Quote:
I'll tell ya what I'll do though. I'll start playing a character that I know how to play, and am experienced with. I have an alt I started with the new push that is presently level 7, and I think has only died once. When he dies another 3 times, I will stop and tell you how far I got. I only say three times because it won't mean anything if I run into a freak accident.
OK, started playing my character from level 6. I died twice in the first five minutes, but this was my own stupidity, so I'm not counting that. After that, I was fine for almost two hours. I got to level 9 without a hitch. Then I did a quest with somebody in the area of that quest, who happened to be grouped with someone else. When I finished that quest and moved on, that other person insisted on grouping and was an idiot and got me killed at the hands of several spell-casting harpies. Death #1.
I promptly left that group and went off to do something else. I've always said herbalism will be the end of me, and not ten minutes later, I proved it. I saw a lovely little flower on my minimap and moved towards it, stopping short a smidge too late to stop from being attacked by two nightstalkers - cats that move in stealth until you get near them. I can survive being beat on by two creatures long enough to run away. However I realized right before I died that a third one came out of the woodwork to keep me from being able to successfully shield-and-run. Death #2.
Ok, have to be more careful. I did a quest inside a dungeon by myself, albeit there were a lot of other people clearing the area, so it was pretty safe. Then I had a quest to go kill Ursal the Mauler. Ursal's in an encampment with about 10 other furbolgs, fairly packed together. Some group was already there and killed him right before I arrived. While waiting on his respawn, I got killed by the other mobs popping. Death #3.
I ran back, rezzed in a corner. Carefully pulled my way out of there, killed Ursal, and then died trying to leave the area. Had my hearthstone been active, I would have just used it, but instead I got gunned down by about 4 spellcasters trying to run out. (I didn't think I was going to be able to single pull my way out safely.) Death #4.
So finally I try to go back and try to do the harpies quest again. I'm level 11 now. They're level 8 and 9. Except that half of them are over-powered spellcasters. I get into a shoot-out with one, that I would have won, when another comes out of nowhere and starts clawing me in the back, preventing me from casting my spells, notably the healing ones. Death #5.
I stopped at this point. Now, almost all these deaths didn't bother me. I got to think over my mistakes for a couple minutes as I ran back to my corpse and realize what I maybe did wrong. But the only thing that would have maybe prevented deaths 2-5 was grouping with somebody, and, well, my first death was *because* I was grouping with someone, so that isn't an immediate solution.
This took place over a span of about 3 real-time hours, about a half hour of which I was afk. That means I died an average of about once every half hour. I realize that some of these deaths were circumstantial, but I know my class, know the quests, and know how to play the game in general. I'd like to think I'm not a total idiot or a "casual player." Still, I died. Repeatedly. Still want a hardcore server?