calaran
Dalayan Beginner
I know that with the revitalization of Athica, this whole continent will be getting a serious looking-at, but there seems to be a lot of thought going into the distribution of players ("omg go to newport, your starting town is teh sux0rz", etc) and I wanted to offer up a small set of suggestions for saving this particular newbie area. Thus far I've played the newbie game in Steamfont (up to 10), Stinger's Bog (up to 9) and Newport (up to 7 or 8ish), and Steamfont is BY FAR the worst starting zone. So let's look at the factors (other than Newport having all the guilds, basically being friendly to everyone, the largest population of players, and generally the center of the boat routes (well, co-center with freeport which is dangerous)) that may be involved in each zone.
Newport - There are guards at the gate, and wandering guards, but they don't tend to interfere almost at all. The zone is very light and easy to see other than at night. There is a CLEARLY defined newbie area basically encompassing the entire North Newport area outside of the gates. Everything out there is low in level (1-4 maybe?) and mostly non aggressive. The mobs that are aggressive do not path very far into the newbie area, so staying anwhere near the gates, you are completely safe from wandering aggros AND you have guards to back you up if need be; however, you get a negative experience modifier. As soon as you are done with this zone, there are the Newport Sewers which have a goodly amount of slightly higher mobs (5-8ish?). This zone is not particularly safe... everything wanders, almost everything is aggressive.. if not out-right aggressive, they're socially aggressive; however, the experience is good, and it's your first experience of doing somewhat of a dungeonish area. Also, Qeynos hills is a mere zone away and has the camps outside of Blackburrow that can suffice up to level 8-10ish, as well as the undead camp to the north that can take you into the low teens if you hit it at night when it's spawned. All of this is without even mentioning that Blackburrow is there and a great place to find groups. Overall, starting in or getting to Newport ASAP is a great idea right now.
Singer's Bog - I'd say this is a decent place to be as well. You get a zone experience bonus which is sorta nice for a newbie zone, and most of the mobs can be single-pulled with relative ease. There are a lot of wandering aggressive mobs, but if you stay near the zone to Grobb you really don't have much trouble with them as the guards are helpful and do not wander through the area. There is an adept in the bog, and a wide range of mob difficulties starting in the 1-4ish range and going as high as the low to middle teens (at least as far as camps go... there may be more than this, I didn't explore it much). The outside of MielA is pretty campable and drops some nice newbish gear for leather+ wearers. Overall, it seems to be a decent place to level... I've heard you can actually level up to the mid/high teens here, and then head into MielA which is supposed to be a very nice zone once you're ready for it. Overall not a bad starting zone, but lack of people to group with, some nasty aggros and clustered aggro mobs make this a bit harder/worse than Newport.
Steamfont - Holy craptacular. First of all, the newbie hunting grounds as marked on the map is basically no where near the gate into the city. There are no spawns right around the entrance. Once you get all the way down the path to the hunting grounds, know that there are aggressive level 4-6 mobs that wander all over the newbie hunting grounds (skeletons, orcs, etc). Of the newbie mobs, many of the spawns are spiders who poison (I believe). The guard that paths back and forth from the entrance to The Underhill up through the newbie killing grounds is absolutely insane. He will attack non-aggressive mobs that come anywhere near his path and as such most of the time the newbie zone is just littered with non-lootable corpses. Tack the wonderful 0% zone experience modifier onto that, and the fact that the only decent zone anywhere within walking distance is Fearstone (good luck unless you have a well-balanced full group with a couple tanks (pets or otherwise) thanks to fear) and you have the absolute worst place to start. No one comes to this land frequently (I've seen maybe a total of 4 people in the time that I leveled one toon up to 10 and another to 3 over here) so groups are not to be found. Maybe Athica will fix that problem, but you still have the newbie zone spawned full of dangerous (to a totally new player) aggressive mobs, a guard who kills everything you WOULD have killed for exp, and basically no decent connecting zones.
Just so this is not seen merely as a gripe, as that's not what I intend at all, I think the problems that Gnomes and Dwarves (at least dwarf clerics I know for sure) have with their newbie area are easily fixed. Maybe give a small exp bonus? Stinger's bog is listed as a 20% and Newport Sewers as a 15% (from SoDGuide) so, what about making Steamfont a 10%? For reference, Lesser Fay, Greater Fay and Goblinskull are all 0%. In fairness, Fearstone is listed as a 20% but is undoable without a decently formed group which is tough with no players around. More importantly than the exp bonus, however, would be inserting non-aggro, low-level (1-4) spawns closer to the entrance to the Underhill... There is a long stretch of running before you reach the current 'newbie hunting grounds' that has nothing spawning in it. This change alone would make newbie life on the little folks much better. I think adding those spawns and the expansion of Athica could make this area a somewhat decent place to start.... with a 10% experience bonus and perhaps the addition of some zones in this general area (maybe a decent dungeon?) could make Underhill a VERY desirable starting place. Not asking for miracles though, just some extra non-aggro spawns near the entrance would be much appreciated (oh, and if this is done, that homocidal guard is going ot have to be recoded... he seriously just goes on a tangent and will slaughter 15+ mobs in a row with no good reason).
Newport - There are guards at the gate, and wandering guards, but they don't tend to interfere almost at all. The zone is very light and easy to see other than at night. There is a CLEARLY defined newbie area basically encompassing the entire North Newport area outside of the gates. Everything out there is low in level (1-4 maybe?) and mostly non aggressive. The mobs that are aggressive do not path very far into the newbie area, so staying anwhere near the gates, you are completely safe from wandering aggros AND you have guards to back you up if need be; however, you get a negative experience modifier. As soon as you are done with this zone, there are the Newport Sewers which have a goodly amount of slightly higher mobs (5-8ish?). This zone is not particularly safe... everything wanders, almost everything is aggressive.. if not out-right aggressive, they're socially aggressive; however, the experience is good, and it's your first experience of doing somewhat of a dungeonish area. Also, Qeynos hills is a mere zone away and has the camps outside of Blackburrow that can suffice up to level 8-10ish, as well as the undead camp to the north that can take you into the low teens if you hit it at night when it's spawned. All of this is without even mentioning that Blackburrow is there and a great place to find groups. Overall, starting in or getting to Newport ASAP is a great idea right now.
Singer's Bog - I'd say this is a decent place to be as well. You get a zone experience bonus which is sorta nice for a newbie zone, and most of the mobs can be single-pulled with relative ease. There are a lot of wandering aggressive mobs, but if you stay near the zone to Grobb you really don't have much trouble with them as the guards are helpful and do not wander through the area. There is an adept in the bog, and a wide range of mob difficulties starting in the 1-4ish range and going as high as the low to middle teens (at least as far as camps go... there may be more than this, I didn't explore it much). The outside of MielA is pretty campable and drops some nice newbish gear for leather+ wearers. Overall, it seems to be a decent place to level... I've heard you can actually level up to the mid/high teens here, and then head into MielA which is supposed to be a very nice zone once you're ready for it. Overall not a bad starting zone, but lack of people to group with, some nasty aggros and clustered aggro mobs make this a bit harder/worse than Newport.
Steamfont - Holy craptacular. First of all, the newbie hunting grounds as marked on the map is basically no where near the gate into the city. There are no spawns right around the entrance. Once you get all the way down the path to the hunting grounds, know that there are aggressive level 4-6 mobs that wander all over the newbie hunting grounds (skeletons, orcs, etc). Of the newbie mobs, many of the spawns are spiders who poison (I believe). The guard that paths back and forth from the entrance to The Underhill up through the newbie killing grounds is absolutely insane. He will attack non-aggressive mobs that come anywhere near his path and as such most of the time the newbie zone is just littered with non-lootable corpses. Tack the wonderful 0% zone experience modifier onto that, and the fact that the only decent zone anywhere within walking distance is Fearstone (good luck unless you have a well-balanced full group with a couple tanks (pets or otherwise) thanks to fear) and you have the absolute worst place to start. No one comes to this land frequently (I've seen maybe a total of 4 people in the time that I leveled one toon up to 10 and another to 3 over here) so groups are not to be found. Maybe Athica will fix that problem, but you still have the newbie zone spawned full of dangerous (to a totally new player) aggressive mobs, a guard who kills everything you WOULD have killed for exp, and basically no decent connecting zones.
Just so this is not seen merely as a gripe, as that's not what I intend at all, I think the problems that Gnomes and Dwarves (at least dwarf clerics I know for sure) have with their newbie area are easily fixed. Maybe give a small exp bonus? Stinger's bog is listed as a 20% and Newport Sewers as a 15% (from SoDGuide) so, what about making Steamfont a 10%? For reference, Lesser Fay, Greater Fay and Goblinskull are all 0%. In fairness, Fearstone is listed as a 20% but is undoable without a decently formed group which is tough with no players around. More importantly than the exp bonus, however, would be inserting non-aggro, low-level (1-4) spawns closer to the entrance to the Underhill... There is a long stretch of running before you reach the current 'newbie hunting grounds' that has nothing spawning in it. This change alone would make newbie life on the little folks much better. I think adding those spawns and the expansion of Athica could make this area a somewhat decent place to start.... with a 10% experience bonus and perhaps the addition of some zones in this general area (maybe a decent dungeon?) could make Underhill a VERY desirable starting place. Not asking for miracles though, just some extra non-aggro spawns near the entrance would be much appreciated (oh, and if this is done, that homocidal guard is going ot have to be recoded... he seriously just goes on a tangent and will slaughter 15+ mobs in a row with no good reason).
