1. Six starting cities. You may choose to start in Antioch, Druids' Grove, Nasrallah, Temple of Dagon, Thieves' Den, or White Bear Village. Each city is designed with particular classes in mind, but there are no restrictions. Read the signs in Alpha for more information.

2. Bank and Storage Chest. You can save both money and items. All of your characters have access to the same storage chest, so it's easy to trade items between characters.

3. Variety. You will not see everyone running around in the same gear. ALL of the basic +1 to +6 items are available, and there are also many custom items. You may be surprised to see high-powered weapons that you don't normally see very often - like slings, shuriken, etc. Also, tailor shops sell dye at low prices so that even young characters can customize their gear and look unique.

4. Weapon and armor enhancement system. All basic +0 to +6 weapons, armor, and shields can be upgraded (adding elemental damage, damage resistance, skill bonuses, extra spell slots, ability score bonuses, etc., etc., etc.) if you collect the necessary items and have enough gold. See the "Upgrade System" post for a list of all available upgrades. This system adds a great deal of variety to the realm and allows every character to customize gear to fit his or her needs.

5. Spell enhancement system. Casters will find that many spells can be significantly improved if you get training from the right NPC.

6. For rogues - respawning locks, traps, and chests. All locks and traps give XP for being disarmed/unlocked. Traps on chests automatically respawn, locks relock, and treasure in these chests respawns.

7. Class-specific items. All classes have unique items that improve as they level up. An improved item is available every 5 levels. These items will also have custom summoned pets associated with them (starting at level 20, except Rangers and Druids who get a summon starting at level 1). The summoned pets will improve every 4 levels in that class and vary depending on your class. For example, fighters summon ancient heroes, druids summon animals, mages summon dragons and golems, etc.

8. Treasure Maps. Here's how they work: Treasure Maps are part of the regular drop scripts, so they can drop randomly from any mob. The map names look like "Treasure Map - Frozen Tundra." So you go to the Frozen Tundra and look around (you must be in active Search mode). If you have the map and your Search AND Lore skills are high enough, you will find the chest. They appear in random locations within the given zone, so you hopefully will never find 2 in the exact same spot. In addition to the loot, you will get some XP for finding the chest.

9. Quests. There are 24 newbie quests, 4 in each city. Any class can do them. There are also many other quests for adventurers of all levels. The town crier in Antioch can tell you the latest news... The quests are certainly not required, but they're available for those who are interested.

10. Size and realistic geography. The world is very large and still growing. The players should really feel like they are running around in the wilderness.

11. Portal system. There are 6 portals scattered across the world right now. The world is rather large, so these portals will save you time. There is also an item that allows a PC to return to his bind point. (The Underdark also has its own portal system with runestones.)

12. Downloadable player map. This is certainly not required to play, but it will help you get around. Click here to go to the post that contains the map.

13. Custom XP system, including a bonus if you're in a party.

14. The Snow Globe. This item allows you to teleport directly to the party leader. This is often used to resurrect fallen comrades. The Snow Globe may be used 5 times per server reset.