I love the new map and I don\'t mind the changes to gameplay that have resulted
(currently). However, I\'d like to make a comment and garner some opinions from
other players. My point is not a complaint about the changes and it is a subtle
one, so please don\'t flame me (too much) for anything you think I might be
implying without spending a least a little time considering my post.

My concern is over the relative differences in advantage/disadvantage that
different players receive from this change. I believe that, currently, these
differences are very large. I.e. for certain characters travelling about has
become, relatively, much more difficult than other characters. And I do mean
much more difficult. For example, while navs was extremely handy in old bat,
it was not particularly hard to travel about on foot.
Now, travelling about is vastly aided by a number of things which not all
players have (I do think that making these skills, spells, eq etc more
important is a good thing).

Since reincing is an inherant part of this game, I will assume that most
players will be able to adjust to these changes. I also assume that certain
adjustments might take a little time. For example, boats look like they are
going to become more commonplace and wanderers too.

I am thinking more about levels and other resources. Of course, high level
players with lots of gold, eq boats and cities etc should have a big
adavantage over lower level players. I see nothing wrong with a situation in
which exploring is first performed by the most able characters and also that
new parts of the game (e.g. wanderers) are also enjoyed first by the same
higher level players. As somebody pointed out to me, lower level players still
have plenty of areas and things to do that do not require the kind of travel
that they cannot easily manage (and the ferries are much cheaper for lower
level chars).

What I think is unfortunate is that certain abilities that now make a huge
difference to getting about in the new world, were achieved when it was much
easier to achieve them. Perhaps this is unavoidable, but what it seems to mean
is that those fortunate enough to have done certain things, or made lots of exp
and eq etc when travel was easy, are less disadvantaged than those that
haven\'t yet had the chance of achieving certain things.

Certain core activities, like travelling to guilds and shrines, are still
necessary for lower level players and are drastically harder for these players
(compared to others), but I\'m not just talking about going out and making cash
and exp. For example, some quests are (currently) going to be much harder
(think about this), finding and getting to interesting places is much more
difficult than it was, e.g. my current personal problem is re-finding ship
navs without having a ship nav yet (currently it\'s prooving to be much more
difficult for me now than in oid bat).

I would have quite liked to see guilds and shrines readily accessible (or at
least there locations known) right from the start. I trust that the admins
know what they\'re doing, however, I mention this only as an example of
something that is now more awkard and cannot be easily avoided.

As a final point (clarification), during a discussion about what is
difficult/near impossible, someone, quite correctly,made the point that
players would always like to be able to do certain things, the example they
used was soloing tiamat. My point is that it would be unforunate if a sitation
arose in which tiamat was once soloable but, after a change, the only people
how could still realistically solo tiamat were those that had already done it
(ok, this is not exactly comparable to today\'s situation, but you know what I
mean).

Is this the situation that other people are finding? Is it really
necessary/unavoidable? Might this require, to the detriment of the game, some
kind of addition only for newbies?

Well, that\'s quite enough for now.

Tim
Still very happy with the spiffing new world, which, I think, is more fun to
play in.