I just finished a trip through aran'gird at level 11. I looked at the demon, his conjurer, the duergar mage, lieutenant in the mines, gate lieutenant, and went everywhere in aran'gird outside the castle. I even went all the way to the spirit dragon and looked at him, plus all the stationary NPCs along the way. When I finally get back out, I go to discuss with the guildmaster and get 1795 observation and ZERO exploration Xp. What's up with that? It's a high level explore area, I'm a low level character. I fail to understand why it was not worth exploratioin xp. Could someone please enlighten me?

By the way, the whole time I was there, I was NOT a ghost.

I don't know the area, but...

If you managed to do all of this at level 11, and this is a high level explore area, sounds to me like you skipped out on much of the important scary area explore stuff that would have killed you, i.e., the stuff you would've got explore XP for finding.

Different area authors seem to have different logics in concerns to what constitutes exploration worth rewarding. I imagine some points are worth more than others. One area might have large number of points worth only a little XP or only a few points worth a lot. I don't know exactly what can actually trigger explore XP, but if I were to write an area, here are things I would consider:

a) Finding something you can't just walk into on accident; hidden doors, locked doors with hidden keys, doors unlocked via quests.
b) Quests; finding a quest-giver, and/or completing a quest.
c) Mobs; finding key character mobs, talking to mobs to obtain information, killing key mobs
d) Objects; finding objects in hidden containers, hidden objects, loot.

A lot of these I can imagine would fall under both explore XP and observe XP.

Many of the things you suggested fall under observation xp, not explore. Exploration, near as I have been able to tell, is based primarily, if not entirely, on being in the rooms in the area. The more rooms you go to in the area, the more exploration you get until you have hit every room that has exploration Xp associated with it. This can be seen by going through the HToS at lower levels. If you only go through part of it, you only get explore xp according to the rooms you've visited. I've also noticed that the difference between your level and the level of the area makes a difference too. Again, this can be seen in HToS. If you go when you're below lvl 30, you get more xp. If you wait until you're in your 40s, you don't get as much. The thing is, I've had explore xp from aran'gird before, and a fair bit of it. So I don't understand what happened this time. Even my observation xp is less than what I remember.

If I could get an Imm response to this, I would really appreciate it. Something definitive rather than just conjecture.

These things aren't meant to be farmed, as you're trying to do.

You're right that a lot of what I listed is probably observe XP, but I sincerely doubt that the only requirement for explore XP is walking into a room.

Not that you won't get some explore XP in some places just by doing that, it just seems too overly simple for that to be the only factor in play.

>If I could get an Imm response to this, I would really
>appreciate it. Something definitive rather than just
>conjecture.

All I would have is also conjecture.

I believe the reason is that the area author did not put any in. I think that has been the reason given in the past for why experience earned for observation/exploration seems out of whack for some older exploration areas such as hell. Anyway, I seem to remember a post to that effect.

I am pretty sure I got exploration exp from that place. I guess there are more factors deciding then just being there.

I remember reading the posts in this thread but forgot the important one.

http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=6&topic_id=17268&mesg_id=17277&page=