If you ask someone who never played on red if there's griefing, they'll tell you you'll make a character at whichever starting city and at least 3-4 people will be waiting at your starting point to make sure you're going to die, and more will be waiting at your bind point as they swing their high damage weapons and spam /laugh until you quit the server.
If you ask someone who actually plays on red, the answer is there's relatively little griefing if you stay away from the well trodden blue path of Unrest/Mistmoore/City of Mist/KC etc.
There is a significant XP bonus on red for grouping. There's a passive 50% XP bonus for playing solo, but add players and the XP gets quicker and quicker per member (up to 290% bonus for a full group iirc)... so that encourages the vast majority of leveling players to cooperate and level together towards the 50s.
Some cold hard facts: It's a pvp server. If you can't take a couple of corpse runs from pvp deaths, you won't last long. Yes, corpse runs suck... but particularly if you're grouped, you'll still be well ahead of your blue counterparts in terms of how quickly you're leveling.
It's a learning curve if you've never dabbled in EQ pvp before, but it's fun and it's different. Don't trust the forums as the opinion of whether or not you will like it...actually make a character, spend a few hours on red and see if you enjoy it. Make friends with others in the starting area (Gfay is the best populated) and group up.
People do hand out items sometimes. If you're used to leveling on blue with an abundance of cheap twink gear from EC it'll be a shock to the system
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