General

It was tedious compared to now, but that's what made it fun and gave people an "accomplished" feeling that's so hard to emulate today (for me that is). I believe I was only 13x as a Bowmaster before the Big Bang update and it was a constant burden to go all the way to Leafre just to spam "L>Newties/Skeles", but boy, when I did get into a decent party, it was such a rush (knowing that I'd die if I get hit twice). I forced myself to like drum and bass just because it kept me awake enough to remember to potion.

Training a character up to 4th job, was the most excruciating thing I've ever done in a video game, but it was also one of the most memorable aspects of the game. The only real way a sane person could of trained efficiently back then was with some good friends that could keep you occupied with fun chats while you trained, good times.

I had 2 level 200s pre big bang. A Bishop and a Bow Master.

It was awesome. Level was actually as respected as having godly gear or numerous rare collectibles.

I remember one event where there was 36 hours of 2x...my friends and I basically had a party and trained for a solid 34-35 hours straight. At that time, with 2x + 2x coupons...I only managed to level 186-188. It was horrific but fun. Level 199-200 took me a week of training 8-12 hours a day on 2x.

We didn't have HOH, we didn't have LHC, and for the longest time we didn't even have Skeles. We trained at Gobies and Papulatus was considered a difficult boss. Zakum, regular Zakum, took organized teams over 30 minutes to do as well.

@cris1000: Haha yeah. I just did KPQ like 10 hrs a day and did the Disconnect glitch to keep the Passes and sell em

I've always plaued in chunks so I've never seriously leveled any of my characters for an extended amount of time.
However, here are some things from the past that I do remember training on.

The slime tree
Ligators/crocs
Orbis tower quests for scrolls
Jr. cats in Orbis, with exchange quest for solid horns
Ludi pq on Scania, aka slower than training on snails depending on the day.
Stds
Voodoos/hoodoos
Lmpq
Werewolves/lycans with exchange quest
Bain/Cerebres
Exploding goby house
Death teddies
I didnt make it past level 100 before bb because I didn't have the motivation.
CPQ and CPQ2 were fun additions to the game. I attenpted carnival winner title on my hunter. I killed myself to reset xp to 0 about a dozen times. Eventually I just spammed room 3/4 on channel 1 Scania. Felt like such a badass with my 3/11 PAC, zhelm, and 16 attack scg. Oh the days when equips were simple.
The main difference is in the convenience of training. Some classes like sins lacked mobbing skills until third job, so you were killing monsters one at a time. Flash jump was only available on sins, and without haste mobility was non existant for bowmen/warriors

@kirbys: You heard of the login glitch at least. So for the unfortunate people who experienced it (I believe a computer compatibility issue) it easily could take over an hour rolling dice. I remember one day I just stopped playing for awhile because I wanted to make an assassin and I literally disconnected every 3rd roll. After disconnecting and reloading the game 10+ times I just gave up.

Adding on what everyone else said...
I only got up to level 55 which was like before v.60ish? It was really hard and horrible, you'd be considered pro if you had reached 3rd job back then which was level 70 to achieve. If you were weak you would get ksed out of the map, most people were conversing in towns though unless you were high ranged. Any map you consider unless today was probably where we all trained at, especially the Haunted Mansion.

I remember sniping newties on me Corsair for a very long time, as well as, Anego... Would MTS clean yellow snowshoe drops for 10k nx. =p

man i never even got to 120 before BB. I got only up to 110 and the exp rates were horrific. This was a little right before big bang but I remember training at typhons getting like 3.2k exp per monster <3
In the even older days I remember training at wild boars just to get to like lv 40, and this was before carnival PQ... Also trained at zombie mushrooms with my cleric...

Leeching was pretty popular pre-bb and being friends with a bishop was sort of the equivalent to being friends with a celebrity irl.
r.i.p spammable genesis/blizzard/meteor

It is nowhere as bad as people say. If you knew what you were doing then it was fast leveling. First 1-30 took me a month. Next took me 2 weeks. That was during 2006 during like 1st anniversary days.

By v40 when statless starting gaining traction, level 1-30 was fast, similar to 1-120 in leveling speed now. If you were funded (for example dexless assassin, lukless mage) then it was actually really fast. I stopped playing by v50 and came back in v80. After v80 it was really easy. I got to level 80 in a week or so and I didn't even play that much. 1-30 aran stuff, 30-50 cpq, and then cpq2. My brother played a night walker and it was similar easiness. We were in no way "well off" so the average player could have done this. We were just statless (I was low dex) and we had attack gloves, cape, and +7 100% scrolled items with zhelm. When potential system came out it was even easier to level. I made it to 70 really fast on my db. I did spend some nx on the white dagger/katara permanent item though but that was the only nx I spent up to that point.

I remember at almost all points in the early-mid game I was getting more than 10% an hour, usually well over. This was until level 110+ and I was getting 6-7% an hour on Wyverns when leafre came out (5% on spirit vikings on my mage). There was a short period where I was getting a little under 10 at level 80 on a hermit on coolie zombies. Level 120+ I had blizzard for my mage so it wasn't hard to level (way more than 10% an hour), just annoying. I remember also getting insane experience with meso explosion on a str bandit, but had to give that up quickly because I was poor.

@johny2toes is grossly exaggerating. I do remember it taking an hour to get off maple island, but only if you wanted to stay until level 7 for mages, and 9 for other classes. Only mages had it bad on maple island anyway. Warriors hit 1-7, others hit 1-4/5.
- Rolling dice took no more than 10 minutes usually for 4/4. I rolled many of those. Login server issue I have heard of, but it never occurred to me.
- Accuracy was not needed to hit anything really on maple island. The monsters there had no avoid. If you were a mage, you would do 1-2 damage to monsters and not 1 damage. Even orange mushrooms had no defense.
- Even if it was your first character (I had a mage), getting to your job person was not hard if you knew where you were headed. Beginners get 90% off and if you collected money on maple island you would have 100 mesos, which was the fee to Ellinia. Mages were easy mode past level 18, just really tedious until level 13.
- LMPQ from 51-70 wasn't even bad. I got a level in 30 minutes at level 51. Again you just need to know how to actually do the PQ and read guides if you are lost. You just rush the tauromacis room. Know how to get there from any room. If you are seriously lost then just keep going through middle portal.

I am sure that it is more difficult to get to 250 now than 1-200 before. Does anyone remember getting 0.40% an hour with no multipliers? Fangblade got 1% an hour at 19x. This is the norm from 230 and up if you don't have a high range high mobbing move. Halve that amount for 240+. Many people only get to 250 now because they train 24/7 or if they have something similar to a full map attack. I estimate 120-200 to be something similar to 200-230 nowadays. It may seem a lot of people have gotten to 230, but many of them train 24/7 afk with 2x cards and hs/kishin while being extremely strong.

@risingrain: Would take way too long to list every pre-BB event I remember lol. Realize it was so long ago, most people don't remember everything.
But you are right training at Galloperas was amazing (when you had a channel)
I actually forgot that MP3 was avail during pre

[quote=gurenn]idk how on earth u could reach 1-30 in a day in the old days[/quote]

I used to do it all the time.

I feel like I was at coolies for several years.

hene pq to 21, kpq to 30, was bored asf until cpq came out which was freakin amazing, trade wins with rombots 30-50... oboi good stuff

[quote=johny2toes]Was like hell, even before you made a char.

Roll dicing your stats perfectly could literally take over an hour, and if it wasn't bad enough a good amount of the time you would get disconnected from the log-in server while rolling dice for some unknown reason.
If you god forbid wanted to make a mage 1~10 would literally take you an hour ~ hour and a half on Maple Island unless you had friends helping you, you would do 1 damage / miss almost everything, because back in the days you needed Accuracy to hit anything (and int didn't do anything worth potato)

There was no form of fast travel, it was all Victoria taxi's and 10~15 minute boat trips. And the first char you ever made... You had to walk to whatever town as a lv 10 beginner to job advance. And like I said about the mage thing; Getting to Ellinia in one piece was not easy.

Once you finally job advanced (which by this point you've already spent 1~3 hours in the game just getting to lv 10 and to the area you needed)
Most popular early training spot was a map right outside the left of Henesy's (I forgot the name). Place was constantly packed, in all channels. There would be snails on the bottom, slimes one layer up, mushrooms above that, and green mushrooms I believe at the top. It was easily a 10~30+ spot.

Lv 20~30 another popular place was Sleepywood, right aside the town where we now have Drakes, used to be the blue horn mushrooms.

30~50 Carnival Party Quest. Literally anyone used to hate Assassin's in this range because they dominated no matter what in this PQ, because back in the day they did the most damage; no questions about it.

50~60 was kinda of a "I don't know what I'm doing" phase where there was no "good" training spot.

60~70+ was Ludi PQ which took FOREVER to level... But back in the day was the best money gain avail that didn't involve scamming people through merching.

70~120 was the most miserable experience ever. No place was good, and you had to rely on having fun with your friends in order to get anywhere.

From 120~200 pre-ToT it was all Skele, all day long, everyday. And Bishops were your best friends. Bishops were the biggest money makers in the game back then because they sold leeching service.[/quote]
You must have quit for a while during pre-BB, because you missed a lot of good spots.
Gryphons were pretty decent 50-70, as were Windraiders, LMPQ (really fast; a good party was getting people ~1 level per 1-2 hours).
You also forgot about Twisted Jesters, Scarecrows, Voodoos/Hoodoos, Skeletons. All of which were quite fast pre-BB for the 50-90 range.
Pyramid PQ was also fast for 3rd jobbers. MP3 was great back then for low leveled 3rd jobbers too.
You also missed Galloperas - it was the "LHC" pre-BB for level 100+, and everyone wanted a spot there.
If you want to go old school, you had Himes, or Death Teddies and other Ludi stuff if you wanted to go real back.

Sure, much of this was "late" pre-BB, but none of this was that bad EXP at all.

Um newts ... ^ Fangblade and Starlightzz ... Yeah I used to train at Newts at lvl 90-100. In fact, I have never ever spent money on this game. The only reason I have this NX is because nexon gave me 20k nx after they rolled me the server back while made me lose like 40 levels near 100. -_- I was extremely mad ... Oh Yeah ... I also trained at windraiders on this guy

@screwriod: I never really cared much for Fangblade.. mostly because he just came off as being extremely rude.
But his 'maple wife' was a Bishop and they would train together lal the time so... Had it easy that he never had to look much for a partner.

[quote=johny2toes]Was like hell, even before you made a char.

Roll dicing your stats perfectly could literally take over an hour, and if it wasn't bad enough a good amount of the time you would get disconnected from the log-in server while rolling dice for some unknown reason.
If you god forbid wanted to make a mage 1~10 would literally take you an hour ~ hour and a half on Maple Island unless you had friends helping you, you would do 1 damage / miss almost everything, because back in the days you needed Accuracy to hit anything (and int didn't do anything worth potato)

There was no form of fast travel, it was all Victoria taxi's and 10~15 minute boat trips. And the first char you ever made... You had to walk to whatever town as a lv 10 beginner to job advance. And like I said about the mage thing; Getting to Ellinia in one piece was not easy.

Once you finally job advanced (which by this point you've already spent 1~3 hours in the game just getting to lv 10 and to the area you needed)
Most popular early training spot was a map right outside the left of Henesy's (I forgot the name). Place was constantly packed, in all channels. There would be snails on the bottom, slimes one layer up, mushrooms above that, and green mushrooms I believe at the top. It was easily a 10~30+ spot.

Lv 20~30 another popular place was Sleepywood, right aside the town where we now have Drakes, used to be the blue horn mushrooms.

30~50 Carnival Party Quest. Literally anyone used to hate Assassin's in this range because they dominated no matter what in this PQ, because back in the day they did the most damage; no questions about it.

50~60 was kinda of a "I don't know what I'm doing" phase where there was no "good" training spot.

60~70+ was Ludi PQ which took FOREVER to level... But back in the day was the best money gain avail that didn't involve scamming people through merching.

70~120 was the most miserable experience ever. No place was good, and you had to rely on having fun with your friends in order to get anywhere.

From 120~200 pre-ToT it was all Skele, all day long, everyday. And Bishops were your best friends. Bishops were the biggest money makers in the game back then because they sold leeching service.[/quote]

I see, that's does seem tough. Now, what do you thought about how Fangblade must have train?

bishops and archmages would just sit at a spot and spam Blizzard / Genesis / Meteor at skeles, before the huge cool down was added.

On my 12x drk I was at skelles mostly. It'd take me about a month to level if no 2x went on that week.
I couldn't imagine getting 200 back then.

Was like hell, even before you made a char.

Roll dicing your stats perfectly could literally take over an hour, and if it wasn't bad enough a good amount of the time you would get disconnected from the log-in server while rolling dice for some unknown reason.
If you god forbid wanted to make a mage 1~10 would literally take you an hour ~ hour and a half on Maple Island unless you had friends helping you, you would do 1 damage / miss almost everything, because back in the days you needed Accuracy to hit anything (and int didn't do anything worth potato)

There was no form of fast travel, it was all Victoria taxi's and 10~15 minute boat trips. And the first char you ever made... You had to walk to whatever town as a lv 10 beginner to job advance. And like I said about the mage thing; Getting to Ellinia in one piece was not easy.

Once you finally job advanced (which by this point you've already spent 1~3 hours in the game just getting to lv 10 and to the area you needed)
Most popular early training spot was a map right outside the left of Henesy's (I forgot the name). Place was constantly packed, in all channels. There would be snails on the bottom, slimes one layer up, mushrooms above that, and green mushrooms I believe at the top. It was easily a 10~30+ spot.

Lv 20~30 another popular place was Sleepywood, right aside the town where we now have Drakes, used to be the blue horn mushrooms.

30~50 Carnival Party Quest. Literally anyone used to hate Assassin's in this range because they dominated no matter what in this PQ, because back in the day they did the most damage; no questions about it.

50~60 was kinda of a "I don't know what I'm doing" phase where there was no "good" training spot.

60~70+ was Ludi PQ which took FOREVER to level... But back in the day was the best money gain avail that didn't involve scamming people through merching.

70~120 was the most miserable experience ever. No place was good, and you had to rely on having fun with your friends in order to get anywhere.

From 120~200 pre-ToT it was all Skele, all day long, everyday. And Bishops were your best friends. Bishops were the biggest money makers in the game back then because they sold leeching service.

I don't remember anything before level 64. Once I got my Maple Rohan 2h sword, I trained at windraiders for so many hours. 9x and 10x was a combination of himes with my bishop friend and elderwraiths in an old Phantom Forest map where Bigfoot would sometimes spawn and kill me.
After that, I killed stuff in Temple of Time and killed bigfoots and Skele (with 1hko mage spamming ultimate) until level 170. Big bang came when I was 170.

LHC was the go-to place to train until the new maps in Future Henesys came out. From level 19x, I trained at Stronghold.

[quote=darkusryse]it took like a week to hit 30 and years to hit 200. Imagine going from lvl 240 - 241 in like a week[/quote]

It took me 3 months lol, I had no idea what I was doing.

I remember Straw Target Dummies at 7x, like 10%/hr. Then you added points to Arrow Rain and captain/kru in den 2 was like 30%/hr.

Or the constant fear of death training in Ludi at death teddies or Spirit vikings sometimes at himes.

"cc please"
"no u cc im on 2x"

Depends, right after level 30 was sooo easy, until like level 33ish. You had CPQ (summon Trojan and speed pls), and the ridiculous amount of EXP you got from the early on Mushmom kingdom quests (it was like atleast 30-40% per quest).

@gurenn Nexon had those coupons where you could buy a level 30 for a couple thousand NX... so there's that. Also that 7/11 16x exp glitch could level you up real fast <3

[quote=bubbleicon]Level 1-30 in 1 day was OP[/quote]

idk how on earth u could reach 1-30 in a day in the old days

J>kpq track/ac

60-120 was jesters all day long

carnival pq lv30-50

it took like a week to hit 30 and years to hit 200. Imagine going from lvl 240 - 241 in like a week

Level 1-30 in 1 day was OP