Newbie Ogre advice

[Jalir]

So about a year ago I made an Iksar Shaman and played for a few weeks, getting to around high teens - low 20s or so, but then ran out of time to play often and eventually forgot about it. Now that I've found some more free time, I decided to start over, but this time as an Ogre Shaman as ogre is pretty much the only race I've never really experienced in my whole EQ career.

The Feerrot seemed to be a really, really great start-up area for me, or atleast better than any others I remember. I got lots of money from all the rusty weapons and the lizard meat turn-ins (little did I know I was destroying my Troll SK guild faction in the process .. leading to some quite hairy CRs in Grobb ...) and made my way to level 5 with relative ease. The only real problem that I had with the place was that it was hard to navigate. Initially. I got lost a lot, and as such, my sense heading is already in the 180s, so I guess it wasn't all bad lol.

Now at level 5 I've found there's a bit more of a problem. Pretty much everything in the feerrot that isn't green con to me is social as hell, or it will spam blind me, or dot me real bad, or well you get the idea. I'm having trouble finding mobs that I can get solo that I can actually kill. There's also not many people in either innothule swamp, or the feerrot, so I'm pretty much solo.

Up to this point the feerrot has been great to me, I've got around 25p cash, good bags, a few stacks of bonechips and spiderling silk, and some HQ/MQ pelts stashed in the bank. My question is this, should I try to make the trek on over to WC/EC to xp there, as there are groups/buffs available there? Or should I try to stick it out here in the swamps solo. My main worries are not only the journey to the commons in cloth armor with no runspeed, but also the ability to sell and not get guard-raped when I get there. Also as a side note, any recommendations for cheap items I could save up for with bonechips and pelts and such would be appreciated, not too knowledgeable about wis caster gear from this era anymore.

Thanks.