How do I get to my starting city?

Abraxos

I'm an old school EQ player who is returning. I started the other night after five years away from the game and made a new character. I made a Troll SK. Suddenly I am doing some tutorial that felt like Oblivion and then I pop out in Crescent city?? Can't I make a character and just start out in Grobb and kill stuff till I ding like the old days?

Honestly I am just bored with the "load up on quests" mentality and was looking forward to reliving the nostalgia of a jaunt across Grobb, SouthRo, North Ro and Timmorous Deep. What am I doing wrong?

Vallanor

At character creation just change your starting city from Crescent Reach to Grobb/Akanon etc.  Be forwarned, however, that many of your favorite zones from the past have been "updated" (i.e. turned into utter garbage), specifically the Commonlands, Freeport, Highpass Hold, and others I'm sure.  It was enough to completely destroy the nostalgic feeling I had when I revisited a few months ago.  I made the run from Qeynos to Freeport, only to unsubscribe when my journey was complete.  It's a real shame.

adderVXI

Ohhh those were the good old days!  Im not sure how to get to your city, sorry.  Come back from time to time and give us some storys of the old days would ya?

Abraxos

That's depressing about the revamp.  The areas surrounding Commonlands, Freeport and Ro were where I cut my teeth on MMORPGs. I will try the switch at character creation and give it a shot anyway.

As for tales from the good ole' days; I had all those sweet moments just like many others. Some big ones that still ring with me are:

1. The newbie experience of getting poisoned in Nektulo's newbie zone by a spider or getting kicked by a snake in East Commonlands.

2. Getting sit on by a Sand Giant while I medded in Ro.

3. Getting dropped in two seconds by a Named Ghost Iksar in COM.

4. Sneaking into the Coldain throne room trying to get those cool no-drop electric blue armors when higher levels were killing dwarves for faction.

5. Tanking Kael in my first big raid.

6. Killing my first Paladin in Freeport when he interupted my shopping experience. (KOS).

7. Killing Hill Giants on the "Hill" for plat.

8. The Boat to Overthere.

9. First trip to Karnor's Castle and seeing a legendary train with several giant hands run past me as I feigned death with my SK.

10. Dragging my body out of Lower Guk after six hours of failed attempts.

Mardy

There aren't many revamps actually, and only bad revamp in my opinion is Freeport.  They totally botched Freeport up.  But the Commonlands revamp was done well, you can't really tell the difference because they kept the zone design the same.  Oasis & South Ro got merged but the change isn't that huge.  Yes it's a bit different but the most memorable things about those zones were the beach, crocs, specs, sand giants, orcs, etc.. they're all still there.

 

Steamfont was revamped but again, they kept the zone design the same so it's like the old steamfont but with newer graphics.  If you count the number of starting cities vs the number of revamped zones, there are far more original zones untouched than those that got revamped.  So if you really need to see old world graphics, try Kelethin, Everfrost, Karana's (all unchanged), feerrott, toxx, etc..  They're all in their old glory, playing in old midi music still.  Good times.