I always liked the creepy feel of Najena,
But I also really liked the artwork in the Luclin expansion- I mean the caves were not always obvious in their pathways because of how the background walls were painted- they were painted in the illusion style, where a convave feature looked like a convex or vice versa- and that " followed you arounf the room" like eyes on a painting. The best example of this is the first room in the rockhopper cave in maidens eye. Looking around, you think it is only one room.
Oh and I forgot to mention Acrylia Caverns. At that level there was a single camp at the bottom that had three of the most rediculously awesome drops and was relatively low risk to get and maintain the camp. You had three named mobs all in one spot that had high spawn frequencies. And the best part... at least on our server at that time frame almost no one knew about it so it was never camped. The zone was eternally empty and ours.
We found the spot totally by accident just exploring some of the content and stumbled upon (at the time) probably one of the richest camp's in the game.
Paineel. Paineel is the best damn city in EQ.
Paineel is a beautiful city of darkend carved stone and lush green grass. The sun shines down on the city during the day and the moon and stars light up the night sky. The city is kept clean and is decorated with fountains. Paineel is one of the most well-maintained and well-kept cities in the game, none of the junk barrels or mounds of dirt and grime you see stashed into corners like in Qeynos, Freeport, or Kaladim.
Not only is Paineel clean and beautiful, but the layout is simple and makes sense. The guildhalls are in the portions of the city you would expect them to occupy: tanks are near the front gate of the city proper, healers and casters are near the library and palace in the rear of the city. Taverns and supply shops are in the center. The only difficulty that people have is navigating the teleporters, but this is rectified once you learn that there are no more than four. Paineel even offers players who start there their own private newbie micro-zone, and several quests involve hunting in this micro-zone.
Finally, Paineel is in-lore supposed to be a hidden city, and hidden it is. From the winding paths on zone in, to the secret elevato, Paineel is like every right-minded Erudite's secret paradise. With skeletons. So many skeletons. Like, wow.
See, what makes Paineel so interesting is that it's an Evil city. Yes, evil with a capitol "E". Think about how evil cities look in most MMOs: dark, depressing, ugly, gory, primative, etc. Paineel is none of that. Paineel is a great example that evil can be beautiful too. Grobb, Ogguk, Cabilis and Nerriak are all dark, dank, and depressing. Those cities are your standard evil cities and are made less interesting because of it. Paineel is openly evil, the use of ghosts and skeletons as guards shows as much, but the city is beautiful none the less.
Also, Erudite SK is best SK. Screw all you "slam FTW" min-maxers.
I'd have to say Kaesora or Old Seb. Kaesora was the first dungeon I encountered because I bought the game when Kunark came out. And Old Seb because it was the place to group at high level for loot and the experience.
For outdoor zones I'd say Unrest. That place was pure insanity. :)
#1 EC. The madness that was the EC tunnels when it was the go to spot to buy or sell. Randomly getting ganked by a griffon or trying to get a spot in an orc 1 group. This is the zone that usually comes to mind first when I am reminiscing.
#2 Unrest. Oh god the trains, the trains! It was amazing.
#3 The Guks. I spent so much time there.
#4 Plane of Fear. First plane I ever went to. Coincidentally, it's also the first plane I died horribly in. IIRC I was wearing bronze.
#5 Runnyeye. As a halfling, this was my original stomping ground. So much fun. So many feet.
Lots of my favorites mentioned, however I'd like to add one that most people seem to overlook. Dalnir.
This zone was tremendously difficult for the level range, nearly every mob was a caster that punished you with nasty DoT's, and some of the more iconic loot of mid-level Kunark items came from there, Robe of Dalnir, to me one of the best looking robes in the game, Fighting Batons, entire monk no-drop set (loved that on Rallos Zek), and a floor system that made going back up after you took that leap of faith impossible, you had a zoneout on each floor but getting to it could prove incredibly deadly. Also early on The Kly Overseer dropped an item that was extremely valuable that was moved to Drusella Sathir after a month.
So many iksar bloodline quests took you to this zone, and I still believe to this day that the iksar racial weapon questlines, especially the necro skullcap and shaman cudgel were the best designed quests next to epics.
I know this will probably get me in trouble, but my favorite place in original EQ was South Karana, and when Plane of Sky came out that became my favorite zone (something very different, along with agonizing corpse summons).
SolA was very confusing at first but had many fun (and terrible) memories from there.
-Kin
Greater Faydark is still my favorite zone. A good deal of my characters were wood/high/half evles that started there. Kelethin's music is still one of my favorites in that area as well, plenty of newbie spawns and camp points. And nicely moves onto CrushBone. Just an overall well done zone
jimm0thy said:Greater Faydark is still my favorite zone. A good deal of my characters were wood/high/half evles that started there. Kelethin's music is still one of my favorites in that area as well, plenty of newbie spawns and camp points. And nicely moves onto CrushBone. Just an overall well done zone
I agree. Loved the music and the whole area was very immersive to elves.
Love Kelethin. I too love the music of the area. I love Kael! The giants scared the crude out of me the first time there. It is a favorite.
(edit due to terrible spelling)
Going out on a limb here, but I also really liked the Omens of War expansion which came out in 2004 (4 1/2 years after I started)... I hung out in these zones all the time! Most were a pullers paradise... You could also box in them with great success if you knew what you were doing. Often just hung out with friends a lot throughout the zones. I got to know them very well and often lead where we went.
Not to mention, Epic 1.5 and 2.0 were introduced in this expansion which took a LONG time to get done without good / active guild.
Wall of Slaughter was my favorite, just a fun zone. Ruined City of Dranik was second favorite, but honestly, there was lots to do...
I will never forget the first time I saw some of the mobs in WoS I was in awe... I thought man these are going to rip through us, and also thought the graphics took a major turning point!
Remember this guy!
Ssra Temple was pretty high up there on my list of most memorable zone experiences.
Beginning with the trek to get there.
The 'crawl' element, with camps.
Farming the Basement.
Locked doors and traps.
Collecting Shisshar bane weapons.
The balance of unslowable to Unmezzable mobs.
The Cursed cycle.
Raiding Emperors room.
It being a stepping stone (with time sink element) to another raid tier.
So many other reasons!
Erud's Crossing - A very pleasant little island. More than once I found myself just walking around it for a while enjoying the scenery or sunrise/sunset. The island had some interesting and at times unpredictable spawns that were fun to hunt as a lower level. The "ecosystem" I always thought was neat. Trains could form very easily if you didn't plan your targets and timing and messing up badly enough could potentially result in everything on the island becoming pissed off at you.
Plains of Karana (North, South, East and West) - Huge open zones with all sorts of ruins, camps, mobs and NPCs around. You could explore for a long time and still come across something new from time to time. The bridges in North Karana were quite impressive when I came across them for the first time.
Such fond memories of Castle Mistmoor. Wasn't until years later on p1999 that I was able to truly explore the castle itself, and realized how little of it I truly saw in my playing days. Same goes for Unrest and Lower Guk.
All the time spent in those zones, yet I hadn't truly seen all of them.
Fulton said:Such fond memories of Castle Mistmoor. Wasn't until years later on p1999 that I was able to truly explore the castle itself, and realized how little of it I truly saw in my playing days. Same goes for Unrest and Lower Guk.
All the time spent in those zones, yet I hadn't truly seen all of them.
I found that in many zone - I would have to go back to a zone for a quest or something and I would find it to be an amazing place but I was way too high level to hunt there and/or by then it was a ghost town.
Katta Castellum was a good example for me.
I loved so many places. I loved City of Mist - it was such a cool thing to have this old lost abandoned city in the middle of a dense jungle. No explanation - its just there. And it was so cool in every regard. And Karnor's Castle. And Kurn's tower....man so many good zones.