Welcome potential new player!

I have played platinum since June of 2006, and for me, it's worth it.

There is more RP. There is more direct interaction with GMNPCs in storylines (if that's your thing). There is more getting messed with by GMs - Ocekitty (my ranger's animal companion) doesn't have fleas, I swear.

There are also times when there's no one but you playing, mostly in off hours (after midnight, early morning), and if you want to be antisocial you can definitely do that too. I won't sugarcoat - there's trade offs for playing plat, and one of them is a much lower population. RP-wise, currently Ta'Illistim has been taken over and renamed Ta'Ardryll, the Mirror is missing, and undead roam the streets (very low levels in Ta'Vaalor, higher in Ta'Illistim). There are a few things going on other places but I forget the specifics - there are others who are much more in the know than I. Plat is All RP All the Time (unless we're at an OOC meeting which happens every few months maybe), and we have a great team of GMs supporting Plat.

Our much lower population is great. We try and welcome all our new people; basic and even not-so-basic gear is much easier to come by. Spells and services are much less a matter of going to a hang out area and more asking on the amunet, and there is always the Plat chatroom on AIM to chat OOC. Death is "Is someone going for [person]?" "I got it!" almost always (depending on time of day logged in); it's not unusual for someone to drop a hunt in Nelemar to go rescue someone in in OTF or the Sanctum or vice versa, for example. We try and take care of each other because we aren't "the Teras community" or "the Solhaven community" or...we're just Plat, where everybody knows everybody else (unless you go really out of your way not to and that's okay).

As for macros and scripting, most of us use them a lot but we range from beginners to should be professionals (I'm looking at you, Omrii.). We can definitely get you started and hold your hand while you learn the basics. There are a LOT of scripts already written and available for anyone to use, and there are some that plat users have developed, too. Basic macros and basic scripting don't take that long to learn - macros are easy. Scripting is harder but mostly (for me at least) it's a matter of "Hey, how would I go about doing [simple repetative thing]?" and I get back a line or two of code. Or writing a stormfront script, which isn't nearly as powerful but I could probably teach in an hour or three.

Hope this helps! If you'd like to talk some more feel free to drop me a line at my play.net address - if you have an AIM screen name you can get invited to platchat and talk with the whole gang.

Jenn, Vyrshkana's player

Cloth-of-eonake: for when you absolutely, positively need to have zombie-impenetrable underwear. - Denil

When my scripts are acting up, I take Modrian with Coding. After a few hours, they feel like new! - MAXMANJ

I'll go ahead and argue the non-platnum side of things:

Keep in mind that it's hard to appreciate the low population until you have a solid grasp on the game. You might want to start off in Prime just to learn your way around things.

Prime has plenty of RP opportunity, it's just on the player to decide what level you want, each day and in general for your character. If you want to focus on the game aspects and only RP occasionally, you can do that. If you want to largely focus on RP and not the game, that too. There's a ton of very active RP communities and it's not hard to find them.

Rescues are very common, and you'll quickly learn the people who do them.

As for OOC chatter, the rules in prime still prohibit it, and gross violations are few and far between. In all my years of playing, I've never seen anybody really going all-out out-of-character. Of course, if you use Lich (which is highly recommended) you will likely get exposed to LNet. LNet is a non regulated chat system, and many of the channels can make the worst of WoW look tame (since wow's OOC chat IS regulated. It's a mixed bag that Simu provides no regulated OOC avenue in-game). I recommend you turn off all LNet channels by default and only expose yourself slowly.

As a long time member of the Platinum community I would heavily recommend it. At the same time I completely agree that you should learn the basics in Prime on a free account. While we always happy to help each other out in Platinum you do need to be a bit more self sufficient, due to the lower population. There aren't empaths hanging out waiting to take your wounds all the time. You may find yourself using the "town cleric" if you die rather than having a player raise you with a chrism gem. We have locksmiths but they aren't full time and often you will have to get the NPC to open your boxes or find another way to do it yourself. It's not something I would recommend for a brand new player, unless you had an experienced platinum player there to hold your hand the whole time.

That said, once you get the gist of the game, get your maps, know what herbs heal what and are comfortable with the basic commands on a free trial account, if you find that you do enjoy it and want a smaller group experience in a tight knit community I highly recommend Platinum. I know starting over from any level can be daunting but you will find the Platinum playerbase is more than generous with new community members. We're happy to get you set up with basic gear and answer any questions you might have. If you do come over to Platinum I highly recommend you join the Platinum AIM chat and the Platinum Lich channel. You'll find people available pretty much 24/7 who are typically willing to help.

Keith/Brinret/Eronderl

Keith is correct

-Wyrom, APM

Keith is correct.

-GameMaster Estild