the trading hub zones. Even still, I wish there was some way to get people back into the starting cities. That being said, my favorites are probably Qeynos, Freeport, and Rivervale. Qeynos is one of my favorite leveling areas, with BlackBurrow (and those gnoll fangs!) close by. The area was so full of life, with Lashun Novashine preaching, the Darkpaws assaulting the gates, the conflict between the good and corrupt guards. I also loved the in game bulletin boards inside of the taverns, where you could leave messages or rants for other players to see. Freeport was the trading hub on my server, and always had tons of players hanging out, socializing, auctioning, killing guards, and messing around in the arena. This is where I saw glimpses of what high level players with the coolest armor looked like, and seeing weapons like Soulfire really made you want to reach that level some day. Rivervale will always hold a nostalgic place in my memories due to the fact that my main character is a halfling. I didn't really stick around the city for too long, but I always came back to hang out when passing through the area.
Rivervale As stated earlier I love the Music and the whole Ambiance of the place. I have lived there a long time. I watched as a toon (forgot which class and was over 10-12 years ago) battled the Priest of Discord for like 15-20min. Arrived at another time to see my whole town decimated! I mean EVERY NPC that could be kilt WAS kilt! (was a Dark-Elf)...LOL. It was kinda sad YEP Rivervale it is for me!
