I read a lot about how the live servers are essentially not worth it. I also feel that I might be to far behind on FG or am I? I'm curious is it decent to try FG now? Sadly I'm going in to it solo. If it were with friends I wouldn't even need to post, I'd just do it; so I'm just looking for some honest feed back here.
If you're going to go solo be prepared for a long grind and never be caught up. If you want to have more of a chance grouping with people and leveling up a character very fast, I'd play on live. I don't see how the live servers are not worth it, not sure what you are reading, but try and not listen to people online. Play the game and learn from people in game and your own experiences with them. On a side note, hopefully TLE gets another reboot in the future because not only is it good revenue for DBG but it's good for keeping communities together and building new ones.
I strongly agree with Chrisworld. Take into consideration what other people say, but try it out on your own to see if they're right. If I were going to play solo, I would do it on a live server. If you're a brand new EQ2 player, you can play all the way up to the AoM expansion and level 100 without ever spending a dime. You will face some restrictions on broker usage and speaking in general chat, but neither of those are essential if you're just soloing for fun. You will level more quickly on a live server. Some see that as a negative, but you can always turn off your adventure experience to slow it down. You don't have an option of speeding it up on FG. Live servers have many QoL features that make soloing easier. The world bell travel system is limited on FG, where it is not on live servers. That alone will make soloing much better. If you decide you like the game enough to subscribe, you can always choose to try out the next TLE server or, since you're already late to the FG show, try FG later on. All that said, if you're purely planning on solo play, then it doesn't matter when you start on any server. The content will still be there. It's just a matter of what flavor of content you want to order.
just to add to what dude said... there is only one benefit to playing fg solo, it's less over whelming.
I don't plan on playing exclusively solo. I'm just not coming into it with anybody who plays. I do plan to network where I can on either server type, and for end game related things; I assumed I definitely would probably need to wait for another TLE If I joined FG. Thanks for the replies.
Not true. You will not instantly be at end game. Levelling is very quick up to level 20, but the levelling XP required is a steep upward curve for either Live or FG. If you want to level quickly to end game on Fallen Gate, focus on questing, not just mindless slaughter. Each thing you kill gives some XP, but quests give additional XP. I recommend the wiki's Solo Questing Timeline -- bookmark it! Pick up every shiny you can. Add the ones you need to your collections, sell the rest. This is the best way to make money in-game. While you are killing things, you will from time to time get fertilizer loot (text on them reads, "This would make great plant food.") Then you want to find someone who has a burynai seeker in their house that you can visit (Gullveig, Lion's Mane Inn, South Qeynos, upstairs to the left, second door has one tucked behind the piano). Feed the little guy one of each type of fertilizer and he will give you a shiny. You can ask in chat for folks that have the burynai in your city, or just explore homes open for visitors in your area until you find one. This can get you shinies of both high and low levels, and the ones you don't use, SELL. As early as you can manage, travel to the Island of Mara. This requires that you carefully make your way to either Antonica and thence to Thundering Steppes dock, or go to The Commonlands and from there to Nektulos Forest dock. If you're real low level, everything will be big, scary, and deadly, just be patient and avoid going near mobs. In Mara, look for the kid floating fully clothed in a pond between the village and the fields. He will give you the Gathering Obsession Timeline quests, which pay well and will help you in your pursuit of rare harvests (which can be made into good armor/gear/spells) because you'll be harvesting for his quests. Some easy XP can be had by Exploring. Don't feel limited to just the zones at your level. You can travel pretty much anywhere and go find the POI points that give exploration dings, which also gives you XP. In zones that are higher than your level, you just have to be sneaky and patient (and be willing to die occasionally to get a ding). More easy XP is to be had by doing Lore and Legend quests, plus it gives you an additional Masterstrike ability. You can buy some of the parts on the broker for very cheap. If you purchase one, then examine it, you get the L&L quest for that type of monster. Then as you adventure, you will get more L&L bits by killing them. I actually will purchase all the affordable L&L bits to make it quicker to get the quest completed and earn the XP, but it really depends on your cash flow. Also good are book quests. Go to your city's sage and nab the book quest starters for the zones in which you'll be adventuring. Also, in the overland zones, occasionally you'll see "A distressed merchant". Kill all the mobs around that guy, and he'll turn into "a gratified merchant" and you can then buy some additional easy book quests from him.
You can probably get to level 80 within a couple of played days doing a combination of solo timelines and pick up groups, maxed AA. As for someone that came to FG at the end of EoF, about 2 months ago, I can say that it's a bit of a challenge to break into established guilds. Especially if raiding is something you are into, you're far behind on DKP and outside the inner core of a guild. Obviously, loot isn't everything, but even on FG, gear is the difference in doing 40K dps and 10K dps. Granted it doesn't take much to get mediocre gear so you can probably be a 20K dps with another played day or two farming Runnyeye2 for jewelry, doing your city timeline for a ranged weapon and cloak, completing your epic weapon and then doing daily missions for a basic armor set and buying the charm with coins earned doing those missions. TSO is around the corner as well, so nearly everything currently good will need to be upgraded soon anyway, but at least it'll all be the same level. I'm just giving DPS as an example of how important gear is to the performance of your character. I think there is far, far too much emphasis on gear in this game and instead of having a slight advantage, it's a night and day type of difference that only continues to get worse as more expansions are released. I'd advise you to create a toon on FG, join a newish guild and see how you like it. I assume that a new progression server will roll out before the end of the year and FG will be abandoned one way or the other by years end regardless. Make some new friends in game and you can hop onto the new server in a few months from the beginning or transfer your toon to live with your guildmates when FG dies. I think most people on FG are really only playing this game until Pantheon so a lot of guildies are really just in for the ride until something else comes along. I'd advise you against getting too invested in your character or spending real life money on add-ons (like boosting familiars, or buying obscene amounts of house items, mounts, appearance items, etc.) I have seen far too many people get very bitter about the way the company treats the server, classes and it's just an overall bad idea to get too attached. This server will collapse soon, there is no one that can honestly say otherwise. Enjoy the short ride while it lasts.
Not all raid guilds use the same type of loot distribution. There's also more than one kind of DKP. And, since you will be much less geared than most of the people in an established raiding group,a lot of what you need they'll already have and you can get... raids usually prefer to guild actively raiding members over alts. If you want to raid, watch for guilds spamming recruitment chat. But you can also ask in chat about raid guilds that are accepting new members. The key in selecting a raid guild is to find out before you join a guild what their rules are, and exactly how loot is distributed. If they have a website with that stuff written down, read it carefully, Know what to expect, and if you don't like the look of the rules, look elsewhere. This saves much angst all around.
Low level grouping is quite a bit more frequent on Fallen Gate now that the xp curve has been leveled out across all content. The past couple of nights, I haven't had any trouble at all finding a group (during prime time US time) in the 20s and 30s, and I see 40s and higher looking for more in chat way more frequently than last week. So, if you want to experience Fallen Gate, you don't necessarily have to solo.
We will get a sort of gear reset in less than a month with the moors of ykesha expansion. It may be a good step to catch up. Note that since mythcial conversion will only come out 3 monthes after you may have trouble getting your mythical, but i m quite sure that open pick up raids will be organized. I assume that guilds too may run some full clearing of RoK raid prgression. Otherwise Shasow odysee is really the prefect time to come back, since you get then level 90, new gear and free mythical.
