What's your favorite zone?

[Jibartik]

My personal favorite is North Karana. I love the Karanas because I love the mortal aspect of EQ, when bears and dogs are the biggest threat. North Karana is chock full of named creatures to hunt that drop rare and cool loot for early EQ too, it's got cool bridges, two of em! Druid circles, gypsies camps, wizard spires and crazy gnome quests. It's just an all around fun zone that is rarely part of the main path.

Im curious and this pandemic got me wanting social interactions with groups of people so can we please discuss this useless topic?

[Jean-Baptiste Cutting]

Grobb.

It was the first zone I ever saw, when I watched my friends’ brother playing back in 1999. The troll aesthetic appeals to me.

Plus, it’s got dismembered dwarves, two of em!

[Jibartik]

Plus, it’s got dismembered dwarves, two of em!

:p

heres your quest reward mr troll, one dead dwarf skin

https://i.imgur.com/uxmm9uk.png

[Tethler]

Neriak (counting all 3 as 1, since it's a single city). Just love the atmosphere in there.

[Keebz]

In classic? That's really hard. So many good ones.


Including Velious, Crystal Caverns. So dope.

[Neno]

My personal favorite is North Karana. I love the Karanas because I love the mortal aspect of EQ, when bears and dogs are the biggest threat. North Karana is chock full of named creatures to hunt that drop rare and cool loot for early EQ too, it's got cool bridges, two of em! Druid circles, gypsies camps, wizard spires and crazy gnome quests. It's just an all around fun zone that is rarely part of the main path.

The Karanas are really good. They have a really cool frontier AD&D vibe. There is a lot to do and see in them. Also as a whole they have a very diverse geography: rivers, open plains, farms, hills, mountains, forests, towns, outposts, undead haunted battle fields, and monster villages. There is also a lot of stuff going on in them as well. A lot of it I don't know if it has ever been fully explained. Like the cursed gnolls who turn into undead at night, ogre shamans, the undead battlefields in WK and SK, the werewolf infestation, and so many other thing.

There are a lot of great zones in classic EQ. I think over time I've really grown to appreciate Crushbone. Not so much as a leveling zone but because of what is happening there. There is a whole story arc that goes from you fighting off the orcs invading Gfay to liberating the slaves and then finishing the orc threat off by killing Emperor Crush. Killing Crush also ends a plot that the Dark Elves are involved in that has something to do with the Deathfist orc tribe. Although EQ doesn't really have a progressive timeline, I like to think the Orcs that are in Lfay are the remnants of the Crushbone army who manged to retreat into the forests.

[Jibartik]

]There are a lot of great zones in classic EQ. I think over time I've really grown to appreciate Crushbone. Not so much as a leveling zone but because of what is happening there. There is a whole story arc that goes from you fighting off the orcs invading Gfay to liberating the slaves and then finishing the orc threat off by killing Emperor Crush. Killing Crush also ends a plot that the Dark Elves are involved in that has something to do with the Deathfist orc tribe. Although EQ doesn't really have a progressive timeline, I like to think the Orcs that are in Lfay are the remnants of the Crushbone army who manged to retreat into the forests.

I almost feel the way you feel about the karanas, about crusbhone, when I was a kid and leveled there for the first time I thought the village camp in the back was basically about as big as kelthin, the zone is just layed out in a way that makes it feel like a massive city, even though its actually a tight dungeon, the cabin makes it feel like there is a whole urban area, just on the other side of the village, which is just around the corner through the tunnel to the castle, all surrounded by quarries and slave pits. Its a super deep zone.

its cool how you point out the orcs that lead into the stronghold. It feels like the crushbone leveling path is like the "joining the elvish militia against the horde" story line and like, I love how you start literally battling orcs at the front gate invading the city, until you work your way through them into the heart of their stronghold where you slay their leader. Like you're a conscript joining the live battle that's waging that very moment.

It's like a scripted event before scripted events exited. That whole story is told just by doing it too, no need to do any quests, if you just kill orcs to level up starting at the orc camps and into the castle, you just naturally grind through that story. Pretty cool.

[Coridan]

Kerra Isle, peaceful, quiet, tropical, naked furries. What's not to love?

[Cen]

Although it seems like I'm biased, green was my first ever halfling character, but I've always been in love with rivervale and misty. I love north qeynos the hills qrg and blackburrow too

[twaggoner2]

Splitpaw is my favorite classic zone. To me it looks cool. It is a great place to both group and solo.

[Christina.]

Steamfont and Akanon.

My first character ever on EQ was a gnome as a kid.

[cornisthebest]

permafrost gang

[Balimon]

My favorite dungeon is Najena, an evil magicians lair filled with ogre mercs, rogue spellcasters, masses of undead and other random creatures! It has a definite DnD dungeon crawl feel to it, there are even traps and keys and false walls. Najenas lair is hidden and not readily found, she has a really cool table with a giant ruby on it, along with the decor on the walls , adds a really cool vibe to the zone.

I also love how rewarding it can be, and how deadly. The mobs are all mixed up together level wise., it takes skill and patience to pull good exp out of the zone, but you can easily do 15-35 there solo or small groups. Nothing is simple or upfront there, you have to dig deep and learn to to be rewarded.

[Snortles Chortles]

oasis is pretty damn comfy still
i think im finally tired of guk

[douglas1999]

I like lesser faydark because it's the zone i somehow accidentally die in most

[Tunabros]

GUKKKKKKKKKKKKK

[Jibartik]

Everyone of these zones im like.... YEP!

Guk is amazing, when you realize there is like a little village of fungi farmers down there all this time it's like how deep does this rabbit hole go?!

Only once my static group of friends I met online back in 1999 camped a tough mob in Guk in our late 30's, it was the squire for his ghoulbane, and man that was the most insane moment of my life. We had this one pull where our enchanter just spent all her mana bar chain stunning everything telling us in group chat "keep going go go I got this go", it was the first time I ever saw anyone mez/hold a train.

We held our ground and pulled the sword from the muck from his cold dead ribbitiy fingers and tunare's light filled the room as she bestowed upon my paladin great blessings.

Or maybe I imagined all of that. Is there even a village of fungi farmers in guk?

Either way, Guk is bad A

[Saaxir Asimatenya]

Erudin is truly the finest city of Norrath. A palace for the masters of the arcane made of the finest marble and the greatest library in all of the world. Teleportation and levitating platforms marking the city of the high men a place where magic is a part of everyday life.

[Jibartik]

I would like to see an episode of TNG take place in Euridin now that you put it like that.

[mcoy]

I would like to see an episode of TNG take place in Euridin now that you put it like that.

Seconded.

-Mcoy

[Waedawen]

crypt of dalnir
howling stones

honorable mention to city of mist

[DMN]

Misty thicket. It was for a long time the center of the world in vanilla EQ that was the premier porting place because of how close the bank is to the ring. And i always just like the zone/halflings/lord of the rings vibe. But most of all, It's a really clever double entendre. The little deputies also remind me of Tattoo in a Zorro costume. De plane, boss, de plane!

[Bigsham]

misty thicket was never the center of anything, especially considering the majority of players hate halflings

you could in theory say kelethin was the center of the world or commonlands / freeport but most people preferred one trade hub over the other

[DMN]

misty thicket was never the center of anything, especially considering the majority of players hate halflings

you could in theory say kelethin was the center of the world or commonlands / freeport but most people preferred one trade hub over the other

That's probably cause you spent the majority of your time in vanilla jerking off to wood elves. For the rest of us, misty thicket was ideal for banking.

[Jibartik]

I love how misty was like the highway for good guys, I always played evils and I remember when I first went to misty as a 45 necro to kill some halflings I was blown away at the zone, teaming with good guys, I didnt even know people used that bank back then haha.

I remember what DMN speaks of. It always has a steady flow of druids and after green with all the manastones I bet youll see popping in and out frequently to stone up once kunark comes haha the're will probably always be someone popping in, stoning up and gating out 24/7 haha

[Kimmie]

South Karana and Kedge obv

[Jibartik]

I would love to love kedge, but I cant figure out how to not get owned down there.

[tsuchang]

For leveling up evil toons, The Warrens. Good exp for high teens thru to mid 20s then you get a great place to bank with a ring near by. You can run out to the merch at the ring to sell your good loots.

[Castle2.0]

Blackburrow - first dungeon

[TripSin]

Kelethin for me, probably. Love the music, love the tree top aesthetic even though it is an absolute pain in the ass to navigate. And nostalgia since that was the first city I saw (after Felwithe, but Felwithe is meh). I also think fondly of Plane of Knowledge for some reason.

Also, for some weird reason I've retained this one distinct memory of just doing a regular group grinding out in the plains of Dreadlands but I just remember feeling so serene and relaxed, enjoying the group.

[douglas1999]

seb and east karana all day

[Yttrium]

Mistmoore.

I remember exploring it in Vanilla in the days before reliable online maps and we were truly terrified. We got lost inside the castle and there was a very real possibility we could die and lose all our stuff.

[Knuckle]

My personal favorite is North Karana. I love the Karanas because I love the mortal aspect of EQ, when bears and dogs are the biggest threat. North Karana is chock full of named creatures to hunt that drop rare and cool loot for early EQ too, it's got cool bridges, two of em! Druid circles, gypsies camps, wizard spires and crazy gnome quests. It's just an all around fun zone that is rarely part of the main path.

Im curious and this pandemic got me wanting social interactions with groups of people so can we please discuss this useless topic?

I think I can probably put a top 3 or 5 but not just one.

Favorite City: Neriak - Definitely one of my favorite all-time zones. My first character was a Dark Elf. The multiple zones, the R.A. Salvatore/Forgotten Realms vibes to the layout of the underground caverns with neon lighting"faerie fire". The secret hallways and doors and tunnels.... The hierarchy with the trolls ogres humans and even halflings in the foreign quarter. Let's not forget the music.

Kelethin a close runner-up. I've made many wood elves and the music and atmosphere really hit the spot.

Favorite Dungeon: Across my collective experiences it has to be Guk as a whole when factoring in hiding places, the dual live-side/deadside faction, exciting loot, and just overall number of camps and parts of the zone to learn. From a PVP past, this zone was heaven for my monk or rogue to roam through.

I'd put Sebilis at number 2 for similar reasons as above, but a lot less "freedom" to roam as getting tagged by a few mobs is game over whereas you could pretty freely invis/ivu through Lguk without too much hassle. Not to say there wasnt opportunity to wipeout groups at zone-in with Inner Flame/Duelist....

Favorite Outdoor Zone: Really tough choice so I'll let nostalgia take the wheel - Eruds Crossing. I like this zone because it was the first time I tried to really make some plat/grind some xp past the teens on my warrior on live back in 2000. I was a level 13 wood elf warrior, and traveled across the world without a teleport and was bound in qeynos after multiple CR's across the karanas/high pass. Once I arrived the journey was all worth it, your on this tropical island with music I've never heard of before, killing glowing wisps knowing id get even more XP and plat turning in the GLS's to gypsies in NK. Felt like I had found a little known treasure island, and I loved that zone. I don't go back there often strangely enough, it's quite niche and out of the way.

Runner-Up: East Commonlands, I just spent so much damn time here on live leveling toons. If I made an alt, I was usually figuring out a way to get them bound in freeport to get into orc camp 1 on live. The tunnel activity, buff begging, tunnel ratting, twink leveling, EC was the lifeblood of my live experience.

Second Runner Up: Crystal Caverns. Music in here, and the dwarf town with the crazy reggae beats, and the exp modifier, fkin loved this zone. Soloed on my dark elf shadowknight many a day.

[cd288]

I agree with EC Knuckle. I had similar experiences. Butcherblock is probably another for similar reasons; just had great times there back in the day killing at chessboard and the goblin camps with groups. Oasis is up there too.

I just thought EC was really cool with how they put that tunnel there probably never envisioning EC being used as some major auction hub and on so many servers people organically found the tunnel and used it for that purpose.

[ldgo86]

Cabilis. Nothing comes close to my nostalgia as my first toon in 2000 was a lizard. Cabilis oozes atmosphere and I love it. Can’t wait to start an Ikky SK when Kunark drops on Green.

[Knuckle]

I agree with EC Knuckle. I had similar experiences. Butcherblock is probably another for similar reasons; just had great times there back in the day killing at chessboard and the goblin camps with groups. Oasis is up there too.

I just thought EC was really cool with how they put that tunnel there probably never envisioning EC being used as some major auction hub and on so many servers people organically found the tunnel and used it for that purpose.

Yep, I found it extremely alien when i realized on live that the "EC Tunnel" was Gfay on some servers! Extremely odd for evil races.

[cd288]

Yep, I found it extremely alien when i realized on live that the "EC Tunnel" was Gfay on some servers! Extremely odd for evil races.

Yeah although for many evil races it wasn’t like FP was much better. Some could vendor down in the tunnels at least, but couldn’t bank if you weren’t a class that couldn’t use on of the tricks (although I guess Neriak isn’t far for that for Trolls and Ogres which I believe can get in there)

[cd288]

Mistmoore.

I remember exploring it in Vanilla in the days before reliable online maps and we were truly terrified. We got lost inside the castle and there was a very real possibility we could die and lose all our stuff.

Even with reliable maps certain zones like that are still terrifying lol. Not like you’ll know your way out to run away if things go to crap unless you have all those twists and turns memorized and glitchy pathing and aggro can make for quite a bad day

[charmcitysking]

Beholder Maze! Those EE's terrified me back in the day. Back when you didn't know how big/large the maze actually was and if you got lost and died, you might actually never find your corpse. The stress of being charmed by an EE and not being able to control your character was awful (but kind of funny when you actually started attacking your group members). Loved the pixel icon for the polished bone bracer..

Also North Freeport! Early on Mithaniel Marr server, this is where the majority of commerce/trade happened. Used to love clicking every link for items and inspect players with obvious high end gear.

[DMN]

Used to love clicking every link for items and inspect players with obvious high end gear.


No, prolly not. Item links were't added for a long ass time.

[Lordgordon]

The room GMs used to summon you for bans

[Tunabros]

The room GMs used to summon you for bans

kinda sus

[Polixa]

2 zones, but Qeynos (above ground) is my favourite place in Norrath.

I would happily live there, if I woke up transplanted to Norrath, with the ocean on one side and rolling hills on the other.

[VincentVolaju]

2 zones, but Qeynos (above ground) is my favourite place in Norrath.

I would happily live there, if I woke up transplanted to Norrath, with the ocean on one side and rolling hills on the other.

Yeah, but right under your feet would be all those spooky things.

[Swish]

Mistmoore.

I remember exploring it in Vanilla in the days before reliable online maps and we were truly terrified. We got lost inside the castle and there was a very real possibility we could die and lose all our stuff.

This, very similar memories :)

...Splitpaw comes a close second at the moment :D

[douglas1999]

Yeah I definitely still remember first grouping in mistmoore at the lake, and seeing all the huge trains go by from the castle and kinda getting a sneak peek at the mobs that live deeper in the zone. It really made you want to get good enough to go further in but also kinda freaked you out

[Chinetter]

Yeah I definitely still remember first grouping in mistmoore at the lake, and seeing all the huge trains go by from the castle and kinda getting a sneak peek at the mobs that live deeper in the zone. It really made you want to get good enough to go further in but also kinda freaked you out

I have this memory of Unrest back in the day as a late-teens rookie dwarf cleric. Having first navigated through Dagnor's dodging the aqua goblins, barely, then heading into Unrest which is dark as hell in that tunnel and when you finally get into the fountains area and can see, what is the first thing you see but a whole bunch of player corpses. Ummm...now comes the first /ooc "TRAIN!!" and you scramble aside and watch a whole group that's higher level than you being chased to the zone line by werebats or carrion ghouls or worse.
"Crap what have I done, ok ok calm down, now WTF is that invis vs undead spell in this damned spellbook??"

[Bigsham]

Kelethin / CB Best part of eq rest is shit imo

[Buellen]

Butcherblock for me.

I still rem the feeling of walking down the path to kaladim an see the huge statue on the roof of the city and was Hot dam that is so cool. All the different nook and corners with there own little camps. Chess board. The funky Ogres " Get in me Belly you stinking dwarf ". The mad dashes to the guard huts hoping that some high level was not killing the guards who you wish to save your butt Lol.

man good times.

[Vizax_Xaziv]

The room GMs used to summon you for bans

Deep in the Qeynos Aqueducts, yea? I remember being locked in there and abandoned by GM one time back in 1999 lmao.

He showed up to scold me for something and I started talking back to him (of course I did - I was 13 years old) and he went full Sauron on my ass turning me into a troll a locking me in the Qeynos Aqueducts

[BlackBellamy]

In order:

1) Neriak
2) Upper Guk
3) Lower Guk
4) South Karana
5) Blackburrow
6) Cazic-Thule
7) Lake Rathetear
8) Grobb
9) Ocean of Tears
10) South Ro

Can you tell I don't like a certain continent?