Advice needed - how to gain traction as a truly new player?

[trollitc]

Wow! Here's the single biggest take away piece of advice I've gleaned from this thread.

http://wiki.project1999.org/index.ph...s_and_ZEM_List - different zones have different XP modifiers.

Serves me right for not reading that wiki post earlier! But damn, this will make a hell of a lot of a difference!

[cavtroop]

Heyeveryone, I'm the monk buddy he referenced. I think the biggest thing is that we've spent 100% of our time in EC/WC - didnt realize there was an XP penalty for playing there. We're going to head off to someplace with bette XP - probably CB if we can get a port for cheap. That should make a BIG difference - going from 75% to 150% would have meant 2 or 3 more levels by now!

Thanks for all the tips - this is a great server. Run into a ton of very friendly people so far, and having a blast!

[Galaa]

I started in this server with zero friends and no plat, no hand downs, nothing.

I'm currently level 26 druid and I'm still using a cracked staff which I gotten off a level 1 skeleton, and I'm wearing the tattered leather armor (full suit) from the CB belt quests. When I was level 19,I was so poor that I can't buy a single level 19 spell, and had to farm low level mobs to earn plats to buy them.

I'm possibly the worst geared level 26 character in the server right now lol however I have no trouble levelling despite my gears though.

So don bother about gears too much. Unless u r a tank class, gears are the least of ur problems.

[Fultun]

Originally Posted by cavtroop [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Heyeveryone, I'm the monk buddy he referenced. I think the biggest thing is that we've spent 100% of our time in EC/WC - didnt realize there was an XP penalty for playing there.

Zones don't have an XP penalty. But some have an XP bonus.

[Relikk]

It may be a penalty outright but isn't that what 75% xp in the zone list means? You get 75% of the xp that you should get compared to a zone at 100% xp which I assume means what we would label as "regular" or "normal" experience?

[Messianic]

Originally Posted by Fultun [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Zones don't have an XP penalty. But some have an XP bonus.

No, actually some zones were created with a penalty (i.e. below some set average). Maybe you're just setting the baseline at the lowest ZEM value - but Lake of Ill Omen and TD specifically had exp ZEM's below nearly every other zone. Dunno why it was made that way, but it was.

If you want to say they are merely the baseline and noob zones and cities get ~25% bonus, that's fine, but it's just semantics. They might as well be penalties.

Originally Posted by Relikk [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

It may be a penalty outright but isn't that what 75% xp in the zone list means? You get 75% of the xp that you should get compared to a zone at 100% xp which I assume means what we would label as "regular" or "normal" experience?

If you're using this: http://wiki.project1999.org/index.ph...s_and_ZEM_List

Remember that 75 is considered the baseline in that setup (note that LoIO is valued at 60).

[eqravenprince]

I wouldn't get too caught up in ZEM's. Adventure, try new zones. You'll find your leveling without it seeming like a grind.

Crushbone and Blackburrow are good choices. Dungeons I would also check out Najena, Befallen, Upper Guk, and Qeynos Catacombs. I believe newbie zones have an experience bonus, some have higher level mobs that would be good levels 5+, check out Feerrot Lizards and Misty Thicket past the wall and Butcherblock mountains.

Other dungeons I'm not sure what level they are, but worth checking out after a few more levels would be Runnyeye, Permafrost, Unrest and if you really want to go where no one has gone before Kerra Isle.

I don't want to tell you to avoid outdoor zones. Sometimes it's fun to try them out for the hell of it and adventure. Outdoor zones are usually less stressful in my experience.

[Plyssken]

Originally Posted by eqravenprince [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I wouldn't get too caught up in ZEM's. Adventure, try new zones. You'll find your leveling without it seeming like a grind.

Crushbone and Blackburrow are good choices. Dungeons I would also check out Najena, Befallen, Upper Guk, and Qeynos Catacombs. I believe newbie zones have an experience bonus, some have higher level mobs that would be good levels 5+, check out Feerrot Lizards and Misty Thicket past the wall and Butcherblock mountains.

Other dungeons I'm not sure what level they are, but worth checking out after a few more levels would be Runnyeye, Permafrost, Unrest and if you really want to go where no one has gone before Kerra Isle.

I don't want to tell you to avoid outdoor zones. Sometimes it's fun to try them out for the hell of it and adventure. Outdoor zones are usually less stressful in my experience.

Yeah, I'm loving Lavastorm I even found a little mini boss spawning area. I'm usually the only one pulling there and high levelers come by going to Sol B & I occasionally get ninjabuffs :-D

I liked the undead monolith in No Ro a couple levels previously right by the beach so I could fish in between pulls until my pole broke. :-P

[trollitc]

My wife totally thinks this game is not what it is. Mostly because she hears me talking to others about mobs and grinding an awful lot.

I believe we'll be packing up and heading to CB for some much needed XP. Thanks again to everyone! Please if you have more to say, do so! It's been so long since I've really played EQ - I'm still learning (or re-learning) a ton!

[Splorf22]

My rule of thumb is that gaining a level in EQ will require about 5 hours of XP time with a good group - of course that does not include questing, travel, getting trained and dying, corpse recovery, playing with 3 rangers in the group, or the bonus "hell" levels which include every level 51-60, etc. I believe my Magician on live had something like 30 days played when he hit 50, and my enchanter had more like 12-15. To like EQ, you have to be very goal oriented and somewhat masochistic.

That said:

I would echo what the previous posters have said. Go read the ZEM list. Both Blackburrow and Crushbone will level you up better than EC I think, and after that it's all about Guktop and Unrest. After that it's a bit harder to find a zone with a great ZEM unless you can drag people out to Kaesora.

You will level a LOT faster now than I did a year ago because you can group with ubertwinks (see Clever's thread where he plans to buy a Cloak of Flames for his L1 monk) plus periodically people will come by and throw buffs on you which also helps a lot.

Generally speaking the leveling zones are a lot less crowded than they were a year ago.

Finally, what are you going to do when you get to high level anyway? If you get to 50+ and want high end gear of the type IB is preparing to RMT, you have to join a raiding guild, sign up your cell phone, and jump out of bed at 5AM to go kill mobs before the other guild (currently TMO and VD are guilds 1 and 1A on the server at doing this). It's basically a second job. Your alternative is to join a second tier guild like BDA or Taken, which is fun but you'll never even see the endgame content. So the high end game is kinda rough on this server.