A Sidelong Glance At and a Question about Power Leveling
 

Once, in the Qeynos Hills, an Erudite caster shouted out for all to hear that he had enough Gnoll fangs to skip from level 10 to 20 or something like that. One or two folks in the zone cheered for him, most ignored him, the perpetual Hadden campers were AFK, but I was confused.

I was confused because I genuinely could not understand why someone would play this game just to skip (at the time) around 20% of it. Mind you I didn't really care, I was just curious.

Recently, parts of these forums seem to be filled with many people who really don't seem to like much of this game or have played it so much they are bored with most of it. And that melancholy Erudite, who shouted with a sense of genuine pride and accomplishment about having enough Gnoll fangs to have not play 1/5 of the game, seems to epitomize many forum posters.

So, my question is, what is the best part/zone/experience/challenge et al. of P99 that impels you to log on still? What is it that impels you to gather enough Gnoll fangs so that you can skip much of the game just to get to that part?

For my part, I like the slog and the repercussions for bad gameplay. (I'm a super casual btw) and the nostalgia I still feel when EQ was new to me. But, I want to keep an eye out for the parts of the game that the jaded ones find enchanting still, so that I can savor it when I experience it and perhaps one day join them in hating much of the gameplay except for that small part.

Well he camped them on his main character clearly so he did play the game.

Also many believe the game starts at higher levels when tedious leveling is over with.

Everyone plays for a different reason, i personally think the best part of everquest is crushbone, after that its a pile of crap.

Thanks for that Thulian! I'm leveling up an alt and will spend my teens there.

Many people have leveled one to max over and over. Just because he farmed fangs doesn't mean he's going to PL any other part. Most will still do the bigger grind of 35 - 50, and now beyond to sixty. A much bigger grind BTW, your insinuation that 10 to 20 is 20% of the game is not accurate.

I understand your opinion on this, but the low levels in EQ are really the most tedious, boring, and lacking in replay enjoyment for most people who have multiple high level toons. Skipping these levels with the relatively cheap and easy to farm quest items is very understandable. Most classes don't even begin to develop a real identity and a full range of their toolkit until level 12 at minimum, but more like level 20 in most cases.

I have a lot of toons on blue and green, I don't mind going 1 to 5 especially with any bit of twinking done, but that 5 to the low teens is just lame on every class. I tend to use quest turn ins to bypass that and then in the low teens I go back to leveling for real, often the crushbone path like you.

I did a lot of my alts without any questing on blue before I had any money to waste or a max level that could farm fast. But as time has gone on I started to understand wanting to skip to the meat of the game.

i think you're wrong to assume they're jaded because they're leveling in a different manner.

many people have spent /weeks/ killing the same 8 bears in a classic zone with the release of kunark -- all because they find some different value in being 60 than someone else might. but perhaps at level 60, they will adventure for an entire year and see zones and mobs and loot and gear that someone who adventures their way to 60 (and gets bored afterwards) ever will.

some will kill the same giants for 20 plat for 12 hours to buy an item they could've farmed in 6.

fun is fun is fun. i think it's odd to expect others to have or want the same experiences as you -- i'd be quite excited to farm that many gnoll fangs, and have a good time doing it myself.

to be fair the teens can be the worst for like 90% of classes :p

• My class gets X spell or Y ability at Z level -- SoW, clarity, port, charm, FD, pet, etc. etc.
• My friend(s) / guildie(s) are 10-15 levels head of me and we want to group
• I want to join a guild but I need to be X level
• I want to join open raids, but I need to be 46
• I want to go to the planes, but I need to be 46
• I really enjoyed X zone, but it's for levels Y-Z
• I want to complete X quest, but it's a huge time sink or impossible unless you are level Y
• I really wanted to camp X, but I need to be Y level

This is just off the to of my head.

After spending 7 years on Blue, killing everything outside warders in ST(sorry no warder loot), the thing I enjoy the most is seeing how far my son and I can work our way into dungeons with a cleric+mage duo. The pacify split fails often keeps things interesting.

I enjoy seeing people who have never raided before get to experience things for the first time.

I enjoy the excitement getting the item we've spent an hour or two a day (I try to not get us caught up in grindy sessions) for the last couple weeks trying to obtain finally drop.

Imagine his surprise if he rolled a toon here and collected that many gnoll fangs only to learn there’s no quest exp. hueheh