The Hotzones We Want, Not the Ones We DeserveFollow

Rivervale--It's about time those halflings were put in their place.

On a more serious note...

I agree with Hollowshade Moor. Awesome zone when you can run the war.

Eastern Wastes--Lots of area to hunt in. Plenty of space for kiting classes.

Plane of Mischief--More halflings to kill, as well as the forest mobs, the maze, and all the other interesting places to visit. Love the place, but it's almost never visited. Not hard to get to either.

Here are two other old-world zones that I would nominate:

1) South Karana, that rainy playground of rangers and druids. Players would show up if the augment did something useful, like maybe +5% to your runspeed. Old-timers from Fennin Ro/Druzzil Ro could reminisce about Moel and his monopoly on Quillmane;

2) Nagafen's Lair (a.k.a. Solusek B). Lower Guk has been hotzoned twice now and Sol B not even once? Nice old-fashioned dungeon crawling and the zone is very easy to get to. The obvious choice for the augment would be something with serious fire-resist on it. Some less-obvious power would be OK too, as long as it was worth the effort to get.

Do you think it would it be fun or bring out the worst in people?

Commonlands would be a fun one, for the very low lvls naturally, although with combining the two, the range is fair.

Unrest, but most likely just because I love that zone with my paladin.

That and spider gang-rapes around every corner.

A months time from 20-45 in Blightfire? Did that in two weeks solo =)

I agree with the statement above about more balance between indoor/outdoor zones. the current mix is definitely dungeon heavy. Lets face it, there are a lot of classes that cannot handle L-Guk or ToFS without a group at any level that will earn reasonable experience.

Have you been in the lower level hotzones?

Edited, Sep 4th 2008 3:48pm by Jophiel

Kirbyramz: I agree Fear and Sky wouldn't work as they are now. If hotzoning was used as part of the mechanism to gently revamp these to be valid again I would be all in favor.

Take the 1.0 drops (and AoN) out of these zones would they have any traffic at all? Waste of great places in my mind.

I'd rather see the Fear 1.0 drops moved to Temple of Cazic Thule and Fear redone as a level 85/90 madhouse (disable feign death, run buffs/mods and stealths?). Make it a place most don't dare go to again, but not a bottleneck in any progressions --just a candyland for the brave.

Sky needs to be keyringed at least... and remove the charges from the quest items and this zone would actually have something to offer some.

Hate would probably be decent as is. More classes on the named clickies would be an easy way to add incentive (clicky clarity stick is one that comes to mind).

Respawn timers for tons of zones should be radically revised, Fear and Sky definately being two in dire need.

But, since that's all pretty radical I will concede (upon further reflection) that Sky, Fear and maybe Hate wouldn't be great hotzones. How about Paludal Caverns?

Oh for the love of everything sacred, no. I remember some serious whining about the bandit camps. Then there is the stupid crud the phralg's give you.

This zone drove me nuts. Do people still level there?

Its exactly because people were stupid in Paludal that it would make a good hotzone. It reigned supreme on my old server as the level 12-25 levelling spot for years. Paludal actually has alot of areas if one isn't insistent on the bandits. I feel the current player base wouldn't be a problem (My experience is the cool people still play EQ).

High Keep basement was bad as well, it might work as a hotzone as long as people chose to kill the guards and nobles and not argue over 3 goblin camps that a single PLer can easily hold nowadays.

Karnor's would also be a fun one. DSP worked as a hotzone and it was a bad place back in the day. It was actually one of the few zones I refused to go to back then because of the regulars. Maybe Echo Caverns...

Hotzones of places people used to really like should work most of the time, as long as they don't do 4 non-soloable by most classes dungeons in a row for given level range (ie., 20-25-30...).

I leveled several puppets from 10-45 in a day using nothing more than a fungi tunic and pots. It's a fantastic zone but was almost too good as a hotzone.

City of Mist was a hotzone in 2006. It was a good hot zone also with several places to camp and a normal entrance that is also the same as the exit from the zone. (unlike Sebilis, Dalnir, Kaesora, etc)

TOFS, the current 35 hot zone is actually a bad zone for exp grinding also. Each level can only hold maybe 1 or 2 groups of 2-6 players, and only if the keys are working. And the floors are very heavily level dependant, so if you are not the appropriate level you are severely limited on what mobs you can pull also.

This tends to push TOFS as a PL-grind zone only since higher lvl veterans might have the top floor key and claim that entire level as their own to exp grind with their 1 alt. This makes for a bad hot zone.

Sebilis is a great hot zone currently. I always see 9-20 ppl in there and can get a group going relatively easy. Leveled my 39 warrior to 58 over the weekend. Because it is so far off the path, I logged in two more alts to set a campfire for easy porting to POK to sell and regear/reequip in bazaar and port right back. Made for short down times and the rest of the time exp grinding. I did log in my bard for the 51-53 levels so could help with dps and to make single pulls when I couldnt get a group. He helped in Juggs/Reets to thin the add-trains caused by a level-appropriate, non-pacify, warrior pulling hehe. But other than that with my warrior alt, wifes cleric, and whomever was LFG in zone for dps, we cleaned up on exp.

Of course there were 2 man teams blowing through light blue and green content and wasting every mob in sight but that doesnt bother me. Those players usually loose interest in one pass of every spot in the zone and then head to Sunderrock for much much better exp. So just await a respawn and we were in business again.

With this alt, that I created on Wednesday, my exp path was this:
1-11 tutorial - its just too fun to skip, especially since it now drops crude defiant (Yeah) I really love this zone.
11-25 Crescent reach - little kittens and then undeads at farm and then undeads across the final bridge. Undeads are so nice to me because they dont run away from my non=snare warrior!
25-33 Frontier Mtns - spent 1 evening at the giant fort and time to leave. Our little 4-pack pickup group just sat in the middle and we all pulled anything that moved. It was a blast. (Cleric did an occasional CH but nothing a 39 cleric couldnt do perfectly fine.)
33-39 Dawnshroud - went here even though it is not a hot zone now. I figured the hopper cave would be open and it was. Found a snarer to join me and we mowed them down. Hoppers are perfectly placed to pull 1 or 2 and not a room full. PLUS, I didnt want to go to TOFS or LGUK, and Wakening land is too far away with non-optimal mob placement except in center caves with golems.
39 Trakanon - nothing really. Just loot medallions, turn in, and head to sebilis. Used a druid to track and nuke. Didnt want to waste time in this zone. Had to do this because Sebilis is lvl 46 required unless you are keyed.
39-53 Sebilis - entry hallway and at the first spot at the bottom.
53-55 Sebilis - 2nd floor outside the exit teleporter room
55-58 Juggs/Reets camp past myconids in that entry room area with benches. had the cleric there to click the door and pulled both juggs and reets on both sides of locked door. Snaring is important here so I sinned and logged in another alt to snare mobs and not cause so many trains.

One last thing. My 58 warrior holds his own just fine with every mob I faced. He hardly needed any healing, relatively speaking, compared to back in the day when Sebilis was a feared zone. Granted I had enough plat to keep him outfitted with each level of defiant gear, but still, no serious PL is required to get someone leveled. This guy hacked and slashed his way to 58 with zero aa's and good skills in defensive/riposte etc.

Edited, Sep 9th 2008 12:50pm by kirbyramz