Is it just me?Follow

Lastnight was getting a group to do an ldon.(yes people still do them!!..lol)One guy that replied to my invite says"Whats an Ldon??".

I ask him "your lvl 57 and do not know what an ldon is ??"

He replies "no never heard of them"

I ask him "How long have you been playing??""

He replies "about 4 months""

I ask "did you start from lvl 1??"

He replies " yes from lvl 1"

So is it that easy nowadays to get to lvl 57 or did I just take to long getting there myself? I started playing Nov.04 off and on for a few years now and it took me a while to get to lvl 50!

Ahh, the pre-nerf Highpass Hold/High Hold Keep monster mission. The only place in the game that you could go to power level to 75 in about a week (probably, never tried it). Pre-nerf, with the old AA xp rules, I got close to an AA and a half every time I ran it. Good times.

A lot of people don't get the finer points of EQ anymore. They don't get the thrill of exploring. The rush when your invis breaks at the wrong time, realizing you're cornered by a bunch of pathing skeletons while you're trying to sneak and hide your way through Karnor's Castle. They just want the power. "OMG U HIT 4k 1337 d00d!"

Even starting the game fresh, assuming a person plays at the right times of day and has someone helping them learn the ropes, getting to the 50s seeing nothing but some hotzones isn't too surprising at all. I've seen it personally with new players I've helped myself.

"LDoN" - refers to the expansion Lost Dungeons of Norrath.

Expansion introduced a lot of widespread instancing. Groups did missions which rewarded points, which could be spent at LDoN camps around the world. The Magus could be used to teleport between differant LDoN camps with the completion of the short quest for the Adventurer's Stone (which gets better the more LDoN missions you do).

Yes it is easier to get to level 57 now.

Hotzones help but the main reason is gear quality.

Before the first Everquest expansion, one of the best weapons any player could acquire was 8 damage 24 delay. It was located in the deepest part of the hardest dungeon in the game on a level 47 NPC. It is called the Short Sword of the Ykesha.

Compare that with the swords you can get by level 10 doing the various racial starting city quests at 9 damage 27 delay these days.

Not to mention how godly quest armor is compared with the Kunark days.

1. Playing 6+ hours a day, 5-7 days a week= 40+ hours total
2. Being Powerleveled
3. Hot zone hopping 50%+ time
4. Doing Dain MM1 starting at L50/51 5-8 day or more
5. Avoiding anything that spells tradeskills
6. Playing a more solo friendly class I.E> Bard, Necromancer, Druid, Wizard.
7. Playing with a steady group if not boxing
8. I won't mention

You too can get to L57 reasonably fast. There are a few other things you can throw in there to make it easier as well.

On Ldon MOST people will not do them anymore, the gear offered, and exp gained post L45 is not worth there time. Some will for RGC spell, and a few other things. A few will do a couple for nostagic purposes. I always did prefer that style of play to camping in a single spot for days at a time, but a lot don't. And lastly the game is HUGE now, and you cannot be everywere, with a single character and get stuff done.

You scoff at how easy it is to get to 57, but you must realize that it will still take a year to get to the poing where ANY raiding guild will consider you "BARELY" able to keep up. The power gap is EXTREMELY wide (the 2 most successful guilds on my server require level 75, 800+AAs, a crapload of keys, flags, and accesses, and STILL expect you to "know your toon" and be of one of the 3 classes they're actively looking for. So if I started today, playing 8 hours a day, 5 days a week (a FULL TIME JOB) it would STILL be a year or 2 (without resorting to "hollow exp", like MMs) of hot zones, armor quests, epic quests, and whatever else you can finagle your way into. It's easy to get left behind, or not be able to accellerate quickly enough before you would NEVER be able to go play with the big boys.

Being a relative newbie, I see EQ as almost being... daunting. I know I'll never be in a "first to set eyes on it" situation, because I'll be sniffing for scraps of discovery for years.

I think EQ will have closed it's doors before I see the day I can compete eye to eye with the "BIG DAWGS".

I started leveling up a zerker a while ago.

After around 100 hours of /played time he was 75 with acceptable skills. (think I was like 30 points shy of the cap on defense, and not all weap skills were maxed.)

We have a very determined player in our guild who recently started over on our server; he's leveled his character to 72 (last I saw) within the span of maybe four months, his gear is way better than I had at 72, and he has won his signets too, so he can go to Anguish with us and win the same gear the rest of us hope for.

I'm not saying this is something everybody could or should do, but his character is no worse at raids and in groups than most others in our guild. I think it has played a huge role that he has done very few MMs along the way.

I also don't think he's slept much in the past four months, but that may be my envy speaking - envy that he managed in four months what took me four years >.<

If you're on the Tunare (E'ci) server, I may know EXACTLY who you're talking about. Tell Tanth "Nom said 'hi'".

It all really depends on determination/schedule/and play times, not to mention in game friends to help you out...what's easy for one person isn't for another.