June 8, 2009
Double XP - A History
by Belladain
I have played Medievia for a very long
time. I remember when there was no wilderness, dragon flight, or
trading. Kingdoms rose and fell. Towns built and destroyed. Heros
come and gone. There has been one thing throughout the history of our
world that at the core has never changed....gaining experience. To get
from level 1 up to hero you must gain experience. The gaining of
experience at its base as remained the same. Kill mob x and gain y
experience. The amount you get for mob x however has drasticly changed
throughout the years.
Double experience days were introduced at
the pleasure of the Gods of Medievia and eventually became based on
whether or not we won a vote for best mud at a mud voting website. We
were rewarded with them once a month for an entire weekend if we placed
first, although we usually got them even if we did not place first
which(not that we ever lost). These were times of rejoicing as the
population of newbies dramatically increased and for the first time
having a second and even third or fourth hero was not uncommon.
While double experience days were nice the advent of kingdoms went a
long way to making the gaining of experience much easier. After months
of fighting the borders between the Kingdom of Eternal Light and the
Empire of the Blood Moon stabilized allowing for consistent
"invasions". Invading a kingdom required you to start at the border of
your kingdom and "invade" into the other kingdom. This increased the
amount of experience you gained per kill by a lot. The trade off was
that players from the enemy kingdom were able to pk you anywhere. It
was the height of xp gaining. Invading on a double xp day was something
we all looked forward to. Further for most of the kingdoms cycle is was
possible to bypass the requirement of starting at your border by
starting your invasion a few spaces away from the zone you were going
to. Warrens was a new zone and by far the most popular spot for the
soldiers of KoEL to invade. Billions of xp was gained.
After
kingdoms went to the wayside and we all mourned the loss of such great
xp, we were glad to hear that double experience days were to be
maintained. Time went on and double experience days were
removed......to be replaced by double experience ALL THE TIME! This was
the hay day of leveling up. The first few months of constant double xp
saw experience gain on an epic scale. This was around the time stats
started to be kept and you would consistently see people gaining
billions of experience per month. People were multi-classing in 1
weekend. After experience to gain levels was tweaked to only needing
half of what you needed for your first class and 3/4 for your second,
people would triple class in 1 weekend.
It was a dark day for
those gaining experience when the lights went out on double
experience.......... Times were tough. Double experience was not even
happening on a monthly basis...what were we to do to gain levels?
Experience forms were almost non existent for a while. Most new players
had to be xped by hero friends or take the slow trek of 1.00x xp solo.
A glimmer of hope soon shown through the dark however.......a new spell
would be introduced......
There has always been a love hate
relationship with shipping by many players. Those who ship on a regular
basis absolutely love it. Some have never found it appealing because of
the steep cost to get started. Everyone who needed xp though would gain
a new found respect for shippers when the spell "DOUBLE EXPERIENCE" was
introduced. I am not familiar with the details of how to cast this
spell but when it is cast experience gain is doubled for 24 hours.
There are players who have donated tokens, gold, and equipment to people
if they would cast double experience. Combined with the daily fog that
rolls in and the potential for xp is through the roof.
The
introduction of fae orbs has also provided a boon to individual players
who participate in fae activities or who can afford to purchase full
ones. With the right code you can use a fae orb with 1million fae in it
to increase your own xp to double for one hour. Individual double xp
for an hour is never a bad thing for most of us. Fae orbs will also
double experience to quadruple xp if used during a double xp cast by a
ship or invoked by the Gods.
Many of the zones that have opened
up in the last few years have been dubbed "xp zones" by the masses.
These places have helped make it possible to gain the xp needed to
level, multi, and hero in a fairly short amount of time compared to
years in the past. The ability to globally chat and get an xp form has
also been a factor in allowing people to xp more consistently instead of
having to rely on a town who may or may not be made up of mostly heros
who likely are not that interested in xp - I would like to acknowledge
that Gnoden has been very generous with his time as a hero in helping
new players xp. He has his own goals in mind, but by joining forms and
helping other players xp he has become known to many newer players as a
friendly and respectful hero.
While many of us wish there were
some changes made to how you level, such as making some higher level
aq's manageable or making solo trading for lower levels doable. The
ability to gain such a large amount of xp in such a short amount of time
is a boon in these tough times when dragon lairs are few and far between
and killing Zuldahun as a level 25 triple class with no talismans for an
aq is impossible.
Belladain |