Dungeon crawling
 

The last two days I have been part of putting together two groups to go into areas where we haven’t been before, with people new to me. Upper Guk was essentially empty, only two groups down there when we started. The first group had never been to a Guk, and I am a relatively newbie to Guk myself. I ended up guiding us around (I cheat, I have a map) and being the puller. I managed to wipe us twice on bad pulls and mostly inexperience on my part. But boy, I had fun! And nobody complained. One person even joined my next group the next day. Although that day we eventually had an experienced enchanter leading us.

Dungeon crawling is some of the best experiences in my view. I had memories from 2000 when (one of the few times) being down in Lower Guk and doing naked corpse recoveries. These are some of the best times, when a team pulls together and pushes the boundaries and have fun working together.

I know some wants safe camps and flowing XP. I don’t mind these either occasionally, but I hang out in EQ for dungeon crawling. Thanks guys.

I have always suspected the game was designed with dungeon crawling in mind, but though design naïveté the mechanics do not support it well. In other words, I really doubt (or hope) the designers didn’t say “let’s design dungeons such that the best way to experience them is for everyone to sit in one spot for hours upon hours killing the same mobs over and over”. I believe they under estimated players’ willingness to take the path of least resistance (danger) in lieu of adventure, excitement and danger. Now is is good time to try to experience dungeon crawling, though, while population is low. I am happy you were able to experience it.

Yeah well, you put desirable loot camps deep in the dungeon, and then you give players invisibility or other means to easily bypass all the intervening mobs, this is what you get :(

Another problem with crawling is casters don’t have time to sit and med. Thus crawling is best done with twinked melees and a bard.

I'd still take an enchanter/cleric but that's super safe of me :p

In 20 years of playing EQ, I have only ever once joined a stationary experience group. It was excruciatingly boring, sitting there waiting for the puller to bring us an orc in Oasis. Give me a crawl or just solo experience every time.

PS: I have never been anywhere near having a max-level character though I doubt this is in any way related.

Until I saw your "PS" I was going to say this is absolutely unheard of in later levels. Depends very largely on class too. Only a few classes are built for the pace needed when true "dungeon crawling. Sadly as was said above, the design of the game is what caused players to gravitate toward the 'puller bringing mob to camp' idea.

I think a medbreak during a dungeon crawl is normal. Even better when you get backspawn starting to catch up behind you and sandwiching you behind hard mobs. Not sure if any of the classic dungeons have that fast spawn time though.

It's plenty easy to move up and sit and med again. It's no different than fighting to a camp spot. The amount of mana lost to moving is trivial.

I take friends on dungeon crawls when they aren't too camped. It's great to actually see dungeons if you're not the puller.

You can't crawl because everything casts through the walls. And healers will heal their friends even if they can't see them.