Just as an idle thing, I'm not so sure "hell levels" were actually planned for the game from the beginning. The whole concept is kind of weird for anyone to put in if you think about it, as a base design concept.
I started playing before Kunark was out. Not one of the beta players, or very early ones, but pretty early. The Whirl Till You Hurl nerf had already happened (the first level 50's were a couple of Rogues that used that, as you could backstab mobs that had that cast on them originally. Rogues couldn't be invis to undead then, etc. You get the picture.
Anyway I remember doing a lot of reading about the game early on. I believe I read about the game developers being utterly shocked at how quickly people were leveling (they had originally estimated it would take most players a year to make level 50). And guys like Brutal (Brutuul? The FOH guy anyway, had like 2000 hours /played by year two, though I believe he just stayed logged on even when not playing).
My theory is that very early on (like the first few weeks), there was some kind of meeting with graphs and charts about the player base's levels after just a short time. And with the Kunark expansion being down the road a ways (took a year?).
Then the kludge of the hell levels came about.
If any of you guys go back to the very beginning, can you answer that? That is if you somehow made level 50 in the first month or two, you didn't have to go through hell levels?
Could be wrong, but that was always my theory. And the player base coming up with their own ways of doing things like pulling, camping, and kiting was never planned on as well.
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