Thinking aboug starting a PvP toon.

[Gieger]

What server should i go for?? I'm making a necro, of course, but I don't really know which server would be best for a new player to the PvP enviroment. Any suggestions or tips would be greatly appreciated. Thanks a lot

[Aryse Andenter]

What interests you about a PvP server? What is you rmotivation to change? How much time are you going to put into it? Knowing a bit about it would help in being able to recommend a server.

[Gieger]

Well, I'm just tired of the monotony of a blue server. I wanted to try something new, so i figured a PvP character would work for that. I'm just looking for a bit of a challenge. I also like the fact that you can be evil to people and actually back it up on a PvP server unlike a blue server where they can just decline a /duel. Not much else is compelling me to move to one, I'd probably spend a fair amount of time playing it as well.

[Demetrii Spiritdrinker]

I chose Tallon Zek because I wanted some structure for my conflicts. Tallon Zek allows PvP between teams -- I.E., Humans versus Short Races versus Elves versus Dark Races -- and it only allows PvP if the individual is within 8 levels of you.


This means that Level 65s won't harass Level 30s, but that you'll be able to defend your claim to camps in most situations because the individual will probably be within range to you. Plus, the whole feeling of sneaking up on someone unawares, and ambushing them while their back is turned -- Fun stuff, in my opinion.


You can loot coin on Tallon and Vallon, but your equipment remains safe, which is also a plus in my book. I don't choose PvP for the risk of losing hard-earned purchased equipment -- I choose it because I like to pit my skills against someone else's.

Vallon has the same rules as Tallon Zek, while on Rallos Zek, everyone can attack everyone. This seems like a bad idea to me. As for Sullon Zek, it's PvP based on the deities, and you can kill anyone who worships a different deity. I believe that there is no level range here either ( i.e., a 65 could attack a Level 6 ), and I think you lose experience when you die to someone who is near your level.


That sucks, imo.


That's all I know about PvP servers -- And yeah, come and play, pal. Red servers are a whole new game, and an awesome experience. :)

[Gieger]

Hmmmm, Tallon sounds a lot better actually. I was first gonna do Sullon because a friend plays on there but i read the rule set and you lose experience and i think 1 piece of gear to the killer and it's not level restriced....sure it'd be more of a challenge, but i don't really want to be frustrated more than i am challenged. I think i'll swing by Tallon and check it out for awhile and see how it goes.

[Gieger]

I'm also debating on which race would be better suited for a necro on PvP....i was thinking iksar because of the innate regen and AC boost, but i wasn't sure on that or not. Any suggestions?? And are there any tips for starting out on the Tallon server?? Like what areas are safer and what not.

[Demetrii Spiritdrinker]

Awhile back it used to be that certain zones were 'controlled' by Teams. Once upon a time, South Karana was Darkie, as was Oasis of Ro. Now, however, all zones are ... well, I can't even call them contested, really. PvP on Tallon Zek is more a 'Guild-Based' thing these days, instead of the 'Team versus Team' of long ago.


This only really applies in the high-end, where everyone is a cross-teamer. Makes sense to me, as an Iksar or Dark Elf has probably learned to look beyond racial differences in order to accomplish their goals by that point. This, to me, sounds more plausible than the 'If you're evil, you're black, and if you're good, you're white, and there will never be any depth to this conflict other than these two points' on Sullon Zek.


It bothered me that SOE essentially claimed a good roleplayer would never approve of an evil character and a good character working together. Still, SOE knows crap about RP, so I can only label them idiots and move on.


For your stay on Tallon Zek, I can only recommend playing as your gear allows. If you're being crushed by twinks, hide from them and use terrain to your advantage -- I.E., swim underwater and pop up to cast spells, hopefully vanishing before they spot you -- Or, locate areas less frequented and hunt there until you're powerful enough to simply take over the camps you want.


If someone gave me the choice of going to a Blue server, or remaining red, and keeping all my levels, AAs, and possessions, I'd stick with Tallon. You can deal with people who make themselves nuiscances, and a person is always, always, always more fun to attack than a predictable monster.


Feels good when people spot your name in a zone, and make a run for the zoneout. :D


Hope to see you here.

[Gieger]

I'll give it a shot. What can I lose for trying?? hehe. And i thought you could only have one character on the PvP servers to prevent twinking.....oh well, guess i'll just have to try a little harder then hehe. Thanks for the advice.

[nathraq]

I just started an Erudite necro on Sullon Zek. At the low levels, the only place of relative safety is Nek Forest, or Kurns. Even then, you get high levels coming in to kill everyone in the zone. At that point, you have to wait in Pok, near the zone stone, and watch the EVILS assemble their army to clear the zone of PK'ers. That part of it is fun. The hard part is waiting for the pk'ers to leave, so you can recover your corpse.

I'm pk'd almost on a daily basis. It gets frustrating, but revenge will be well worth it.

[Aryse Andenter]

It is incorrect that you lose gear on Sullon if you are PKed. If you are killed the person can loot your pp, but no items. If you are killed by an even con, you do lose xp - however, xp loss for all deaths, pvp or other, seems to be different on Sullon (you lose less xp in relation to xp gained on a kill) than other servers - I don't know how it compares to the other Zeks though, this is just a memory from the 2 weeks I played on a blue server.

On Sullon, the only level restriction is that players below level 6 in newbie zones cannot be killed. Other than that you will be fair game to all those level 65s walking around with hundreds of AAs - as will greenies be to you when you level up.

Deities are divided into three teams - evil, neutral, good - and you can kill anyone on either of the other two teams. Sullon has the cleanest team division of any of the Zeks imo.

On Sullon, you cannot group with players from the other teams, or cast beneficial spells on them. Esentially, the only way to x-team is to just not kill someone on the other team.

I think that when Sullon was first created you could only have one character per account, but now you can have three. GM support on Sullon is basically non-existent, for the most part the server is left alone to battle things out with next to no rules.

Sullon is by far the most brutal of the PvP servers. If you are looking for a challenge, it's the one for you. If you get frustrated and give up easily when you get pked a few times by red cons, don't come to Sullon. Also, the structure on Sullon doesn't work well for casual players, so unless you will play your Sullon char regularly, it's probably never going to be an enjoyable server.

[Gieger]

Aryse, thanks for the info. I'm pretty sure the experience gaining rate is increased by two fold or somewhere near it......because back when the Discord server was up it had the same ruleset as Rallos Zek and the Discord had an exp. modifier built into it.

But you said something about not wanting to go into Sullon if you're a casual player.....i might have to pass on Sullon then. I'm more of a casual person who solos almost exclusively (Heh, my LFG tag has High risk Mistmoore LDoN's ONLY!!! on it at all times while i'm camping solo spots, need points for Dark soul and our other LDoN spells) I wasn't quite sure about the looting of items on the different PvP servers....i know there's one where you can only loot coin and ONE item only as long as it's not in a bag or no drop. But that may have changed awhile back because i remember that particular thing from a WAYS back before Velious was even launched.

Well, i'll try out the Tallon first and see what i think about PvP and then maybe go into Sullon once i figure out how to level fast enough to keep out of the reach of others hehe.

[AnimocityStromm]

Sullon is by far the most brutal of the PvP servers. If you are looking for a challenge, it's the one for you.

dunno about that. when starting out fresh with nothing on SZ, at least you can find places to xp where you won't be jumped every minute. Rallos Zek is a pain in the ass, as nearly every zone has a pack of asshats who run around killing lowbies as soon as they turn 6 for absolutely no reason. not only that, but having your armor pieces looted from you in addition to your pp is teh suq when starting out.

[Aryse Andenter]

Finally got off my lazy butt and looked this up - EQ Live - Special Servers (http://eqlive.station.sony.com/library/special_servers.jsp)

They're not complete, but it does give you a bit of an idea of the different rule sets on the PvP servers. Looks like Rallos is the one with the coin + 1 item rule.


As for the casual player... There's no way around it, Sullon sucks at low levels, so unless you are planning on leveling up fast, you'll probably hate it. Also, it has a very low population. If you don't play enough to have friends, if you ever want to ldon or group, it will be hard to put together a group of randoms. If you don't want to group, you'll still need friends, for stuff like the safety in numbers issue and rescuing you from Pkers and so on. Sooner or later you'll need to call on a group of people to clear a zone or something, and that's when you need to have built solid realtionships which is just very hard to do as a casual player.

Play whichever you like, or try them both out. If you are on Sullon, send me a tell. :)



For those of you who are curious about how some of the PvP rules evolved.... here's a famous legend - Fansy the Famous Bard (http://www.notacult.com/fansythefamous.htm). Fansy has recently reappeared on Sullon.

[AnimocityStromm]

On Sullon Zek, can you attack those of your own team? As in, if I'm in Field of Bone with an iksar, can other iksar there mug me? I was under the impression you were safe from your own ilk.

[Aryse Andenter]

You can't attack someone on your own team on Sullon.

The reason Sullon is said to be more brutal than Rallos, is because on Rallos sooner or later you will need to make friends with people, so sooner or later you won't kill someone you could, or they won't kill you, and so on. On Sullon, you will never need to be friendly with anyone on another team. I've talked to people from Rallos who've come over to Sullon, who've said Sullon was more brutal for reasons like this (this is mainly what founded my opinion, it's true I haven't played on Rallos myself). True, on Rallos these leaves the option of backstabbing somebody open (there are days when I have wished for that on Sullon), but since we will never have to group/guild/raid etc. with people on another team on Sullon, there will never, ever be a reason not to kill them, even if we can't kill somebody on our own team.

And I don't know what you are talking about, places where you aren't jumped all the time as a lowbie on Sullon, if they exist, I'd like to know where. :) Believe me, we have more than our share of asshats who run around killing lowbies all day and do nothing else. Being in a zone that is generally evil controlled only means that the high level goodies and neuts know exactly where to come when they are looking for fun or some green kills to pad their PvP ratio.

I have to say though, losing armor as a lowbie would suck, and it would suck even more when you finally have pp for some decent stuff.

[Josettee]

I am on Rollas Zek and all levels can't PVP each other. Turning 6 you fall into the PVP range but there is a 5 range PVP restriction. Ex. at level 50, 45 to 55 can PVP *I think it is 5 levels*, dueling may override that. You auto loot coin and then may take one item off the person. Corpse camping is legal as long as it doesn't cross the line to harrassment. Keeping the first three slots open in your backpack will allow your primary, secondary and range to always bag the rest is up for grabs. With LDON's it has become harder for PK'rs to really find a pay off other than personal gratification. The aug's have changed a lot there and after a couple PVP encounters you learn not to carry money. In addition on Rallos Zek many of the Anti guilds are now in an alliance which is really minimizing the PK situation. Most like the PVP servers because of the good vs evil and every traveling event is a chance/challenge situation.

I personally haven't figured out how a person that tweeks out and pk's finds it a challenge. PK'rs tyipcally will sneak up undetected and kill the easiest person in the group. They typically run in packs which again in my opinion takes the challenge away. What is challenging about invising, coming up behind a person, dotting them while your buddy watches your back? Most of us simply either stand there and die because we are auged or we gate but it takes a few levels to realize fighting a person that is only on a server to be a pk only feeds his personal entertainment.

Those same people ask why we are on servers that are PVP if we don't want to PVP. Well the world is made up of good and evil and day to day living gives us many obstacles. A PVP server provides just that to a person who is anti. Besides we find enjoyment in ruining a PK'rs entertainment. Killing is not what we find important but interupting his fun is rather refreshing.

Most PK'rs stay below and at level 20 because the prey is easy. There are some that level up, gain AA's then delevel to PK but most of those are far between. With the progression of EQ and how they force you to group to obtain things such as AUG's, Quest's etc. Many PK'rs have found the reputation has ruined many chances to enjoy that part of EQ.

So if you are looking to make a toon to PK for a change of pace, it may not be what it is hyped up to be. I think once you have been killed a few times and have things taken that you worked hard for, seen the inflationary prices on a PVP server you may just find that good wins over evil even as a Necromancer.

Of course this is my own personal perspective.

[Demetrii Spiritdrinker]

Once again -- on Tallon and Vallon, you only lose platinum carried on your person, and there is a level range enabled that prevents a Level 65 from murdering a Level 7 or 8 -- You're free to be a hardcore playerkiller. There's no real damage dealt to your reputation, because unless you corpse-camp or intentionally experience-kill people ( i.e., training monsters ), it's all in good fun.


Visit the link that Aryse provided -- It should have all the answers you need to make an informed decision.

[Gieger]

Well Demetrii, I'm gonna start something on the Tallon. Don't know if it'll be a necro or not, mainly because i already have a 24 necro on the Druzzil. I don't really feel like leveling another one up to 24 hehe. What are some more decent PvP classes? I was thinking maybe a shaman or a beastlord.