--Warning *new player* please do not flame to death--
I made a character on Legacy of Zek and r99 to see what the main differences were. I played 10-15 hours on each as an iksar SK on r99 and an iksar SK on LoZ
r99
-very difficult to level, especially without gear or people to group with.
-Extreme amount of mobs around field of bone makes it difficult to solo pull anything.
-the 35% penalty HITS really really hard. My friend i managed to get playing leveled a shaman at the same time i was and was easily outpacing me. Almost forced to reroll war or necro
-OOC is filled with bickering back and forth. Being unable to ask questions or for help pre-level 10 can be tiring.
- The classic feel is nice
Legacy of Zek
- Currently every zone is a hot zone. I leveled up very quickly and was able to get on my feet within 2-3 hours of roaming field of bone
- I think the mob spawns were somewhat broken resulting in less mobs in FoB. This made it manageable though as i could pull mobs easier.
- Having text labeling merchants and having spell merchants near the trainers helped a lot as well as beginner mobs in the city. After time i could have it all memorized but as a new player it slowed down my process without labels and or a city map in the beginning.
- Yellow text was actually really cool and i had forgotten how exciting it made things. Seeing a lot of it pop up with the who and where was neat. It let me know right away who was a danger and who wasnt as well as what guilds were competing against each other.
- Damage on mobs has been increased to hit for cap more making it easier to solo.
I played EQ when i was 10 until 17-18. I am 24 now and going back brought a lot of nostalgia, especially on r99. I am a hard core player and for the most part i do not have trouble investing my time into grinding (i prefer grinding over questing any day of the week). The problem i see is that from 10-18 i had PLENTY of free time to do whatever i wanted. Now with a career and all kinds of other bullshit, my time is very limited. Had the server a population of 250+ i could easily see a hardcore grind with minimal exp bonus viable. With the current population though, the amount of time it takes to build up my character/gear (in a very item based game) is just not realistic for most that will find this game.
People can go ahead and flame me but i am speaking from what an outsider with limited time would say to this box. The feeling is there, the nostalgia is there but the convenience is not. In order to pull in new players you need to DRASTICALLY speed up the process to get from low pop to where all the people are. That means:
1-30 is fast as hell (150-200% increase and maybe low level loot/money)
30-40 is still fast (100-150% increase in xp/loot/plat)
40-50 is winding down the progression (50-100% increase in xp/loot/play)
50-60 is normal or maybe 25% increase etc.
There is no way unless i had months off and my parents decided to give me all their money that i would be able to invest the time required on r99 to reach where the community is at now. Is it possible for the gem in the rough? Sure. But to keep the most players/highest pop you are going to need to facilitate getting to the end.
Not to mention almost any person i saw near my level during that time was twinked to high heaven.
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