I tend to ramble, or over explain things, I apologize but I'll write my thoughts for you here.
So I was frustrated when I made my character initially as it should be basic & something you, yourself should have at least tested once at some point but I don't know how long of a project this has been for you so obviously I'm by no means attacking you or frustrated with you personally just explaining my thought pattern & opinions.
The Paladins start out with nothing but 2 leather legs, a torch & a bag with a bunch of melee weapons(which you've changed, I'd recommend checking the other vocations), I sold the melee weapons for spears & I ran into elves & then couldn't even kill a rat at low hp before I died due to no protection, I was frustrated purely on the basis that something this early & fundamental, shouldn't be broken- it left me with a sour experience.
I would recommend keeping a minimal setup, basic leather set with a wooden shield would suffice in most cases, it leaves the player with adequate protections for the early game & a means to move forward.
I wasn't sure if I should even go into this much depth, but here goes.
I'm going to talk about the starting area/town because I believe there's a very objective way a town should be created- creating a lovely area is completely different than creating a place where people first enter & experience your world. This you can use as a basis, whether this is your map or something you downloaded isn't relevant, I'm merely explaining a good way to structure a town for a starter town.
There's a subtle science in this, things are suppose to make sense & are suppose to be easy for the player to navigate.
Now Port hope & Ankrahmun take this to the extreme with having everything the player requires, literally on top of each other but generally Thais is in my opinion a good model on how a town should be, most of CIPs towns are & there's a reason as to why they're all built in a similar manner.
Notice, all the shops are in close proximity, basically in the "Centre" of town, everything is built around this centre hub, including the entrances to the sewers, which is also key to a new player starting, as sewers mean rats, income & some experience to getting off the ground.
There's also a solid reasoning behind walls, apart from the obvious protective reasons in games like Tibia where the outside can be fatal they denote to the player where the city begins & where it ends.
Firstly this town is chaotic & aesthetically looks terrible, it took me a while to find everything- and I also walked into elves far north which near killed me as I left the town but wasn't sure where the town even ended, this is a similar experience if you go west.
The sewer grates(marked yellow) are also in awkward positions, with the one right of the church being the only reasonable spot.
We can immediately see the difference.
This is actually terribly designed, I want to explain what I did when I started so you get an idea of what can happen if people make the "wrong" choice, I firstly left the temple & went left, I saw no sewer grates so I assumed there was none, I realized after going further west I was leaving town & as I had no gear I decided to search a little south, I reached the south house I marked in yellow which I don't understand the reasoning behind- due to my gear, I was at an immediate disadvantage considering the amount of rats that are down these holes, so I went back to the centre of town (Temple) & headed north, I saw the equipment store but nothing else until I hit elves, it was only coming back south where I saw that Task house north east, which isn't even connected to a road- this building is also oddly placed in general especially as it's an important NPC, it's importance is high thus it should be placed in the centre or town or at the exit of gates which this little town lacks. After realizing again I chose wrongly I went east, by this point it was too late, I'd been beaten by Elves, I had no health, no equipment & only a few spears that I bought after selling my weapons to the equipment NPC & buying spears- so I said whatever, went down into rats & died.
A lot of people miss the subtle "science" behind things in games, the "why" behind why things are created in a specific way, the earliest experience of the OT is what made me drop it & from what I've observed from a lot of OTs over the years can be a factor in players quitting custom OTs after the first 10-30 minutes, the earliest steps a player takes especially on a new map should always be directed & smooth, they're important for player retention & it's where people formulate wither they will stay or continue playing.
When we see a sewer grate in a town, we all immediately know it contains rats or something of a low tier that beginners can fight & kill for experience & coin, all essential to moving forward- but if we can't find rats & barely have the gear to even fight them, it turns into a bad experience.
This pattern of easiest in the centre & harder the further out we go, is a similar subtle game design similar to how a town is constructed, we expect things we can fight to be close & things of a harder nature to be beyond that to be explored.
I'd honestly choose a different map, I don't know if you created this or if it's just a downloaded map but it's a terrible starting place.
I'll look further into the server at a later date, I wanted to type this out the other day when I tested the server but I got side tracked but this should cover my thoughts early- You've given me a level 100 jumping to end game is a good way to look around the map but remember the journey from Early to end game is just as important as the end game.
~ Just been running around, Koya should have been your starting city- it basically falls in line with everything I just mentioned.
