The Glade 4.0

That right there reminds me why I cancelled EQ. **** SOE corporate objectives. It pollutes the fantasy

Aye.

It's funny they're listing the 2 extra bag slots in the "pre-order bonuses", when they're really just an expansion feature.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

I am embarrassed to do this, but where in hell is the lift in Crescent reach. If I stumble into the bank having gone round and round one more time....

the lift is in the center area--there are 2.
looks like a small square platform.

I hated that city and spent as little time there as I could.

was the best place to tradeskill particularly baking and smithing to 250.

I hear there are all kinds of good quests and leveling opportunities there though.

It probably is one of the better starting cities, but as I was already well beyond it in terms of quests/level with maxed trade skills, from my perspective it was an unnecessarily labyrinth with large amounts of ground to travel between useful points.

The quests/exp are great.... But it's much more confusing than other cities, imo.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

because Kelethin was straightforward?

Haha- after I typed that response, I got to thinking about other starting cities....

I didn't find Kelethin that bad- I still don't get lost in it most of the time.

The new freeport is horrible- and Qeynos has it's unique neighborhoods.

Halas is quite simple, as are Oggok and Grobb. The froglok camp in Rathe Mountains as well.

Felwithe takes a bit of getting used to, but is then quite simple, same with Kaladim and Ak'anon, imo.

Erudin can be a bit painful at times, as can Neriak.

Surefall Glade is amazingly simple....

The only other really hard starting city I can think of is Shar'Vahl, which was a nightmare to learn.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

I had no problems with Kelethin, and compared to Crescent Reach, its a very compact city with clear access and visibility... you can see the tradeskill containers on the platforms, not tucked inside random, empty rooms/buildings around corners and down hallways.

But Kelethin is also dead on Rathe from what I have seen, as infrequently as I go back to refresh my Tribute, but the other day I ran through CR and it was fairly busy with twinks/alts.

Crescent Reach is just maddening. Every direction you turn, every room you enter.. it all looks the same, non-descript. It's impossible to get your bearings/sense of direction. I sometimes can't even remember which floor I'm on.

At least with Kelethin, and a map, you could get your bearings and find the platform you needed. I will say though, that whichever Elf decided the platform/bridge layout in Kelethin should be fed to the orcs.

I hated Kelethin with a passion. I hate it in EQ2 too. Shar Vahl is no better and the newbie Vah Shir quests were ***, IMO.

Crescent reach I'm not crazy about but its not bad.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

At least in EQ2 there are teleporters to move you around faster.

How do Hot zones work? Does one have to be the right level to gain the extra XP, or is the level guide an indicator of the appropriate level? I am looking at level 20 shortly, should I hit lavastorm for the 20 hot zone, or just go straight to Blightfire moors the 25 zone?

I believe the Devs just boost the xp for the zone by a certain percentage, so you'll get the bonus no matter what your level is. That said, even with the boost, other zones might still offer better xp at a given level. In my experience, Blightfire was better xp in my mid-20s, but Lava was still decent and had a few drops that were good for my Ranger. Plus, it's just a cool-looking zone. My recommendation would be to mix it up and do a little of each, just for the fun/variety. You'll level relatively quickly either way.

hotzones are just double xp zones. Your actual level doesn't matter. If you had a good/efficient mass kill method a hotzone was far better XP. (Example when Ruins of Illisin was a hotzone, Paladins with Slay Undead were clearing 6-10 AA's in an hour, though they were 10 levels higher) -- rangers did similarly when zones we could headshot were hotzones (Swarmkiting with Hail of arrows FTW)

In my experimentation, the sweetspot for hotzones is to find one with lots of accessible mobs that you can kill fairly quickly with minimal downtime. As opposed to high-risk long fight red mobs that eat up buffs, and mana.

It might make sense to go to a hotzone a few levels early if you have a group, or have a specific quest or whatever you want to do, otherwise, if leveling is what you are after, focusing on blues and whites seems to work best for me.

I think you are 18 now on your Shaman? Lavastorm is the level 20 hotzone. You can get the hotzone quest for that zone go there now and start working towards the goal, even if you can't get to the camp, or kill the mobs. You will level quickly enough while you are there that you'll have the quest done in no time.

I have rolled off 4-7 levels at a time in hotzone fast pull camps, and that was without lessons up. One was in my 30's at the sporali camp in Blightfire, and the other at the fort in Gunthak last night.

Another thing to consider with killing lots of blues vs a few yellows and reds is, you get more chances at drops, and more vendor junk to sell.

I don't recall the rewards for the Lavastorm level 20 hotzone quests, but the melee rewards for the Level 25 quests in the moors were really good. All three of the items were upgrades for me in my 30s, including a haste belt, a shoulder and a cloak.

I hit 20 now, I picked up the task for lavastorm and will find my way there tonight. I have a couple of open quests in CR - the farmer stuff - i need the earing. I still haven't filled any ear slots and only one ring. I'm hoping my overall lack of good armour in some slots doesn't become a problem since my tank merc is a stud so far.

I'm thinking about hitting the 25 hotspot blightmoor and doing as much armour questing there as I can to fill up.

Jemi(NephyrS) mentioned that there was an issue with the Goblin Miners not spawning in Lava late last week. Not sure if that was resolved with the patch this morning or not.

I guess the mobs you get to kill changes every so often. The first time I did the quests for blightmoor, I had to kill huntresses (pain!), this time on the warrior, I was killing treants. The treants are a little higher level, but much easier to find and kill without adds. I think the lava quest can be Burnt Protectors, Goblin Miners, and not sure of the 3rd?

Lavaspinners I think.

Awesome!

Just watch out for the goblins nearby. And they flee at 20% (usually towards the goblins!).

If you get in trouble you can run to the SolA zone line. :p

Just to note: Hotzones are not double exp zones. Common misconception, but leads to a lot of complaints.

They boost the ZEM (zone experience modifier) but some zones already are so high that the boost is not noticeable. This leads to RDs point, that sometimes non-hotzones are better than hotzones. They boost the ZEM for hotzones to a specific point (200%, iirc). So if the zone already had a 170-180% ZEM, it's a small increase. If it was at a base level (100% ZEM), it sees a doubling.

If it was simply a double exp multiplier, the hot zone would always be better.

Some zones see as little as a 10% boost, some of the zones that had a very low starting ZEM can see over a 100% boost. Generally, old world zones like Lavastorm get nearly doubled, newer zones get a smaller boost due to a high base ZEM.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

From what I recall, there are quite a few options in each hotzone- and it's given randomly as you request it, iirc- not done by day or week.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.