What do you expect in a newbie zone? Lots of pvp and massive quest? Ofcourse there will be lots of loadscreens and cinematics for new players. If you are a pro player and start a new alt char you probably knew how to leave tortage without doing any night quests and leaving the zone early. So its not a big deal at all.
even if you don't do the night quests there is a massive ammount of zoning, not sure why you'd want to skip them as they will be the only bit of the experience on an alt that will be different to the first time.
Much of the areas are pvp but the zoning makes the fights in certain places particually the underhalls really silly.
Being a pro player makes no difference, the few cinematics arn't a problem the fact that your quests in the first 20 levels are spread over about 13 different areas meaning for the first say 12 hours of in game time weather it's your first or 5th character you will be zoneing more than a hundred times.
Thanks for all the great responses guys, really appreciate it!
Let me make it clear once and for all. areas.The maps themselves are huge Conall Valley takes you from level 25 to 35 (or more) and all that time you could run around in just one area if you'd like. No instancing. I have same experience in other areas like Field of the dead and Eigopal Mountains. I could stay in one zone for a week. These are huge maps with no instancing. What I guess people are thinking about when they say there are zoning/instancing than normal, could be when you are in the bigger cities like tarantia. The local taverns are instanced as well as the cellar underneath it or perhaps the dungeon behind it. If you want to shuffle a lot back and forth it's naturally going to be a bit of zoning which by the way take like 5-10 sec for me. I just have to admit, I can't really see this as a problem, but then again thats just my opinion. To sum up, the last thing to be worried about is zoning/instancing. It will be more interesting for you to see if you like the completely different combat system, the new characters, the nonelf world etc... Good luck.
Actually the maps are just large...
If you had ever played the original EverQuest, you would have seen Huge zones, so big you could get yourself lost. Conell's Valley just seem big because of the elevation differences, but it is just a linear run with a bit of area up one side sectioned off from the rest.
Comments
even if you don't do the night quests there is a massive ammount of zoning, not sure why you'd want to skip them as they will be the only bit of the experience on an alt that will be different to the first time.
Much of the areas are pvp but the zoning makes the fights in certain places particually the underhalls really silly.
Being a pro player makes no difference, the few cinematics arn't a problem the fact that your quests in the first 20 levels are spread over about 13 different areas meaning for the first say 12 hours of in game time weather it's your first or 5th character you will be zoneing more than a hundred times.
Let me make it clear once and for all. areas.The maps themselves are huge Conall Valley takes you from level 25 to 35 (or more) and all that time you could run around in just one area if you'd like. No instancing. I have same experience in other areas like Field of the dead and Eigopal Mountains. I could stay in one zone for a week. These are huge maps with no instancing. What I guess people are thinking about when they say there are zoning/instancing than normal, could be when you are in the bigger cities like tarantia. The local taverns are instanced as well as the cellar underneath it or perhaps the dungeon behind it. If you want to shuffle a lot back and forth it's naturally going to be a bit of zoning which by the way take like 5-10 sec for me. I just have to admit, I can't really see this as a problem, but then again thats just my opinion. To sum up, the last thing to be worried about is zoning/instancing. It will be more interesting for you to see if you like the completely different combat system, the new characters, the nonelf world etc... Good luck.
Actually the maps are just large...
If you had ever played the original EverQuest, you would have seen Huge zones, so big you could get yourself lost. Conell's Valley just seem big because of the elevation differences, but it is just a linear run with a bit of area up one side sectioned off from the rest.