Thinking of checking out the new Istaria. I've read several similar posts, so will try to ask ones i haven't seen yet (though I bet they are out there somewhere, and I missed them).
I remember having a Sslik (I think the name was Zephyr.) and an adult Dragon (I think the name was Talimon.) Yeah, I played long enough ago where that wasn't an awkward name!
1) I would want to try the free-to-play first (sorry, but tech was bad back then, I would want to check out playability first). Would that mean I would have to wait on the Dragon?
2) Could I get a name change for him, if I did upgrade the account and unlocked him?
3) how many characters are you allowed? (My wife and I are notorious alt-o-holics, though I mostly recall just those two as you could be all the 'alts' you wanted in one toon).
4) If we found those two, would that be enough info to find any others?
5) I like community, not that great an RPer... how are the server populations matching up? (If Chaos has more, then that is probably the best place.)
6) (big one!) We quite before that big subscription over-charge fiasco, but our friend was caught in it... Who is running the billing now, and is anyone having problems?
6a) Do we have to give a Credit Card to open the free to play option?
Games played (in order): EQ, Horizons, WoW, EQ2 (repeat last two a couple times). All in all I think THIS game has the best crafting. I absolutely loved being able to help world-usable buildings, craft items that people actually wanted/needed to use, etc. I remember fun times duo-AOEing piles of elementals (mid-level) or watching a guildie/friend go melee-berzerker AOE on some high level ones. Good story, good lore, things to keep you busy for a long time. The issue was in the graphics, slow/weak servers, lag, and downtime.
WoW cataclysm is fun leveling all the alt-family, but once there, kind of 'meh' for getting on the instance/heroic/uber-heroic/raid treadmill.
I appreciate you time reading that wall of text there, and look forward to players' insights to the current game.