On Tue, Nov 23/99, James Schuldes <jgs@...> wrote:

> From: James Schuldes <jgs@...>
>
> I gotta agree with and disagree with you! Your advice on where to go for
> him is good. His problem seems to be finding friends to play with. Stay
> out of Sol-A - yes - especially if you do not have a good group. Even if
> you do - lo to mid 20's can be bad if you go to the wrong places. I don't
> know where the easy places are. When my group went (former group I shud say
> - they are all hi 40's now and <snif sniff> I am stuck in 36 =( ), we tried
> the bar room at 28ish and got spanked badly (cleric, bard, de sk,
> necro/enchanter, troll war, ranger). Later, when we were lo 30's and had
> more experience in knowing what to clear first etc. we could take and hold
> these rooms fine and get good xp and good loots.

This raises a good point as well, and that's learning where the "safe"
spots are to work when you are exploring a dungeon. The bar room, IMO,
is a classic example of a bad place to pull to or try to set up a base
in an uncamped dungeon. It has 3 different ways in in an area where
there are lots of wandering mobs with a large agro radius. Talk about a
disaster waiting to happen. We found at the relatively low level we went
there that the stair well up and around the corner from the bar room was
a way better place to set up our base while we cleared that area. A good
puller needs to learn to recognise those spots where wandering mob
activity is light and the chance of an unexpected respawn won't tip a
fight into disaster.

>
> So, SOL-A seems good to me - hard yes, but once you hit the 'prime' level
> it's good. I see these low to mid 20's running in and out and wonder where
> they are going - I guess I need to explore it more.
>

Mid 20's would do ok to the left after you get past the trap
room. Down that way is the kobold predator and the foreman, and neither
of them or the mobs around are particularly hard or hard to get to. By
the late 20's, if you have a druid in your group, you can start to work
a little deeper as you now have an evac'r if things really hit the fan.

> Dungeons you do in groups and try to be at the prime level - too young and
> you get spanked; too old and there is no xp and maybe still get spanked by
> trains of greenies. Solo, well you need to be pretty powerfull so that
> rules bards out unless you are really way above the mobs and still trains of
> greenies can kill you.
>

Good advice. If you have a good group though, and want a challenge and
an experience that only the fastest levellers ever had when they first
explored places like lower guk, the under used dungeons like perma and
sol b can still provide it, while lower guk has become so overcamped
that you'll never be able to explore it that way on a mature server.
Just try to avoid printing out and using the maps on the spoiler sites
if you want to play that way, as that can take the fun of exploring away
completely.

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