Dreadlands not as popular on Green vs live

[kaluppo]

I discovered EQ back in October 2000 when I joined the Tribunal server. By the time I reached lvl 20. Kunark had been out quite awhile. The hot spot in those days was sarnak fort groups from 20-30, FM or OT groups from 30-40 and Dreadland groups outside KC from 40-50. I remember hill group 1, HG2, HG3, ruins 1, ruins 2, ect.

I spent my entire 40's in pickup groups outside KC back then. I wondered if when Kunark was released on Green if that would be the case here. It clearly is not. Is CoM that much better and we just didn't know it back then? Just curious as to why LoiO and DL are more solo/BYOG zones here when they were very much pickup group friendly back in the day.

[Zyth]

You won't find people in many of the old leveling spots on p99 as you would on live servers. The game has been min/max'd to death and for better or worse, people stick to the same leveling track.

Game is about rushing to the end for the pixels now.

[douglas1999]

You won't find people in many of the old leveling spots on p99 as you would on live servers. The game has been min/max'd to death and for better or worse, people stick to the same leveling track.

Game is about rushing to the end for the pixels now.

Yeah pretty much this. I think changing up the ZEM's was a good move on green pre-kunark. It actually succeeded in getting people into paw and CT. A similar approach would be effective for kunark I think.

[Furitor]

IMO the most "classic" move is hidden and monthly randomized ZEMs. People didn't know too much about ZEMs back in the day and just leveled wherever.

[Evia]

IMO the most "classic" move is hidden and monthly randomized ZEMs. People didn't know too much about ZEMs back in the day and just leveled wherever.

Maybe an announcement that they’ve made changes but no details about it. That would be fun. ;)

[BarnabusCollins]

That's because everyone on p99 knows DL is green to 51+ minus ravishings and some widows.

Don't even bring up that classic bullshit when seafuries have been nerfed 3 years. P99 ain't classic. It is what it is.

[NPC]

I know exactly why, DL was good exp in groups for 40th level characters. Tons of people did not have 50th level characters when Kunark dropped on Live. Thats why. You always found 40th level groups in DL, then DL is good exp. But the extra old world ZEM's made it too easy to level to 50 on Green. Those old world ZEM did not exist pre-Kunark on live, they dropped after like Velious. Plus those old world ZEM precent boost seemed way bigger an more abundant on Green than live as well, FYI.
Also, most servers people did not figure out they could kill town guards for great exp either, only guards I ever saw camped on live was in Nek forest, that was it.
After Kunark dropped on Green, I ran out my 40th level alts LFG in DL an all I saw were 47th-50th level groups. DL is terrible exp for those levels,

[Danth]

Many if not most original servers were dramatically more heavily populated than P99 is. Couple that with the original servers being less top-heavy as mentioned above and the reason for the original game feeling more spread out becomes immediately apparent: necessity. Can't stuff 200 people into Guk and still find stuff to level off of. On Green during the initial launch rush where you had enough low-level players that folks had no choice but to go to less-used areas. Otherwise P99's leveling population is small enough that most the groupers can stick to the zones with the best experience rates leaving it mainly to solo and duo players to explore the rest of the game world.

It's not all bad. P99's population is closer to what the game was designed for. Personally, I don't particularly wax nostalgic for the days of a full group camping maybe two rooms in a dungeon with 20 min of waiting between cycles. I might also on occasion miss seeing groups in Lake of Ill Omen or similar areas but perhaps overall it's a fair trade.

Danth

[loramin]

IMO the most "classic" move is hidden and monthly randomized ZEMs. People didn't know too much about ZEMs back in the day and just leveled wherever.

The staff has already stated that (something like) this is their goal :) Instead of classic ZEMs, we have deliberately unclassic ZEMs here (which feel more classic because of their mystery) ... even though almost everything else here tries to copy live exactly. This is a rare staff exception to their general "classic mechanics over classic feels" policy.

The sad part is, when it comes to "controversially classic" stuff like this, they seem to give up after their first attempt and decide "it's decent enough". But if the goal of this place is to get people to see classic EverQuest, what would really be ideal (instead of one adjustment every ten years) is to rotate the ZEMs every so often to make the least-used zones have better ZEMs, and the most popular ones have worse.

They would still want to keep the ZEMs secret of course, but then they could say "ZEMs will secretly change behind the scenes, and while you can't predict them, the unpopular zones are going to get higher ZEMs over time ... so go explore Norath if you want the best XP".

[BiG SiP]

autists firsts

[Castle2.0]

With high levels camping gobbie rings, LOIO is a great place to be for your 20s. High level buffs right there.

[cd288]

I know exactly why, DL was good exp in groups for 40th level characters. Tons of people did not have 50th level characters when Kunark dropped on Live. Thats why. You always found 40th level groups in DL, then DL is good exp. But the extra old world ZEM's made it too easy to level to 50 on Green. Those old world ZEM did not exist pre-Kunark on live, they dropped after like Velious. Plus those old world ZEM precent boost seemed way bigger an more abundant on Green than live as well, FYI.
Also, most servers people did not figure out they could kill town guards for great exp either, only guards I ever saw camped on live was in Nek forest, that was it.
After Kunark dropped on Green, I ran out my 40th level alts LFG in DL an all I saw were 47th-50th level groups. DL is terrible exp for those levels,

Nah people camped guards a lot. The difference was that people playing non evil races were much more reluctant to kill guards of other non evil factions because people didn’t know a ton about whether you’d need that faction eventually for something. Now everyone knows what class will need what factions and when, so if you know you don’t need Qeynos or Kaladim for example, you’ll find a good/neutral race killing Qeynos or Kaladim guards etc.

[Knuckle]

The staff has already stated that (something like) this is their goal :) Instead of classic ZEMs, we have deliberately unclassic ZEMs here (which feel more classic because of their mystery) ... even though almost everything else here tries to copy live exactly. This is a rare staff exception to their general "classic mechanics over classic feels" policy.

The sad part is, when it comes to "controversially classic" stuff like this, they seem to give up after their first attempt and decide "it's decent enough". But if the goal of this place is to get people to see classic EverQuest, what would really be ideal (instead of one adjustment every ten years) is to rotate the ZEMs every so often to make the least-used zones have better ZEMs, and the most popular ones have worse.

They would still want to keep the ZEMs secret of course, but then they could say "ZEMs will secretly change behind the scenes, and while you can't predict them, the unpopular zones are going to get higher ZEMs over time ... so go explore Norath if you want the best XP".

Thats fine except people will congregate where they can find groups, so if they don't clearly state "Unpopular zone X" is the best XP for the next week/month/quarter then people will continue to go where XP is quick, because no one wants to sit in a zone for 4 hrs and get 1/4 of a yellow bar and no loot, because trash mob loot is atrocious in non dungeons most of the time. The game does not reward exploration except during epic quests and such where you do scavenger hunts/mob camps and those were great ways to get off the beaten track and get a sense of satisfaction and progress when completed.

We should not sugarcoat the fact that people min/max XP in kunark because there really isn't anything fun to do in a slow XP group with poor drops.

[loramin]

Thats fine except people will congregate where they can find groups, so if they don't clearly state "Unpopular zone X" is the best XP for the next week/month/quarter then people will continue to go where XP is quick, because no one wants to sit in a zone for 4 hrs and get 1/4 of a yellow bar and no loot, because trash mob loot is atrocious in non dungeons most of the time. The game does not reward exploration except during epic quests and such where you do scavenger hunts/mob camps and those were great ways to get off the beaten track and get a sense of satisfaction and progress when completed.

We should not sugarcoat the fact that people min/max XP in kunark because there really isn't anything fun to do in a slow XP group with poor drops.

Oh I agree, and I'd even go one further: when I'm playing a grouping character, I'll go to a popular zone over a good ZEM zone. It has nothing to do with min maxing ... except in the sense that, it doesn't matter how good the ZEM is: my XP rate is 0/hour if I can't get a group (so a ZEM -100 spot is still better than a ZEM +200 spot that I can't play in).

But, that being said, if ZEMs were more nebulous, and over time migrated away from popular places, eventually the "critical mass" would start to shift away to some new places. It would be just like how The Hole has recently become popular for groups again ... it just might take longer than it did this time (without an explicit XP increase announcement).

[JayDee]

I am alone in Overthere right now.. Yikes

[zaldaben]

I discovered EQ back in October 2000 when I joined the Tribunal server. By the time I reached lvl 20. Kunark had been out quite awhile. The hot spot in those days was sarnak fort groups from 20-30, FM or OT groups from 30-40 and Dreadland groups outside KC from 40-50. I remember hill group 1, HG2, HG3, ruins 1, ruins 2, ect.

I spent my entire 40's in pickup groups outside KC back then. I wondered if when Kunark was released on Green if that would be the case here. It clearly is not. Is CoM that much better and we just didn't know it back then? Just curious as to why LoiO and DL are more solo/BYOG zones here when they were very much pickup group friendly back in the day.

on live everyone wasnt fully decked out in planar gear by lvl 46 or had 4-5 lvl 50's with all the best gear you could buy either.