Newbie Zones: Ready for Launch?

[Jibartik]

I have nothing but my memory but my best friend and I that played EQ together played a troll, and I played a dark elf. I leveled in the dark elf area and he leveled in the troll area.

The troll area was like "the place to be" for a noobie. You would get a full set of mesh there leveling (or was it woven?) it was a leather graphic for a caster... We had started over a lot together, and did lan parties on weekends and he would just be like you're wrong, you're wrong, everytime I tried to level anywhere but the swamp. I finally listened and went to the swamp, Id think "man he is right this is the spot!" and got a full inventory of leather graphic armor for my darkelf necro by the time I got him to level 8 there and went back for spells, proudly I wore that armor through the oasis, I remember that trip!!

That armor stuff sold for like a gold+ each!

Id always go to the swamp to level noobies from then on..You made hand over fist plat leveling in that area as a noobie just killing froggies.

I tried bringing a character there because of my memories when I started playing p99 and was like, what the heck this area is the worst! there is nothing to kill but like 2 tads!

Like loramin says, we likely will never prove this one, but idk... I suspect some things may have changed since the old days with regards to some of these noobie zones.

Cant prove it, but my suspicion is now stuck in my brain.

Edit: Or it could have just been that classic effect "46 froglock tads with one AoE!" or maybe that guy litreally did kill 46 froglock tads? I just dont know now....

[Deathrydar]

I remember back in the beta in 2009, there were not enough MOBs in each starting zone. I only knew Freeport like the back of my hand, so only Freeport was fixed as a GM gave me the powers to create MOB paths as he added MOBs to the zone.

Over the years, it seems that some other zones were fixed, but the MOB count in Innothule and Feerrott are way too low. More should be added ASAP, definitely before Green's launch!

[cd288]

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

I know it's been mentioned before, but it really seems like the newbie zones are going to be practically unplayable at launch. Let's assume a population at the low end of estimates, 1000 players. You're probably looking at numbers something like ~350 on Faydwer, ~250 in Qeynos, ~200 in Freeport, ~150 in Oggok/Grobb, ~50 in Misty. Do you guys think GM's will add more mobs or have gms in different zones with /spawn command (I think someone mentioned they did this on some new servers on live.) If not, which zones do you think will be most able to handle the amount of players?

1) Freeport. Seems like a decent bet, as there are not one but two newbie yards. Dark elves will probably come here too, some will stay in nek. EC and Nro have some newbie stuff.

2) Qeynos. Probably going to be really awful. I think people will be attracted to this one with all the great newbie quests, but theres only one newbie yard, QH is relatively spaced out, and a lot of barbarian and erudite players will come here to hunt. Speaking of that....

3) Everfrost. Seems emptier of roaming gnolls and goblins than I remember on live, but we all know how reliable memory is. It's a tough start on blue for sure with hardly any level 1 roamers in those chasms. Maybe it won't be that bad on green since most mobs are level 2+ people can group and take them down, but still seems somewhat devoid of creatures to hunt.

4) Tox. Actually not as bad a newbie zone as you might think, but the current version on blue is littered with too many infected rats (75% of stuff north of the river maybe?) rather than stuff that drops armor/weapons. Seems to be a classic monster though so it's probably going to be like that at launch unless it gets fixed.

5) Misty. I don't know much about this zone, but since it's pretty much going to just be halflings here it might be a good bet. I am not familiar with mob density

6) Feerrott. Some camps here that are tough for single ogres to break, but should be doable with groups of ogres, so might not be that bad? Not sure if mob density is enough for peeps though, seems unlikely?

7) Innothule. I'm not sure there will be enough creatures here to hunt for the newbies, as you pretty much need to stay close to the wall. Unless some brave groups venture into the watery parts of the swamp, but there don't seem to be a high density of critters so I'm not sure it'd be worth it.

8) Gfay. I don't know shit about this place as a newbie zone, but it seems like a lot of people love it. How good is it going to be with 250+ (probably at a minimum) newbies looking to kill orcs. How is the monster density in this zone?

9) Steamfont. Also don't know shit about this zone, is there enough to hunt for 50 gnomes and some sprinkled wood/half/high elves that want to come here (maybe some dwarves?)

10) Butcher. Don't know much about this zone either but seems pretty spread out.

11) Neriak. Forest is ok I think, I'm assuming people will hunt the halflings on green. Probably a bunch gonna go to freeport.

What do you guys think?

I'm really confused by your comments on FP and Qeynos. Why would a Dark Elf who is KOS to some people in FP come to FP to level in its newbie yard? A lot of them will be okay with the guards, but having to trek all the way down through the tunnels to get to vendors who will sell to you? Not being able to bank in North FP? It simply doesn't make sense for a Dark Elf to go to FP until they've accrued several levels and they're ready to start leveling in EC or N Ro. Not to mention that Nektulos is a phenomenal newbie zone with a great progression of content through the first several levels.

As for Qeynos, the newbie yard is pretty big there. Why would Barbarians go there? Everfrost has some great early level quests that you can do to get decent starter gear and then you can go straight to Blackburrow. Honestly, if I created a character in Qeynos I'd probably try and get to Everfrost instead of the other way around. I guess some Erudites might go to Qeynos at level 1, but why? While not great, Toxx isn't awful either. Not to mention, an evil Erudite (i.e. Necromancers) won't be able to get to Qeynos on their own until they get Gather Shadows at level 8.

[soronil]

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

I still insist the two are comparable.
What part of this do you imagine to be unlike day 1 of green? [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

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

On the classic WoW launch, it was pure madness! There were so......many.....people....
That's how you are going to survive on green's launch!

You guys can't compare WoW to EQ.

Wow has so much technology to make sure that things are smooth
1. Multiple servers. People spread out. character creation lockslock at high pop
2. Log in queue. IF the server is full, you can't log on, even if you have a char.
3. Multiple instances of zones. As many instances as they need to get more reasonable zone desnity
4. Cross realm zones. A zone is too empty? Ok, now several servers are on the same instance of that zone.
5. Dynamic respawns. Mobs dying faster? Spawn more frequently
6. Instanced dungeons. Once you get high enough for the newbie dungeons, you can run them non stop, never have to worry about competing for mob spawns again.

That's just the technology i know about off the top of my head. I'm sure there is more.

p99 has none of that. If you thought you "survived" wow classic launch, good luck here buddy.

[soronil]

Originally Posted by cd288 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I'm really confused by your comments on FP and Qeynos. Why would a Dark Elf who is KOS to some people in FP come to FP to level in its newbie yard? A lot of them will be okay with the guards, but having to trek all the way down through the tunnels to get to vendors who will sell to you? Not being able to bank in North FP? It simply doesn't make sense for a Dark Elf to go to FP until they've accrued several levels and they're ready to start leveling in EC or N Ro. Not to mention that Nektulos is a phenomenal newbie zone with a great progression of content through the first several levels.

it's only a few minutes away from neriak. And you can kill mobs all the way.

Toxx has low levels spawns all the way to WC. It will be quite natural for people to spread out from neriak and eventually zone into WC if they can't find mobs in Toxx. On blue, people flock to WC to be near buffs / where they came to get their twink gear from their other char. So again kind of natural for people to gravitate towards DC. Not to mention the undead in befallen will be a popular spot once you get to level 4+

P.S there are quests that gets an agnostic DE to apprehensive with the merhcants in 20-30 minutes. Will also get you from level 1 to level 2.

[Lojik]

Originally Posted by cd288 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I'm really confused by your comments on FP and Qeynos. Why would a Dark Elf who is KOS to some people in FP come to FP to level in its newbie yard? A lot of them will be okay with the guards, but having to trek all the way down through the tunnels to get to vendors who will sell to you? Not being able to bank in North FP? It simply doesn't make sense for a Dark Elf to go to FP until they've accrued several levels and they're ready to start leveling in EC or N Ro. Not to mention that Nektulos is a phenomenal newbie zone with a great progression of content through the first several levels.

As for Qeynos, the newbie yard is pretty big there. Why would Barbarians go there? Everfrost has some great early level quests that you can do to get decent starter gear and then you can go straight to Blackburrow. Honestly, if I created a character in Qeynos I'd probably try and get to Everfrost instead of the other way around. I guess some Erudites might go to Qeynos at level 1, but why? While not great, Toxx isn't awful either. Not to mention, an evil Erudite (i.e. Necromancers) won't be able to get to Qeynos on their own until they get Gather Shadows at level 8.

/shrug I guess everyone has a different opinion, but at least on this server Everfrost is very low on mob density, tox somewhat, nektulos maybe a little better? I think part of the problem is that when people come to p99 blue, they only experience the low level bit for a few hours then move on, so no one really pays attention to if the classic mechanics/spawns are right, and it's an extremely unclassic (and usually fast) experience (no one to compete with spawns, people will usually just straight up give you plat and items even if you don't ask.) As a result places with (at least it sure as hell seems like to me) lower mob density than on live "feel" classic, because at most there's 1 or 2 other lowbies in the zone with you, when in reality on live this was supporting much more than that...obviously not the hundreds we'll probably see. I really think unless they address several zones and their low mob density it's going to be really bad in places like everfrost, tox, possibly nektulos, and people will either quit or travel outside those zones.

As far as Neriak to freeport, a good portion of dark elf classes are not kos, and while they can't vendor in efp they can possibly vendor in commons. I highly suspect DE to be a popular class at launch and thus Nektulos forest to be overburdened. FP again has TWO newbie yards with lots of spawns, in nro it's basically like a mini newbie yard and ec a bit as well.

PS has anyone leveled a good erudite 1-4 in tox forest in the last couple of months? Ugh those rats everywhere.

[Deathrydar]

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

I think part of the problem is that when people come to p99 blue, they only experience the low level bit for a few hours then move on, so no one really pays attention to if the classic mechanics/spawns are right,.

This goes deeper than you think. When I started here back in beta, I realized that very little to none of the lower level zones were tested in beta. Nearly everyone was level 60 and no one cared.

I was offered an insta-60 as well, but I turned it down because I wanted to test the lower level stuff. As stated in my previous post in this thread, there were a lot of things that were not right in all of the Freeport zones, East Commons, and North Ro. That being said, I only had time to test that area, so I am sure that the other areas were probably never really tested in beta back in 2009 and remain unfinished.

[Hoppkins_Wytchfinder]

Yup stick near the EC zone in. Zoning is kind of like running to the guards anyway.

Same on the Nro zone. SOunds a good plan to me as long as your careful.

I would say most people stick near the guards and dont go more than 3/4 of the way into the newbie area. The part near the EC/Nro zones is probably pretty underused.

[Chryorn]

The run to Freeport is attactive for Dark Elves because the loot is much better there. All these skeletons and pawns with their cloth armor that is DE wearable. The skeleton population in Nektulous was much lower and the mobs more spread out as well. Especially East Freeport yard was attractive because Murissa Sandwhisper was standing right at the zone line in North Ro.

[magusfire24]

I was going to be a mage on Green . It might be a good idea to be a Erudite than to have a less trafficked newbie area. Plus never been a Erudite. Rule all with the big forehead!