Getting back into SoD...

Titanas

Dalayan Elder
Does any one else have a hard time getting back into SOD?
I really enjoyed the "EQ" experience of SoD and would like to play again, but I have a hard time getting back into SoD. Every time I revisit the game I log on my old main character confused at all of the quest items I have in my bank and no clue where I left off on what quests. I make a new character get to level 20, dream of the old days of SoD and constant raids with guilds or Public scummy alt raids. I go back to my main again camp a few places I remember needing to camp. Then I stop logging on. I feel like the only thing that would bring me back was a New SoD server.

Am I doing something wrong?

(edit) I also feel like there isn't a place for an under geared Paladin.
 
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On a side note I'm looking at my character on fomelo and I see that I only have 1 tome completed and 1 in the works. 2.98% Codex of power bonus. Before I stooped playing I had all 5 codex completed and was starting on smaller tomes. I know Codex got cut and added to other tomes. I can't remember but I think I had exp to dump into other tomes?
 
On a side note I'm looking at my character on fomelo and I see that I only have 1 tome completed and 1 in the works. 2.98% Codex of power bonus. Before I stooped playing I had all 5 codex completed and was starting on smaller tomes. I know Codex got cut and added to other tomes. I can't remember but I think I had exp to dump into other tomes?

you need to talk to one of the guys in the erimal library. he will give you money and offer to fill any new tomes with your previous codex exp.

Does any one else have a hard time getting back into SOD?
I really enjoyed the "EQ" experience of SoD and would like to play again, but I have a hard time getting back into SoD. Every time I revisit the game I log on my old main character confused at all of the quest items I have in my bank and no clue where I left off on what quests. I make a new character get to level 20, dream of the old days of SoD and constant raids with guilds or Public scummy alt raids. I go back to my main again camp a few places I remember needing to camp. Then I stop logging on. I feel like the only thing that would bring me back was a New SoD server.

Am I doing something wrong?

(edit) I also feel like there isn't a place for an under geared Paladin.

I think people always will want an active player to show up at a raid but at the same time when you're some new or low tier character and the only option for raiding/socializing is everyone else at the "end game" it is depressing. Its not that you're doing anything wrong its that you have memories and nostalgia of a much more prolific player base offering you an experience that no longer really exists. For what its worth you are most certainly not alone in this experience or those feelings.
 
Codex of power got scrapped and all the exp was returned to you, you should have clickable books of stored exp that you can click for 100,000exp or something into new tomes which will return your tomes of power stats to you once you fill up new tomes to that level. So you need to buy a lot of tomes and dump all that exp.

SoD can be hard to get into again because all the things that made you quit a character are right there waiting for you when you come back, whatever quest or item or bottleneck you were stuck on but now you don't even recall what it was exactly. /cm journal all will help you some there.
Hitting up an old favorite exp zone and farming a while can be fun, especially if you have some old friends to play with but I always find that farming exp without progressing in other ways gets old, its just farming exp to farm exp a little better, you need new items and the struggle of throwing your best against something and failing so you need a better best, you go exp and farm a better charm and try again... without raid or even exp dungeon progression the interest in exping is hard to maintain. If I want to duo effective exp I go to Kae, Kae was the first iksith dungeon I exped in as a fresh 65 and hundreds or aa and tomes later I'm still right there farming the same exp/cash mobs and it seems it will forever be the place I duo for exp, yay? Opus being droppable in many exp zones helps that a lot but is ultimately about needing multiple paths of progression and when you first come back w/o being in a guild that's pretty stagnant.

The low level adept hunting is pretty lively if you want a fresh start, I'm having fun farming adepts and leveling slowly but as the number I have left to kill dwindles I wonder if they will just end up exp locked at 55 and be adept toons because breaking into the 65 game now seems impossible without jumping 10 tiers but if you're someone who can do that you already have t10+ toons and are in a guild and I have enough trouble getting my t10+ toons in a guild, much less charmless, tomeless fresh 65s with nothing to look forward to but... more Kae farming. The lack of "tiered" exp zones means you spend a lot of time in a handful of zones and if you have nothing else to do in this game you will get bored fast.
 
its definitely hard to get back into. population isn't exactly booming and entry level raid options don't really exist. even the least progressed guilds are in spires now which means to catch up you basically have to be carried to that point because none of the content appropriate for fresh 65s or mid-tier returning players is being killed by appropriately geared characters. for new dudes this means you typically end up boxing/playing someone elses character on hard raids and scumming your own guy in when you can, or using someone elses characters to carry you through the massive amount of questing required to bring a character up to relevance. This issue is even worse for casters, who rely on having their spells to be effective as well as being some of the worst duo classes in the game.

it doesn't help that the same exp zones have been the go-to/optimal choice for nearly a decade now, even if you get sweet loot that lets you push into harder "exp" content like back end of OG you'll find yourself vastly disappointed at the xp or plat per hour returns compared to grinding kaesora or first ruins for the umpteenth time.

i think quite a bit needs to be done to make a smoother experience for new or returning players, because it isn't something I can see many people wanting to go through unless they have good friends pushing them along.
 
friends pushing you along now in SoD
force-push-yoda.gif
 
Pretty much everything Titanas and everyone else said. I'd really like an excuse to play again, too. So here's the thing: from my perspective having quit 5 years ago, it's difficult to really see all these changes accurately. It still looks like there are the same 3 games to play as before: (1) Leveling up until you can benefit from level 65+ exp groups, (2) trying to get exp and gear to higher tiers so you can actually contribute on your own character, (3) doing hard raid content and farming for Vah/charms/tomes.

I see 2.5 has come out but it still is working out those kinks. I see plenty of class changes to try to make the game more interactive. That seems excellent. How is it working out for players in game?

I see Thaz Tower rework is done and Forest of the Fallen is out, but not really anything else that might get the attention of t13+ characters. I think I remember Overgrowth being something Marza and some were working on that was, for a while, interesting content for them (like Yale?), but I can't really see anything progression-related at all for the people I played with to do beyond what existed 5 years ago. Is it still just "kill Tur'ruj, Blazewind, Sanctum from NZ until you get to VZ", or did some of these new things help fill that gap? Is there new content for those people that I'm missing? I saw a few things about Silent Halls coming out soon, and I remember that and Forest of the Fallen being Ikisith 2.0 stuff that looks like possibly the next stuff after Tur'ruj and Third Seeker, so I'm hopeful.

I haven't seen 100+ people online in a long time. Granted, I tend to play weird hours, but still. Are there guilds at different ranges doing progression? I imagine that there's a LOT less competition for most raid mobs, but potentially a silly lack of people to fill raid slots. Would most people returning be able to find a place to raid that doesn't require them just being a ringer or a carry?

I see a good haul of quests for new players. I've done some playing at the lower end on new characters and checked out a lot of the newer quests available to keep things interesting during the "getting to 65" phase. Most of these also take noticeably more time to complete for the rewards than it takes to surpass them, but it helps incentivize spending time in sub-optimal areas for fun (I'm looking at you especially, Kelethin). No real complaints about this existing, but it seems that there was a lot of work and intent put into what is a very short range of time players would spend during that process.

That being said, the phase from 65 to t8+ takes much longer and I haven't seen any changes to that process at all except for the recent tome drop chances. Are people still just exping in Kaesora, FR, and Remnants? Tevinter seems to think so, and that would be almost too disappointing to consider doing again. I imagine there is no economy for the drops except for vendor prices.

I can't really see the economy, but I can surf listsold. Is there really any buying or selling of droppable items going on? Is there actually any economy of that at all?

This post was a lot shorter, but I decided to ask some questions and try to convince myself to log on later tonight or tomorrow. I'll probably go lurk in the Discord and actually get answers there, but this is basically what goes through my head every time I want to relive the good times I had here. Convince me to play.
 
I see Thaz Tower rework is done and Forest of the Fallen is out, but not really anything else that might get the attention of t13+ characters. I think I remember Overgrowth being something Marza and some were working on that was, for a while, interesting content for them (like Yale?), but I can't really see anything progression-related at all for the people I played with to do beyond what existed 5 years ago. Is it still just "kill Tur'ruj, Blazewind, Sanctum from NZ until you get to VZ", or did some of these new things help fill that gap? Is there new content for those people that I'm missing? I saw a few things about Silent Halls coming out soon, and I remember that and Forest of the Fallen being Ikisith 2.0 stuff that looks like possibly the next stuff after Tur'ruj and Third Seeker, so I'm hopeful.
Overgrowth was mine and Yale was beaten awhile ago, the area I had planned for killing it never was worked on so the Overgrowth story ends there as far as I can tell.

Upper Thaz was created to be tier 13-14.

Competition for most mobs as far as I was able to tell is... not really a thing. It was a little rough back when LA was just hitting the raid scene again but now that they have moved on and the tome situation was ironed out that seems to mostly be a thing of the past. It doesn't matter too much though since LA is the only one to ever work on Upper thaz, and not because they are keeping mobs on lockdown. They are really the only ones that try to push any sort of progression, which is pretty much how this server has operated for a long time now.
 
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"for new dudes this means you typically end up boxing/playing someone elses character on hard raids and scumming your own guy in when you can" This is what we call making an alt. Everyone does it all the time because its sadistically fun.
 
Fugpug here,

I came back recently from a long time off, and I had a ton of unfinished quests and a bank and inventory full of quest items. The Wiki was my best friend, then my guild's website next.

Honestly I did not have a hard time getting into the game again because I have always found SoD to be the most addicting of video games. I actually was a merchant on ESO, and i just left like a million plat in the mail to rot prolly cause i never logged back on. I only have time for one game addiction, and this game is the most addicting IMO.

P.S. I can't wait to see positivity and account drives to get underway.
 
I mean to say nothing bad about SOD, its an amazing experience, and its a Mod of a almost 20 year old game. SOD itself has been around for ~14 years, and I started playing it 12 years ago. There was some talk a year or 2 back about some one trying to re-capture early SODesk server, I'm sad to see nothing has come of that. I personally have done work on my own Server to try and emulate an EQ like custom experience, but have come up short. I've been able to re-capture the Early MMO experience again with "Fresh" new servers sporting Old/Classic Content. SoD is a strange case for me, It was once it self a "Fresh" new MMO experience of an old MMO. So do I wait around for a Custom Private (Custom Private EQ Server)? I have been playing on the "Addicted Dads" Server. The server is 'ok' and kinda reminds me of Early SOD/WintersRoar. I think I keep coming back to SOD Forums hoping to see some type of Reboot, or Magical time machine to go back to 2008 to Raid.
 
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