I played here for about two weeks or so last month. As far as server stability and playability, it's pretty good. Not too far from the original game in regards to content, with the exception of massive exp boosts in dungeons, and the database seems pretty accurate for a server based on PEQ. I got to about level 40 with two characters and never participated in PvP a whole lot - the constant moaning, gloating, whining, name-calling and harrassing in /ooc was a fierce discouragement. I actually stopped playing because of this, fully expecting that if I didn't join one of the elite guilds, my PvP career would consist of a lot of ganking and CR-killing coming my way, as well as some very one-sided fights against people in dragon/planar gear. This is no different from Live, however, so I suppose it's only a bad thing if you're a more casual player.
There seems to be some massive class imbalance issues. While I haven't participated enough in PvP to speak from experience, common sense and forum-reading gives me a clear impression that certain classes are utterly dominant while others are practically unable to ever win a fight. This, again, was pretty much the case in Live as well, but since this server is clearly not trying to stick to canon in regards to its PvP balancing, I think it's a shame that it doesn't do a better job in this department. Resists have been messed up for as long as I can read back, melee damage has gone from insane to lousy and possibly back again, and it appears that certain classes are so useless that literally nobody plays them - I did at no point in my time playing there see a single bard or cleric.
Most of this server's playerbase is the core of the hardcore PvPers (and gankers and griefers, often but not always the same individuals) from the four original EQ PvP servers. Such concepts as "honor" and "pride" are laughed and scoffed at by most, and it usually has a very bitter mood about it. I could count on playing for a full two minutes before seeing my first "thanks for killing me on CR, fa**ot" or "lol Soandso zoneplugged, f***ing tw*t" and other such loveliness on the global OOC.
Having played for a long time on the original Sullon Zek, I am certainly not averse to less polite methods of conducting PvP, but I have never seen people so eager to grief or to avoid death on a server where there are no real consequences for losing or rewards for winning. There apparently was itemloot at one point, and there seems to be some discussion of implementing moneyloot or something else. As much as I enjoyed dirty PvP back when I had the time to put in for endless chains of CRs and corpse campings, I don't like it when served with a side dish of unplayable balance failure and a playerbase of which the majority will gleefully spend hours dunking your head in the proverbial toilet. It's just not for everyone, and I grew out of it when the Live PvP servers died. On SZ at least, and possibly on other Zeks where I didn't play, it served some purpose or illusion thereof.
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