Pump up the boonies

[Elagneros]

I've been playing NS4 for a few months now, and one thing that struck me is that most of the wilderness areas don't really go much above level 10 in terms of challenges. I can understand that the areas near the faction cities will have low level stuff for the sake of leveling, but for the most part, you get out into the hinterlands, and there are very few areas that provide a challenge as you head past level 10. Really, besides the mountain, the overgrown forest and Redhorn Canyon, the amazons, and the gnoll fort, there's nothing. A good candidate for a challenge overhaul whould be the Black Marsh, since no one really needs to go through there, and I don't think anyone does go through there. Maybe some areas added onto the Lost Canyon with some very desolate and dangerous wilderness would be interesting as well. Maybe some more deserts, too, since all we got is the Angmar Wastes, and those are a bit off the beaten path, and not all that challenging either.

Related to this is subterranean areas. In typical pnp D&D, the Underdark is a dangerous place, where only the more powerful adventurers dare to tread. But here (not countaing the 2 underground faction cities), there's almost nothing in the way of Underdark challenges. There's 1 area called the Underdark, and that can easily be handled solo by a character around level 10. Besides that, there's two areas with some tough spiders, Sshanyr, the duergar, and that's it. Everything else is mostly just rats, beetles, and molemen, and it's kind of disappointing. Since NS4 now requires HotU, how about adding some tough underground areas with mind flayers or other typical Underdark nasties? And maybe boost the challenge offered by some of the existing underground areas, there's already several ways for the members of RK and SL to reach the surface, there's no reason not to take one of those avenues and make it a bit tougher to give people a reason to go adventuring down there. And since we got all those molemen, how about a moleman city somewhere between Menzo and the Dwarf stronghold, with bosses that go up to maybe level 10-15?