Was Qeynos really one of the first cities designed?
 

I always felt that the Qeynos area was rushed through and always seemed unfinished to me. You have Qeynos, and then QH which is just bare bones. Then you have Surefall which seems like it was supposed to be a main town but is more like an outpost.

Blackburrow seems like a good newbie dungeon but then the whole area just falls off. NK/WK are huge areas which just a spattering of mobs and nothing very valuable dropping. After BB, it looks like Paw (old paw) was the next logical place but was never that much higher than BB.

Which brings us to Freeport which seems very polished. Natural progression and tons of dungeons to choose from. You can do Befallen then his Oasis, Upper Guk, Lower Guk and literally get to 50 easy. Or you can do Befallen, Najena, Sol A and Sol B.

So am I wrong in thinking the devs started out in Qeynos, then just stopped caring about that area?

Qeynos is amazing on live. The NPCs there have so much to say and there are plenty of little adventures and mysteries they send you on. I wish the full game felt as finished as the first 9 levels in Qeynos!

Perhaps it would have been better to remove WK and make NK = NK+EK (with the long canyon like path to Highpass shortened).

I partially suspect the extreme width of WK and the length of the canyon in EK were due to someone from marketing wanting the run from Qeynos to FP to be shocking long.

I kinda wonder if the intent was to make Qeynos "just" a starter area. But there are a lot of broken quests there like that warrior sword (forgot the name) and a few others. Plus, isn't it odd that two of the arguably best in slot items (SBS and FB earing) are in QH and require almost no effort to get other than waiting? The mobs are very low level and makes it seem like they threw it in there last minute.

Even if you factor everfrost, there is nothing there except for Perma which is a pretty high level zone and there is a gap between that and BB.

I have always made Qeynos my home for all my characters. but i also never solo so thsi isnt for everyone. I personally felt like qeynos was more finished than freeport but i think it maybe just subjective on what you are familiar with.

North Qeynos 1-4 typical beetles, snakes, skeletons
Qeynos hills 5-8 gnolls, putrid skeletons
Blackburrow 8-12 gnolls
West Karanas 12-15 bandits
permafrost 15-30 goblins of course
paw 30+ maybe?

youve got gnoll fangs along the way to turn in for exp
bandit sashes mostly for a little plat building

Funnily enough, I think Qeynos is one of the better starting areas.

Counting Guk as part of the "Freeport area" is pretty silly, it's like 1 zone further away from Qeynos than it is from Freeport. Freeport and the surrounding areas have a serious lack of polish/flavor. It's just a bunch of orcs and dervs in either the grass or the desert. Qeynos has a ton of quests and mob variety around it. The only thing Freeport really has going for it is access to OOT and the EC tunnel.

Regarding Paw, it's supposed to be a low-level dungeon on a fresh server and then change to mid-level at some point in the timeline. We haven't had a chance to try that on p99 yet, but it should be active next launch.

Respectfully, I can't tell if you're being serious or not. Because by comparison Qeynos is actually one of the most, if not the most, fleshed out starting areas out of all the original old world options.

There are a plethora of quests (some quite interesting lore-wise) through the area and the Karanas that give good exp at low levels. A very well-designed dungeon right on the doorstep, great faction lore and the catacombs are awesome, etc. No other area until FoB comes close.

This, if someone actually talks to the NPCs Qeynos is the best.

The city itself seems fleshed out, but progression wise, the area seems unfinished. BB to Perma would only get you so far. The level difference between the hardest gobs and ice giants is huge. If you count revamped paw then maybe it would get you from 30-45.

FP > Nek > Lava - This gets you three dungeons, in one zone, that can take you from 15-50.

FP> Nro> Oasis > SRo> Swamp > Uguk > Lguk takes you from 1-50.

Qeynos > BB takes you to 15. Say you do Perma, that takes you to what? 35 tops?

If you want to run from Qeynos to any of the zones I mentioned near FP, you would need to go past FP to get to them.

Even if you go to Fay...you have CB > Unrest > MM will take you to 40. Then you can hit OOT to get 50.

Qeynos might be a polished city, but the areas around it are unfinished.