Many thanks to BrashEndeavors, a great player that has been writing articles and helping newbies on the forums A TON lately. Here’s the article:
There’s been a few discussions on whether the starting gear in the new trial is “too good” and whether this tends to pressure all players, new and old alike, to only reroll future characters on the Isle of Dawn, possibly leaving other starter areas to “dry up” and become ghost towns.
Also debated is whether starting crafters will be adversely affected because they will lose any possible market or motivation to craft tier one items in comparison to the new gear.
After spending a pretty good amount of time on the new isle, I don’t think these issues are really going to be a problem.
While the gear on IOD is indeed excellent for a starting player with no resources, it is far from “killer gear” that outpaces anything that can be acquired on the mainland. First characters always start out dirt poor, and in fact I had abandonded my very first character, a young halfling ranger, before she ever reached the level of 10 because I struggled so hard in keep her well-geared. By my third or fourth character, I had started the habit of “endowing” new characters with assets from my previous tries, via ingame mail, so that each “new generation” of characters had a somewhat easier start than the previous. Many players of course are immune to the altoholic syndrome, and stick with one main character only, or simply resist the temptation to “twink” new characters with their older ones. They are the ones who will benefit the most from the new Isle, because you walk out at level 10 with every slot filled with good solid usable gear. But it is not perfect gear, and it doesn’t give the IOD character a huge advantage over characters rolled in traditional starter areas. After my new IOD dreadknight finished her final quest, I took a screen of the stats of a live server “twinked” dreadknight I had at level 9, and was surprised to find the mainland character was overall actually very competitive, perhaps even better geared than the new character in some ways:
(Mainland DK on top, new IOD DK on bottom):
The first thing I looked at in looking at the new armor was of course base AC, and even though the level 9 “mainland DK” still had another level of catchup it did look like the IOD baby tank had far superior defenses. However, the twinked mainland DK I was able to select specifically the stats that I wanted to focus on, and while IOD gear was “suitable” for the class it tends to favor a well-rounded approach to stats vs a mini-maxxed approach. My hit points and attack rating on my mainland DK thus were actually significantly higher than the IOD DK, and obviously when she gains the final level 10, those numbers will be even higher. The IOD tank has better defense ratings, however. All in all — it’s a fairly close tradeoff. In comparison, my mainland baby disciple actually had an advantage over my IOD disciple, in that I was better able to focus on “solo gear” for her. The IOD disciple received a lot of gear that I would not have selected msyelf (focusing heavily on WIS/energy, while I prefer STR/VIT/dps oriented gear). So the mainland character will always have much more control over what gear and what stats are favored.
A second factor — it may be difficult, possibly impossible, to “twink” new IOD characters. There are no mailboxes or brokers, and it’s unclear still whether new IOD characters will have access to house recall spells. The only backpacks new IOD characters have access to are 4 or 6 slot bags, and now not even any banks, so newer players must constantly sell off any items to vendors as fast as they acquire them. While the IOD new character ends up well outfitted at level 10, they have to wait until the final quest completiion to get some of that gear — my DK tank probably gained almost half of her final AC in the last dungeon quest, and up until that point would actually have been significantly behind the mainland DK, who could have any gear she wanted as early as she liked. Until the final dungeon, for instance, I was still using the barebones chest and legs and gained 208 AC just from the final chest+legs. Probably half my AC came from the last dungeon, while my mainland dreadknight had high AC+dps from level one on.
The lone longterm “advantage” of starting out on IOD is the Lucky Charms bracelet you get that grants +5 to all stats (except CON, unsure if that is an oversight) and is upgradeable at higher levels. However, you must have at least 10 levels of diplomacy to equip the bracelet, and whether all players will have the patience to actually complete 10 levels of diplomacy, I don’t know. At least now however there is a very strong motivation to jump into the Diplomacy sphere early on, which I personally think A Very Good Thing though I suspect at some point someone will complain about being “forced” into the sphere. I have no idea what the later upgraded versions of the neckpiece will look at, so can’t respond to claims by a few that they will now be “compelled” to reroll new IOD characters to be competitive at later levels.
** edited note: silius posted on the forums that the charm’s requirement for 10 diplomacy was not intended, and has since been removed on internal versions of the isle**
I think there will continue to be a very strong attraction to starting secondary characters on the mainland, for the following reasons:
- Traditional starting areas will always have a fresh approach, new lore, and a distinctive “new” storyline to explore. One common complaint some had with age of conan was that once you did the starter area once, you were pretty much disinterested in running through it again. That is going to be the same with Isle of Dawn, and I think the majority of players will want to see what it is like to start in the Vulmane area, the dwarven area, dark elf area etc rather than run through IOD multiple times. Hard to say how much of a draw facotr the charm bracelet will be, given the extra work to level in diplomacy as well, and compared to the huge advantage the older areas offer in terms of fresh new content.
- Isle of Dawn characters have less ‘freedom’ and opportunities than mainland characters. On the mainland, you can run a level 2 character to any place in the world, and experience ANY level appropriate quests, dungeons and content. On IOD, you have ONLY the much more narrowly directed main questline to follow in a linear order. You can’t on a whim go see what other dungeons and quests are like, you can’t opt to “not do” a certain quest, you have less choice in what to do or where to go at any stage of development. This may not matter as much on a first character but it matters a lot for me on a second character! This to me gives a huge advantage to mainland starter areas after a player has already run through IOD once.
- Isle of Dawn characters have less “early access” to powerful gear compared to other areas. With no brokers or mailboxes, regardless of their personal assests on other characters they cannot select highend adventureer gear right from the start nor choose the stats they may actually want to focus on. They cannot make multiple baby crafters that mail each other supplies and items, they cannot gear up with Gwartak or other “highend” starter gear, and the “boss drops” on IOD are actually in many ways less powerful than mainland counterparts, mostly seeming to drop jewelry, rings and earrings, rather than armor and weapons. A couple of exceptions there (darkwood bow) but again usually you can still find much better drops of those same items on the mainland and at the broker. They also won’t have access to some of the lower level crafting/diplomacy quest items that are actually more powerful than IOD counterparts, such as crafter quest gear, “Master” tools at level 5, diplomatic mounts and containers (they do get a small 10-slot diplo pounch, but not as good as the mainland one).
IOD is going to benefit mostly the new player with no resources and no knowledge of “optional” side content, rather than the established player. Which is exactly as it should be.
Crafting is an interesting area that I am still getting a feel for. However, the way crafting is set up in this game has always focused on steering young crafters directly into the NPC work order system rather than into the dynamic player economy. Very few new crafters in the regular game actually craft for fellow new adventurers — most of the current tier one/tier two goods crafted goods are actually made by a tiny minority of the crafter community, and aimed squarely at the affluent reroll “twink” market rather than the new player. Tailors are probably going to be in the very strongest position of a new player economy, both because IOD characters cannot acquire packs higher than 6 slots on their own, and because of the upcoming level requirements to backpacks that will prevent future twink characters starting out with 32-slot vielthread packs, and instead push a very large demand for 16-slot Jute bags.
Another aspect still making it hard to compare the “newworld” vs “old world” is that test server up until now still appears to have its regular “double experience” for adventurers. While some have argued that the new area was “too easy,” I did not find it so, especially for some classes (I suck as Psionicists and really struggled trying to roll a Psi on IOD). Once test server gets its boosted experience turned off, I’ll run a brand new set of characters through start to finish again.
My over all feeling is — Isle of Dawn gives a less frustrating start to first time players without access to resources like established players can start with. There is a much higher degree of direction and less “freedom”, but again it is more of in the way of additional new options for players rather than replacing the current content and areas. The gear they get is indeed quite good compared to other starter areas, but not overpowered compared to what established characters sometimes give their new rerolls. They lack access to things like powerful Gwartok and loot drop weapons on the broker, have less control over what stats to favor on their characters. In comparison, I had thought the new EQ2 “Kunark” starter areas pretty much “broke” the older adventuring/crafting content, and I think Vanguard’s development team successfully avoided some of the mistakes I feel were made in EQ2’s newer expansion starter areas. I think the current mainland starter areas will still be the favored approach for “secondary characters” because of the attaction they have always had: fresh content, additional lore, and greater choices and freedoms of the old world.
Isle of Dawn to me fits very well a specific need and area, rather than replacing and making irrelevant, any current existing content.
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