Help on: minlevel

The game allows groups to be formed of characters of any level, but the XP, equipment, and money from any kill are only shared with characters not more than three levels below the highest level character involved in the kill.

Any equipment or money, no matter how they are obtained, cannot be used by someone more than three levels below the person who originally touches it.

There are two reasons for these restrictions:

- Character association: This involves the passing of equipment, money, prep spells, or help in combat from a person's high level character to his low level character in order to speed up the process of gaining XP. Often this occurs in trade where one person will help his friend's low-level character in return for his friend helping his. This gives an unfair advantage to the lower level character, who gets levels that he didn't earn fairly.

- Reduced dependence on powerful players: New players who don't know their way around the game are often treated by others to equipment and money that that the new player has no idea how to obtain. When these items come from a character around their level, they often serve as a welcome introduction to what the game has to offer.

But if new players are given items from much higher-level zones, this negates the reward for exploring, as what they have is much better than anything they could find themselves at their level. Worse yet, they are often afraid to do anything dangerous for fear of losing equipment that they don't know how to replace. And with nice gear comes a hefty rent, which means they often beg for cash that they also don't know how to get themselves to keep the game from taking away the equipment they shouldn't have had in the first place. And when they gain levels without knowing anything, other players get annoyed with how little they know about the game and how often they are begging for handouts.

A solution to both of these problems is less "help" by high levels in the form of equipment, money, and XP. The game enforces a cutoff at a difference of three levels to encourage this.