Avoid Old Zones

As I see it, the problem with zones like Feerrott aren't so much that you can't find the quests, it's that the quests take forever.
For the most part, the quests in those zones are still the original ones or close to original. They assume you're going to be spending a lot of time in that zone since Feerrott used to be and end-game zone. So a lot of these quests can't be knocked out in one session or even two. THAT'S my beef.

Heh - in mine its that several of these zones are almost all exclusively GROUP quests. For a game that leveling wise, is mostly a solo-endevour.
If the zone hasn't been revamped, even if you WANT to quest through the zone (like me, I want to see all the areas not just the "Golden Path" blah!), when every quest is a group quest you're stuck being forced to go the "golden path" just to level up PAST the group-quests in the other zones and then go BACK to see the content (which isn't giving you experience anymore you're just doing it to see it...which is ok once or twice but entire zones and doing it 2-3-4 times gets annoying).
I've recently hit 40 and I'm noticing that all the zones BUT Steamfront are almost entirely group-only. Riverfront (Or whatever that zone is inside Enchanted Lands), the high 30 enchanted land quests - all groups.
Considering they *know* (since they gave us the "Golden Path") that most of the older game is usually having to be done by solos or duos, seems a shame they don't just take the time to non-elite the group quests so that people can still experience all the content.
I mean its basically saying "Yea look at all these quests, but really you can only do about 1/4 of them...have fun!".

Disappointing.

Enica@Everfrost wrote:

HUH? I recently finished FE on a 36 'zerker with a warden friend. Took us about a week messing around to do all quests including the ones that start with a drop or a click on something. And that week was like 2-3 hours a couple times during the week and 4-5 hours on Sat and and same Sun.Ya, we had fun doing them.
We did, however, have to wait until we were both 40 in order to knock off Agony for the CT HQ! Even then we did Claymore HQ and Hierophant Staff HQ knocking them off in one 2-4 hour sessions.

Koriani@Lucan DLere wrote:

Rivervale is heroic and is considered a dungeon. My 'zerker at level 36 with a 36 warden duo'd most of it including the RV HQ By Hook or by Crook..... RV quest do suck though since most all are books where you kill so many mobs, read a page, then kill so many mobs rinse & repeat 10 times.
So even RV can be done at level 36 for most of it. At level 38, the parts around Fool's Gold becomes soleable- rest of RV is duo material. At level 40-42, you can solo the entire zone area. I went back there to finish up Nightblood L&L on my 'zerker who was '42 and was able to solo them. Took a bit of time and careful pulling, etc., but it was doable.

Alvane@Unrest wrote:

In the interest of full disclosure, your characters from your previous posts have spent all the AA they can at under 70, so are quite a magnitude more powerful that your average player, especially on their first/only character. I'm all about bootstrapping, but it helps to give people realistic expectations or let them know how overpowered you are for your level before making them think they can do it with adepts and random gear drops

Ilmaaaaah@Lucan DLere wrote:

Actually my 'zerker was not att until she was 42, however, I have done RV as a duo on several characters who did not have as many AAs at that level. In fact, my first character did RV before AAs were fashionable! That character was a warden and she duo's and trio'd with a couple friends at the same level. At that time, wardens were root 'em & nuke 'em.

Alvane@Unrest wrote:

I don't want to go look up all the quests, but I'm talking about the ones in the Feerrott that have you running all over the zone looking for updates that aren't really easy to find unless you stumble on them.
The infected corpses, those plants that look like every other plant in the zone (except these are clickable and have a name over them) and there were a couple of other quests that I had to do as side quests while I was working on other quests.
I really don't want everything spoon fed to me, but like I said - it was clear that these quests were designed this way because at the time they figured you were going to be in this zone a lot, not just passing through on your way to other areas. They aren't hard quests, but they can become tedious.

Enica@Everfrost wrote:

Well, maybe I had an advantage since I've been through FE before - before the easy mode of horses and a druid ring popped in. Before the ez mode of transport, it did take a while since one had to kill every time one was sent back into the wilds. Now, it's fine the closest horsie, ride your way merrily along and there you are - at or close to your destination. Then complete the quest, hop the horsie back to the NPC - next quest, please.
So, yeah, it did knock off a lot of time. It prolly cut several weeks down to a week or less depending on your play hours.
And yes, there are a couple quests that have you searching for a random NPC who can pop up just about anywhere. Those few, I just kept in the back of my mind and would run into them sometime while I was working on other quests. One particular one I'm thinking about it called "The Mark of the Adumbrate: which you obtain in the Spire area. Finding the Shifter took a bit of time. There's another where you have to find a modan or something like that. Again, it's random where they spawn. So you find them while doing other quests. Same with those plants. I would mouse over the plants by the bottom area. They tend to show up better.
And it all has to do with play style, too. I tend to do as many quests as I can that are all within the same area. Other people prefer to do quests one at a time. Either is fine. It just depends on your style of play.

Well, here are my two cents.

Tokens have some advantage. And many player probably enjoy the instance runs @endgame. I did many, really many of them.
Although my obersavtion is that we have people comming from WoW, join the guild, have good fun from 1 to 90 maybe 170-200 AA and then leave the game. It was the oldschool that made the difference to WoW. They enjoy the level locking and doing old and long questlines. Have fun with heritage and housing, overland shineys and L&L and all that old stuff. Have fun to hunt for appearance items. Some see a whole new world when camping a named, having time to chat a bit. They removed all the hardcore camps anyways. (Which is good imho) Just all that EQ2 once was. So, not all old was and is bad.
Once they are @endgame they recognize the wowish instance grind and are upset. Usually they quit and never come back. Since i never was higher then like 45 in WoW i dont know, but maybe the instance grind is better in WoW. Maybe its just the bigger communityor its easier to find a group.

I d say itemisation cant be all in the future of EQ2. There has to be more (again). I remember well the times when items came on their own, just by doing the content. Times where every group could do the content and itemization wasnt a religion. Raiding wont change back, but overland and heroic content needs a bit of oldschool to make a difference.

Mezba@Crushbone wrote:

What do you consider to be 'old' zones?

Having played an alt 1-90 recently i was impressed by the work the devs have done in revamping areas such as Kelethin, Butcherblock, Kingdom Of Sky, etc.

However the worst zone in the game in my opinion is Sundered Frontier, closely followed by Stonebrunt Highlands. Quests are lacking and they remind me more of zones from other games than EQ2.

It would be nice to see make overs for zones such as TS, Nek Forest, Feerrot, Loping Plains, Lesser Fay, but these are not essential as there is more than enough xp within the game to reach the cap with plenty of AA.

Alvane@Unrest wrote:

It would have been easier to do the solo NBs in EL.

Brigh wrote:

Sure it would have - but then I prefer challenges. To me, it was more fun to challenge myself than to take the easy route. Kinda like doing a dungeon at level in a group of 2-3-4-5-6 or being at cap then chrono down and wipe it clean solo style.
To others, fast and easy seems to be the preference.

Eugam wrote:

Since I play Wow, also, I think I know what you are seeing. Prior to Cataclysm, leveling quests were lacking anything substantial. They were for the most part easy to do. Their usage was strictly to level asap to cap and the raiding game. WoW was and still is all about the raiding game and dungeons at cap. Cataclysm is an attempt to change up the leveling process. Quests are now more involved - more heroic and epic in nature - more substance even if they aren't called HQs or L&Ls. L&Ls are really a disguise of killing a zillion mobs to get a kill spell specific to that mob instead of a generic kill spell.
EQ2's raids and WoW's raids are very similar when you strip away the cosmetics and get down to the mechanics. The most fun raids of WoW were the 40 man raids which are no longer. They were awesome when the triumvirant of mechanic, strat, and execution came together like a dance. It was awesome choreography and took some time to plan out strats which varied depending on the 40 crew makup. Now, 10-20 man raids are simplified. Mechanics aren't as complex or as many thrown together in one encounter. But still, WoW is a raiding game.
I suspect that's what some of those people you described were looking to augment the differences. More of a substantial quest line series than WoW offered/s. As for the endgame, IMO, both games are basically the same. WoW has faction and tokens. EQ2 has faction and tokens. Both require instance grind. Your WoW acquaintences enjoyed the EQ2 leveling system because it was different, however, when they got to the endgame, they realized EQ2 is no different than WoW.