Karnor's Castle, EverQuest.
What can I say, I love trains. So many funny deaths and near death experiences. See a train approaching? Time to decide what to do. Run for the zone? Accept death and choose the best place to die for later easy corpse recovery? Or join forces with everyone there to try and kill it?
Staying and trying to kill it and actually succeeding was just the best of fun.
A close second would be Castle Mistmoore. Pulling the entire castle into the bathroom and the ensuring lag fest was just hilarious.
-sorte.
South Karana.
I loved this zone for its aesthetics. It's remoteness. The Tundra-like biome. The music. The Greek mythology. The spacing/scale of the trees/hills. The beautiful sunsets. The clear starry night sky. It just felt like a breath of fresh air being there, as if the constant rat race going on in the rest of the game was just a distant memory.
East Commonlands
The first zone I really levelled in as a Human Wizard, no nightvision, trying to solo, occasionally getting groups and discovering all the classes I could join with and what they did.
Hearing the wings of death then the shriek of a griffon shortly before seeing a loading screen and checking my chat log.
Making a huge amount of plat as a noobie farming spider silks to sell to some guy working on his tailoring and discovering the East Commonlands tunnel trading scene.
All while listening to Rammstein.
So many fun zones in EQ. Karnor's Castle had lots of variety and intricacies. Maybe it's because I spent a lot of time in there as a monk roaming the corridors looking for monsters to pull to the party, but I have very fond memories of exciting times, disasters and triumphs.
I also remember lots of arguing with other groups over 'camps' because it was so busy too... but that's another story!
Spent a lot of time in Guk, Befallen, Blackburrow, Najena, Solusek, UNREST! So many great zones.
Everquest was the first MMoRPG I played, I remember rolling a Dark Elf Necromancer and heading out into Nektulos Forest. I was equal parts scared and excited, I have never achieved that level of excitement in a game since. It sticks out more than any other area in any MMoRPG I have played.
Everquest - Rivervale. So much personality and flavor packed into a single zone while maintaining a very functional layout. The music also never fails to make me happy. I was a young kid when Everquest came out so I never really had the patience or social skills to do much leveling beyond what you can easily solo. However, I did enjoy making characters to explore all of the cities and early zones, and Rivervale was by far my favorite. Halflings are still my favorite race to play in Everquest to this day.
World of Warcraft - Hillsbrad Foothills. During the early days of WoW this zone gave me so many great pvp memories. Every small fight seemed to organically escalate into full-blown battles as people on both sides piled in to assist their allies. I remember times when there'd be 10 or more players on each side duking it out in a perpetual fight for control.
Sorte said:Karnor's Castle, EverQuest.
What can I say, I love trains. So many funny deaths and near death experiences. See a train approaching? Time to decide what to do. Run for the zone? Accept death and choose the best place to die for later easy corpse recovery? Or join forces with everyone there to try and kill it?
Staying and trying to kill it and actually succeeding was just the best of fun.
This is my favorite as well. I loved how smoothly it flowed from Dreadlands into the castle. You find out how the drolvargs work in a nice open area. How to sneak around them properly then move into the castle itself for fighting. Once you get into KC though it just builds on everything you learned outside to attempt to survive and explore in a much more dangerous environment. I loved how helpful people were in that zone. Rezzing eachother and the like, sadly with fully geared on death adventurers I think this will be less common in Pantheon.
I do truly wish the door bugs and train pathing bugs were not there, both were very frustrating.
Kilsin said:Tavern Talk - What was your favourite zone of all time and why is it such a good memory for you? #MMORPG #CommunityMatters
RunnyEye.
Tight hallways, small rooms, lots of doors meaning you could get turned around very easily and not know your way out. Running to the zone was mostly not an option should things get out of hand. The zone had 4 levels and with that layout you could hear, from the entrance at Misty Thicket, the sounds of goblins yelling and players fighting richocheting off the walls. Your first time in was an assault on your ears. You couldn't see anything of the zone..there was just all that noise. It was terrifying.
I'm a huge fan of dungeons that are more vertical than horizontal in their layout with each level taking you deeper and deeper underground, further and further from the safety of the zoneline.
Oh wow, this took a surprising amount of thought. I guess I would have to go with one that I still talk about and reminisce with friends: Plane of Hate.
I think this is solely because I loved zones that were designed for a raid, but allowed a single well built group to go in and solo content as well. There wasn't a lot of room for error which made it a blast with a close group of friends. Plane of Hate, Plane of Mischief, Temple of Veeshan, Plane of Nature all seemed to have that element and would draw me back to them long after the zone was considered "current endgame".
Everquest- Kithicore just because of how dynamic the zone was between night and day. The Oasis of Marr because of the feel of the zone, unique mobs, and it had an awesome name.
WoW- Barrens during the classic era because of how alive it felt in terms of the player population.
Going for one from each EQ expansion:
- Original - Unrest - first real dungeon I encountered , interesting layout , deadly trains, really bad pathing - definatly memorable.
- Kunark - Sebelis - such a fun and deep zone , especially when relativly empty.
- Velious - Kael - first real raids here , and good fun for groups. Honourable mention: Tower of Frozen shadows, was broken as hell and way too hard for the level it was meant for , however finally beating it was still fun and something not many did.
- Luclin - The Bazaar - seriously whilst leaving connection and PC on was nuts the idea that an auction house should place your actual avatar selling items was topper - much more imersive , meant everyone logged out there every day, you got to know which guilds and tradeskillers were tops, and when you met them adventuring gave a talking point. Helped build community. Honourable mention Griegs end - whom doesn't love a mess illusion!
- Planes of Power - Plane of Earth - I got to ranger tank one of the council for a bit when thier healers lagged and real tank died.
As a Vah Shir altaholic my favorite EQ zone was probably Shar Vahl. It was a comforting experience logging into a zone I knew every inch of. Much of the game's zones were still too dangerous for me to get to know but seeing and hearing the same 'city' whenever I wanted to made it feel safe and familiar like a real home.
Vex Thall as a Rogue. The most fun I ever had playing that class (my main in EQ) being the targeter/coordinator for the whole raid. Also tons of memories mass-corpse-pulling in various Planes after an epic wipe. Note none of that involved actual combat abilities.
Plenty of other hugely memorable zones in EQ and other games but VT is my all-time favorite.
Paw - the original, before the revamp.
So many zones were so over crowded and so many permanent camps that trying to find solace to play at our own pace had us discover Paw. Just two of us. Me - a rogue, and a friend who had rolled an Enchanter. And in the early days of EQ these were not popular classes. It was only much later that when some people finally leveled up classes that they became more tolerant or in demand. But early on the rogue was a mana sink for healing and the Enchanter couldn't do anything that was desired to take down an NPC so they were far behind the other spellcasters.
So we headed out - just a rogue and an enchanter - nobody to tank, nobody to heal, but we figured out a way to play and die less often. We found Paw - a long ways from anywhere so death for me was one long-assed naked run back.
We would go right to the bottom depths under the water and into the back rooms and enjoy an evening of taking out the rooms - no healing. Grab a piece of Snakeskin or two and go auction them in Qeynos.
Sure as we leveled and played more with other friends in regular groups we found other great hangouts.
I would say, the next favorite was City of Mist when Kunark was released - again a long-ass ways from anywhere, but at least you could bind there - a long-ass ways from anywhere. HA.
So, for me, I think I just like adventuring way off the grid, way out of the way.