Hey mods/admins, I'd like to add the following to my original post:
Each encampment was giving quests. The Explorers and Loremasters mentioned [documents], [reasearch] and apparently [heads]. The documents were Dwarven (letter) and Giant (scoll) flavors, and the research items were the same (dwarven tablets and giant crates). These all were NO TRADE / TEMPORARY dropping from humanoids across all zones- goblins, orcs, frogloks, etc. I found nothing on undead.
I went over to the freeport gate by NRo and found one of each document on an Orc Pawn and a Centurion. Gated back and turned both in to the dwarven Coldain Explorer. One yielded a Warpainted Spear, a modest but decent SHM range item that doesn't drop anymore. A research turn-in returned Mammoth Hide leggings.
Every zone I passed through between Ro and Runnyeye was filled with players. Many were complaining about the lack of low level humanoid mobs. It was true- the hunting had basically driven them extinct.
One interesting effect was that turn-ins would spawn warriors and priests which would begin pathing towards the other side. At one point I saw a huge influx of dwarves:
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It was very exciting. After gathering a few more documents I went for more turn-ins on the giant side and halfway there I thought, "I should bring up Fraps and take some video". I alt-tabbed and just as I clicked the icon I remembered that launching Fraps would crash my EQ client, and it did. I was unable to log back in for an hour and by that time the quest drops were finished and all my quest items had vanished, being temporary.
Now only the Explorer NPCs remained, and they were porting players. Players were running up, saying "send me to Velious" and vanishing. I tried it with the Giant and it denied me- apparently I hadn't earned enough faction.
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I ran across to the lone remaining dwarf and said "send me to velious". It worked. Suddenly I was transported to Eastern Wastes. Apparently the port zones were inconsistent, and there were several impromptu camps of players in EW suggesting the port locations were spread out, too.
Players were showing off some of the rewards they had gotten for turning in heads. Some ridiculous items among them. Here were just a few:
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After looking around and taking out some low-level wildlife, I gated back to EC. I intend to explore velious 100% classic- boat only and no wiki. I never played Velious on live, and I've found that EQ is more fun when you don't know what to expect, and you aren't thinking about camps and drops and ZEM. That's part of what's so fun about GM events- weird, fun things happen with no warning. This was great, and a fitting launch for the long awaited Velious.