So I have been playing for almost a month. This is my 2cents on the server so far:
Getting to level 105 is fun. You try to get free plvl as much as possible, there's actually a lot of free plvl nowadays, it should take you at most two weeks to get to 105. If you go with only 2 masteries, you can probably get cap level faster, low gaps with FF 95ish.
So, IMHO, grinding is a 9/10. It could be a little slower but, most importantly, low level mobs should drop more gold/equipment to make you less of a homeless on 10D/lvl90+.
The map. The map here is edited. There is Samarkand and Constantinople, but the mobs there are not low level. In the Constantinople area you will find the Jangan Cave mobs (lvl 86+), great place for plvl. In Samarkand are the end-game mobs, where you can drop your 11D gear. Mobs range from lv98~105. And I hate this.
I really wish Jangan Cave wasn't removed. I love how JG Cave gives Jangan a meaning, and, more importantly, gives Jangan FW some gold. I guess they really wanted to edit Constantinople/Samarkand, so they did it.
There is Alexandria on the map but you can't get there. I also don't get it why they removed it and moved the mobs to Samarkand, also disabling the option to get the Chief General title(3rd title, not sure if Chief or Senior). I'd rather have Sama+Const completely removed instead of JG Cave+Alex. There are no EUs anyway. Go figure.
The GM Events and Automatic events. There are almost no GM events whatsoever. During Christmas there were a few GM Events and it was really nice, but that was it. CTF is the only automatic event and almost no one participates. Maybe because there are no rewards.
The end-game. This is the biggest complaint I have. When I joined the server, I read Play2Win and I figured I'd have to play to get phat. Unfortunately, by Play2Win, they meant Bot2Win or, maybe, GoldBot2Win, or even, Pay2Win. Yes, unfortunately the server is Pay2Win if you want to drop some cash here. There are about 5 huge gold sellers in-game, which probably have a dozen gold bots on 24/7, and sell gold via PayPal. That's the cheapest way to get rich, which means good gear. You can also donate and sell Silk for gold but it's more expensive.
Sometimes I wonder if these gold sellers aren't actually partners with the server owners. Why you ask? Because on the server's website they have their Rules:
"Gold selling:
It has been legal, we didn't care about it. Now that the server has grown, we will not allow it. Not in global, not in party matching, not in all chat, not in stall. You have 2 chances. At the second you will get a permanent ban."
- except they don't give a crap, and people advertise with Globals freely.
It's a shame, really :(
So, if you have reached the end-game, you have a few options to get better gear and enjoy the PvP:
1st - bot and hope for a lucky SoS drop to get the gold flowing;
2nd - Alchemy for profit, however alchemy is hard if you don't have Premium + Lucky Avatar (this is not a complaint, it should be hard);
3rd - Jobbing. If you can find a group of people, you can make some money by trading or thieving, however, not many people do it, the server probably consists of 80% bots, 10% stalls and 10% active people, but, among those active, most of them are PvP, Alchemy or Unique Hunting. I can't really say if you can make a lot of gold with Jobbing because I never see anyone doing it.
And that's pretty much about it. No Job Cave, no reason to kill Uniques, no reason to CTF and goldbotting/botting is the best way to get money with a SoS drop.
Alchemy is hard and fun, however you have to make your own stones, and they will always have a 10%+ chance, which sucks. 0% stones drop from monsters but not that many. The difference between regular gear and SoS is ridiculously big and you can't compete with SoS geared people if you are full regular. The server is really iSro-like, where gear matters more than anything else.
I have dropped 2 SoS weapons with 2 chars botting about 12 hours per day, but that's
really lucky, as people have been playing for months with 4+ chars and got no SoS drops yet. I reached end-game and it's boring as fuck. A little bit of fun every Sunday with FW but that's it.
Economy is a bit inflated but still acceptable. If you don't have any free time and want a good 105 CHN only experience, this is a good server as botting is the best way to make money and enjoy PvP during weekends; If you have free time to play, this is not the server for you.