The_Alt_oholic

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But the AE also allows you to create perfect farm maps. You can fill a huge outdoor map with +2 bosses and go to town. The hospital is only 20 steps away from the mission entrance. An insp vendor is only 10 steps away. Missions can be created that auto-SK a bunch of lowbies to level 50 so one or two strong characters can basically PL an entire team. Want to skip taking a travel power? No prob, the farthest you ever have to go is to the trainer.


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However, this is against the Codes of Conduct and is punishable by character deletion or account closure.

So use it in this manner at your own risk.

The DEVs have clearly stated that the MA/AE is not to be used as a farming or power-leveling tool.

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...
Defender - Poison
...

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Since obviously the ability to poison people is so heroic, not to mention a very good way to "defend" other people!

You Rogue, you!

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I'm not sure of the Devs' rationale for this as it SEEMS to discourage teaming, which is contrary to anything they've ever done before.

[/ QUOTE ]Well, to be honest, one big change under Posi's tenure from States is the approach to teaming.

Yeah, a lot of this game is about forcing you to team. Most of that came from Statesman, who had an approach to "encourage" teaming by creating those gosh darn SUPER FUN "3 team members must click these bombs at the same time" missions.

Statesman's approach to encouraging a gameplay behavior was always basically murdering Timmy's parents and then threatening to do the same to little Timmy unless he joined a team and started playing the "Right way" immediately.

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I think Statesman's a traitor, but wouldn't go this far about teaming.

There are plenty of people that solo.
You don't "have to" complete those "multiple-simultaneous" missions to "win" the game. In fact, they are few and far between.

The game is designed to promote and reward teaming.
It in no way, "forces" you to team.
It definitely doesn't involve anyone being killed or you being threatened if you don't team.

What you say is simply untrue.

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Well, at least it will get people out of the AE... I doubt the expanded difficulty settings will work in there.

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Even better - I hope if a character goes into an AE mission as an eight-man team it locks that character for a week, strips them of goods, and makes them level 1.

Setting yourself up as a "larger teams" is so obviously an abuse of AE that there would be no debate or not if they player was trying to abuse it or not.

Like it.

Cut to the quick!

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Why do people complain about AE? It's not because the people who farm it are getting massive rewards - if these people didn't know where the rewards were coming from, or if they thought about what the rewards of AE brought to the rest of the game, they'd realize that AE farming is beneficial to everyone.

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Some of us are only "complaining" about the farmers/power-levelers that are "abusing" the AE.
The AE is a great idea. It is being abused. I am against the abusers. The DEVs have stated that they are as well, and they are the ones that define what abuse is.

I'm against the farmer/PL'rs because they are abusing the AE, helping to produce high-level characters for inept players, and are shortening the "longevity" of players that are, thus, PL'd by their abuse of the AE.

There may be some things that are cheaper due to the AE farming, but, by-and-large, the economy has gone crazy due to the AE.

My niche market is selling at double-xp weekend prices. That is to say between 5x and 8x what I would have been selling the items for pre-AE.
Why am I selling for so high?
Because players are paying that much.
Why? Because apparently they don't know any better and have so much inf throw around that they don't need to take time to learn any better.

The massive rewards are abuse and are obviously damaging to the game.
If you think that the market hasn't negatively been effected, then you have a very narrow view of the market.

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NCSoft employees (GMs most likely) would enter AE buildings under the guise of normal players. They would listen to the chatter, get recruited onto "mito farm teams," or whatever the next craze is, and join up. While on the team they could directly observe how abusive the situation actually is.

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How do you know that they aren't already doing this?
And then waiting for the right time to drop the 10-ton hammer?

I would certainly hope that some of this is going on.
If it was, I certainly don't want to know that it is going on.

Surprise!

Oh, oh! There go your purple IO's and your level 1 and broke!

Good times!

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The brand spanking new box on store shelves says right on it that AE offers an alternate leveling path from 1-50. If the developers deviate from that they will be guilty of false advertising, which IS an actionable offense. And, believe me, someone WILL sue them over it.

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They didn't say that all levels could team with each other in the AE or that all levels could use the AE in every zone where there was an AE building.

And as the OP listed things, everyone with access to a supergroup base with an AE terminal could use it, so it is still open to use from level 1-50 with their plan.

If someone decides not to join a sg or the sg doesn't have enough prestige to install a terminal does not negate that a level 1 could use the system - it simply means that they op'd out.

My call is this ::

https://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthre...SID=&fpart=

It pushes level 50's that want to use the AE to Granville and Peregrine Island like the OP suggested.
Leaves AE's in all the zones that they are presently in.
Stops AE power-leveling of level 1-18 characters by level 50's.
Still allows AE access to level 1-50.

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Comeon guys this isnt a bash AE thread its make regular content more open to casual players. Dont turn this into a flame thread.

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I won't bash the AE then.
However, Farmdumb has become the worst server for this kind behavior.

As I all my character slots filled on all the servers, I'll just avoid Farmdumb until the unmentionable-situation has been resolved.

Good luck straitening it out.

Don't worry, I'm not going onto Virtue either. This plague has hit the two "busiest" servers the hardest.
As I don't want to be involved, the easiest way is to avoid it.

If you really want to help resolve the issue, there always seem to be lowbies looking for sewer teams. Helping them out might be the way to straiten things back out a bit.

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Perhaps CO will be balanced around PVP from the outset, at least that allows you to pick and choose powers. While I’m sure the l33t d00ds will find the best set ups, at least you can still be an original in that upcoming title.-not that I’m putting much faith into CO but it does look promising. Hopefully the DEvs learned a lot from their experiment and moving forward apply this knowledge to future titles.

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Champions Online already sucks as far as I'm concerned
<ul type="square">[*]It is not "Champions the RPG" Online. The mechanics of Champions the RPG is what made me love the game.[*] It is based on the "Champions the RPG" Signature Characters and Universe. This is the thing that I liked least about Champions the RPG. In fact, I never played in an Champs RPG game that used them.[*] Microtransactions. This needs no explanation.[*] Created by people that quit CoX because they thought that they could make a huge amount of money with Marvel Online and then made a travesty of one of the best and well balanced RPG systems ever created.[/list]
When it first came up, I would have been willing to pay to check it out.
When I found that they were just using the Signature characters and threw out the system, I might have checked out a trial.
Once I found out it would have micro transactions, it isn't even worth checking out as far as I'm concerned.

Statesman's a traitor. It's time to write him out of CoX.

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Yes there is a level 40 restriction on the zone. . . and as far as people getting around there, I garuntee you people would learn how to do it on lowbies, same as the did with PI (that or get teleported) but the important thing is it would no longer be easily accessable to new players. . .

First time players would still see the content before they run into "Oh yeah, there is this way to go from 1-50 in under 7 hours of game play. . ." sorta like we all learned with the old drek farm, and werewolves and such. . .

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Co-op zoning the Shadow Shard is a good idea.
And, yeah, with level 40 access the low level players would have a hard time getting around - they couldn't get in at all. So there would be no level 1-50 activity as only level 40-50 could be involved with the MA/AE.
That would stop the power-leveling completely, but not the farming - however, it, at least, would not be in the lower level zones.

Other than conceptually not really fitting in the Shadow Shard - it would have been a great idea when the MA/AE was first released.
Now that people have worked on level 1-39 content, it seems a bit late to chop out 4/5th of the content.

My solution is here - https://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthre...SID=&amp;fpart=

I'm against farming and PL'ing in the MA/AE.
As it has been stated repeatedly, the DEVs are against it as well - and clearly stated that MA/AE was not to be used as a farming or power leveling tool - and - that players that did so would be punished for doing so.

Those that continue to abuse the system are the problem.
They take it upon themselves as a right to abuse the system. It is a right that they do not have.
They have harmed the game in many ways. The abuse of the MA/AE is the tip of the iceberg of problems that their abuse cause throughout the game.
<ul type="square">[*]As you have noted they are causing extra server down time. This is directly related to the DEVs working to disable farming and PL'ing in the MA/AE.[*]They are also ruining the new player experience; something that they could remedy simply by moving their farms to the higher level zones. They refuse to do this. It is not their right to ruin new player experience.[*] They are having a horrible effect on the Markets. Inflation is out of hand. This is due to multiple things.[*] They are drawing a different type of character to the game. Ones that apparently don't care what genre the game is as long as they can abuse it. These individuals are of a low moral persuasion if they are only here to abuse the game. Do you think that these players have any moral obligation not to purchase inf from the RMT'rs?[*] They have created a horde of inexperienced players that do not know the game, think they know the game, and think they know how to play their characters. I have heard tell about level 50's that don't know where a trainer is.[*] There are players playing epic archetypes as their second character and maybe even on their second day.[*] ..etc.[/list]
None of these things are good things.
The thing that you pointed out is just the most direct effect that is so completely obvious that it can't be missed at the server log in screen.

I think that...
"not being able to log in because fixes are being installed to stop farming and power-leveling"
.... is the smallest of my worries regarding the rampant farming and power-leveling in the MA/Ae.

In fact, that helps ease my worries a bit.

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I made an alt after the magic pack came out. I can't remember if that was before or after i14 dropped. At any rate they were level 3 when I zoned in a couple days ago, when I hit 5 - the MA/AE contact popped up and told me to go talk to him in Atlas. I was in Kings Row heading to get my police scanner.
It was kind of annoying.
I'm for that contact not popping up until level 50. If you know to go there otherwise, that's fine, but why send a level 5 to the MA/AE? It's just silly. Isn't the broadcast spam in the low level zones bad enough?

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That is why a contact popup for the police scanner/newspaper needs to generate at the same time as the Mission Architect contact popup.

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The police detective pop-up happening at level 5 makes perfect sense to me.

I still think that the MA arc Contact pop-up doesn't need to happen until level 50.

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A man goes away for a few months, and comes back to some twisted alternative universe. Sounds familiar? Sure does to me...

Common salvage that "back in the day" went for no more than 10K (I'm talking Nevermelting Ices here, and similar crap) is going for 25K and up. I mean, Scientific Theories barely ever fetched that much in early 2009!

What did you people DO?!

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The DEVs thought that the Rikti Invasions went so well that they set up a situation to cause a Farmer Invasion.

It has worked quite well.

If you don't know how to trigger a Farmer Invasion yet, go to the AE in any low level zone and yell out that "L50 Kin LFT".

Of course, a Farmer Invasion may have already been triggered before you get there.

The question really has been more "How do we stop the Farmer Invasion?"

You are reporting one of the symptoms of what the Farmer Invasions have caused.
You'll note that this is a different kind of situation that was cause where there were "normal" farms going on.
It's a pretty obvious symptom of a pretty massive disease which has infected the City.

I guess you haven't run into the Level 50's that don't know where the trainers are yet.
You will.

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Generic (non-set) level 30 IOs have a slightly smaller bonus than a +3 SO. Level 35 IOs have a slightly bigger one.

They actually sort of continue the pattern of switching to the next, better type of enhancements at levels ending in 2... TOs to DOs at 12, DOs to SOs at 22, SOs to IOs at 32.

EDIT: Never mind, I just double-checked all four enhancement schedules on Paragonwiki...

Level 35 IOs are slightly (generally 1% or less) worse than a +3 SO, and slightly (again about 1%) better than a +2 one.

Level 40 is where IOs actually cross over the threshold and provide a better bonus than maxed-out SOs (with the added benefit of not losing that bonus over time). But again, it's pretty minor at that point.

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You can buy level 12 SO's (sometimes even lower) on the markets, because they do drop - and they are better than DO's.

Of course TOs, DOs, and SOs expire, so there is a dip in percentages as you increase in level.

So let's say that you get a level 20 SO and place it at 17, it will be better than a level 20 IO, but by the time you get to level 20, the SO will have begun expiring and the IO will probably be better for level 20-21 and it won't turn red.
Having IO's slotted is often good if you are on a team that is leveling fast due to the fact that they don't start getting less effective as you level and they don't turn red and become completely useless.

I tend to start slotting IO's at level 20 myself, but I can make sure that my characters have the loot necessary to make them - usually crafting them myself.

There are times when I will slot an IO at level 10 or 15 just because I can find it cheap or have one squirreled away in a base for some reason (aka working on getting a crafting table, etc.)
I hate to see the enhances turning red. I guess it reminds me of my "you've have spam" button.

I'm against all of these ideas.

There are ways to manipulate the enhances if you really want to.

It does involve a bit of work, but that's the point.
It isn't supposed to be easy.
And respecs aren't really supposed to be away of removing enhances from a character. It is meant to be for reselecting powers and slots.

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They really need to remove the capacity to make all boss or all Lt. instances.

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I've been for this for a long time. It has been discussed enough on the boards.

It's pretty obvious that this is the one main farm creation tactics. If they really want to stop farms requiring at least one minion, one LT, and one Boss really shouldn't be that hard to implement.

Heck, if they point scored stuff like Champions the RPG (even Champions Online doesn't do this) - they could pretty easily rate groups to make sure that they weren't overly powerful, but I know that will never happen.

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Now since I haven't started a new character since I14 dropped it was news to me (or so I'm told, still haven't made a new character since I14) that the contact for the AE tutorial pops up when you first zone in from the new character tutorial, bumping your normal first contact off of your nav bar as the waypoint. This leads new players who don't know better straight to the AE building.

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I made an alt after the magic pack came out. I can't remember if that was before or after i14 dropped. At any rate they were level 3 when I zoned in a couple days ago, when I hit 5 - the MA/AE contact popped up and told me to go talk to him in Atlas. I was in Kings Row heading to get my police scanner.
It was kind of annoying.
I'm for that contact not popping up until level 50. If you know to go there otherwise, that's fine, but why send a level 5 to the MA/AE? It's just silly. Isn't the broadcast spam in the low level zones bad enough?

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Seriously! That's what I saw this weekend in the auction house when I went looking for an Apocalypse IO and a few other purples to complete a set I'd begun slotting several months ago.

How is *anything* going for 200 million plus inf. on the auction house? Is the system that unbalanced now? There's just no way the casual player is ever going to afford a purple recipe now - or is that the idea?

*edit*

Deleted the $ sign - sorry about that!

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I sold a purple IO on villain side for over 200mil before the i14 dropped.

Lots of them have sold for that much for a long time.

It doesn't seem like anything suddenly new to me.

Posted a billion times before, but I'm still for it.

Yes, it is useless as a player tool for the most of us.
Yes, it is a great tool for RMT's.

The song remains the same.

Follow the money?
Is the path still there?
Someone that isn't stopping it is getting paid in the loop.
That should be clear by now.

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Many things in life give an advantage if you're willing to poor more money into them.

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That's exactly why I'm against it in CoX.

If you are for money making you more powerful in a game, you have money to spend to make yourself more powerful.

If I'm going to play a game, it has to be fair for everyone that plays it - and doesn't give an advantage to people that can be more powerful because they have more money to spend on a game.

I'm not a kid btw.

Many kids have more disposable income than adults do. Imagine Pokeman card pack money being spent for micro-transactions in game?

The only people that win with micro-transactions are the people that are getting paid by the fees from micro-transactions.

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Micro transactions was one of the final nails driven into the coffin for Champions Online - as far as I'm concerned.


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The details of CO MT's is still unknown. Overeact much?

And Booster Packs/Character Slots/Server Transfers/AE Slots are all micro transactions.

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No.
With all the other negatives I had chalked up against Champions Online - micro transactions were the last straw.

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Level gating it isn't quite as bad, but I think the easiest solution is to simply remove AE from the lowbie zones as already stated. Making the first one you encounter the one in Steel is a soft form of level gating that still allows lowbies the chance to participate. It also jives with the Invention system, which is formally introduced to a character at level 10 and with the first university being in Steel as well.

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I think my solution is good for several reasons; however, I see the point that you are making.

If this is the route that we were to go with this then I wouldn't have any AE/MA's until at least the level 20+ zones. For hero side, I mean Talos and IP. That goes for the "trainer" contacting you for the AE training arch as well - so they wouldn't contact you until level 20.

My reason in this is based on the fact that you indicated. That is to say that the "training" Universities are in the level 10-20 zones. I'd rather players didn't have a conflict between these two and that exposure is gradual and not sudden.
That is part of what is going on with the AE being in the lower level zones - sudden exposure.

If AE would start in the 10-20 zones then I would put it in Skyway on Heroside and not in Steel. Skyway needs more of a pull to get players there.

I still like my original idea, but removing the AE completely from the starting zones does solve the problem of AE use in the starting zones completely. And that is probably for the best.

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That said, I'm absolutely certain that AE will be nerfed into oblivion before Going Rogue is released. Perhaps Tyrant will tap into Dr. Aeon's power sources and open up his invasion portals inside the AE buildings - leaving nothing but smouldering craters surrounded by bemused noobs who don't know where to go next

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Or ripping the buildings out of the ground and transporting them into the CoX:GR zones.

It is becoming pretty clear that the infestation in the AE is so bad that the whole building needs to be come down and be rebuilt to get all the bugs out ... or in this case exploitative "farmers". I tend to think that all farmer are exploiting the game, but the ones in the AE are far worse than "normal" farmers were before the AE release.

Some of the worse part of the destruction of new player experience is that obnoxious behavior of what seems to be many of the individuals that have come from other games to take advantage of the abuses that the MA allows. And I'm serious about that. Since AE has been released there has been a large influx of individuals that aren't standard CoX players.
By and large, the average CoX player tended to be a friendly and helpful individual. I think part of that reason was because they were playing the game because they liked the genre and the genre helps to instill certain sensibilities.

It is good for income that new players are joining. It is bad for the longevity of the game if they are only joining because they know that they can abuse the game.

Save the City!
Resolve AE problems now. One step at a time, but quickly.

And, yeah, selling slots to people with their all their slots banned for exploiting the AE is just stupid.

Once again, Epimetheus in prime form.
http://www.theoi.com/Titan/TitanEpimetheus.html

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If you were going to change things about the zones, what would you do?

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The zones don't need to be changed, the players do.

If any new player would bother to read their mission text they'd realize there was more to the game than AP and AE. If they'd bother to look at the map and click the other tab they'd see there's more than one zone. Taking the AE out of AP won't fix stupid or lazy, but hey, they could take AE out of every zone for all I care.

Me, I'm going to CO when it comes out. Whether it sucks or not, at least it won't have AE and all the B.S. that seems to have accompanied it.



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This is one of the things that I feared would happen.
See the "conspiracy" part of this post ::
https://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthre...ue#Post13740503

I'm wondering why you are posting here though. Your signature indicates that you have been playing WoW instead of CoX since "4-9-08". You even go on to indicate that CoX has been dead since that point.

CoX is alive albeit not so well since the AE was released.

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This has already been talked about quite a bit.

Here's my main idea that will take care of this issue instantly if it is implemented.

https://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthre...ue#Post13595973

The first idea does nothing about the farming issues other driving characters out of lower level zones in order to use the AE -- which strikes directly to the point of your post.

The second idea adds to the first idea to reduce the speed that characters can be power leveled. This shouldn't be an issue as the DEVs have clearly state that they don't want the AE used as a farming or power-leveling tool.

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Honestly I doubt it will take core of it instantly. I rather like the idea of placing AE mission doors into the actual game and bypassing the whole virtual world thing.

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Okay. The problem is players using the AE in the lower level zones disrupting starting players experience.

The idea does not allow characters over level 10 to use that AE at all in the lower level zones.
What are the higher level characters that are in the lowest level zones to use the AE going to do?
They are going to leave the lowest level zones immediately to go to the AE where they can use it.

It will fix the situation with the spam pollution for AE teams in the lower level zones immediately. New characters will have to move to go to Peregrine Island to team with 50's in the AE if the first part is implemented.
If the second part is implemented as well characters below level 30 can't team with level 50's on AE missions at all.

It does instantly stop players from using the AE in zones that are lower than their characters level. So yeah, it does solve the problem instantly.

It doesn't "Destroy All Farms" instantly. The point of the thread is new player experience. These two steps go a long way to resolve that issue.

-----

I'll also add to this that the AE arc contact not be given to level 5 players. I was shocked when I dinged a character to level 5 yesterday and this contact popped up.
I was in Kings Row excited about dinging so I could go grab my Police Scanner and when I did "You have a new contact. AE Trainer (or some such) in Atlas!" I was like what? I can't believe that they are sending me back to Atlas at Level 5 intentionally - intentionally throwing me right into the maw of the garbage that goes on there.
That has to be changed. I don't see any reason why that contact needs to "request your presence" until at least level 30 or 40, if not 50.
You can go to the contact if you care at any time, but there is no reason to send a new character there at level 5. It was a bad idea to have the trainer there in the first place. That contact should have been in Peregrine Island and the highest level zone in the Rogue Ilse that has a AE (I don't play villains enough to know which is the highest below Granville).

The whole situation has Epimetheus ( http://www.theoi.com/Titan/TitanEpimetheus.html ) written all over it and it hasn't improved appreciably since MA release.