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But one thing I want to know -- how many people are still joining this game? I don't want to feel out of place, being pretty much the only new person on my server. Oh, and do you drop items if you die? I certainly don`t want to lose my items I worked hard to get. And is money easy to come by? Or at least easier to earn than in FFXI?
I'm not sure about the newbie zones, although I doubt that there is noone joining though, even if only alts. The game might not be as successful as WoW, it's also not empty. A good tip for the server, when you create a character do this at a time you know you will play often, then you can choose a server that isn't low in population to be sure that you will never play alone.
The death system is simple, you die and you have the choice to either wait for a ressurection (only group members can do this though, for now) or use the revive option: you are revived at a certain point in a zone, you have all items and armour with you but the armour and weapons received damage from dying. Also, there lies at the spot where you died a 'shard', you have to go to this shard and 'absorb' it to regain some xp debt, you do not have to do this, after three days (real time) the shard automatically absorbs but there are negative consequences during those three days. (drop in hp, ac, strength, ...)
Xp-debt: when you die, you do not loose xp. Not a single %, however, you do receive a penalty as you will now have a debt of xp. During a certain amount of xp (usually 3% when no shard, 8 % with shard left I believe) you have to pay for that debt too, meaning that the xp you gain from quests and kills is worth less. So you will never loose a level, but if you die too much in a sort time, it will appear that you are not gaining much xp anymore, if this is too much, you can always leave that character alone for three days after which the debt too is gone.
As for money, it's definitely at the beginning not easy. Things change though when you get higher in level and the common drops from mobs are worth more to the vendors. Tradeskills tend to provide people with the most money, yet this is also quite time consuming.
I personally only have about 2 gold on me at this moment with my 27 paladin, mostly because I waste it on all sorts of things and collection quests, darn expensive those.
Although EQ II has its faults, not that suited for solo persons in comparison with other games yet most definitely not impossible either, graphically very hard on computers, ..., it is definitely worth playing.