Ill say in advance this is a Very long post but i hope you will take the time to read it.
I have only been playing WR for about 5 days, but i figure with the grouwth of this server maybe it would be nice to hear from a newbies point of view since you will probably be getting a lot more people just like me.
I played Eq live for years starting with opening but quiting after LDON came out, my main was a 57 Druid. So i know my general way around EQ.
There are a few things that really caught my attention as soon as i started WR. First being the Day/night transitions i thought this is a very cool and logical idea but i have to tell you about my first experiance with the Day/night. I am a level 1 bard wandering around north newport i finally find the newbie fighting area but see some doors located to my left and right. I go in the right one and see some general. I figure hes probably for a quest so i hail him and get whatever quest i get from that guy. after i get the quest i have to log off so i sit and camp. Later that night i log back on only to find that i cannot get out of the room becase the door is locked and i dont have the key. Only about after 5 min am i able to find the stairs up and jump off (too my death). So maybe have the ability to leave locked doors but not enter them? If that is even possible.
Now onto the bulk of my post, my experinces up to level 12.
Levels 1 through 6 went quite easily and fast just fighting in north Newport. Money was hard to come buy and the only thing that slowed me down is the constant need to sell. After lvl 6 i ventured out into teh centaur hills. Now im here in centaur hills and most of the beetles and bats are green. I see a large bat that is red and a giant bat taht is also red. I wandderaroudn some mroe and finally find a wolf thats blue and i kill it. After that i go around looking for wolvs for about 30 min and find only 1 other wolf. There is also the gnoll camp right infront of Black Burrow but that is almost ALWAYS camped by either a group or 1 person pulling htem all and getting healed by a higher level cleric.
After it took me about 3 hours to get to lvl 6 it took me about 6 more hours to get to lvl 8. This was mostly becausr it took a very long tim time to find something decent to kill. And being an untinked bard, even if i did find a blue, sometimes i would have to run before i was able to kill it. When the onlything available for you to kill are wolvs and camped gnolls killing slows down a lot. Finally i was able to pick up a few single pull gnolls secretly without the group knowing and was able to sneak my way to lvl 8.
At lvl 8 the group left and i found out about the gnoll ear quest. I was able to kill some gnolls with a couple other people fighitng them but now group so it was just first come first serve. And i was able to work my way to lvl 9 pretty quickly by turning in gnoll ears wich gave a decent amount of xp.
At lvl 9 i Finally got up the courage to go into BlackBurrow. I enter the zone and find a blue conning gnoll worker. I pull it to ent. and finish it with about 12% life left on me. BB gets trained and i die. After im back in Newport i decide i should wait another level before i go into blackburrow. i decide to go to the Badlands insearch of the gaurds im supposed to get a report from. I enter Wester Badlands wich i figure might even be a beter place to hunt due to the tint of blue i saw on the zone connection map. I follow the road into western Badlands for about 5 min and see nothing, not one Mob. Finally i see a Red conning lion who aggros me and i run another 5 min Right back to Centaur hills.
Only the 2 single spwan gnolls are camped and not being able to kill 2 at a time i decided to go in search of my best frined, the wolf. I didnt notice before but now some of teh Large wolvs are LB making it Very difficult to level. I spent the rest of my night finding wolvs and stealing a gnoll when i can. (although i feel VERY guilty about something like that).
I finally hit lvl 10 and went back into black burrow. I attempted to solo any blues i could find but was almost always confronted with an add or a train to zone and i didnt gain hardly any XP at all. There were a couple groups on the top lvl of BB and at least 1 down near the bridge. I was constatly shouting for a gorup but it seemed to me that the groups were either Real life freinds grouping or some one 2 boxing and didnt want me in thier group. After a while someone els came in and shouted for a group and i invited that person along with 4 othe oepl who came in and shouted for a group. We ruled the top lvl of BB and level 11 came VERY quickly. So quickly infact that my offense skill did not go up one point and as it had been going up very slowly since then i was lvl 11 max skill of 60 and my offence was at 23.
I have a question about that. My Piercing is maxed at 60 but my Offance is just barely 40 now. How is each considered in a skill up. Like is piercing Any piercing attack and offence just sucessful hits?
Anyway I hit lvl 11 and all of a suddon 95% of the top lvl of balckburrow was lightblue or green. i stayed with the group for a while but decided it was time to move on to greener pastures. I tried to get a group down at the bridge but they were only excepting lvl 12's and at the moment they only needed a healer or a chanter. And since i dont have any Mana regen songs yet and i cant hardly hit anything thats not low blue i wouldnt be much use as DPS either.
I leave BB and go ack into centaur hill seeing if some of those red bats are now blue. They were, the large bats are now blue. I engage one and it totally rips me a new one. I get it to a bout 70% and it chases me down and kills me before I could zone. I go back out and try it agian and i actually kill one. After that it seems to me that large bats are even more Sparce than the near invisiable wolves.
I looked for something to kill for about 30 more minets and after looking on these forums and such it seemed to me that if i was in need of xp i should go exploring. After finding a 6 Plat Tower shield in BB i had more than enough money to pay for the transloacator.
I went to Underhill first. It looked exactly like steamfont so i knew where i was going, having a Gnome necro alt on Live. I headed up the the windmills in search of something to kill. Nothing. Not one mod anywhere near the windmills. I go a little farther and find an orc camp. Some blue one even conned white. They were too grouped together to be pulled and not to mention a red Conning named orc station not to far from the camp. After runing along for a little bit i find a wandering orc mystic or something and decided to kill it. It was a pretty good fight and i ended with about 40% hp. And a decent chunk of XP i figure i could stay here for a while. I run around some more and find a bunch of Green spiders and such and a pack a named minetaurs that conned yellow and red. There were only 3 people in Underhill: Me a lvl1 and a lvl 50 something. So no chance of a group for the orcs. I Did find a large spider taht conned blue and kille dit but after running along a LONG time to find somethinf to kill i gave up and went back to the transloacator.
This time i didnt want to go to the Evil town for fear of bing KOS so i went to Twilight sea. I wandered around a found a Castel and got a quest to kill the alien things and bring back 2 shileds for a cloak. I find the alien camp after a LONG time of looking and see 3 blue aliens. I pull them one by one and kill them for good XP. No shields though. After i cleared that camp i went farther down the shore and found a group of LB aliens. I only needed a blue of XP to lvl up to lvl 12. I killed about 5 of the m to hit my lvl and aobut half 3/4 of the LB aliens turned green and some stayed LB. I went back the the spot where the aliens were Blue and now those were LB. So i went back to Newport and camped and that brings me to you now. That is my storey. I know it doesnt seem like a lot time spent but theses are 5 FULL days of EQ like from 11am to 1am with breaks for food and such. When i mean i was looking for wolves to kill for hours, i mean hours.
I know this has all probably been said over and over agian. But maybe if you hear it over and over you will now its a real issue. There are not nearly enough mobs to handle the growth of this server, and not enough People to group at all the camps, Especially in the lowere lvl zones. I cannot speak for the Evil zones but from, what i hear they are even worse off.
Just stating somethign that has been said before: It is nearly impossible to hit fleeing mobs. Either they are too far away and you have to get closer or you cannot see your target. This also goes with the Mob regen. I get a mob down to 6% and it starts to run i cannot hit it and will heal back up to 10% turn around and smak me a few times before i hit it and it starts to run again. Once i even had to Run becase the momb would ccontinue to turn on me long enough for me to run out of hp.
Somethign els i suggest is maybe more single pullable static spawns. Even though the server is growing 90% of all figthing done at this lvl is solo and when you do find a blue you will not be able to kill 2 of the same blue at the same time. There are a few gnoll spawn in centaur hill that are perfect and single pullable. mroe of theses and or Wandering mobs would be Exellent.
After being stuck at lvl 11 for so long just about all my skills are maxed for my level so i dont have a complaint about that. Another suggestion i might add are easy newbie quests. Such ass turning in batwings and wolf pets or spider eyes. For some coin and Experience. I know for me that before i weas luckey enough to find my shield I was at least 2 lvls behind in my spells and equip was just whatever i found. Newbie quests for a little coin would be the easiest way to help this out.
In my opinion the easiest way to implement newbies quests is to give them to the guildmaster of each class. I know that i hailed my guildmaster at the very beginning of the game only to find a long quest involving running around to lots of unknown areas. The easiest way i can think of is to give a quest like. Im concoting a potion but i need a beetle eye a batwing a snake skin and a beetle leg. And turn one of each into her for exp and a little more coin that it would be worth to sell the items. I dont mean a lot of coin but say all 4 times was worth 9 silver. Maybe give them 11 or 12 silver for them.
Another suggestion i might have is to creat a hunting guide. Like where people post what class/race they were, where they hunted ,at what lvls and whether they grouped there or not. Example:
Human Bard
Level: 1-5: Northern Newport - Anything blue - Solo
Level: 5-9: Centaur Hills - Wolves, gnolls - Solo
Level: 10-11: BlackBurrow - Gnolls - Solo/Group
I think if someone starts a thread like that eventually it can be compiled into a database sort of thing for the wiki.
Ide also like to pose a few questions about Bards in general. Do Bards Benifit from the Specialize skill EnergyDefense, the one that increases damage of damage and DoT spells as well as heal and Heal over time? And also to bards benifite from focus effects such as increased range? At lvl 10 i dumped 100 points into Energy/Defence only to not increase the dmaage of my chords of dissonece.
Now Dont worry, im not Quiting. And i will continue to explore and find new areas to hunt and gain XP. I love this game and this server to much to quit i just think WR can be so much more than it already is! Sorry for the Novel. But thanks to those of you who will actually read it all. Good luck and thank you for creating a great product. Keep up the good work.
Mishinis Lvl 12 Human bard.
I have only been playing WR for about 5 days, but i figure with the grouwth of this server maybe it would be nice to hear from a newbies point of view since you will probably be getting a lot more people just like me.
I played Eq live for years starting with opening but quiting after LDON came out, my main was a 57 Druid. So i know my general way around EQ.
There are a few things that really caught my attention as soon as i started WR. First being the Day/night transitions i thought this is a very cool and logical idea but i have to tell you about my first experiance with the Day/night. I am a level 1 bard wandering around north newport i finally find the newbie fighting area but see some doors located to my left and right. I go in the right one and see some general. I figure hes probably for a quest so i hail him and get whatever quest i get from that guy. after i get the quest i have to log off so i sit and camp. Later that night i log back on only to find that i cannot get out of the room becase the door is locked and i dont have the key. Only about after 5 min am i able to find the stairs up and jump off (too my death). So maybe have the ability to leave locked doors but not enter them? If that is even possible.
Now onto the bulk of my post, my experinces up to level 12.
Levels 1 through 6 went quite easily and fast just fighting in north Newport. Money was hard to come buy and the only thing that slowed me down is the constant need to sell. After lvl 6 i ventured out into teh centaur hills. Now im here in centaur hills and most of the beetles and bats are green. I see a large bat that is red and a giant bat taht is also red. I wandderaroudn some mroe and finally find a wolf thats blue and i kill it. After that i go around looking for wolvs for about 30 min and find only 1 other wolf. There is also the gnoll camp right infront of Black Burrow but that is almost ALWAYS camped by either a group or 1 person pulling htem all and getting healed by a higher level cleric.
After it took me about 3 hours to get to lvl 6 it took me about 6 more hours to get to lvl 8. This was mostly becausr it took a very long tim time to find something decent to kill. And being an untinked bard, even if i did find a blue, sometimes i would have to run before i was able to kill it. When the onlything available for you to kill are wolvs and camped gnolls killing slows down a lot. Finally i was able to pick up a few single pull gnolls secretly without the group knowing and was able to sneak my way to lvl 8.
At lvl 8 the group left and i found out about the gnoll ear quest. I was able to kill some gnolls with a couple other people fighitng them but now group so it was just first come first serve. And i was able to work my way to lvl 9 pretty quickly by turning in gnoll ears wich gave a decent amount of xp.
At lvl 9 i Finally got up the courage to go into BlackBurrow. I enter the zone and find a blue conning gnoll worker. I pull it to ent. and finish it with about 12% life left on me. BB gets trained and i die. After im back in Newport i decide i should wait another level before i go into blackburrow. i decide to go to the Badlands insearch of the gaurds im supposed to get a report from. I enter Wester Badlands wich i figure might even be a beter place to hunt due to the tint of blue i saw on the zone connection map. I follow the road into western Badlands for about 5 min and see nothing, not one Mob. Finally i see a Red conning lion who aggros me and i run another 5 min Right back to Centaur hills.
Only the 2 single spwan gnolls are camped and not being able to kill 2 at a time i decided to go in search of my best frined, the wolf. I didnt notice before but now some of teh Large wolvs are LB making it Very difficult to level. I spent the rest of my night finding wolvs and stealing a gnoll when i can. (although i feel VERY guilty about something like that).
I finally hit lvl 10 and went back into black burrow. I attempted to solo any blues i could find but was almost always confronted with an add or a train to zone and i didnt gain hardly any XP at all. There were a couple groups on the top lvl of BB and at least 1 down near the bridge. I was constatly shouting for a gorup but it seemed to me that the groups were either Real life freinds grouping or some one 2 boxing and didnt want me in thier group. After a while someone els came in and shouted for a group and i invited that person along with 4 othe oepl who came in and shouted for a group. We ruled the top lvl of BB and level 11 came VERY quickly. So quickly infact that my offense skill did not go up one point and as it had been going up very slowly since then i was lvl 11 max skill of 60 and my offence was at 23.
I have a question about that. My Piercing is maxed at 60 but my Offance is just barely 40 now. How is each considered in a skill up. Like is piercing Any piercing attack and offence just sucessful hits?
Anyway I hit lvl 11 and all of a suddon 95% of the top lvl of balckburrow was lightblue or green. i stayed with the group for a while but decided it was time to move on to greener pastures. I tried to get a group down at the bridge but they were only excepting lvl 12's and at the moment they only needed a healer or a chanter. And since i dont have any Mana regen songs yet and i cant hardly hit anything thats not low blue i wouldnt be much use as DPS either.
I leave BB and go ack into centaur hill seeing if some of those red bats are now blue. They were, the large bats are now blue. I engage one and it totally rips me a new one. I get it to a bout 70% and it chases me down and kills me before I could zone. I go back out and try it agian and i actually kill one. After that it seems to me that large bats are even more Sparce than the near invisiable wolves.
I looked for something to kill for about 30 more minets and after looking on these forums and such it seemed to me that if i was in need of xp i should go exploring. After finding a 6 Plat Tower shield in BB i had more than enough money to pay for the transloacator.
I went to Underhill first. It looked exactly like steamfont so i knew where i was going, having a Gnome necro alt on Live. I headed up the the windmills in search of something to kill. Nothing. Not one mod anywhere near the windmills. I go a little farther and find an orc camp. Some blue one even conned white. They were too grouped together to be pulled and not to mention a red Conning named orc station not to far from the camp. After runing along for a little bit i find a wandering orc mystic or something and decided to kill it. It was a pretty good fight and i ended with about 40% hp. And a decent chunk of XP i figure i could stay here for a while. I run around some more and find a bunch of Green spiders and such and a pack a named minetaurs that conned yellow and red. There were only 3 people in Underhill: Me a lvl1 and a lvl 50 something. So no chance of a group for the orcs. I Did find a large spider taht conned blue and kille dit but after running along a LONG time to find somethinf to kill i gave up and went back to the transloacator.
This time i didnt want to go to the Evil town for fear of bing KOS so i went to Twilight sea. I wandered around a found a Castel and got a quest to kill the alien things and bring back 2 shileds for a cloak. I find the alien camp after a LONG time of looking and see 3 blue aliens. I pull them one by one and kill them for good XP. No shields though. After i cleared that camp i went farther down the shore and found a group of LB aliens. I only needed a blue of XP to lvl up to lvl 12. I killed about 5 of the m to hit my lvl and aobut half 3/4 of the LB aliens turned green and some stayed LB. I went back the the spot where the aliens were Blue and now those were LB. So i went back to Newport and camped and that brings me to you now. That is my storey. I know it doesnt seem like a lot time spent but theses are 5 FULL days of EQ like from 11am to 1am with breaks for food and such. When i mean i was looking for wolves to kill for hours, i mean hours.
I know this has all probably been said over and over agian. But maybe if you hear it over and over you will now its a real issue. There are not nearly enough mobs to handle the growth of this server, and not enough People to group at all the camps, Especially in the lowere lvl zones. I cannot speak for the Evil zones but from, what i hear they are even worse off.
Just stating somethign that has been said before: It is nearly impossible to hit fleeing mobs. Either they are too far away and you have to get closer or you cannot see your target. This also goes with the Mob regen. I get a mob down to 6% and it starts to run i cannot hit it and will heal back up to 10% turn around and smak me a few times before i hit it and it starts to run again. Once i even had to Run becase the momb would ccontinue to turn on me long enough for me to run out of hp.
Somethign els i suggest is maybe more single pullable static spawns. Even though the server is growing 90% of all figthing done at this lvl is solo and when you do find a blue you will not be able to kill 2 of the same blue at the same time. There are a few gnoll spawn in centaur hill that are perfect and single pullable. mroe of theses and or Wandering mobs would be Exellent.
After being stuck at lvl 11 for so long just about all my skills are maxed for my level so i dont have a complaint about that. Another suggestion i might add are easy newbie quests. Such ass turning in batwings and wolf pets or spider eyes. For some coin and Experience. I know for me that before i weas luckey enough to find my shield I was at least 2 lvls behind in my spells and equip was just whatever i found. Newbie quests for a little coin would be the easiest way to help this out.
In my opinion the easiest way to implement newbies quests is to give them to the guildmaster of each class. I know that i hailed my guildmaster at the very beginning of the game only to find a long quest involving running around to lots of unknown areas. The easiest way i can think of is to give a quest like. Im concoting a potion but i need a beetle eye a batwing a snake skin and a beetle leg. And turn one of each into her for exp and a little more coin that it would be worth to sell the items. I dont mean a lot of coin but say all 4 times was worth 9 silver. Maybe give them 11 or 12 silver for them.
Another suggestion i might have is to creat a hunting guide. Like where people post what class/race they were, where they hunted ,at what lvls and whether they grouped there or not. Example:
Human Bard
Level: 1-5: Northern Newport - Anything blue - Solo
Level: 5-9: Centaur Hills - Wolves, gnolls - Solo
Level: 10-11: BlackBurrow - Gnolls - Solo/Group
I think if someone starts a thread like that eventually it can be compiled into a database sort of thing for the wiki.
Ide also like to pose a few questions about Bards in general. Do Bards Benifit from the Specialize skill EnergyDefense, the one that increases damage of damage and DoT spells as well as heal and Heal over time? And also to bards benifite from focus effects such as increased range? At lvl 10 i dumped 100 points into Energy/Defence only to not increase the dmaage of my chords of dissonece.
Now Dont worry, im not Quiting. And i will continue to explore and find new areas to hunt and gain XP. I love this game and this server to much to quit i just think WR can be so much more than it already is! Sorry for the Novel. But thanks to those of you who will actually read it all. Good luck and thank you for creating a great product. Keep up the good work.
Mishinis Lvl 12 Human bard.
. But, at the risk of that, perhaps an Erudin neck could be implemented that would get people going towards odus. There are very ripe zones over there because it's well established as a newbie zone. If you feel BB is too crowded, that might be a good place to check out. Also, the evil starting places tend to be sub-par, which contributes. Overall, these issues can and will be addressed, but we must be patient.
