Newbie Zones: Ready for Launch?

[Aaramis]

Originally Posted by loramin [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I haven't made a new Barbarian since I made Loramin here (half a decade ago), but I 100% remember it being like that on live. If it's not like that here it should be corrected ... but good luck finding classic evidence for spawn points of level 1 mobs [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Yep, most newbie zones were like that. I remember Nektulos "noob log" having half a dozen people fighting or meddling on it, and a near constant supply of mobs walking past.

Now you can have the zone to yourself and still wait a minute for a mob to walk by.

[ldgo86]

I can’t wait to see Gfay in the first hours. I’m just going to sit back and watch it play out. Maybe do some play by play in /ooc

[Fammaden]

So back in April I thought I saw quotes from a Q&A with Rogean that happened at the convention where green was first announced. And one aspect supposedly mentioned was dynamic spawn times for the launch population surge in newbie zones to potentially scale with the zone count. Not sure if that's still on the table. It wouldn't be strictly classic but neither will 3k+ people I'd say, and it is something that happened on EQ at some point later.

It really would ease some conflict if the newbie yard mobs were respawning immediately once a certain number of players was reached. After the newb zones you have more than one zone to pick from in your level range generally, so they could be more hands off outside of starting areas. For that first weekend at least, a dynamic respawn timer might be nice.

[lordpazuzu]

Originally Posted by Danth [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Can't wait to watch the pigpile that happens soon as people spot a decaying skeleton carrying a staff.

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And once the chaos has subsided, the tears have flowed, and forty petitions sent, it'll be a worn great staff.

[Verityn]

Originally Posted by Fammaden [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

So back in April I thought I saw quotes from a Q&A with Rogean that happened at the convention where green was first announced. And one aspect supposedly mentioned was dynamic spawn times for the launch population surge in newbie zones to potentially scale with the zone count. Not sure if that's still on the table. It wouldn't be strictly classic but neither will 3k+ people I'd say, and it is something that happened on EQ at some point later.

It really would ease some conflict if the newbie yard mobs were respawning immediately once a certain number of players was reached. After the newb zones you have more than one thing to pick in your level range generally so they could be more hands off outside of starting areas. For that first weekend at least, a dynamic respawn timer might be nice.

I wanted to lend some weight to the idea that dynamic spawning in newbie zones is actually sort of classic. Take it as hearsay if you will. According to two former GM's that I used to know they would sit it in the newbie zones and spawn mobs over and over. After learning this I realized there were times where a spawn was just going nuts with stacks of fire beetles in one spot that never ended. Once enough people were onto that spawn it would stop and move elsewhere. At the time I just thought the spawns were being funny since so many mobs were being killed.

[Fammaden]

Originally Posted by Verityn [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I wanted to lend some weight to the idea that dynamic spawning in newbie zones is actually sort of classic. Take it as hearsay if you will. According to two former GM's that I used to know they would sit it in the newbie zones and spawn mobs over and over. After learning this I realized there were times where a spawn was just going nuts with stacks of fire beetles in one spot that never ended. Once enough people were onto that spawn it would stop and move elsewhere. At the time I just thought the spawns were being funny since so many mobs were being killed.

Good enough evidence for me, make it happen. We can all sit and kill our single soft instanced skeleton mob for five levels that first weekend. :P

[Vizax_Xaziv]

I'm guessing the 4k milestone will be hit EASILY during the first week of launch. Someone on my Classic WOW server was talking about it the other night.

There's a handful of relatively large Twitch Streamers (read 1000+ concurrent viewers daily) who've shown interest in Green as well.

[Vizax_Xaziv]

Originally Posted by pink grapefruit [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

We survived wow classic launch; this will be fine too. Don't expect to make huge gains right from the start tho lol

Classic WOW uses a phasing mechanism to spread the population out based on player level, active quests etc.

That Westfall zone youre questing in, with 300 people, in just one of likely DOZENS of instances of that zone. Each Classic WOW server caps at 35,000 players (FULL on server select).

G99 will not even have dynamic noobie mob spawns let alone multiple phases of entire zones. The comparison is apples to cucumbers here.

[Verityn]

Originally Posted by Vizax_Xaziv [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Classic WOW uses a phasing mechanism to spread the population out based on player level, active quests etc.

That Westfall zone youre questing in, with 300 people, in just one of likely DOZENS of instances of that zone. Each Classic WOW server caps at 35,000 players (FULL on server select).

G99 will not even have dynamic noobie mob spawns let alone multiple phases of entire zones. The comparison is apples to cucumbers here.

The last EQ live TLP server I was on had layering too. I remember Unrest being fully camped on all of it's layers and I want to say there were 25 to 50 layers.

[Chryorn]

I created a Troll SK yesterday. I was the only player in the swamp and I had to run around and search for mobs. It took a long time to reach level 3. Most of it spent running around, searching. At least I got 4 bone chips for the Rusty Two Handed Sword while still at level 1. But even at Level 3 I had only managed to get 1 tadpole flesh and no froglok meat. No chance to get the 2 tadpole flesh and 1 froglok meat for the Rusty Two Handed Battle Axe. Not enough fungus spores for even 1 patchwork armor quest either. It didn't help that Zimbittle was up as well. She and the roaming guard competed with me for the few mobs around. - And I even made it all the way to South Ro in hopes to find mobs. Frogs one level above me were much too hard though, with just 4 pieces of cloth or netted.

3 days ago I made an Ogre SK. Lots of running around in Feerrott as well, but at least there were more mobs around. Much better than the swamp. It was easy to get a set of cloth armor and lots of lizard meat for the weapons quests. Lizard tails for the armor quests were less common. But by level 4 I was fully clothed, most of it cloth, with 4 patchwork pieces and enough plat for a full set of Large Leather Armor from the vendor.

The week before that it was Rivervale. Halfling Cleric. No real newbie quests, not many mobs that even dropped a few copper or a silver. By level 3 I still hadn't managed to get enough coins for all the useful level 1 spells and had 2 pieces of cloth armor. It didn't help getting dressed that parts of the cloth armor dropped by the skeletons is not halfling wearable. But at least those 2 pieces were valuable, compared to the animal parts.

After Rivervale I tried a dwarf. Much better. By level 4 I had most of my level 5 spells and was fully dressed in patchwork and tattered. Much less frustrating than Misty Thicket. The Bone Chips quest helps a lot with that.

Of course my two test chars in Qeynos and Freeport had no problem at all to have lots of mobs around them all the time. Lots of armor and rusty weapon drops as well.

The differences between the newbie zones are huge, both in gear and cash drops. I had the most fun with the Ogre SK, despite the running around. The Troll was the most frustrating. Grobb has lots of newbie quests, it just was not possible to even find the mobs. Most kills were snakes. The poor Troll was thankful to find something to kill at all.
I was planning to start a Halfling Cleric on Green. I like the look of female Halflings in plate armor. But Misty turned out to be a bad place to start, even without competition. Not being able to afford even the basic spells is frustrating. My Halfling managed to loot a cracked staff. But it is the best weapon available for her, can't just sell it. The Ogre had no such problems. 4 lizard meat for Sword or Axe plus a few silver for sharpening stones took 15 minutes. The cracked staves he got went straight to the vendor. The Dwarf Cleric is not tempted to sell her cracked staff. Getting dressed and buying spells was no problem anyway. The Troll has heard of cracked staves, but believes them to be a myth.