Hi folks.
I'm honestly shocked that I've only just heard about this place. It certainly sounds very impressive and tantalizing, but before I look at getting involved I figured I'd ask a couple questions and hope they don't upset anyone.
How hard is it for a new player to become involved in SoD? (Wondering if I'll be purely alone until the very end game as is common with longstanding games as they become top heavy after a while.)
How hard is it for a new player to be SUCCESSFUL in SoD? (This applies to everything, from becoming wealthy, to making good progress, to gaining access to end game, to leveling up)
Is now a good time to join?
I read in another thread that two out of three active developers have left within the past month. How has that effected the server and how do you think it will effect it?
And the big one: How active is SoD? the front page says it has the biggest population of any EQ private server, but I've been on P99 since 2015 and I've never heard of here until now, as I said. Is that boast still accurate?
For a new player the worst part might just be the loneliness of leveling. There aren't many people sub 65, most of them are adept alts(level locked characters killing low level "raid" mobs). As for getting to end game. The problem is 1-65 is basically the tutorial for sod. In fact that might even be wrong at this point. The content grind doesn't stop when you hit 65 nor when you finish aas. you still have experience based progression and a very long list of quests to do for characters to be nearing "completion. As far as I know almost all guilds reside firmly in the top end of the content or near it. They will all want a living person to attend their raids so just by existing and being remotely good at press button you will be desirable even if your character sucks.
Once you hit 65 you can probably make friends because everybody is desperate for anybody to play sod with them. You'll still have boring down time and shit but some guild will want you on the count of being a living being.
Being successful: You will almost certainly have to dualbox and play two characters. You can choose not to but you will probably regret it for most classes since leveling solo much less aa'ing solo(doubly so without gear) is a nightmarish slog for them. You can buy/acquire your way to a much larger tier of gear than you could in the past, if you want to be an antisocial recluse you do not really have to raid and you can achieve quite a lot without doing so. As for money there have been many people who acquired the BIG BUX without actually being at the "end" game of raiding. A lot of the older zones still produce cashmoney if you want to actively invest your time into doing them. Granted I am really out of date and have no clue about some of the newer ones so I could be completely wrong about how good the "higher" end of zones are.
As for progress I cannot really answer this: a lot of the newer quests involve much harder content designed for far more powerful characters. There is still a lot of "old" world content for you to do that still remains relevant afaik. Much of which can be done solo/duo but you will eventually need friends for a number of key things(certain quests, relic spells, getting certain clickies). I know some people(meso) were running pick up raids so its possible to get stuff done without a guild.
Is now a good time to join?
I read in another thread that two out of three active developers have left within the past month. How has that effected the server and how do you think it will effect it?
And the big one: How active is SoD? the front page says it has the biggest population of any EQ private server, but I've been on P99 since 2015 and I've never heard of here until now, as I said. Is that boast still accurate?
Is now a good time to join: Its up to you and if you like the everquest style of game. You said you played p99 so you should understand the concept here. Everything is a massive time sink. SOD has some really nice content hidden about it, I would even say some of the raids were more enjoyable than shit I saw on modern mmorpgs. Due to the nature of the game you still have the sense of community that seems to have been forgotten in many more modern ones. If you want to dump a stupid amount of time into learning and playing the game you will ultimately be rewarded.
Developers: One of them was undoubtedly the best content developer the game has ever had and its extremely sad he left. The other one I cannot speak for his content but was an exceptionally cool dude beloved by all and its unfathomable to me how bad things must have been for these people to finally give up. I don't know any of the current staff and I am sure a lot of people will get upset at anybody suggesting anything remotely negative but its bad. The server has always had staff drama even with a lot of it being pointless misunderstandings and tinfoiling. I don't know the full circumstances but it seems like modern staff are still getting off on the "its our sandbox" motto banning people for seemingly trivial shit despite the community being a fraction of what it once was.
Population: That was true in 2010 or so, and has not been true for a very long time. The most people I saw online recently was around 100 on /who all during weekend primetime. Remember many people are dualboxing so the actual player count could just be 50. Awkward hours during the day/late at night are basically near dead.
At this point I cannot recommend anybody play shards of dalaya. The glory days are gone and whats left is really embarrassing and mostly sad. I really wish somebody would write a tell all about just what goes on in the staff department because you have to wonder how you could go from 500+ active players to about 50 over a few years. Meanwhile p99 still sits at 1000+ on primetime.
TL;DR Massive time investment required to get places in this game with a very questionable future.