Now that i played this Server for 2 Months or so, let me give some thoughts on Ancient2.
I came across this Server as i hadn't played in a while an was searching for a Oldschool Server where i can have Farm alot and Progress, getting better and better EQ and Skills etc.
The Serverstart is very Oldschool Like, just a few low items and the typical low movement speed, it can be tough after a while but it gets alot easier when you reached Lv35 and got the Combat Horse, farming is really pleasant here, Metins have a good spawn rate, no one steals Metin stones (in General the community is good).
The Server is advertised as Hardcore Oldschool, i have to say it's not, the Serverstart feels like that, sure but after a while, when you know more about the Server you will see it's more like a Pleasant Oldschool Server, it's Oldschool Like but nowhere near as hard as back then, the Exp rate is good (especially during Weekends when 50%Rates are On), the Drop rate is too.
It's not difficult to get Adders, Switchers, Bravery Capes, Books, Soulstones, especially once you got your Combat Horse and that way you can already get good money just from selling 1 Switcher and buy a Thiefs Glove and farm even better, or Exp Ring or Windshoes or a Mount as you can make 1.2-1.4kk currently with 1 Switcher. I wished i had used the Offlineshopsystem earlier to sell and buy stuff honestly, would have helped me alot when i was Lv20-30 but i didn't realize how it all worked.
The Player community here is small and this Server isn't the one for people who want a booming playerbase, but Trade here is surprisingly active, i currently have several Offline shops open and it's working well, just make sure to get to know the prices and don't put too much crap items in your Store, that stuff is hard to sell trust me :D
All in all a joyful Server, especially after not playing Metin2 for a while, but let me get some quick Pros and Cons, instead of writing an Essay about my experience on Ancient2.
Pros:
-The Itemshop is not P2W, there are no PvP/PvM Rings or Pets (only Baby-Azrael which only is useable for DT). Vote 4 Coins doesn't get you a huge amount but if you plan to play here for a while you should use that, after i got 50 Coins from Ingame and Voted i currently have enough Coins to buy even the best Items. You can get anything in the IS also Ingame.
- Balanced Rates, not too high and not too low.
- Friendly Community (only came across 2-3 Annoying people)
- Frequent Events, every Friday for example is Moonlight Event for 2h, every Weekend higher Rates, Weekly OX Event (which is lucrative because even if you don't win you can get things), Mount Events some time and more.
- Decent Server Admin, he seems to care about his Server and the Community, does frequent Updates and Patches, fixes problems.
- Stabile Server. What i mean by that is that the Server is already Online for 6 Months dispite not having a huge Playerbase A2 is still online and very likely will remain after others disappeared. This point is important to me because it's very annoying when you reached Lv50,60,70 and one day out of nowhere the Server is off and all your Progress is gone, especially on a Oldschool Server, probably less of a problem on a PvP Server or Newschool.
Cons:
- Playerbase could be higher
- Quite a difficult Start but once you got a Combat Horse or a Mount and can farm better it's quite easy and enjoyable. So it seems a bit off balance (Hard Start, relatively easy afterwards)
- Quests are a bit boring and most don't give good Rewards, but there's plenty of Quests so if you like Quests and still want to do them, have fun.
- A few things are Unbalanced, some Items are cheaper then they should be while others are more expensive then they should be, for example a Soulstone is worth only 300k currently.
But this one is only a minor problem as most Items and Values are balanced.
I might have missed a few things on the Pros and Cons list, but let me not make it too long now (=
good update, keep it up, buddy, online fell from 100 to 30-50, the server really looked like a metin of 2011 thanks to the last update, only 2011 online in metin was 5-10k, and here 30-50 people :D;)