I'm not doubting the servers ability to host 3000+ people, I'm talking about the content in newbie zones being able to be even close to playable.

It wont be. :)

The more the merrier! There are always out of the way places to go to kill stuff and will be nice to have lots on.

I think the worst will be over by the time the weekend is through and it'll just be at a 'really busy' state for a few weeks after as people spread out and then folks start alts or have friends come in late.

I also think the newbie zones won't be the problem as much as the folks desperately wanting those high ZEM zones to level in and packing in there like sardines. Faydwer has 4 races potentially going to Crushbone after belts and ZEM and I have this sneaking suspicion that won't be as fast as just going to other areas to level to just kill more mobs quicker. The same could be said of Blackburrow.

We'll see though, there could be way more players than folks think.

Yeah, no. Just like classic wow the game will hardly be considered playable in the traditional sense for the first couple days. But it's not like it will be the end of the world, or the server. Level 1 chars will be camping the bindpoints of skeletons and working hard at KSing each other each time one spawns, and other such nonsense.

It'll be okay tho lol. I doubt the classic EQ playerbase will feel so entitled as to demand the devs fundamentally change the experience with instancing or increased spawn times to combat what is a very temporary problem.

I see Misty Thicket and Everfrost being the least populated newbie areas. I was thinking Qeynos because people won't want to be "so far away" but if everybody is in Qeynos, you're not far from anything. The Karana's last forever, you have Blackburrow for bonus ZEM, you have gnoll fang for mass XP questing.

I am starting in GFay most likely and already know it's gonna be batshit nuts, but hopefully some people will head over to BBM to even it out a bit. Gfay has a hefty XP bonus though for a newbie zone, it's quite nice in that regard.

No, there are definitely fewer level 1 mobs to kill than there were on live. Fewer everything really, except spiders. You're memory is correct. Back in the day there were bottlenecks in certain canyons where you would be fed a near constant supply of gnoll pups, goblins, polar bear cubs, etc. You'd be fighting on top of a pile of corpses from all the stuff being fed to you by the zone pathing. Now it's practically barren in the canyons.

I jumped on new servers whenever they came on line back before Kunark came out so I've had some experience on what to expect.

Back then you could simply just be hyper focused on getting exp and play through the night to get a head of the crowd. By the time people started coming back on in the morning I'd be level 12 to 15 in a full oasis group with the whole zone to ourselves. By the night though or the next morning Oasis would have 200+ people. By then we'd be the only group able to take on deepwater crocs and lockjaw or we'd move on another zone.

These days however a lot of people are probably going to be hyper focused and with way more knowledge than anyone had back then. It's going to be interesting.

I haven't made a new Barbarian since I made Loramin here (half a decade ago), but I 100% remember it being like that on live. If it's not like that here it should be corrected ... but good luck finding classic evidence for spawn points of level 1 mobs :(

Can't wait to watch the pigpile that happens soon as people spot a decaying skeleton carrying a staff.

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Everfrost is in rough shape for the reasons described. It could use some tinkering.

Nektulos stinks, but it was lousy in the original game too. Commons/Freeport is close.

Danth