*Difficulty indicators*

As for the dungeon itself: IT IS THE GREATEST THING. I came back to Amia expecting to wander around for an hour, get bored, and leave again. Instead, found a party, wandered into the Maw, and promptly began soiling myself in fear and awe. It's the only reason I'm checking back on the forums regularly now.

That said, Amia is a massive, massive pain for anyone new. I spend 90% of my time on characters below level 9, and I'm yet to meet someone new to the server who hasn't been completely screwed over by the fact that there's very little detailed explanation for a huge range of things. Hell, I still experience it myself; with all my time spent on low level characters, I've never learnt anything about the server beyond a specialized handful of areas. Never been able to use the job system to my satisfaction either; while I've found plenty of resources, and it's always a great thing to find them while wandering, I sure as hell don't know where 90% of the trainers are. You'd think that there'd be at least one dwarf in Brog who could teach me how to mine... But I digress.

The fact is, that unless you have help from someone experienced on Amia, the likelihood is that you are screwed. Learning it yourself has a difficulty curve of vertical, and often asking others will be character breaking for you, because certain things should be expected knowledge. They may also be difficult or impossible to find out without OOC, something that we try to avoid, and newcomers may try even more so due to "new kid" syndrome.

Part of the reason I liked the Maw over other quests was that the dungeon itself seemed more "alive" and interactive. The secret rooms, the various "narrator-voice" messages, all served to make it a more guided experience than, say, kobolds. The items you could gather for pay made it somewhat "repeatable", giving you a reason to go back, and thus making you serve as a guide for the next newcomer to wander along. And a narrated, complex boss battle, rather than just a "stab the slightly larger, glowing one"? Best. Boss. Ever.

If that kind of guidance could be applied to the module as a whole, things could become extremely interesting... Perhaps newcomers to the server are approached at spawn by a recruiter for the Courier job. I know I'd never find that, were it not for previously acquired knowledge. Or perhaps a "You hear the stomping of many Orcish boots" popup could occur just before you trigger the massive spawn on the first level of the orcish caves?

Sometimes it's the little things that help.[/size]

I remember reading recently that these will be coming in at some point. Not sure if it was colour coding or asterisk-based or whatever, but I think it's being looked into.

Caution: The following is long and somewhat ranty. Viewer discretion is advised.

As for the dungeon itself: IT IS THE GREATEST THING. I came back to Amia expecting to wander around for an hour, get bored, and leave again. Instead, found a party, wandered into the Maw, and promptly began soiling myself in fear and awe. It's the only reason I'm checking back on the forums regularly now.

That said, Amia is a massive, massive pain for anyone new. I spend 90% of my time on characters below level 9, and I'm yet to meet someone new to the server who hasn't been completely screwed over by the fact that there's very little detailed explanation for a huge range of things. Hell, I still experience it myself; with all my time spent on low level characters, I've never learnt anything about the server beyond a specialized handful of areas. Never been able to use the job system to my satisfaction either; while I've found plenty of resources, and it's always a great thing to find them while wandering, I sure as hell don't know where 90% of the trainers are. You'd think that there'd be at least one dwarf in Brog who could teach me how to mine... But I digress.

The fact is, that unless you have help from someone experienced on Amia, the likelihood is that you are screwed. Learning it yourself has a difficulty curve of vertical, and often asking others will be character breaking for you, because certain things should be expected knowledge. They may also be difficult or impossible to find out without OOC, something that we try to avoid, and newcomers may try even more so due to "new kid" syndrome.

Part of the reason I liked the Maw over other quests was that the dungeon itself seemed more "alive" and interactive. The secret rooms, the various "narrator-voice" messages, all served to make it a more guided experience than, say, kobolds. The items you could gather for pay made it somewhat "repeatable", giving you a reason to go back, and thus making you serve as a guide for the next newcomer to wander along. And a narrated, complex boss battle, rather than just a "stab the slightly larger, glowing one"? Best. Boss. Ever.

If that kind of guidance could be applied to the module as a whole, things could become extremely interesting... Perhaps newcomers to the server are approached at spawn by a recruiter for the Courier job. I know I'd never find that, were it not for previously acquired knowledge. Or perhaps a "You hear the stomping of many Orcish boots" popup could occur just before you trigger the massive spawn on the first level of the orcish caves?

Sometimes it's the little things that help.

Rant is now over. We return to your regularly scheduled forum-browsing. tl;dr Maw is awesome, server hard for newcomers.

At any rate, I assume this is simply a bug, and should be resolved as such soon.

Edit: I accidentally an entire word.

I've thrown other suggestions out before but those are the ones I throw out every time because, frankly, I have brought over a dozen players to this server this year alone, and so far not one of them has been convinced to stay because they can't move, level up or find anything without help.

Have to say this is really spot on. My sister has tried starting Amia on and off for the last 4-5 years. She knows the couriers quest because I told her and she first started hunting in the sewers, got to level 5... Found the Kobold quest by herself but couldn't find any indication of how to get to them so gave up on the game completely. Again.

Ley lines, y'all. Just let me go wrangle up my cowboy boots and lasso us up some magic.

Yee-haw!

I realized many people do not quite know where else to partol or train/hunt besides the assigned patrol routes. So I decided to start a guide about prominent and permanent threats towards nature and the balance on Amia and the surroundings. I divided in two categories... High threats and medium threats.

Mind, not all areas are listed right away, I wll add more as they come to my mind. I will also add a small description of what you will face in these areas and how skilled you need to be to face those foes. Help with this guide is very welcome and it sure will be worked over quite a few times.

It also is a bit outdated by now. but alas I just wanted to show it as an example of what maybe culd be done without being all too flair breaking:


High threats

Location: Cordor - Sewers
Kind of threat: Undead, mainly zombies and skeletons
Difficulty: Rather easy to defeat, they are the weaker kind of undead, a good place to start in early training
Hints and advices: Fire works well against them. As weaker undead they are unable to mess with your mind so mind protection is not needed. Careful, the sewers also are full of diseased rats so best take along something that cures diseases.

Location: Darkhold (Amia Frontier on the Hill towards the Skull Crags)
Kind of threat: Undead (mainly skeletons), Fiends, negative energy Elementals
Difficulty: Fairly easy, a little tougher than the Cordor sewers, a good place to go after the Sewers and Swamps
Hints and advices: Fire works well against them. Be aware this place is unusually dark. The mistress of the Darkhold lives on the negative energy plane to which a portal in the lower parts of the fort leads. She is fairly stronger than the fiends and undead and can mess with your mind so be sure to protect it. She was transformed into the appearance of a Black Dragon.

Location: The Burning Crypts (just before you enter Wharftown, where the Brigands are)
Kind of threat: Undead
Difficulty: Medium, you should be a little more trained for that, after you can master the Darkhold area should work
Hints and advices: Fire won't help you much there so better get something else on your weapon to defeat those.

Location: The Forest of Dispair
Kind of threat: Malarites and Werebeasts
Difficulty: Medium, some harder than the undead in the burning crypts.
Hints and advices: Careful with the axe whielding Malarites, they hit pretty hard, take them down first. The pelts of the werebeasts are rather thick, be aware that they can soak up some damage your weapons do.

Location: The Electric Castle (in the Forest of Dispair)
Kind of threat: Undead
Difficulty: Medium to Difficult, the normal foes are not so hard but the lich in the throne room is very dangerous
Hints and advices: Be sure your mind is protected at any time. Fire works well against the undead so do all divine spells. Do not approach the lich withough death spell protection (unless you have a very trained physique), and mind protection. He can cast some very potent instant death spells like Finger of Death and Weired.

Location: Forstakkr
Kind of threat: Aurelites
Difficulty: Slightly more difficult than the Forest of Dispair and Electric castle
Hints and advices: The fighters hit quite hard and the casters toss icestorm spells. You might be able to confince some of the local animals to aid you. Fire protection is recommended, as the mages use Elemental Shields.

Location: Desert Outskirts (near Djedet)
Kind of threat: Undead - Vampires
Difficulty: slightly difficult, about the same as the Aurelites, maybe a little stronger
Hints and advices: You will only encounter them at night of course.

Location: The Library - Yuan-ti Temple in the Quagmires
Kind of threat: Undead (burning)
Difficulty: somewhat difficult, harder than the Desert and Forrstakkr but easier than the Wastes
Hints and advices: Fire of course won't help you much here, make sure to be protected against poison and acid as you have to face some Yuan-ti to get there.
Additional: Do not face the Yuan-ti queen without the correct gems to breach her protections and be able to even hit her. The correct gems are ruby, amethyst and emerald. You will need one of each.

Location: Frozen Wastes - Crypts
Kind of threat: Undead - Wraiths and Wights and a Bone golem
Difficulty: difficult, harder than Yuan-Ti and giants (especially to get there) but easier than Ilithid.
Hints and advices: Fire works well here aswell as any spells against undead. On the way there you might be able to convince one of the Manticores or Snowleopards to aid you. The wraiths can petrify so make sure you and everyone else of your group has a stoneeater ring,

Location: Underdark - Ilithid Lair
Kind of threat: Abberations - Ilithid, Umberhulk and Intellect devourer
Difficulty: difficult, a little harder than the Frozen Wastes or similar as that
Hints and advices: Be sure your mind is warded, some of the abberations have some resist to the main elements, take the drow thralls down quickly, they hit pretty hard.

Location: The Bastion -Actand
Kind of threat: Demons of all sorts
Difficulty: very difficult, only when you are quite well trained already and do not go there alone
Hints and advices: Oddly enough fire works against many of them, protect yourself against mindspells and negative energy. If you are in a group (what I hope) best take the route under water (so take along a gills ring or crab helmet) else you need to swing on ropes over the ships and you might end up with a split group which is highly dangerous there.

Location: Underdark - Beholder Lair
Kind of threat: Beholders
Difficulty: extremely difficult
Hints and advices: Don't even bother to enchant anything beside your blade, they will disspell all enchantments immediately. Do not go there if you do not have a very strong mind. Make sure to have the freedom spell on your gear. Casting it will be pointless. If you face the majesty you want to have some protection against acid as it has an acid shield around it. Also be aware it can cast greater ruin and several of it. You might want some fire protection on your gear aswell, the wizards of them have elemental shields.

Location: Manor of Mourn - Brogendenstein
Kind of threat: Undead of all kinds, mainly vampires
Difficulty: extremely difficult
Hints and advices: Never go there alone, these undead are extremely strong. All spells against undead and healspells help there. There also is a dracolich in one of the chambers where the staircase upwards is. Do not be fooled by the children you see there, they are undead aswell.
At the end of the manor you will face the current owner of the Manor. A fat undead gnome who replaced the former owner named Kraven. the name of him slipped me right now. Anyways, you cannot harm him until you destroyed his coffin which you will find at the end of a narrow (and heavily trapped) hallway.


Medium threats:

Location: Brambel woods
Kind of threat: Goblins, which tend to enslave the local animals
Difficulty: Rather easy to defeat, a good place to start in early training
Hints and advices: Most elements work against those foes, seeing they usually force the animals to serve them very violently you should be able to convince some to aid you instead

Location: Swamps of Amia
Kind of threat: Trogs, however the sewers lead into the swamps and it should be checked that the undead do not spread or the swamps become endangered by the sewer-trash, also the portal to Tarkuul is there, necromancer activity should be watched
Difficulty: Usually fairly easy, a good place to go after the Cordor sewers and Brambel Woods
Hints and advices: Fire works well there, be careful with the spears the trogs whield, they can land a few good hit. When watching necromancer activity due to the portal to Tarkuul, do never try to encounter them alone. They might be very skilled already and can easily get help through the portal.

Location: Amia Forest West
Kind of threat: Feral gnomes (who cast dangerous spells to the forest quite recklessly) with trained animals
Difficulty: Medium, about in league with the Malarites in the Forets of Dispair
Hints and advices: If you are skilled with animals you might be able to convince them to aid you instead. Be careful, the mages are quite reckless in tossing acid and firespells. Take them down first.

The problem is not whether or not the players are willing/not willing to help. The problem is that new players have no access to that information.

....

Finally, how many new players read the forums and see a random post saying 'I'm happy to help'. We players literally can only do something when we're online, and there's not many of us online, and it's not like there's something on the 'online players' list to tell us someone is new.

I just do not want to give the server some silly WoW flair of "if youa re lvl x kill creature x. If you are levl y kill creature xy" guide.