Do you remember when...

[Glimdara]

you created your first NW toon and started your journey through the quests and dungeons? Or the times you looked for a group to join and "crawl" your way through Cloaked Tower? Maybe you had the right mix of character classes and maybe not. Sometimes you had to go through more than once to figure out how to conquer the content.

I remember when I first ran Glimdara through the quests and how it was difficult to find PUGs that wanted to do more than race through killing everything in their path just to get to the "gold at the end of the rainbow". It took some of the fun out of the game for me (and one of the reasons I left 2 years ago), so Glimmy soloed 90% of her journey to level 70. I have a few alts that have suffered the same fate. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the rewards as much as anyone (which is why I do random queues as much as I do). But I enjoyed the times I could get the right mix and Glimmy could stand in the front lines taunting, raising hate, and keeping the mobs from killing the rest of the party.

If, like me, you miss "the good old days" before you reached endgame content, I have a suggestion. When there are enough of us online to build a 5 (or even 10) toon group and want to go back to the "crawl through" fun of your early years, then let's put the party together and pick one. It is a chance to break out and dust off some of our lesser used alts and maybe relearn the mechanics of the class (or as in the case of my DC alt, learn how to be a healer). We could even consider resurrecting Dungeon Day.

Please let me know your thoughts and any comments or additional suggestions are welcome.

Respectfully submitted,
Glimdara Drowbane
Squire of NOR

[Ziek88]

You have returned at just the right time. I too miss those good old days. Unfortunately I run in to an issue where all my toons are unplayable and nothing more than storage or they are so powerful that anything pre-endgame just melts. I've even done low dungeons with all gear removed and it was still a zerg fest.

Enter K-team challenge. After completing the new campaign there is a weekly challenge to complete a dungeon with handicaps enabled. One of them reduces your gear to the level of the dungeon and the other makes it so any death is a full team wipe. This even means soulforged deaths. Nobody can go down at all.

I look forward to this as it should help bring back that oldschool challenge and give that big reward. Everybody wins. Unfortunately this week is Castle Ravenloft. Hoping next week is a good one.

This has also been working at endgame as well. Some of us have been attempting to plant the NOR flag in Tomb of the Nine Gods and only recently did so in Spellplague and Fangbreaker's. They are by no means easy and there has been much planning around how to conquer them as a guild. It has felt like the old days. It is just harder to be all inclusive with then due to the steep demand of entry and that those dungeons are designed around needing those mega builds.

As for dungeon day schedules they often fell victim to constantly changing availability and lack of meaningful dungeons. When setting them the choice was between all inclusive which meant boring dungeons for the highly geared and equally boring for those along for the ride or excluding and doing endgame dungeons. Not great options. Maybe planning weekly K-Team groups would be more viable? It doesn't have to be K-team to apply those modifiers. Maybe over the weekend we can play with that a bit. Dungeons are the reason I log in.

[tornnomar]

I am so glad this topic has come up!

Unfortunately, my work schedule throughout the week doesn't allow me to log in until well after 11PM EST, but the weekends are open:)
As Ziek mentioned, there are mechanics in place to lower your item level to the bare minimum and Hardcore mode, where one death is KAPUT! Start over!
But I do believe its time where we as *NOR/ no longer play it safe and do the old, 'well lets do a RIQ' Nope, we need to start doing RAQ, hitting up Ravenloft, TonG, FBI.
No one learns their class or role in a group unless they are challenged to do so.

When I first came to *NOR/, I had never completed Valindra's Tower. I had a pretty decent TR...okay it sucked:D But a wonderful young man named Santhus immediately put together a group to take me through VT (this was still back when it was mandatory to pop the caskets) and even before I joined, back when Tundrra would invite me along to *NOR/ runs (because he's secretly a stalker of potential recruits) the fun and patience that was afforded me as I learned my class(es) was welcome.

But like was said, right now anything that isnt end game is like swatting flies, so why don't we run Advanced Queues? If there are enough on and time permits...yes a goal may be 1st boss only, once we learn that, 2nd boss, etc...

This can be done.

[Phelaia]

Alright, we have some options:

1. Run the dungeons in Minimum Item Level but not Hardcore. Hardcore is a bit much especially for very long dungeons, but Minimum Item Level definitely level's the playing field.

2. Tales of Old event, starting this Thursday. I watched a 18k streamer do it, and really, at Round 5, they were back to the olden days of no artifacts, no artifact gear, no mounts, no companions, no bondings, no many other things. You die, a lot, but that's fine. Everyone died a lot.

3. At one point, we had "Undies Runs," at which point, we strip everything but the weapons. If you don't want to see everyone's toons in their undies, switch over to the fashion clothes. Try it, it's fun!

So, anyone want to meet me in Helm's Hold for Mad Dragon this weekend? In fact, I still remember where the front door is.