Project 1999 - Tell me it gets "better"

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stormhowl (Post 305090)

I think today it's been nothing but a bit of a train wreck in terms of my leveling experience since I logged on this afternoon. About 4 deaths and only 1 bubble of EXP to show for 4.5 hours of "work". Blackburrow is a bit over-crowded full of about 6-7 people just soloing the dungeon at any given time and there's constant competition for spawns, and no one seems to want to group. What gives?

Is this trend indicative of how things will continue to go at higher levels? Or will things get better beyond level 16 and outside of Blackburrow? I've had pretty rough luck of not getting any groups (and not convincing anyone to actually group instead of having 5+ people just soloing and fighting over spawns) and the groups I have gotten have had rotten luck of being trained or having members that face pull yellows (and not waiting for mana, bleh).

Does it get better once you leave the "lowbie" levels? Do people group more often and are they more willing to group beyond level 15 or whatever you can get yourself up to in BB? Or am I kind of SoL in this regard and should resign to playing a class better able to solo?

Apologies for the rant (which, considering my experience with forums, will more likely than not get me flamed), but it's been an... exhausting night.

Edit: I started playing EQ back just before Velious was released, so it's not as if I'm a "newbie" to classic, but I never remember it being this rough and having so many deaths except in my first week or so when I didn't know how to play. >.>

I have the authority to post since I've played a PAL in that area on this server and played quite a bit in the area in 1999-02. I'll try to explain.

For some reason I don't remember seeing camping or fighting over camping in blackburrow in 1999. There must have EASILY been up to 2500 or more on the server at that time. I recall seeing up to 3000 on servers on the server select screen back then. There're usually less than 1000 when I'm paying here. I guess I just never noticed because the game was new and also because it was a pvp server. But it's true that blackburrow can fill up real quick and it loses its luster when there's nothing to kill and train after train further ruins it.

Here're some places for you to go between 9-17:
Kerra Isles
... Lots of willowisps. If you have a magic weapon or you're casters then this might be a good place to go for experience. Collect the greater lightstones to turn them in at the gypsy camp in North Karana.
Blackburrow
... Collect as many gnoll fangs as you can. There's a lot of competition in this dungeon for spawns. It's good until about 9-10 but by then you should have enough gnoll fangs to level yourself up to 11 about. Go to Captain Tillin in South Qeynos to turn them in. Then I'd suggest going to another place instead of blackburrow unless there're not many people there.
Qeynos Catacombs
... you can kill things here probably all the way up to 15 but it's not near as good as blackburrow. There're some +5 hitpoint rings/earrings. The smugglers and ring leaders are db until about 14-15.
West Karana
... Here you can kill bandits, grizzly bears (if you want to tailor even better, but they are lower con than the others) and scarecrows. Collect the sashes on the bandits to turn into chesgard in South Qeynos. I don't think the scarecrows drop anything of use but they don't aggro each other either and they're higher con than the bandits so you can do em until 17 if able to.
North Karana
... There're some bandits here too. But is more dangerous and is a long walk from Qeynos.
Everfrost
... I don't know a lot about this place but there're orcs to be killed. Collect their wristbands to turn into the warrior GM in the arena. You may be able to kill the mammoth calves.
North Qeynos
... Not much here except the two gnoll spawns. The place where fippy zones in can pop real quick sometimes. It's not much but it can fill in the empty places. Holonix is a tough one because he casts a lot.

There're a lot of options but I'm not saying there're no problems. The Warrens will come out soon along wiht Jaggedpine and Steamfont Mountains. That should give some traffic to odus. But if you take any single area, like surefall, it obviuosly could have had a few more poachers to keep players interested. And where're hte poachers in qeynos hills that're mentioned by a NPC in surefall? And Qeynos Catacombs, considering how easy it's to get lost for a new person, should have had something more - there's no draw. I get the feeling that they added these things as an afterthought without really caring about the result. Maybe they were rushed. And then there's a long list of general problems with the game that's for another post.

Beyond that, there're a bunch of little quests you can do that will grant experience and platinum. If you're in surefall, kill the poachers in hte caves. Turn the head into the ranger guildmaster. If you kiill a gnoll poacher, you get a rough elm recurve bow. If you see the bottom/top part of the staff on the gnoll hunter(s) in qeynos hills turn them into the guy that shouts in surefall for the crook. It grants some platinum and a tiny bit of experience. If you kill furgy in qeynos hills you can turn in his head to the guy at the campfire in surefall. Sometimes he only gives you a few gold but he gave me over 3 plat. Sold the chest patchwork for 1 plat. Then turn in the note you get to Captain Tillin for several more platinum. And if you kill the rabid wolves and rabid grizzly in qeynos hills you can turn those into Priestess Caulria in the rodcet nife shrine for plat and experience. There're various other quests that can be done to fill in the empty spots. All in all, not many people seem to do them so there's not much competition. That's good because you can do a lot of those while passing through.

All in all, there're things to do. But, honestly, most people run off to north/south ro or something when they're around level 11. There're other options, but I think most people want to be near east commons for trading. And freeport is the hub of norrath. I've always liked to be in the far off areas, though.

If I could change this game there's so much I'd want to do. I have ideas every 5 minutes when I'm playing about how the game could be better. I wouldn't do instances, though. That's the knee-jerk reaction from people too lazy to think. By copying other ideas without doing the work of understanding the details then you're just becoming a victim of them. There're other ways to address the main limitations of open-environments: predictability and finity. Open environments are predictable so players end up camping certain areas. And they're finite which means players fight over things. That's a topic for another post.