After about 48 hours of playtime in the server I believe I've gotten an understanding enough of Ely to give some honest feedback. I've played Zarpor, Rsps2 and now, Ely. First impressions of the server are that it has a very Zarpor-like feel but with some much needed QoL updates. There's certainly massive influeneces from the older server's which is good. Definitely more content to do, with more unique content and rewards. There's a similar rewards/donations systems, however, Ely continues to reward players with larger contributions more so than the other 2 and thus incentivizes said players to keep contributing. The in-game UI is incredibly easy to navigate and is quite user friendly, which, for a player like me who prefers to teach themselves, is a huge plus.
It's not all smooth sailing but, and I fully understand that there is bound to be hiccups whether they be bugs, bad experiences, etc. So I'll go through a few of the things where the server can improve from. As I said before, I'm a player who teaches myself how to play games and figures out the best play style for me, so that means I prefer to read guides if I'm unsure of something or the good old fashioned method of doing/failing. I would like to see some more detailed New-User friendly guides on the forums and also a little bit more of a detailed item use write up on the wiki. For example, with the prayer guide; I received some Void Bone drops from a Tormented Hatchling, first thought was "Cool I guess these are one of the best bones in the game". I un-noted them and they had no bury option so I assumed they were altar only, I then went to the altar and again no options so then I went to the prayer guide and while very detailed on the xp rates and amounts of the different bones I'd need to get to 99, there was no explanation on how to exactly use the bones. The only way that I figured it out was that another player had the same issue and asked before I did so I figured it out from there but I would have preferred to have not relied on asking. This is in no where an attack on the guide or the guide creator, I just feel that as an official guide there could be a little bit more of an explanation on how to bury/offer the various bones.
As for the wiki posts (this isn't a massive issue if there's no room/pages available, etc.), when you go into the wiki search from the website, not the client, and you go into the Items and Equipment and type in the Item you're chasing, the search prompt comes up so you click on it and all that shows up is a blank page. Again it's about my personal preference of not asking other players so I can figure the game out for myself. The reason why I mention this is simply because I couldn't figure out what a Dark Totem does so I asked at home "what does a Dark Totem do?" and I received the reply "It's for Skotizo", I'm not trying to bad-mouth the player because he did actually answer me but it didn't answer my question so I went and searched the forums. I couldn't find anything that I found useful so I searched the wiki and that really did nothing to help either because there just wasn't information on it. As a matter of fact, I still don't know what a Dark Totem does.
That leads me into my final feedback agenda, and the least of the issues as far as I'm concerned, the Forums Search. As the forums are on dark mode, when you search using key words, the words are highlighted as white completely blocking the word from sight. Instead of using a "white highlighter", maybe switching to a yellow may fix it so you can actually see the word. Again not a massive issue but a bit of personal preference.
I've also noticed the lack of staff in the Australian afternoon - late evening timezone slot 4pm AEST (7am BST/10pm PST) to 12am AEST (3pm BST/6am PST). While it isn't a busy time for the server with not many players logged in, it's always handy to have a staff member active to deal with potential issues that may arise. I'm sure that there are many players that would put their hand up for an opportunity like that. More an observation than an issue and I'm not telling you guys how to run your server.
The one thing I do miss about Zarpor and really wish I could see on Ely, is the forum presence. The forums back in the day were generally always popping, there was very rarely slow days. It was always quite fun to be around. But oh well, enough rambling from this foolish old timer!
In the mean time, I hope this helps and I'm going to continue maxing, Ciao!
Bandos Donator
