Avoid Old Zones

To the OP
If you are good, start in Halas. If you are evil, Timorous Deep or Darklight Woods.
Complete those zones and move to Butcherblock Mountains.
From Butherblock head to Steamfont.
Steamfont to Everfrost.
Everfrost to Lavastorm.
Lavastorm to Sinking Sands or Tenebrous Tangle and Kingdom of Sky.
Kingdom of Sky to Kunark, Kunark to Sentinel's Fate.
Everfrost and Lavastorm are totally revamped. I heard a Thundering Steppes revamp was in the works. I'm sure eventually all of the old zones will be hit with a revamp.

Also, as you level, make use of the Chonomancers to revisit older heroic dungeons you might have missed. If you can actually get a group or someone to mentor you, the old heroic dungeons are still the best exp at level.

GrunEQ wrote:

hmmmmm those lizzies have always been around there starting from the kik beetles on up to the ghosts & zombies of the Caltorsis Ruins.
You can still harvest there as adventure 1 - just watch the pathing. One thing I've noticed is you may think there are many more MOBs as the zone isn't heavily run through by groups anymore which tend to keep the population down a bit.

shaunfletcher wrote:

1. I agree - at best, one of the NPCs near N or S gates should at least direct you to that NPC on the hill.
2. Revyl Kylar rescue ain't broken. My level 19 character completed it solo. Took a bit of finesse and strat as well as execution but I did it smartly and returned him to his father for quest completion. I think the quest is marked at level 20.
3. & 5. At level 20 you can begin your first complete (except for helm) armor quest. Perhaps SoE will upgrade the first bits of armor in T-1 & T-2 which aren't really sets but parts of sets as dropped by random MoBs. SoE hasn't revamped ANT/CL yet nor upgrade the drops - this also includes the villages, Cave, Blackburrow, Peat Bog, SH, Graveyard, Down Under et al; Edgewater et al, Wailing Caves, FG, Ruins, Sprawl, Sunken City, etc.

Alvane@Unrest wrote:

2. He is broken at random, sometime he works sometime he doesn't. I do the Ant questline on all my alts and its a 50/50 chance the quest doesn't work the first time. (ie. even after the gnolls are dead he wont talk to you or follow you)
3. I think the point wasn't the lvl 20 armour quests, it was the fact the new areas give you from 1 to 20 two complete sets of armour for your class. If you started on the Isle or moved to Q/FP at low lvl then all the armour between 1 and 20 is random and not in anyway a set, until you get to that lvl 20 class set.
From the new player point of view it would be nice if Ant gave the same kind of complete set that the second half of Halas and TD gave, a set from 10 to 20.

Well, my quest log is still full - I have the vast majority of my quests, even greyed out ones, still there as I get tired of one area or one zone, getting tired of repeating things over and over again, and then put it off till later. So yes, I will have more AAs when I get the gumption to go back and finish everything in my quest log.

But no, I refuse to visit all the 1-20 areas on the same character, grinding through content there, so that I can have an easier time of level-appropriate content. I'm not interested in end game raiding so once I hit level cap its no biggy .
To me that's a broken game, not an "answer" to the problem in old zones.

Aye this is my biggest issue, wether I've even outleveled the place or not and they are all grey mobs. Running back and forth over the same area, across huge swaths of zone, is boring regardless of the game. I know running around TS I'm crossing through the same heroic groups over and over again as there is no quicker path to get to certain places (that I'm sent repeatedly back to- lol).

Oh aye, I do the same thing. First thing in any area I pick up everyhting possible and then see what I can do together; however, since most are quest chains, its the chains themselves in step 1, 2, 3, 14, 15th..sending you back tot he exact same area, to grind through teh same line of mobs, to get to the successively higher mobs (you know from normal to the named heroics in back) that get me frustrated - taking a break - and having to wait 5 months to go back and finish grey quest simply because the thought of "running that gauntlet again for the 12th time" make sme want to hurl chunks .

Oh yes, I know. But there's only so much I'm wiling to put myself through - lol. To me level appropriate should mean just that :/. And yes, I'm melee spec! Forum junkie here I read - so I know!
Thanks for the advice, but like I said my main overall point wasn't so much that I was dying alot (I rarely do, but I"m very careful lol); but just the overall frustration of the whole areas taken together and the impression from playing.

edit: dang, sorry - didn't realize the forums don't use the standard quote methods lol. DOH!

Alvane@Unrest wrote:

Believe me, after almost 6 years and working on my 3rd group of crafters, I have been VERY familiar with this area, and there were NEVER this many lizards. I was away for a few months, and it has changed.

GrunEQ wrote:

The lizards are used for a couple of Far Seas quests and maybe a city writ (it's been a while... my memory is fuzzy). I'd expect that if fewer people are doing those quests then there might be a population explosion over Ye Olde Dayes.

The lizards around there share a spawn with the hawks and snakes - both of which are non-agro - so if you get a situation with a lizard heavy distribution, lots of agro. Found that out when a recent event required lizards and there were none - kill the hawks and snakes and they would pop.

In the old world areas it is very common that one species spawns another. Apparently you hit it at the time where there are less groups/peeps running through to kill things - lessing the population of the lizzies and increasing population of the other. And yes, they are used for quests and writs. Kill one type lizzies and you'll get more hawks. Kill another type you'll get snakes. And some snakes are PHs for other type snakes!
Same with things with various caltorsis groups both zombies and ghosts. It also occurs between the various types of gnolls, particularly the darkpaw population. It's the same with the CL population, too. And I'm sure others - that escape me att. Well, you get the idea.
And I've been playing for just about 5 years and have taken 7 crafters and adventurers through the old world zones.

Alvane@Unrest wrote:

Hmmm ok this makes more sense to me. I have never in all these years seen so many aggro lizards in that area. If they weren't red to my little lowbies doing the Harvest Cloak quest I would lower their population.

Alvane@Unrest wrote:

Fantastic example of how community is everything, and EQII beats them all. I'll search for "Static Guild" on Crushbone. As for old zones, I recently finished the RoK starting area and moved to the CL to build up AA. I have to say, it's a lot better than I remember. There are still some hiccups and confusing aspects for sure, but the overall experience is definitely fun.

We all know quests were design to be time sink to keep player occupied, but some of the quest were made so bluntly with that intend you feel like here we go again or jokes on me type of feeling, for example there's one quest in PoA where the quest giver ask to you fetch something from the edge of the map then when you went back he send you out again to the near location to find the other parts he wants, com'on!!!!!

Emblazer wrote:

If anything, this post damns the new style area more than the old. New areas send you back and forth, over and over, from a hub - while the old areas had lower intensity hubs but scattered clickable's that offered quests, mobs that dropped random quest starters and scattered solo quest offering npc's (fallen blackguard for eg) etc - that you could come accross while exploring. This clearly gives the points to the old areas. There is no reason to explore the new areas - anything that is remotely necessary will be spoon fed to you as long as you follow the golden path - is that golden snow in Halas?
It gets even worse - if you don't follow the quest series, you will not be offered some of the later stages - so even if you come in at eg lvl 15, you will be forced to do the sub lvl 10 quests just to participate in the later ones.

I think some of the biggest issues are quests that stack upon quests (ie, quests that have other quests as preresiquites) especially quests like the solo mark quest in SF... have to do like 150 SF quests just to be able to start the quest (at 90 no less) and the fact that most of the old world (pre SF) gear is still tuned to the old stat system where bard/crusader gear has int, healer gear has str, etc making quest rewards all but worthless in today's game.
But really the biggest issue is the dang near requirement (unless you have access to powerleveling toons or an alt account with a PLer) to do the same quests over and over and over again just to play a different class. I'm currently working on my 4th toon (a healer) and I'm 67 and absolutely dreading Kunark already (Still working in Bonemire/Loping Plains right now).
I've been playing this game (on and off) for 6 years now and yes, while I understand it is called EverQUEST, there are times when a person just doesn't want to do 150 quests to get 5 levels and instead just wants to do an old fashion dungeon crawl. Unfortunately, this game punishes that kind of behavior.

Jalathan@Antonia Bayle wrote:

Uh... those are called quest lines. You start at one quest and it builds a story and lore along the way. The final part is usually a bigger mob or faction approval or finally of the story with a special ending that may end up as a dungeon.
Your first paragraph is describing a faction approval quest series. That is why you just can't jump in the quest that requires you to be level 90. You also need certain faction at that point. If you do the quest series, you will not only learn of the story (if you so desire to read it), but you gain enough faction for the final part at 90.
Not understanding what concerns you about SF gear. The gear is on par with the mobs and encounters that one experiences in SF, be they quest mobs or dungeon mobs. There is normally gear that overlaps, so with RoK/Moors gear, you can most certainly handle early quest lines and the easier dungeons of SF as you build up your T-9.
You shouldn't dread RoK at all. Many folks began it mid 60s on up. KoS has a real nice class set just by doing the Cloud Timeline. That set puts you in nice gear in prep for RoK. Dungeon crawling is commonplace and used a lot to gain AAs. One of my characters is part of a dungeon crawling group. That's all they do.
If you don't want to do dungeons, nor quest, there is another choice. You can grind overland mobs through writs as many times as you wish. If you don't want writs, you can just grind mobs where ever you think you can handle them. If they are grey, then talk to the chronomage. And yeah, it'll take you quite a while to level up 5 levels. The less flexible you are, the less options are available to you.
The only "punishment" is what you perceive.

Merry Merry!

Ok, first off, I want to appologize for necro posting, I really didn't see the date when I posted (found the thread through a search for something else).
I'm simply not a fan of linear quests because that further segments the limited player base we have by not only level, but by faction levels and quest progression. I've seen people really screw up toons that took days to fix because they did RoK quests (especially Fens) out of order... Not fun in my opinon.
I'd rather everything be done via self made quests or dungeon crawls and the occasional REAL quest, not these task lines (go kill 10 mobs and return to me isn't a quest, it is a task).

I recently spent time in older, lower level zones to build up AA. I level locked a 29 at first after doing butcherblock and went through Nek Forest quests, then I level locked at 39 while doing Steam Font and went through quests in Zek and tried to go through the Feerott.
Let me tell you, I wanted to bug my eyes out. The feerott is a terrible mess, Zek was... not so terrible but needs work, and Nek was pretty bad.
Problem is, these old zones lack fun, interesting, dynamic quests. They also lack efficient and meaningful quest flow. Shame really, many of these older zones have fantastic atmosphere, but they are just not fun to quest in. There is more work than fun.

NrthnStar5 wrote:

That there is the problem: originally you had to go find the quests instead of being moved along like on a conveyor belt, most times the quests weren't connected and you could get a quest from any NPC who had one even if you hadn't talked to their cousin

DrkVsr wrote:

I'm not sure I see that as a problem myself and you could even chose to not do them without any real detriment to your character as well...

Ah don't see it as a problem personally either, just that new players coming in now are being trained to 'follow the NPCs' through the zones so when they go to the old world zones they have no idea what to do and think something is broken or not working