My main question is this... Why can I NOT start in or get to Karan, what seems to be old Qeynos, and if I PAY as member again, can I start a character in Karan? Or how do I get my new character off New Halas and into Willow Wood for example?
Willow Wood and those other suburbs were phased out (now only featured as quest instances) when they redid Qeynos. To get out of Halas, you work your way to the southeast end of the main island. You'll find a bell to take you to Qeynos.
Starting areas from the original game got removed when Qeynos and Freeport got revamped a few years ago. I believe it was felt by SOE that these zones were not helping new players get into the gane easily so they reduced the number of places you start out and made the questlines to guide you through the early days of your character. Going all access membership has no impact on character starting areas (or any zone access for that matter)
Go to the guild place, (though I have no idea where it is in Halas) and do the move quest. I honestly hate that we have to pick the new starter zones. The only one I even remotely like is Gorowyn and to start there you need to be evil. A big fat poo to Halas, it has far too much snow. Oh and just a btw. Buy a house there before you move out of that snow hole. If you quest there, it makes it easier to just port to home.
Or if you like Gorowyn, and it is a good place to start, you can take the world bell to get there good or evil
Karan is the continent Qeynos is located on. It includes the zones of Qeynos, Antonica, Thundering Steppes and the dungeons the dungeons in those zones. As others said, they won't let anyone start on the old Isles of Refuge/Queen's Colony/Outpost of the Overlord anymore. Those were removed from the game as starting zones some years ago now. Qeynos & Freeport both got upgrades & were merged into fewer separate zones, at that time all the little burbs were removed as housing areas and made quest access only . Choices for starting now are New Halas (Frostfang Sea) & Kelethin (Greater Faydark) for good aligned. Gorowyn (Timorous Deep) & Neriak (Darklight Wood) for evil aligned. You can use the travel bell/world globe to travel from starting cities to nearly every other zone in game, including Qeynos & Freeport (alignment dependent if you can bell directly into the city or not).
