I pretty much only play this game casually these days and I love exploring solo. I've had tons of exploration characters and I don't even know how much con I've spent in Hell, Yzekon, Silent etc. solo.

I really like the challenge and those areas are generally well written and it is fun to come up with class combinations/preps/eq that can solo large parts of those areas. Or you grab a friend and get both killed in an interesting way.

This is why I get so disappointed of what the state of exploration in CF has become. Hell is closed for some reason (can't it be open until the rewrite is finished), Shadow Plane (or what it is) is invite only, Silent needs imm xp and people are keeping all information about it to themselves. I love exploring and I like a lot of Silent (some not so obvious things might need to be tuned) but it would be nice to get a feeling in game that the players are exploring things together. That the areas are for everyone and not just a few power gamers/imms that holds the cards.

Why not write the start quest to silent in the helpfile for example? Why have an imm xp requirement at all? Why don't we want MORE people experience that area? Why is not this one of the bigger more awesome challenges that most heroes try? If some stuff you easily can get from there are too overpowered and you don't want too many people knowing about it, then nerf them. Make them disappear when you leave Silent. Because right now 9/10 you see Silent gear/preps you see it on imm chars or guys who you know have decent OOC connections and those people sure as hell did not experience the game the way people expect newbies to do.