How much does faction affect gameplay?

[Polyphemous]

I never understood why so many people think evil faction is somehow a hindrance. Get an invis from your porter before going to certain places. Roll a good race to be your EC mule so it can bank in FP. All problems w/ evil faction are now fixed.

Benefits of being evil: you have cities closest to most of the dungeons in Classic, including Guk, CT, Nejena, Sol A&B, PoF. In Kunark evil starts out a lot closer to needed faction for PortHammer quest. None of which is a big deal, but it still seems to point towards evil being slightly more convenient than good.