Yeah, the lack of large combat areas has been a problem for a while now; the ant cave was an attempt to get away from the 'small camp area' idea. It's worth a look, though at level 21 it might be too easy. You could try the sewers perhaps.

I finally figured what the thing was that killed me.  I went in there again at lvl 39 and got slaughtered again.  It was a death snake.  I'm surprised something that difficult would be placed in an area meant for 20ish lvl characters.  Lvl 20 was okay as long as I didn't find a large pack.  At lvl 39 everything besides the death snake was cakewalk.

  BTW, some mentioned the Ant Hill was good for getting certain items.  What items would those be?

My story is much better though.

Anyway this might force me to play faldon for a hour or so later for nostalgias sake.

The sad part about the ant-cave, Zer, is that it doesn't work at all. It is really only good for trying to get certain items. A level 21 hardly would get the experience needed from this area. Yet, at the same time, a level 21 would most likely die very quickly. You say it would be easy, but the monsters get too large in groups, and a level 21 would actually die very quickly. If you want to level, you need to find a place to camp. If you want to collect certain items, same thing, find the place. Sadly, the quest system in this game is lacking, which really hurts the entire leveling system. Hopefully the new version, whenever released, will fix these problems.

I'm not terribly upset about the lack of quests.  I like just wandering around and seeing what I can find.  About the Ant Hill... I tried it again after getting a few lvls and some better equipment, and I was mopping up the swarms without too much trouble.  Then I ran into a creature that had a name above it (still an ant looking thing though), and it killed me in about 2 seconds. 

  I think the biggest problem I have with the dungeons is putting creatures of vastly different difficulties in the same areas.  The cemetary has the same problem (named creatures are way tougher), as does the place you drop down in next to Wuville (the slimes and... headless things weren't too tough, I walked a little further and the ninja turtles destroyed me).  I now know which rooms I can go into, but I had to learn that by dying multiple times, then walking for the next 5-10 min to get back to where I was. 

  I think it would work better if you'd have a gradation of difficulty as you get further from the entrance, or have some obvious "barrier" such as a stairwell to seperate out the difficult areas.  Having a bunch of moderate enemies in a room, and the next adjacent room have guys that can kill you in 2 hits doesn't work well in my opinion.  Well... I take that back, having rooms with tougher guys is fine as long as those areas are a small percentage of the dungeon and not right next to the entrance. 

  I think this is a great game (I've had a fix for this type of game for a long while!), and it's been put together pretty well.  However, I think the creature distribution could be a little more forgiving.

FB, are you lonely? You seem lonely... *pays attention to FB*

Nonsense. Fireborn is never lonely. He runs a brothel. Proprietors of brothels are never lonely.

Or, if that doesn't suit:

Fireborn is a Klein bottle. He is a non-orientable surface. He does not exist in his true form in three dimensions. Therefore, he does not need love or attention.