Shards of Dalaya

[Scrooge]

Does anyone here play on Shards of Dalaya, or quit some years back and want to check out what changed?

Apparently they fixed a lot of bugs and introduced new spells (and AAs and Tomes,) and 6-man encounters and zones, not to mention revamped the whole melee system. The server is currently in v2.0 and the next major upgrade to v2.5 will happen before this month is over.

In case some people here would be interested in a server like this but never played there before, check here: Differences between EQLive and SoD.

I personally haven't thought of playing there again since P99 just started, so I thought to login and see what changed, and so far I'm getting a kick out of playing my main again.

For those of you coming to SoD from Live, you're probably carrying expectations based on the way things used to work on Live in whatever era you left. A better way of looking at SoD is that it truly is its own game and just happens to use graphics and zones from EQ. Faction, Zones, Quests, Mobs NPC are different. In broad strokes, here's what you should expect:

A very active GM and developer presence (hats off to the dedicated, hard-working, volunteer staff!)... this means rules are enforced (with both jailings and bannings), and it also means there are a lot of one-time and recurring events. More than most of us ever likely saw on Live.

A unique lore and content... that means unique NPCs and itemization. There's no Trakanon, or Centi Longswords on SoD. On the other hand, character and NPC models as well as zone layouts (but not necessarily zone connections!) are all based on Live models/layouts.

Progression, casual and raid... SoD has content that allows players to level from 1 to 65 plus AAs and tomes. There's rich, multi-tiered raid content/encounters with a heavy emphasis on tier-to-tier progression.

Quests... no epics, but main quest line, faction quests, and many other lines. Most yield good rewards and plenty of experience to augment your hunting.
Time matters... Daytime begins at 6am, and night falls at 8pm. Most shops in major cities close at night, the NPCs need sleep as well. Be wary being in a building when night falls, as you may find yourself trapped inside. Additionally, some quest NPCs may only be up during either day or night time.

If you'd ask which EQLive era this server represents, I'd say PoP heavy and LDoN Augment system, but not instances! Check out the link above to see a full list of Shard of Dalaya's features, cause there are way too many for me to list here.

As for the raid tier system, I'd just like to add that you don't need to be in a raiding guild to see good loot, the Treasure Map group tiers as well as the 6-man content have a lot of gear that is on part with high-tier raid loot, I kid you not!

My main over there is a 65 Enchanter, but I have several other chars also.