I agree with the OP. It's not just The Hole that's causing this problem either. At their respective level ranges, the same thing has been happening in Unrest and CT, as well. It's become extremely difficult to even find an XP group (much less actually join one) in zones that don't have the highest ZEM for the level range. Classic was not like that on the Live server I played on (Brell Serilis). There was usually a list of people waiting to get in to groups in SolB, LGuk, Mistmoore, Karnor's, Seb, etc.... On Green, it's usually nothing but farmers, or the rare solo'er in those zones. You wanna talk about "Classic" EQ? Why did VI do the all the zone revamps? They did them to try to encourage people to spend more time in under-utilized zones. I think something should be done for the same purpose here on Green. Randomizing the ZEM might help some, but as soon as people figure out which zone is "hot", the same thing will start again. Ya gotta spread the love around... I'm not saying that all zones should have the same ZEM, but at least even it out a bit so that it's not such a huge difference in XP. When people are still grouping in CT when every mob at the camp is green because it's still better XP than going somewhere else... that's a problem. When people are fighting over whether or not a "camp" that's being cleared by one group should be split in to two "camps", and arguing about who's camp each specific spawn point belongs to... that's a problem directly related to over-crowding in the zone. The over-crowding is a direct result of the zones unique ZEM. Changing the ZEM's could eliminate these problems instantly.
On a related note, I keep seeing people talking about how screwed up the economy is on Green... Well, perhaps if desirable loot was being obtained by someone other than just farmers trying to make a plat, it would help even things out. Just imagine: people might actually be able to XP in a place where they could potentially get gear upgrades, instead of just buying it from a farmer. People could get drops that are useful to the characters that actually got the drop, instead of just PL'ing to 60 and twinking their alt's. Ya know... like how the game was originally intended to be played... focused on the gear you could win, rather than the plat you could generate to buy gear to twink yourself with. I know... pie-in-the-sky ideals, but can you imagine a world where lv 55+ characters were actually trying to group in places to get the gear they want instead of farming lv 40 gear to sell so they could buy the higher level gear? What a thought...
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