I played on Tallon Zek from 2000-2004 - mostly through highschool and first year of college. Due to the sever being a team pvp (humans, darkies, elves, shorties) there was a wide variety of social norms and customs. For example, the majority of players fell into the "humans + elves + shorties vs the darkies", so there was a lot of guilds and players that "cross teamed" based by "good vs evil" races. Many characters and guilds refused to cross team at all and were explicitly focused on their own team. A small minority - usually the heavy hitting pvp guilds - were cross-team with darkies, so anyone can join. This dynamic played out really well, you knew if you saw a darkie race somewhere they were most likely a threat, but other races - not so much. Though I would say that towards the upper tier levels, and towards 2003-2004 I felt that there was far less hostility to cross-teaming across all teams. Commonlands were largely massive pvp zone and were rarely if ever used as a trade hub. Gfay was a large trade hub for "lighties". Playing a Dark Elf, Iksar, Troll or Ogre was a far more socially unique experience for me, I felt that players who were one of these races were often far more friendlier and willing to help you because it kind of felt like you were always outnumbered.
Another fun thing was that "Magic Resist" armor was by far the most in demand and most expensive. I found it strange that on non-pvp servers MR gear didn't matter much at all.
Honestly, the 8 level range (8 levels above or below you is allowable targets for pvp) was a brilliant system that prevented hardcore griefing which I felt every other mmorpg just miserabaly suffers from. Yeah, there were highly twinked out characters, but even 8 levels above you attacking you had a chance to escape, and even a chance to somehow beat them back. It prevented lv 60s from going into a mid-range zone and just slaughtering people.
I really miss the times I had on that server a lot.
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