Just starting to play and wondering what's the difference between Solo Timeline and The Golden Path. Will mostly do solo play but may consider an RP guild. No big interest in raids or group stuff. Long time GW player and an original D&D paper, pencil and die player from way back when, when Gary Gygax started all this. So back to the original question: are they related, can you do both, one better than the other for solo play, different paths to the same end?
The Golden Path would be like a subset of the solo timeline. The solo timeline from EQ2wiki shows you all the options as you level. You would have to shift a portion of your exp gain to AA in order to complete all the zones in the solo timeline while still at a level to give experience. The Golden Path was created as a way to streamline leveling for new players who may not want to look around and find everything there is to do. It will take you through one zone per level tier (Approx every 10 levels, like 1-9, 10-19 and so on). There are plenty of quests if you do all the questlines in the Golden Path zones to level you up to level 90, and the gear you receive from them will be all you need to continue along the path. But without stopping along the way to explore other areas and setting your experience bar to shunt experience to AA you will wind up at level 90 with a large shortage of the 280 AA required to be able to level past 90. Two schools of thought are get to 90 and then chronomentor down to lower levels to do content you bypassed, or to stop while leveling and gradually gain the AA as you level (Just over 3/level to have 280 by level 90). The mentoring gives you the advantage of being overpowered when going back, so it's a good way to do all the group content solo
Thanks Torri. Solo Timeline it is then. I try for completeness and like to find everything. Leveling is less important. May be a remnant of the old paper, pencil days when the DM was tough and leveling actually meant you'd accomplished something difficult and knew all about how to play your character thoroughly.
I do it that way as well. It's not the current conventional wisdom, but it's just the way I prefer to do things. I'd suggest doing the Golden Path zones, then moving the exp slider to AA and then you can check out other zones in the same level range. For example, Butcherblock is the zone for 20-30ish on the Golden Path. Once finishing there and being somewhere between 28-30 or so you can set the slider to AA and go check out places like Thundering Steppes and Nektulos Forest. All gear has been revamped a couple of times, but I think that the Golden Path gives better and more complete rewards as you level. Good luck as you get started, welcome to Norrath!
Aside from what was mentioned here, I thought I'd mention a part of the exploration process I really love in EQ2: books. You can find a few in the major city's Mage tower's, but many are rare drops that you will stumble across as you delve into the depths. Each one offers 10 pages of story and lore in a quest format. Generally, they tell a deeper story of where you are adventuring, giving meaning to locations, creatures, and even architecture. Recently I was exploring a dungeon and ended up staying inside for 4 days as I kept finding book after book. So far, from that one dungeon, I've found 6 rare book drops that have given me an amazing amount of lore that I hadn't known about before. I started off with P&P D&D as well, and I think that influenced me to be the explorer that I am. I would suggest grabbing some of the books in the 14-25 level range from a Mage tower (The Murkies, the Tale of Rocco Borisano, the Architecture of the Vermin's Snye, and others) and spend some time in the sewers underneath Qeynos and Freeport. Tons of lore, lots of quests that you can find by clicking on odd things, and it's generally just a very cool place to poke around in to explore. It's off the beaten path. Welcome to the game! Take your time and savour the adventures.
What I normally do is once I can gain AA xp, I look at what I want to do with the class and how much AA I need to get started. Like for a melee priest, I would need around 25 AAs to convert my spells to melee attacks. I level to 12 for the rare armor then go full AA and do all the newbie zones until I get the AAs I want. After that I pretty much go 50/50 except during holiday events, where I go full AA.
I AM NOT ALONE!!! As an old DM from the GG days when we only had the 3 paperbooks (And later Blackmoore) it's nice to know some of us still love this stuff and don't think power leveling to 90+ is the way to go. It's the strange and wonderful lore that adds meaning to taking out some nasty, Not just the random collection of levels and cash.
When the AD&D books came out it was a whole new world. I liked to run a cleric in those days and if I remember right, clerics leveled slower than tanks. I think I spent several weeks to gain a level. And killed a lot. But even back then some players didn't like the new & improved AD&D rules and stuck with the original rule books.
My first "alt-ego" was a dwarf with and ax. He only made it to level 5 but it took a month to do that playing two nights a week. You were lucky if you got one item to add to your equipment and the only thing the merchants sold was arrows and food.
No you are not. It isnt wrong to powerlevel though. I d go to 70 or even 90-92 just for the quested armor and wepaons. Those enable you to mentor down and enjoy the full game including the heroic and epic questlines or heritage quests. Nothing can keep you from finishing any quests if you are solo. Best immersion ever if you are strong enough to follow the soryarcs whenever it pleases you.
