Welcome back hope you will enjoy your time in this amazing world. I myself have only been in Istaria for about 4 months sadly i never heard about it before but a good friend recommended it to me and i'm thankful for that. I have to say the crafting system in Istaria is the most in depth and rewarding system i've seen so far. If you ever create a Dragon or Bi-ped i have to recommend going into Lairshaping or the equivalent for bipeds its rewarding and fun!. If you play on Chaos server feel free to ask for help one thing i like personally about this game is the community that is helpfull towards new players or old ones returning. I don't know how many parties exists for low level char leveling ,but when i leveled i had some company from time to time you almost always find a biped or dragon needing help in your travels.

And i found out if you ever find a hard quest don't hesitate to ask for help i finished a lot of hard quests by asking polite in Dragon chat or Around towns. And the world seems very active to me i see players from time to time even do i.m in a different time zone ( Playing from Sweden^^) So if you play on Chaos feel free to ask me for help i gladly help others since i got help when i was trying to grasp Istaria