After getting my gnome enchanter to level 3 I decided that I just didn’t want to have to fight with the throngs of players for mobs in steamfont, and I also decided that I should create some sort of tank class, because hey everyone needs a good tank, right? I made a dark elf shadowknight named Blesse and set off to Nektulos Forest. Experience was much quicker here with the ability to pick through zones in order to find one that didn’t have a hundred plus players wandering around it. I tried to fight spiders in specific along with wolves because I knew I would want their silk and hides. Experience was much faster here and my tank wasn’t doing too poorly. Having harm touch helped once an hour, and Nektulos Forest was quite challenging, especially when a random red zombie would cross my path (which was often).
Kanad created a barbarian shaman, and after reaching level 5 braved the walk from Halas over to Nektulos, and together we settled in camping undead and other various denizens of the forest. After a few hours I managed to reach level 6, at level 5 I received my first ‘useful’ spell, which was a much needed dot. I also managed to do a little bit of crafting, raising my baking and tailoring a few notches. I was proud of the three plat I had earned, though I know some players are earning much more than me, and much faster. It was while I was leveling up the shadowknight that I heard of the bosses of classic having already been defeated by a guild using their mage pets to zerg. While I admit, taking down raid encounters is something I would love to do, I also realize that it’s probably not something I’ll get a chance to do because guilds tend to keep these things on lockdown on progression and non progression servers alike.
The wizard spire in Nektulos Forest had been good experience around this level, as long as I avoided the zombies that pathed by, but I knew that it would soon be time to head on to Commonlands, and maybe work on some of my other crafting skills in the meantime as well. Of course when I finally logged in for my next play session, I didn’t do any of those things, but that will come in another post.
On the weekend the servers were so busy that there was a queue to get in. There are people all over the place, even at off-peak hours which is something that I have missed seeing. I imagine that as time goes on more people will leave the game, especially depending on how long it takes for players to unlock expansions, how quickly we reach expansions that others may not enjoy. I’m hoping to keep playing for as long as there are groups to be found. We’ll just have to see.