After watching youtube videos, reading forums, and logging into a few servers, I'm a little confused about what server I'd like to join. I played back in the day through GoD and I've played a few servers through the years, but I may as well be a total noob when it comes to the live game today. Are there any truebox servers that arent TLP? Any servers particularly new player friendly? It's a little overwhelming with all the rulesets and there seems to be conflicting info on different server pages. If anyone can answer my questions and/or direct me to a reliable place I can gather this info, I would be very grateful. Thank you in advance!
As far as true box servers other then TLPs, no. That is a TLP feature added to help not only the launch rush but also to fight the bot armies that find a way around it. New player friendly servers, you would have to look on the servers for a social or leveling guild. There are a few out there. FV is helpful gear wise since most everything is free trade. As far as rule sets for live servers, they are pretty much the same except for FV with the Free Trade and Zek for the PVP. Free Trade server means things that are normally No Drop are not labeled as such. So gear is tradeable that normally would not be on the other servers.
You will be a total noob on any server again after such a long time. Hundreds of functions and features have been added and changed since GoD. The basic stuff is still about the same. The best thing would be to start with a new character and learn everything from scratch again. Get the most expensive tank or healer mercenary from PoK for possible assistance and to learn how they do work. All spells and combat disciplines up to level 85 can be bought in the PoK library.
I recently came back after last playing in 2003-2004, so my situation may be similar to yours. I picked up my old characters (about level 60-70) and advanced them. With mercs, leveling to 75-80 is pretty straightforward. After 80, the mercs don't really hold up and you'll have to get creative in order to advance. Grouping on live servers is pretty much non-existent unless you're at the top levels (110+), so you're going to be pretty much playing on your own. Joining a guild can help a little, but even then you'll still be playing on your own a lot of the time as guilds are typically at top levels. TLP servers will have more of an active community at the low levels, but those servers have a more transitory population. When the new TLP comes out, expect a lot of the players to go to that. If you want to have a lot of grouping, you should join the new TLP at launch. One thing is that leveling is so much easier than in the old days. It's completely different than what you experienced. For now, don't worry about picking the perfect server or anything. Create a newbie on a live server. Start in the tutorial and you'll blast up to 10-15 and collect lots of armor. Do all the tutorial quests since there are some nice rewards. Then go the newbie zone in Crescent Reach and Blightfire Moors and you'll blast up to 20-25. The new Defiant armor that drops off of trash is better than raid gear from the old days. You can easily solo with a merc from 0-25 in a few days. This will give you a good feel of the modern game and you can decide if you want to keep playing on live or go to a TLP. One way to make money is to sell tradeskill loot to the buyers in /barter. A lot of tradeskill trash sells for good money and you can sell from wherever you are to clear out your bags. If you want to really enjoy the game as it is today on live servers, one bit of advice is to make yourself as self-sufficient as possible. I would recommend creating a couple of free accounts with characters which you can use for buffing or boxing. For example, create one account with a druid and another account with an enchanter and level them up to 40-50 (not too hard these days). You don't need to box these two accounts to level them, but you can use them to buff the other account as you level them. With these two accounts, you can buff characters on your main account with things like SOW, thorns, haste, KEI, etc. This makes it a lot easier to go out and do stuff on your own with your main character. You can also use these other accounts to box if you want. Unfortunately, LFG isn't really an option anymore like it was before.
I have some good news for lower level characters, my level 75 necro has level 120 buffs stick. If you can get them, in the mass buff pile on your server, you and your merc will be overpowered, at least while the Regen and Damage shield last. In the case of lower level characters, say level 65- 74, buffs level 90 or more may stick, so finding a helpful guild to do some strategic buffing would be big.
My standard wag, make sure you recover your original account. The veteran rewards are over powering for catching up. Many of them can be used on even a level 1 character if you choose to go to a new server. That is one of the ways Live and TLP servers are different in that they are disabled on a TLP server to make them more difficult. CS will help. If you only know the Email account or maybe credit card you used, you are in. Don't worry about TLPs. I've played them pretty much exclusively over the last couple of years and their salad days are the first 6 months or so. Worry about having the free time to join the next one that is comming out<soon>. They are end all contest to see who can advance the fastest and be the first to complete quests or raids. Quite fun to watch in person even if you don't participate in those aspects. The comments warning you about True Box are accurate IMO. The more they try to create a server where it is real players vs BOT Armies, the more there are BOT Armies. It incentives cheaters monetarily who are willing to circumvent the rules by allowing them to make R(eal) M(oney T(ransactions) for items. Most of us have learned to just avoid them.
If you didn't play much past GoD, and don't mind that again, there's the locked TLP Agnarr. Locked at PoP, LDoN, and Ykesha. We who are there know exactly what we are into and we enjoy it (mostly, except we don't get a lot of holiday events.) There's no risk of getting left behind because the lvl limit is 65 and we're all constantly working on alts or boxes. It has a small but very friendly population (which has been growling slowly in recent months) and we encourage new/returning players with free buffs, easy guild membership, and even occasional open events for flagging. Initially you will probably lvl on your own to the mid 20's or early 30's, but with the free buffs from people in PoK that can happen pretty fast. Faster if you join a guild. Live folks will likely say nasty things about Agnarr, but it is what it is. I find it telling that at least once a month someone on General chat from another server will come to Agnarr telling us how we should transfer to their server, and we mostly troll them very heavily in response For more information/discussion read this thread: https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/agnarr-curious.280370/
