What Server?

Just wondering what is a good populated server to join. I haven't played since a few years after original release.

I've always liked FV. It has a 50% exp boost, and most items can be traded. It's also a fairly busy server.

Of note: You can't transfer off this server due to the loot rules. Also, it's considered role playing, so there is no common language. The server decided on Elvish a long time ago, so hire a mercenary and set your language. I usually setup a macro to spam hello. It won't take long, and you can spend points at the trainer to get a jump start.

If you're looking to play with other players, then go with Mischief.

To give an indication of how many more players it has than the suggested FV server (which is the highest population live server). It has 2-3x more General channels. What is significant about this is there is still an afk logout timer still in effect on Mischief while FV doesn't. Which means many of the 'online' people are afk. Unlike Mischief, FV is not a Truebox server which also causes its online numbers to be inflated.

Both servers are a bit top heavy (majority of players at level cap). But with Mischief just entering DoN, its much much easier to reach that cap and you have far fewer AAs to get (even with autogrant on a live server its going to be an order of magnitude more to get).

Both servers are freetrade, but Mischief has a common language. FV has the 50% exp bonus as mentioned before. Though you're going to need it to get those extra 50 levels and thousands of AAs.

If you decide to roll on Mischief. Hit up the tutorial of Gloomingdeep and finish it out. You should be able to find a group in there to make it go a bit quicker and hit up the Overlord, Taskmaster, and Pitfiend. Once done there hit up Paludal Caverns or Unrest to your earlier 20s and find a group in Tower of Frozen Shadow. That'll get you to around 40 in which you can hit a group in Velketor's Labrynth to 50-55ish. Then you have a few options from 55-65 with Grieg's End, Veskar, Plane of Valor, and many other zones. Once you're 65 you can gear yourself on req 65 gear (many of it GoD raid gear) for very very cheap. And that will take you all the way to 70. You should be able to find groups in Plane of Fire at 65 or Splitpaw (which can be done at 60).

By comparison, FV will have you doing 110ish levels of soloing with a merc. In the time it takes you to get to 120 on FV and able to group in current content on a single character, you could have a full retinue of several level 65+ raid geared characters ready to do any current content on Mischief, complete with 2.0 epics, MPG trials, and potentially DoN progression.

curious , you need all access to play in mischief ? ( i never tried TLP servers ).

for me in FV , i got 3 all access accounts and 3 others who are FTP and alts who are level 120 and FTP atm ( i use one krono per year on these 3 accounts ) .
they can use rank 2 spells , and have over 40~45 K aa's , all the good one avail. so even free to play they can do decent dps .
if i had to play in mischief and having to be all access for my accounts , i could not be able to afford it.

many times i group with friends or guildies , and i drop several alts and they can dps from outside group.

yeah same , if you want to try another toons , the gears you already have can be used for the other toons you would like to try , or alts and you can level 50 % faster than other servers .

having to learn elvish ( main language in FV ) is an annoyance tho , dunno why it is still there, but it take about 10 min to max elvish , so it is not too bad.