3 hours each? That seems about right to me. If you're saying you got to ~14 in 3 hours total, I want to buy a lesson.

No 3 hrs to get both levels...see my concern? Which seems just way to fast.

It's fast, but depending on your class and whether or not you were in a good group for the sum of that three hours, I can see it being reasonable.

I think too many of us remember the "hell levels" as the way it should be. It feels like you spent forever in your teens because at the time, it felt like forever. It felt like forever every time, every level. Perhaps simply because you didn't know anything else.

Before I was completely addicted to the game, a 3 hour session was alot of time to devote to the game. Later, 3 hours didn't seem like enough time to bother logging on for. I think alot of people's perceptions of the early level time-sink is skewed by the reality of the time-sink that was the higher levels.

...if that made any sense at all...

Made lots of sense to me! When I was living at home, going to college and playing EQ Live everyday for hours on end... time was nothing. 3 hours was nothing at all to me (I was addicted to EQ of course). Now being married, having a kid, taking care of a house, and working full time... 3 hours is a huge commitment for me. I get 30 mins here, 30 mins there. Maybe 2 hours on a few occasions. So honestly, I don't think I'll ever get to level 30 before Kunark is released on this server.

So in my mind the leveling is "too hard" - but that's because I've been spoiled by all the other "EZ MODE" leveling games out there. But I want EQ to be as classic as possible, so I'm willing to deal with the way it is.

But is it too fast or slow compared to Live '99? Honestly I don't know. I think we all have skewed perceptions of the leveling curve due to much of the watering down we've felt over the years from other games - and because as other posters said, we are VERY good at maximizing our leveling in EQ now because of all the knowledge out there that can help us (plus our own past experience with it).

thank you for answers
 

Thank you to Nilbog and Secrets for your responses to my central question. I appreciate your openness and candor. From your responses, it appears that we should not expect a more classic server with respect to most of the concerns I had mentioned. It would seem that there are no plans to improve the current server, and then open a more refined and more classic version of it anew at some point down the road; probably this is mostly due to an inability to create such a version, rather than an unwillingness to do so.

I will continue to report exploits on these forums as I have from my first day here, but I probably will not devote time to reporting the non-classic items in much detail. The damage, so to speak, that the non-classic items have done to this point, is irreversible, without some kind of relaunch or new server; so to my mind, I would be wasting my time reporting them, all the while knowing my efforts will not lead to a desired result.

I shall continue to reap the rewards of the non-classic issues, as all the other Jones'es are doing. After all, fair is fair.

And I shall continue to enjoy myself on the server, as I have already to this point.

Whats with the weird passive aggression?

Couldn't you have just said, "Thank you, but screw you" instead? :)

The attention to detail on this server is pretty unreal.

Fixing faces on NPCs is nothing more than a cosmetic change and it actually takes time to research that crap. My hat is off to you guys for your efforts. That's cool stuff there.

Dude, anyone else read this and think, "fuck this guy"?

What a pompously venom-lined piece of shit of a post(er).

I first played in march 1999. It took me about 3 months to get level 14. I had 14 days total playtime on that character (i have that same character on live still level 14... his playtime has been 14 days since i quit playing him in 1999 so I could try out UO... came back to EQ and played on sullon zek in 2000-01 and after). Also keep in mind I was playing on rallos zek in 99'. Back then, when a player killed you they could loot your entire inventory. It was hard to level up when big name players were slaughtering noobs in blackburrow. So take what I say with a grain of salt. But those days were some of the funnest I remember. I loved how hard it was (mostly the pvp made pve hard). When I play mmorpgs, I look for that hardcore element, that part that makes them hard. On this project1999, I like that fact that my map doesn't work in all of the zones. It challenges me.

I honestly don't know though. I played here a few months ago and exp rate seemed ok, but the low levels were going a bit fast. I actually like level 1 - 20 the most, so I am never in a hurry and had a bunch of alts. The gnoll teeth speed things up, but I never knew about those in 1999. I don't understand why people want to get level 50 so fast because i've already done that before. If you enjoy playing hte game, your level doesn't matter. In the same reasoning, if you enjoy killing a skeleton outside the qeynos gates or camping blackburrow with friends, then you don't even notice the experience bar going up. Maybe I'm just easily entertained.

Sometimes I think god made two people: hardcore and softcore. The hardcore want to bleed, they want glory and riches, they want to be punished when they fail. The softcore just want to be happy. I've always known i'm hardcore. I just cannot live happily in a world that doesn't beat me up and greatly reward me when I do the right thing. I like harsh penalties and complex circumstances. I don't know why, so I think god intended it to be this way. Somehow we all get along, or don't, depending where you live and where you go. Shrug.

The question is not whether you're getting enough experience after you kill something. Instead, it's are you enjoying yourself? If it's not fun to kill the monster then more experience won't make it fun.

This.

Little surprised the devs felt the need to even respond to the OP. Though their response had some interesting info for sure.