What is the absolute WORST zone in the game? VOTE NOW

[Kesselring]

Kedge is cool not sure why its there, swamp of no hope is a newbie swimmers nightmare, and ya you can stick to the edges but have you ever made a troll and leveled there? Try it.

[NegaStoat]

Swamp of No Hope has the most bullshit mob pathing patterns in existence, making it fucking unusable unless you're leveling off of Iksars in the caves by Trak Teeth entrance. I can't blame the P1999 devs for fucking up the proper pathing for the mobs (same issue with the bulk of the random wandering mobs in Kunark zones) because documentation for them is slim or none, but goddamn it's bad.

[Zuranthium]

My least favorite is Befallen because it's so unimaginative, straight out of some kind of stereotypical D&D undead dungeon box, and the zone is such a pain in the ass to play through as an actual lowbie dungeon, without any great rewards either (aside from one camp that does drop a good low/mid level weapon for tank classes). Never had any good experiences there.

And now a big rebuttle to everyone who's hating on outdoor zones:

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

Most obvious answer is not even listed- Lake Rathetear. Pointless zone in the middle of nowhere that brings nothing to the table other than certain classes that are required to do some penance epic work there.

Lake Rathe is a great leveling spot for the earlier levels and was full of people back in the day. I think the zone design is cool too.

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

How Dagnor's Cauldron only has 8 votes is beyond me. That zone is beyond boring and such a pain to walk into. That was my vote, though I was tempted to go Emerald Jungle just because it's such low visibility, high aggro zone.

It's always been a big disappointment how little there is to do in Dagnor's, but I think it looks unique, so it has that going for it. The zone at least gives Unrest much more mystique, because of the travel required to get there.

I love forest zones like Emerald Jungle and on PvP servers you get some really fun fights there. I do wish actually hunting in the zone was more relevant though, and in my ideal conception of the game world there would be a boat going from Steamfont Mountains to the Northeast corner of EJ.

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

Lesser Fay.

As said in the thread that prompted the poll - does anyone ever do anything in LFay besides hug the zone wall on the way to Mistmoore, kill the Nybright sisters, or run away from brownie scouts and/or the dumbass unicorn?

I would never pick big zones that you can get lost in as a worst, because that in itself is interesting to me. People did camp things here during Original EQ, the orcs and bandits and faeries, and also the NPC's next to the Steamfont zoneline. Hugging the wall to MM is very inefficient, it was actually something of a rite of passage back then to be able to run in a straight line across the zone. Also for PvP, being in such a dark area when coming out of MM adds an interesting dynamic. So it's definitely not a bad zone at all, it added mystery and danger to that area of the game, even if it could have included more content.

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

I'm going to go off script and say North Karana. If it didn't have the portals and serve as a link between the other Karanas, there would be almost no reason to ever go there. Super generic zone that offers basically nothing except access to other zones.

People hunted in North Karana in classic, because of the decent amount of wandering mobs that could be found within a close enough proximity. The gypsy quest for greater lightstones is here too and that was one of the very best ways to generate cash.

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

How is West Karana not running away with this?

West Karana is a very good zone, the bandits and scarecrows and giants and ogres were all constantly camped, also the guards from Qeynos at the towers, LOL! The expansive size of the zone did a lot to create a feeling of Antonica being a realistically difficult continent to travel across, and the open plainsland with all the farms gave a sense of this being where the "common people" of the western world lived.

The constant river to the south and the hills/forrests to north, where the bandits and scary creatures roamed, created a cool feeling too, of varied topography and evil lurking that posed a constant danger to the common man. There was a werewolf that ran around terrorizing players too!

Granted, I will say the East half of this zone could have been more interesting. Everything I just talked about was in the West half. Even in that regard though, it mirrors trying to drive across the United States. Ever been through Kansas? It's nothing but endless flatland. So okay, I would have liked to see more in the zone still, I've always wanted it to be more possible for groups to just roam around a zone like this, killing monsters a method of exping/adventuring (which would greatly benefit Rangers as being beneficial to track things), but this zone was VERY important to the game.

[Videri]

Great post, Zuranthium. To add to Lesser Faydark’s value, there is the bandit sisters’ camp (good plat on P99), there is a little-known named cycle of 5 mobs including Crookstinger. One of the other mobs drops an item with 5 charges of Illusion: Tree; and there is Kalayia Woodwhisper, a quest mob for the classic Cazic Thule Erudite Cleric quest for the Fright Forged Helm, quite a unique early-game item.

I’m shocked at the votes for Kedge Keep being a bad zone. Is it due to the pathing issues it used to have? Or just because it’s underwater? I’m surprised there are so many noobs that can’t handle a water level. You can wedge yourself in a corner to cast spells more easily while being hit. There are several fun, challenging camps with unique items that were valuable in classic era, and the last Kedge! It’s a cool zone and people shoudn’t knock it just because it’s hard to swim.

LEAVE PHINNY ALONE!

[Videri]

LFay also has 2 Gnome NPCs: Happ Dremblenod and Trudo Frugrin. Killing those two NPCs is one the only ways to raise faction with The Dead in Neriak (another way is killing the named Gnome prisoner in Crushbone).

I have also read that Happ was used as an easy exp mob by some players, perhaps due to her low hp pool and a 6ish minute respawn. She is a mage with a pet, though, so that probably offsets it somewhat. I guess this was back in that early era when Everquest’s population was high and people would find all these weird places to just grind exp that modern min-maxing pro-geeks now see as suboptimal choices.

Anyway, Lesser Faydark has its hidden treasures and secrets for the curious!

[Videri]

Also, the Qeynos sewers are GRATE.

[Dolalin]

The reason Dalnir is so unbalanced now is because:

A) There are so many casters
B) This server has non-classic caster AI

Back in classic, casters were useless. They would nuke and occasionally dispell, that was it. No charm, no stuns, no mez, possibly some healing but that was about it. The original strat for Velketor was to keep him casting as much as possible because one ice comet was far better than three rounds of attack. He never casted anything like supernova etc.

When they tuned Dalnir they tuned it for classic (read: useless) caster AI. It was probably acceptable.

[Jimjam]

Originally Posted by d3r14k [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Wasn't there a dude who leveled 1 to 50 without ever leaving Permafrost and Halas?

I was doing that on a 'self found' barbarian shaman. Up to 29 so far.

Probably overdue on an XP push.

I found a 'large dire wolf' which is like level 24 that can be pulled to the XP area and befriended.

[Topgunben]

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

I took all the "Least Favorite" zones from Topgunben's lovely post about Favorite/Least Favorite zones and I'm determined to find out which one is the absolute worst. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I am surprised to see swamp of no hope as a repeat winner. I actually like that zone, I don't get why all the hate.

[Muggens]

^ the Swamp of No Hope is actually rather charming - froglok village is good to visit