Hello and ... why should I stay?

[bobothebee]

(No, this isn't a criticism -- don't be misguided by the title -- it's a question I feel justified with asking.)

Hey all, I'm Bobo -- Gershaw on the server, though. I'm a recent addition, albeit a shaky one as my internet tries to fix the issues with its speed at the moment, and I feel like I should ask this before I get invested in the place: why should I play Pandora?

I'll be honest; one of the biggest draws to the Shard, for me, is Stygian Abyss. I like new things; new things are shiny and good. This is good. Good. But other than just that, why should I play? What sets Pandora apart from other places out there, other than a fresh coat of paint? What are spawns like -- and not just the ones on Ter'Place, what about elsewhere? I'm not much of a social gamer, really I mostly want a place to play casually, just a few hours a week, maybe, so having spawns in my familiar places is something that's important to me, and I noticed when running to Despise that the spawns just seemed ... sad, there. Is this a theme across entire realms? I also noticed that a lot of the NPCs had been taken out of some of the lesser-used cities.

What is the player-shop scene like, are there places that offer good deals on newbie-level eq? Are there any server personalities -- little quirks that make it more unique, both in custom content and in the technical side of things; while my internet was slow, certainly, my friend who has a good connection complained about lag not every so inoften, which is a concern for me. Soothe my concerns, please!

[Kronen]

hello there.

i like shiny new things as well!

what do you mean by what are the spawns like?  all the old champ spawns exist in fel dungeons and lost lands and even the ilsh spawns.  the t2a champ spawns are fixed here - always the same mob type at a given altar - i won't spoil it by telling you which spawns appear at which altars in t2a though

if you mean more generally about monster spawns, like where bloods or balrons or demons spawn etc, i've found this matches with what i'd expect from old osi memories.

there's a better variety of goods for sale on player vendors here than i've seen on most free shards.  both within and just outside luna's walls is a good start, but you can also check yew gate or the newly revised player mall area west of insula bank.  as for personalities, there's a few dedicated pks that will go out scouting for people to kill, a few complete morons, a few people who insist on speaking non-english languages in general chat, and some rly decent folks too.  sense of community isn't as rich as back in the day on osi, but again it's better than other free shards i've tried.  pandora has lovely unique systems, such as the pandora coin monsters that drop the shard's own special currency, which you can use to buy really shiny pretty items in the east side of the donation/coin room.  our imbuing system's miles better than osi's as well!  other things worth me pointing out would include needing to eat ps in order 5-10-15-20, bringing value to otherwise worthless scrolls, a pvm event room where a number of different spawns and bosses can spawn (watch out for a msg on screen telling you there's something going on in there), daily pvp event that gives free pcoins and doesn't cost you anything when you die... i'm sure i'm not covering everything here but that's what i can remember off the top of my head.

now then, the lag question.. the server's in america and i'm in britain.  i get the odd lagspike from time to time, 99.9% of the time it's for a fraction of a second and entirely bearable.  i run smoothly and don't generally see people overtaking me or anything like that.  related to that, i'm surprised there's not more sign of speedhackers here as it's rife on other free shards.

i hope you stick around and give it a shot, you've got nothing to lose but your social life!