People do PuG all the time on green, but there are a ton of inexperienced people in those PuG's who might drive you crazy. So much laziness, tabbed out autoattacking, afk manasong camp bards....even at the higher levels. If you're used to the hyper efficiency mindset from years of playing here, it gets pretty frustrating at times when only one or two people in a group are pulling their weight.

Part of the problem is on blue the conventional wisdom is that full groups are a waste of time, duo/trio is the min/max approach to XP, and many alts have the gear to make those small configurations really cook. On green generally the PuG's just fill the group, even if its suboptimal or not a needed class. Two tanks? No problem, you're in.

Overall the population disparity and the prevalence of actual new players on green makes blue a more challenging place to LFG for XP.

Came back after 20 years two weeks ago, found a solid guild. Got twinked out by generous people randomly, and can confirm the power leveling.

But again, solid guild (Friendly Druids). People have been really nice generally, but yes, I've noticed the population issue, and that's coming from playing PvP where grouping was also a b-word.

It's sadly a natural issue of a 25 year old game with no new content or marketing. I'm staying until I kill a dragon or get to raid the planes.

I'm honestly not sure what the guy you're replying to is referring to. I buy and sell tons of stuff in the tunnel on Blue all the time. I also play on Green and besides price differences and maybe being slightly faster for a transaction, there's no real difference.

Blue even post green had a nice PUG path 51-60 with the Hole. But then they slightly nerfed the zem and it's a ghost town again with people back in KC fighting over LCY mobs that are half green. Or plvling.

Buff Hole zem like 1% but widely announce it on the front page with bold letters and stuff and the psychological factor will bring Hole pugs back.

With the bonus xp weekend, the Hole on blue had like 20 people when I poked my head in. I assume it's dead outside the bonus xp periods though.

People start going back to the hole on bonus weekends yeah partly due to overcrowding everywhere, then it dies again after the XP bonus is off. This is even despite many people in game chat agreeing that the hole is better than KC in every way except convenience.

Yet the convenience factor is heavily mitigated the more people are actually playing in the zone.

yeah its unfortunate but as someone who got to see all 3 eras on p99. everyone always thought the next era would make the server better but all it ever did was make it worse.

vanilla - knights who say ni hosting 150 person fear crawl pugs just pure classic adventuring
kunark - casual guilds clearing fear trash for fun and random armor drops shaman epics are 25k
velious - everyone is scared to zone into fear for fear of being disqualified on raid loot

i know fear is a niche thing but its a good reflection of how the server devolved from adventuring with strangers into cold calculating pixel drop rate probabilities

KC is for shitters.

Do better.

Jwargod, I'm the shaman who was in DL with my friend when you offered the camp. I'm sorry you were upset that we didn't respond we were just busy talking to each other. We did what we thought was polite and left the camp to you because normally exp camps are hard to come by. You said you couldn't find a group and we didn't want to shove you out. I've personally had good luck finding groups by just reaching out to other players in tells and asking if they could use whatever character I'm playing at the time. It does take being social and friendly to get by in a video game with no matchmaking system. And sometimes there is nothing we can organize or hop into so that's why everyone has alts.

Little misleading not to acknowledge that fear clears for loot don't make sense when velious class armors etc becomes available. I do miss plane of hate and sky clear days from kunark though.