Shards of Dalaya (new to eqemu old to us)

[burt6]

yes, this is more or less correct and I probably didn't understand where you were coming from. It is fairly easy to level up (most people box or start with a friend to 65) and I would say that 95% of the servers content is post 65.

pre-65 most of what you are doing is getting acclimated to the game mechanics and walking through the "main quest" and getting a lot of the servers extremely dense "lore"

A fresh 65 is basically a beginner character and a "progression guild" that raids a few times a week might take about a year to get to end game content (much of which has not been beaten yet by anyone) but there are solo progression options as well as content limited to a single group that provides alternate advancement options.

[Caryatis]

It is a grind to the top just to grind some more.

Name one server that isnt.

That is what Everquest is, grinding for levels, grinding for gear, grinding for progression... when the grind stops, people get bored of the server. Should be happy there is alot to grind.