On that same note, Shaded Dunes.. its ok for what it is, but its really just a bunch of shit thrown together. There doesnt necessarily "need" to be a theme for each zone. But I cant organically, without reading what someone else is saying, figure out what is going on in the zone. The Ashira behind the wall, make that more of a trading hub that has a few humans from NH there trading with them. Have some Tradeskill shit there, even if its just like Leatherworking and Cooking. Things like that. Have rares that are "translators", or "traders" etc.
Have the base of the hill near smugglers camp have a green fog rolling down the mountain side from Fallen Watch. Have people being spawned high up in the air so it looks like theyre falling from their death from Fallen Watch. Which would give the illusion that the undead up above the Smugglers Camp are coming from that. Have the creek where Rothold entrance is flowing into the abandoned crypt ruins towards Ancient Crypt/WB. Kind of dissipating/evaporating into the sand there. Give the creek a small feint grew glow - which would give the illusion that evil is flowing from it into the Crypts where NH used to bury their dead until whatever happened at FW corrupted the crypts.
Increase the amount of mobs that spawn at night time in those ancient ruins. What is even the point of having a few there other than to kill noobies that try to go to AC too early without IVU? Why are the entrance guards even red con to a level appropriate group going into AC? Make it make sense. When daytime rolls around, turn them into madmen fighting against the archeologists. Have some rares named Crazed Archeologist to give some context clues. What is making these people Crazy/mad you might wonder?
The spider cave is just so... random?.. Expand the entrance of the spider cave considerably. Recolor the sandstorm, slow its graphic down considerably, decrease its opacity, and make it a fog for the area thats 100% on. Have Zombies from the wall caught in webs on the north side of it, unalive and dead. Have Smugglers and their counter form caught in it on the West side. Have a hole through the mountains base that isnt a zone line, over to the Oasis and have some influence there, with ghouls fighting back against them. As if the ghouls are "guarding" something.
Then the Infested Crypt itself, double it or triple its size at the very least. Have smaller spiders scurrying from the entrance to the deepest part, as if "leading" players down into the crypt. When you kill them, theyre dropping random flesh from humans, gnomes, rotting flesh, Crocodiles, etc. Are they eating this meat themselves, or.. are they carrying it somewhere?.. Sprinkle in a couple rare spiders. The last room is left up to design. Do you have just a big mother spider that is secretly being corrupted by some object that fell from Fallen Watch (or similar) - or do you take it a step further and add in a person stuck in a web that screams for help from the adventurers, leads them in to release her and she spawns into a Drachnid - the first we've seen.
The Oasis - Make it a bastion of Holy Undead. They are there, only, to protect what is buried there. Who knows what the fk it could be. But turn the Ghouls, skeletons, etc. into Unead/Ghost Paladins, Clerics, etc. The corruption from Fallen Watch has corrupted the area causing those undead to rise. But "whatever" is buried there is cleansing them from the intent to do evil (Much like the torches etc. in Fallen Watch). At the spire, have an old man - put the human skin on a wood elf frame - that is "The Last Protector" or some such, that is reminiscent of the old man in Indiana Jones guarding the cups. Hes the omega rare for the zone at a 0.0001% spawn chance and creates stories that he might exist, he might not exist. "Hes in the game files and his loots there, but I've never seen him and I've camped it for a bajillion hours!"
THAT is a zone that looks like and sounds like more than 15 minutes of thought went into making it. The noobie experience, from a lore/story stand point is just.. awful. A lot of things can be the recreation of EverQuest - sure. But we dont have to have these desolate minded zones like they did. Or in other words, the implementation doesnt have to be "deep" like WoW, but it also doesnt have to be "here is a mob. kill it. rinse / repeat 10,000 times" either.
