I have found no faster way to reach level 20 than by doing guard tasks. Each town and some guard posts have guards with unique names, who will give you assignments to slay random beasties. Target the guard and say "Task". If youre lucky, the guard will tell you what to go out and slay. Only a couple guards throughout the realm will give you these tasks at each level. So you may have to seek them out. I have provided a list of the ones I use the most. My favorite area to do this is the Vale of Mularn, which has lots of named guards in a relatively small area. After you have slain the poor beast, use /task command to make sure that you got credit for the kill. It will tell you if its time to return to the guard for your reward, so you don't run all the way back to the guard for nothing. Once you have successfully slain your task creature, return to the guard. Right click on the guard to receive you reward. You will get great experience and some decent coin as well. Then say "task" to the guard again, to get your next prey. There are two buttons that you can create to make tasking quicker. Type the following underlined commands in the game, just the way you see them here to create the buttons.
/macro Task /s Task This will simply say "task" regardless of which chat mode you're in.
/macro T? /task This one will give you the status of your current task.
Task Guards from north to south:
Fort Veldon- Viking Oddnaug
Haggerfel- Dwarven Guard Rinda
Guard Post near Haggerfel- Viking Butescarl
Mularn- Viking Kreimhilde
Gate to Jordheim- Viking Hyndla
Guard Post west of (not next to) Mularn- Viking Karl
Vasudheim- Karl Gat
Guard Post at Audliten- Sveck
Audliten Dwarven- Guard Eske
Huginfel- Bork, Hurg and Sugnhild
Dvalin- Flayer Fali
Fort Atla- Troll Digby and Flayer Kegnar
Guard Post SW of Nalliten- Flayer Rosil
Nalliten- Flayer Jicq
Guard Post in N Myrkwood- Sentry Litenberg and Sentry Stonefist
Galplen- Sentry Gaaruun and Sentry Stenbjorn
Gna Faste- Sentry Thuger and Sentry Crush
Why are tasks more effective for gaining experience than getting into a group? It all comes down to experience gained over time invested. With tasks, you spend no time finding people to join you or a group for you to join. You spend no time discussing where you are going to hunt. You spend no time formulating a plan of attack, such as who is going to pull, etc. Often, in groups people die, and the group waits for that person to return before continuing to hunt. All of these delays eat up time. In addition to these factors, with tasks there is far less risk of dying, which sets you back experience and the cash to restore your constitution. To summarize, the advantage of tasking is safe, steady, forward progress in experience.
Doing guard tasks is only effective when soloing. Am I saying that we should all be soloing instead of forming groups? Not at all, I only recommend tasks for when you are unable to group with guildmates. Doing guard tasks is not nearly as much fun as being in a group. Don't bother to stop and hunt too frequently, it will actually just slow down your progress. Stay focused, get task, go kill beastie, go get reward, get new task, go kill beastie, go get reward.
Try it, you'll like it!
-- Mjolnihr
