Let me preface this with the fact that I've never been a full-time Blightie, but I do poke my head in there fairly often under one alt or another.

With that fair warning, here goes..

Blight has never really had a large population. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I think the consistant and dedicated players prolly only came in around two dozen or so maybe (not counting alts)? I could be way off base there, but, it never really seemed very large. The Blighties though are usually extremely dedicated, which is real nice. Sadly though, I believe the current Blight population may be even lower these days, though, I haven't really made it back there long enough to know for sure.

There's not much of an economy, as typically everyone on Blight will help you with whatever you need. On the flip-side, don't expect to make a whole pile of money either. It's common practice to simply give whatever is needed. Typically, a "tip" or gratuity is fair in return. This isn't a hard and fast rule, but that seems to be about how it operates in my personal experience.

There hasn't ever been a full character wipe and reset on Blight to my knowledge. It's possible there may have been one at some point, though, i definitely don't recall one ever taking place. There may be a rollback now and then if an applied patch doesn't work out too well, but it's rarely ever a significant one. At most, maybe a week or so as far as I know.

Sadly though, Blight has lost it's resident Test Lead, Illyist. Illyist used to offer direction on what needed to be tested, and would assist the Blighties in testing it, often supplying his Consigner with new items that needed to be tested. I don't think there was more than a few weeks (a month or two? not sure) between the time when Illyist said goodbye when Tulga went away, and when Blight was taken offline by EI. Due to that, I can't really comment much on how the Blighties have been operating without Illyist around, though I'm sure they're managing to get by one way or another, as they're a tough and resilient bunch.

The resident Blighties live on Blight full-time, and as such, when playing on Blight, it does feel very much (for me anyway) as if I'm visiting them in their home. I try not to upset their economy or their playing/testing. If I ever need anything, or ask a question or ask for help, I know that they may very well be right in the middle of testing something rather involved, and as such, may not be able to break away from it right away to answer me, and that's okay.

The Blighties do us all a great service by testing out our new builds and content, and by doing it with a far smaller community. I kinda consider them to be the "Spartans" of Istaria, living frugally, and sticking close together.

With all due respect to the Blighties and their home, the last thing I'd like to mention is this, and I'm directly this generally at everyone who reads this -

If you feel that the game should be operating better, or if you are experiencing problems with new client roll-outs or anything of that nature, bear in mind that the Blighties are only so many people. Their community is far smaller than those on the Live servers, and as such, present a much smaller cross-section of players, play-styles and (perhaps most importantly) computer hardware configurations. One of the best things you can do to ensure that the game runs well for you is to spend time on Blight, and help with the testing. The more people that get on there and truly ASSIST with the testing, then the more feedback Virtrium will have concerning their efforts.

okay, I'll shut up now.

~ Henry