Just got Anniversary-- I need some directionFollow

Indeed, I'm sure you guys get one of these everyday....

Hi, everyone. As the subject reads, I just got Anniversary Edition. More specifically, I just got out of the mines. As Azuredream had asked, wheres the best place for me to go?

One person in his thread mentioned a place where the quests start to get good. As in, one of the expansions. I see that 'gimp' is a word used. Lol, I dont want any of those quests or zones.

Now, isnt there some central story or main bad guy to kill in each of the expansions? Most of the answers in Azure's thread were basically "this game is all about grinding" and that was the bulk of the advice.

And I know EQ is old. I know all questgivers dont have signs above their heads.

I have all 13 expansions and dont know where to go and what to do yet. What shouldnt I waste my time on? The old world zones? Im kinda seein' that. Id like to know a place where a Lvl 10 Mage can go/start off.

For instance, would going into Dragons of Norrath be instant death? Probably not a good place to start huh? And what exactly is the Progression Server? And whats the difference with all the servers?

This is something Id like to know: The expansions must start off geared for players at a certain lvl, correct? Now, if I lvl to say 15 or 20, THEN can I start to tackle an expansion? The ambiguous answeres of "its just grinding" doesnt seem right. So are the expansions just prettier places to aimlessly run around? Im betting not.

In your opinion, from what Expansion does the game become comprehensive enough to jump into a certain region where the rewards for quests arent pointless and a place/exapnsion that has a central bad guy to eventually kill.

I really need some direction and greatly appreciate anyones help. Thx again.

You might want to head over to Crescent Reach (CR). It's a city from the Serpents Spine expansion. There are numerous quests in CR and the adjacent zone, Blightfire Moors, you can do that will help get you geared up.

From the tutorial, you can get to CR by leaving through the black hole in the back of the main area. If you're already in the Plane of Knowledge (PoK), then click on the stone that says Crescent Reach and using your map (hit backspace to bring up the map) head to the Crescent Reach zone line.

Good luck and welcome to EQ!

Thx everyone. This does help.

Mandie, thanks for gettin' simple on me. Thats what I need, lol. "It's a city from the Serpents Spine expansion." When people say names of places you should go, we new people havent the slightest idea where or what that place is.

The Progression server still eludes me. What is it? Or more specifically, what server should I be checking out and why?

Im glad I jumped on board whether I know my way yet or not. You'll say im coming from a Spoon-fed MMO since I mainly hail from Guild Wars, but I'm learnin'. :)

Ill take that advice Mandie, after I check out the armor quests in POK. By then more things will be clear Im sure. I joined a Guild and they were helpful.
But yeah, I know Id miss alot of cool stuff, but starting where the quests are rewarding and take you to cool places, is what Im after. Even if it means only playing thru the last 3 exapnsions.

Ill be posting here during the day since Im at work. I have plenty of time, hope you like questions! J/K
My name is Jahlight. Ill be on around 6pm West coast time. I dunno if theres an easy way to add me, just puttin it out there.

Thx again

agree. cresent reach in the serpent spine expansion is probably the bestplace to get quest. the progression server is a server where they open one expansion at a time over a given period of time. its way way to late to get the advantage of that server for the lower levels.

EQ is very equipment dependant. and the game makers ASSUME every one will have a certain level of equipment at differant levels. so they power the monsters you fight based on that assumption so the fight will not be trivial for these people. the dilema starts immediatly if you dont already have acess to good gear. you will find you are very very underpowered to monsters at your level, and it gets progressively worse the more levels you earn.

antonica, the origonal release, the mobs are significantly less difficult to handle. the monsters have less health, and they hit for less than half as much as monsters in all other espansions. but, the quests are really really bad in antonica. they are hard to find, and even if you get one, you may not be able to complete it because of your race, diety, or class. and even if you finish it, you may not be able to use the reward.

so, antonica for painless level advancement, but bad for quests.

the gear for quest in all other espansions are better than antonica. while this may seem a good thing, there are some things to consider. the gear you can get at any level doing quests will not be nearly as good as gear you can buy in the Bazzar zone off of the Plane of Knoledge zone from other players for relatively cheaply. the game has been out so long, that the player market is the best place to get equipment, not quests.

so you need coin, not quests. coin and levels. thus, the grind.

at 10, i HIGHLY recommend the "light stone" quests from antonica. look it up on this web site. the quest will give you good experience, and good coin for your level. the other way is to gather trade skill components and sell them in the bazzar. skins, spider webs, bone chips, basic stuff higher level players would rather pay for than get themselves.

if you want the EQ experience, then stick to cresent reach and start the quest lines there. again, it will save you a ton of time looking them up on web sites like this one and wandering around and trying to stumble on to them.

if you want to advance as fast as possible, kill lots of critters as fast as you can without dieing, and farm coin to buy your gear from the bazaar.

the up side. no competition. you wont have to wait in any lines waiting for anything.

the downside. there are very very few low and mid level players on any server. i started characters on a few of them, and Stromm had more than most. there are more people in the mines at any given time than the rest of the low and mid level zones in the game.

unfortunatly, EQ was designed around grouping. there is simply alot of content you will never be able to see becuase there is very little grouping in the game at low and mid levels. those "boss" mobs you mention? you will never see them untill you make it to a high level, join a guild, start raiding for really nice gear, and go back just for kicks when there isnt any experience to be had to take a look by yourself.

join a guild. its the best way to meet people and possibly find someone to hunt with and a good place to get information. in the Guild Hall, again in the Plane of Knoledge zone, there is an area with a bullitin board where guilds advertise for more players. its a good place ot start.

the game is very old. most of the people who still play are high level, and many dont even log on unless their guild is doing a raid. and because the game was designed for groups mostly, there is not alot of new players to play the low and mid level game to play with due to the fact that the monsters are significantly more difficult to handle for their level than in other games like Word of Warcraft for example.

if your the kind of person who likes to sit and play for several hours at a time, you wil eventually learn to like this game after you get past the mid and lower levels and get involved with a guild. if your the kid of person who playes for an hour or two here or there, you will find the level of advancement, and the lack of access to content very fustraiting and probably wont be here very long.

the assumptions the developers used when the game was new, that people will group and that players of a given level will have a certain level of equipment from grouping in dungons no longer work. there is still a thriving high level raiding game in EQ that is better than any other top end content in any game, but your going to have to suffer through outdated assumptions and alot of grinding levels just for the sake of getting levels to get to it now.

if you have the time and commitment to suffer though the learning curve and the low and mid levels, and 4 to 6 hour raids appeals to you, you will be rewarded. eventually.

there is a short cut. for around 200 bucks you can buy an account on E-bay that already has a high level character. justa thought.

Yes, most of the really old quests are no longer woth the time, but a few still are. The Cleric epic 1.0 is still an essential piece of Cleric equipment and many clickies from the old zone (items with clickable spells attached to them)are still worth the time and trouble to obtain.

But it has to be remembered that EQ always was designed to mimick real life in the way that return for effort and reward for risk effect game play and in particular the "growth" of a character. Its been said a zillion times that EQ is about the journey, not the destination, and this is true.

Just as in the real world, there is not much point in setting sail west from Spain in the hope of discovering "new worlds". Its already been done. EQ, just like the real wourld has its history, things have taken place and the world has moved on. For someone starting new, the things that took place in the past are just like real life history, interesting, can be informative and help you to avoid some of the problems of the past. But there is little point going back and trying to relive the past. (Other than for a bit of fun perhaps when you have nothing better to do).

The challenge for a new player is to take hold of life as it is now in EQ, as others have said new players are much better off beginning in Cresent Reach and learning the game from there. Its sort of like being born into this modern world in real life. You don't have to go and "discover" electricity, you just turn the switch :P.

Certainly goback and visit the old zones for fun, its like a trip to the museam :P, but The Serpent Spine is the place to "grow up" and equip your self for the most part, then you can explore the new territories of The Broken Shore and the recent zones like Prophesy of Ro. (Dungeons of Darkhollow too).

Edited, Aug 1st 2007 3:34am by Iluien

Edited, Aug 1st 2007 3:35am by Iluien

the progression server is just a server they opened up adn launched one expansion every so often. EVENTUALLY they will get to serpant spine, but it will be a while yet.

ALL other servers have the POK expansion that lets you get around quickly. last time i swapped a character, it costabout 50 bucks, but it has been a while, might be cheaper now. it SHOULD be free. just my openion.

if you are truy new and dont have access to nice gear, you will be better off with the mage than the wizard. its not a matter of fun as it is the wizard is painfull to solo with at lower levels. especially below level 50. you are 100 percent dependant on mana or power to kill. which means you use more of it than any other class to kill. which means you spend more time sitting around regaining mana/power than any other class in the game. even enchanters get a pet for free damage. but with wizards, it is all mana.

later, after 50, wizards become very powerfull. but they are still 100 percent dependant on mana and thus will require alot more recovery time after each kill. they were desigend to be very group dependant. and as you can see, there is not alot of groups to depend on anymore.

the casters that can solo the best at lower levels are necromancer, mage, druid.

more than any other class in the game, i would say the wizard dies more often than all of them. buy lots of SOW potions. journeyman boots used to be the bomb for wizards, but they nerfed, read gimped, them a long time ago, and now you would be lucky to out run a snared slug with them.

wizards come into theri own past level 60. but unlike other classes, they are very very dependant on equipment and alternative advancemet skills to get that power. read, a whole lot more grinding. but the level 50 ice comet spell quest is a blast to do, even if the spell is quite useless outside of antonica.

the best thing you can do is find a guild to join. without one, there are many things you will never see/do in the game. someone above mentioned the ZEK server has a good low adn mid level population. might try that one. personally, i started a toon there, a shaman, and didnt find it any better than any of the others, but mabe i play at differant times than these mystery players play, so who knows.

POK book is located in the Blightfire moors zone. Outside the city of cresent reach.
Run along the road, look to your right after you pass the swamp area on the left.
Stay along the road.
Keep in mind Progression server is a form of eq play. It is not the game you find on the other non progression servers as not all expansions are available. Note the various posts above.

I swear Shadow, you seem to not want to find people on, or make it so that the game fits your bias of it.

If you did indeed not find any low to mid level players on, then I dont know what to say. You say I ( and them ) are "mystery players", and I took that to say that you do not believe that they or I exist, or that I am making up my ability to group. If that is what you are saying, well then, I am doing a good job of dreaming up these groups,cause just yesterday I got a 15 to 20 group to do Guk (old school fun) and a 50's group to do the deep ( harder than i expected)

Like I said above, i put the plan together where to go for the group, and I never have problems finding people to join, although near the end of the group it always seems to descend into a pvp battle.

Anyway, sorry you find the game so lacking ( that is what your posts seem to convey ) and I will stop commenting on your posts.

your video card is fine. i used a 128 radeon up untill Vanguard.

its your ram. you need more ram. 512 will not let you load up much before it has to load it off the hard drive.

i would recomment ATLEAST 1k of ram. 2k would be awsome. you will notice a huge performance boost just from the increased ram. try www.pricewatch.com or www.crucil.com if you want to order it online.

and yes, play in the mines to atleast 10. its easy experience, and all but two of the quests can be done solo. something that will drastically change once you leave the mines. the equipment is decent, especially if you farm the dogs down there, they ocasionally drop nice gear. i never killed the large troll, mainly because even with 10 to 15 peeps running around, you would be lucky to get 5 of them to agree to a group, so i dont know what he drops.

but the mines will be the easyist experiece you are likely to gain, EVER, and the quests are doable without groups that never happen, and the rewards are decent for the level. for what EQ has evolved into, the mines are as good as it gets as far as advancement and gear from quests are concerned.

you should try EQ2 after this one. the starter island is the most populated zone in the entire game. people stay untill they just cant get experience anymore. and once you leave, its alot like EQ is now, mostly deserted zones with a hand full of soloers here and there in a game full of grouping content no one will ever see.
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I swear Shadow, you seem to not want to find people on, or make it so that the game fits your bias of it.

If you did indeed not find any low to mid level players on, then I dont know what to say. You say I ( and them ) are "mystery players", and I took that to say that you do not believe that they or I exist, or that I am making up my ability to group.
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yea thats it, i bought the expansion pack, loaded it up, just so i can say i couldnt play. there, if that makes you feel better about the game, i said it, believe it if you like.

i never said there was no one on. in the mines and cresent reach, during prime time for me, 9pm to 12 pm EST, you could easily find 12 to 20 people on in either of these zones..

heres my point in case you missed it last time.............NONE OF WHOM ARE GROUPING......or care to group. and those two zones are the ONLY starting areas that had any people at all in them.

now, i am willing to conceed, that if i had played a cleric i probably would have done alot better at finding a duo or a few melee types to group with. but short of some type of healer, people are not interested in grouping with you. didnt have much luck with the shaman however, so mabe that wouldnt have helped either.

people do not want to group. they say they do, but when asked "you have a full group ready to go?" "send me a tell when you do". thats about as much interest as i got in three weeks. mostly its "no thanks". and that is from sending tells to people because tagging yourself LFG gets no responses at all.

i did get a few responses with my 65 necro for a 2/3 person group in wall of slaughter. even a full group a few times doing the dain missions in icewell keep.

but thats it. outside of WOS or Dain, nada. and only a few duos from all the toons i started on various servers. now i am not saying that if i logged on and played oh, say, 8 to 10 hours a day, that i couldnt find atleast one group a day, im sure my odds would have been much better. but playing 1 to 2 hours at a time, NADA.

thats been my experience anyway. for the one to two hour gamer, EQ is a solo game full of group content they will never see. EVER. and thats probably why WoW has 9 million subscribers and EQ has around 100,000 and constantly shrinking. thats also probably why Vanguard fell on its face. and why EQ2 is happy to keep from loosing customers with each new expansion as opposed to buying new equipemnt to add servers.

my advise to anyone comming here, play while its new and your having fun. leave when it stops being fun. dont force yourself to trudge to the top. you dont have to anymore, there are choices now. the same choices that stole away the other 400,000 gamers EQ used to have.

Shadow;
Ok I lied, I said I would not respond to you...but here I go. I only play for a few hours at a time also, and like I said, I never lack for groups, no matter what the level.

I am sorry that you do not find this to be true, cause that does mean that part of the game is missing, and that would definatley take away from some of the fun of the game...

i just think that your language is too strong that NO ONE groups anymore at low levels. That is obviously your experience, but I dont want everyone who reads this to believe that that is the only experience out there.

So anyway, better luck to you and "happy hunting"