This server is a lot of fun.
Its highlights for me:
- No hub zone: Your character starts in its home city. A lot of people might sigh at the prospect at having to walk everywhere but because of soulbinders providing teleportation to one another after they've been hailed(and there are a lot more than live - at least one every other zone) you only have to make the trek to a lot of places once which is enough to be nostalgic but doesn't end up getting monotonous. And what to do while walking from one place to another? That brings me to my next point.
- Boss mobs: They're everywhere. While exploring a zone you will likely stumble over at least a few of them without even trying. The owner has taken the time to flag so many mobs for the random loot and you can both easily differentiate a boss mob from a regular mob and judge how hard the it is both from con (obviously) and the difficulty indicator which is underneath the name of every single one. I cannot express how awesome this is.
- Random loot: I feel the word random is a little disconcerting though. Items have been painstakingly flagged so that you get level appropriate items from the boss mobs you get loot from. And while you can get really cool stuff from even lower level mobs such as augments, mounts, illusion items (and other clickies) among other goodies, chances are you will not get an item drop which will make you ridiculously overpowered for your level thus ruining the leveling experience. Every zone has the possibility of dropping useful loot with no exceptions due to these mobs and even non-boss mobs have a small chance of dropping a piece which means you can hunt wherever you please and not feel bad that you're potentially missing out.
- Extra stat effects: Every single point of a stat you gain you will be able to see a visible improvement in your characters' damage, resilience, pet etc. Every stat has some use (with the exception of the opposing casting stat to your class to my knowledge) and there is a guide to them on the forums. With this in effect it really feels like your character is progressing with every single minor upgrade you get.
-Auction house: So easy to buy and sell items using this system and it now works on the in-game browser on the Underfoot client which is really convenient. Some very nice people seem to put up a lot of nice items for fairly cheap to help people who need/want a little help getting started too.
-Achievements: There are only a few at the moment but there are apparently more in the works. A few cool little bonuses while leveling up is nice and there is a lot of potential for even more interesting achievements down the line.
-Leveling quests: Levels after 50 are earned through quests. Each of the quests is quite different and sends you off doing a bunch of interesting things in zones you may not have previously experienced much of. It's incredibly satisfying completing one of these quests and makes you feel like you've really accomplished something rather than just another one of your average 'dings'.
-Friendly people: Haven't met a single person on the server that hasn't been happy to help me out in some way if asked or wasn't up to just chat about the server. Really great and mature folks.
-Classic hybrid: It's different enough to hook you with some really well thought out, interesting features but if you take away those features you're left with the good old EQ everyone knows and loves complete with Kunark,Velious, Luclin, LoY and some of the planar zones.
If any or all of this appeals to you, please come and give it a crack. The amount of work that has gone into it must be immense and I really doubt you will be disappointed. I certainly wasn't!
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