Proposal to include the Hole/The Warrens at launch

My reasons are below
1. The Warrens kind of replaces Kerra Isle, which was removed. To not put in the replacement zone impacts Erudites the most, as they have no xp source past level 10 or so on Odus. The warrens provides good xp through the high teens, a good time to head to the Karana's or Highpass anyway.
Without The Warrens, Erudites will have to save up, buy spells to 15 or so, and then use the boats to go do qeynos hills, blackburrow or Karanas, then go back on the boat to buy spells again later. Not impossible. But an unneeded slowdown that is targeted just at them.
2. The Warrens is a very fun zone, and it has no drops that are really "out of era" in terms of too much power for "Classic" characters.
3. The Hole provides an excellent high-level zone for many groups to xp in. As LGUK and SOLB will be very crowded, with monsters dying within 30 seconds of spawn, giving high level players another avenue to xp/hunt in will reduce the overcrowding and GM interventions requested.

Good idea. I know Erudites are already hard to play and the warrens would help.. are there really good gear drops from those zones? I've never been in the warrens, so I don't know. That's the only thing I'd worry about, is gear thats too good for classic or w/e era before it was added.

They had the Warrens open at launch for TLP 1.0 and I thought it worked great. I was really disappointed it wasn't there for 2.0.

I'd be okay with it probably. Warrens drops are pretty on par with like blackened iron/alloy, but a small handful or stuff has 1-2 stats. The weapons are worse than blackened alloy.

The Hole was in at the start though wasn't it?

As for Warrens - while I don't see any harm in including it - it doesn't really compared to Kerra Isle - which still does exist, it doesn't have a zoneline anymore though, it was combined into Toxxulia. [Similar to how Oasis is still in game, just not as a separate zone file] And the level spread on Kerra is more 12-25ish vs. 5-20ish for Warrens.

(Although since I plan to use Kerra Isle as some of my day 1 XP since it's relatively quiet, maybe I shouldn't promote that it exists... alas my honesty will be my doom...)

Honestly, I really can't remember if The Hole was or not.

Having the Hole there at the start would certainly reduce some of the crowding in Sol.B and lower Guk
I don't remember the drops being anything great maybe they could put master yael back in with earthshaker!

If they put Earthshaker back in, I would be a warrior again hands down.

I have one on my old SK, great fun in the day

I really like this idea. I loved questing in Stonebrunt Mountains, the early haste item was kinda nice to get if you couldn't afford the FBSS or if the wait list was to long. Though not as much haste it was a good item to nab cause it had stats also Soulfiend Lance and the Wakizashi of the Frozen Skies

The hole opened sometime after Kunark. Werent there multiple versions? Or add-ons to it later on?

https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/index.php?threads/the-hole-to-open-with-kunark.186523/

There has only been one version of the hole if you are talking about live vs TLP. Paineel launched with Original EQ on live. The only differences in The Hole is Yael is gone maybe a handful of other mobs but the loots pretty much the same it seems. Otherwise I think its mostly original, maybe some mobs are different.

Best way to see how the games changed is to check out http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/npclist.html?zone=273&page=4
It's the mob graveyard so you can see when certain zones were revamped.

There was a hole revamp, and there are a good dozen mobs from the original hole listed in the graveyard. Other mobs, especially the stuff in the middle and at the bottom end, had their level adjusted iirc.

From the August 26, 2003 patch notes:

I'd rather not see the hole in at launch. It would be nice to have an additional place to xp, but... The amount of plat that can be generated in the castle area would make a huge impact on the classic economy, and not all classes would be able to benefit--with the ghosts' high spell resists, most casters can't land anything on them at all at level 50. The mages and monks would have no problem farming it though.

Can just adjust the aberrant PP drops too though.

Probably not without impacting live.

Removing defiant didn't - I don't see why similar couldn't be done - but just theorycrafting.

They tied the defiant items themselves to SoF etc. A lot of items are like that -- tradeskill items for instance. They have a database entry for each item with what expansion it can begin dropping.

For the situation in the hole, the cash loots are diamonds, blue diamonds, sapphire necklaces, etc. Stuff that can and should drop elsewhere in classic. It just drops at a much higher rate in that section of the hole. You wouldn't want to just tie diamonds and blue diamonds to Kunark. And afaik they don't have the ability to modify individual mobs' loot tables based on expansion progression. Who knows, maybe that's something they could add, but I doubt it given the personnel constraints.

Aren't those tied to Velious? For some reason I'm thinking that jewelcraft for those is tied to Velious at least.

Ah, most sensible thing would be to set them to despawn probably then until Kunark if that's a concern.

I never saw them drop anything notable in cash when I've had to farm them doing SK and Pally epics though. Always made more selling the occasional Loam Robe from the stuff up top.