I agree with yodamus. I've been playing for 2+ years (religiously), but there are those in my guild who have been playing for 6, 7 or even 8 years on and off. I have no plans to hang up my hat because there is still so much to explore and accomplish.
FS seems to revolve primarily around levelling. Your world map is a bird's eye view with very limited graphics. You walk around. You click to attack the creature, but don't see combat literally. You get gold, xp, and sometimes item drops. There is a very active marketplace for equipment, potions, etc. Many people spend a lot of their time being merchants, just buying and selling. Your stats are heavily influenced by the gear you wear, as well as skill buffs that you cast on yourself or others cast on your character. If you're having a hard time finding people to give you buffs, there is a marketplace for buffs as well. Along with levelling, there is also PvP in a variety of forms. You can just straight up attack another player to get their gold. You can participate in a "ladder" or the "arena" for prizes and glory against others of a similar level range. And there's a bounty board where people post bounties as retribution for attacks. If you accept a bounty that a [supposed] victim has posted, you attack the player with the bounty on their head to get the reward the victim has set.
Guilds are a HUGE part of the game. You will excel MUCH more easily if you become part of a guild, especially an active one. Guilds provide stat increases via buildings listed on the guild page, as well as via relic control. It's considerably easier to get buffs for free from guildies, be they for levelling, PvP, or otherwise. There is GvG also which is essentially group PvP.
As you progress through levels, there are quests to accomplish that give you extra xp, or gold, or items. Plus, every now and then there are global events where everyone is supposed to kill a bunch of the same creature. The more creatures the FS community at large kills, the greater the rewards. Sometimes there are events that release a certain kind of creature that would have special item drops that can be resources or items for inventing recipes. And there are also people who make in game currency via composing. Composing is where you take junk items, break them down into fragments, and use those fragments to make potions. The more you compose, the higher your composing level. The higher your composing level, the more powerful the potions that you are able to make.
So yeah, FS is basically PvE (PvW), PvP, and GvG, but the framework that HCS has built around that core is so complex and involved that you can be involved for years and still not even scratch the surface of many game elements.
Come on in! The water's great!
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Edits (to answer your questions more directly):
1) Like other freemium model games, you can pay actual money for in game currency (Fallen Sword Points) in order to upgrade and progress faster. BUT, you don't have to by any means. I've chosen to pay $5 here and there, but there's no reason why you would need to spend real money. I'd guess that most players play for free and keep it that way. You can progress quite quickly regardless if you learn and follow good advice.
2) Heck no. Join anyway. The idea that there are other players of super high levels doesn't affect you negatively at all. You'll actually want to join a guild that has a couple of high level players because you'll have better access to resources.
3) The trailer video is pure hogwash with no basis in reality whatsoever. The screenshots are much more accurate. Is it fun anyway? Yes.
4) If I have to choose a favorite color, I'd say some sort of blue as well. Additionally, a blue chicken would be bad***. That is all.
Edited by TSDaedalus, 24 October 2015 - 12:16.
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