Making sure we're on the right track.

[Ziraji]

so, some friends and I decided to buy the game and roll some characters. We finished up the trial island and from then on we've been somewhat lost. Should we be concentrating on questing? I've heard about the need for AA xp, but we were trying to do some quests in Antonica and they were incredibly lame. (IE: walk around and find a worm every mile to kill - or- find a tiny flower under a random tree) most quests seemed to be a big old waste of time. Would it be a bad thing to just spend most of the time grinding up XP just by killing stuff repeatedly? Would that hurt us later in the game? My roots are in DAoC, where almost all leveling quests were a waste of time. And with so many being scattered all over EQ2, i'm having a hard time figuring out what to do.

[DwarvesR]

<p>TBH, I've never been all that impressed with the quests in Antonica.  They tend to have a lot of running around/time sink built into them.  The newer zones have much better quest progression, IMO.  I just did DarkLight Woods for the 1st time on a new Arasai.  Went from 1-18 in very short order, and had 10 aa's by the time I hit 18 too.  I didn't turn combat xp off, but I didn't kill anything unless it was for a quest or I happened to catch aggro as I ran by too closely either.</p><p>I've not done Kelethin/Gfay as a noob yet, but I'm told it's similar to my experience in DLW.</p><p>Since you're already in Antonica. . .I'd suggest grinding up to 20-ish asap and moving in to the Thundering Steppes and/or Nek Forest and/or Butcherblock Mountains for the quests there.</p><p>My little Arasai's done several quests in Commonlands that weren't too bad, but as "goodies" that might be a little hard for you all in the teens.  I just barely moved in to Nek Forest this morning and got 2 levels and 3 aa's without hardly trying it seemed.  Haven't been to TS or BBM yet, but they're coming.  I may actually turn combat xp off, at the rate I'm going, actually, and try to just rake in more quests for a while, as I've shot from 21 to 25 in 2 days and am starting to worry about outleveling quests before I can finish them.</p><p>All that said. . . I hope Antonica gets a sweep on updating quests sometime soon.  most of them aren't worht the effort, IMO. . just as you also discovered.</p>

[Moongloom]

<p>To me there are only 3 basic types of quests anyways.  So anyway they have in the description, there will still end up being pretty much only three types.  You have the mail quests, the kill quests, or the click on something somewhere to get update quests.  </p><p>You don't have to do quests if you don't want to.  The quests are there to help you xp a bit faster.  If you are going to be killing a certain mob anyways then grab the quest(s) to kill them.  </p><p>I love doing quests even though there are only basically the three types.  </p>

[Finora]

<p>If grinding is what floats your boat, then by all means grind. Achievement xp isn't 'that' hard to get.</p><p>AA aren't essential for gameplay either (though they certainly help to flesh out some classes and have very good benifits).</p><p>I personally would (and do with my alts) quest, but mostly because I despise sitting around grinding. Just bores the mess out of me. Had enough of that in EQ1 =). </p>

[Thunderthyze]

<p>My advice for the true newbie is to roll your characters in Neriak. The progression is FAR better structured there and encompassed in a much smaller area. After a couple of evenings play you will be at level 20 and ready to progress into the wide world of Norrath. If there is a small group of you then I would suggest one of you rolling a scout of some kind. This is so that you have trackking available to you which makes finding mobs much easier.</p><p>The other thing to keep in mind when it comes to finding mobs is that often when one spawns it may be one of several options. So for instance badgers may respawn as wolves or deer and you will have to clear these in order for the badgers you are looking for to repop. This theory also holds true for harvest nodes.</p><p>Finally, I would recommend following the quest lines when you start out as they tend to point you in the right direction and also introduce you to game mechanics in a logical way. Once you know the game feel free to grind for those "phat lewts" although questing is always going to get you more xp even if you complete them inadvertently while grinding. So my advice? Always pickup all the quests going and only delete them once they grey out.</p>

[Maebus]

I can't stand to do normal solo type quests (go kill x of this).  My group has only done the fun group quests we wanted to do (lots of HQ's) that have nice rewards and done lots of dungeon delving and exploration.  My guy is currently level 53 with 69 AA's.  So do what you want and just have fun.