CH is not the most populated server - of the top of my head, Mount Tyrannas and Tempest Reach have a substantially higher population.
The reason our forum has so much more activity than the others, I imagine, is that we're the only RP server, and so we get a lot of threads popping up about upcoming RP events, or people looking for RP/having questions about lore and the like.
The server status page lists Ascension Valley, CH, Mount Tyrannas, and Tempest Reach currently as 'High' population. http://tera.enmasse.com/server-status

No, CH is not comprised entirely of 'casual' players, and yes, people do PvP and GvGs and duels and the like - it's just not as prevalent as on, say, a PvP server.
BGs are cross-server queued, so your server has little impact on your BG experience.
I will say that, having played on VoT at launch and having transferred to CH in June 2012, CH has a much friendlier and closer-knit community.

Roleplay just means that your 'toon' is a CHARACTER, as well - he or she will have a personality and a backstory etc, and you can take on this character's personality and act it out in game (usually through emotes or /say). I'd personally describe it as being like a 'collaborative story'.
You don't have to roleplay to play on an RP server, there are plenty of people who don't do it. However, if you roll on CH, please do be respectful of RP. Don't spam out-of-character text in /say, or spacebarbash on your horse or whatever. You don't have to participate, but it'd be nice if you don't muck it up for others :)

Oh no...I'm sorry to hear that ;~;
I have to disagree - there's heaps of noncoupled/nonpaired/notERP/notguilded RP out there. For instance, Alysse is single (and not the sort to do the whole one-night-stand sort of thing) and I fully intend to keep it that way. I can't imagine that people would shun you just for not wanting to ERP, because I've never experienced that problem myself.
I also doubt it's the way you write...judging from your post, you have a decent grasp of language which is a lot more than can be said for many. I think it's just a case of you having been unlucky. Let's try to fix that, shall we? :)

It always makes me sad when I find people getting turned down for walk-up RP, because it honestly makes my day when I'm just puttering along and someone randomly starts RPing with me - and I figure the more people get turned down, the less likely they will be to do walk-up in the future, and that's sad.
I do also understand though that if someone's busy, they might not be up for RP at that point in time. Still - it upsets me to hear that people got snippy/short with you just for trying to walk up and RP with them...whenever someone's tried to RP with me and I was busy, I've made an effort to tell them nicely that I can't ~right now~ but would totally be up for RP later, and stress that it really is just that I'm busy, and that I don't want to discourage them from walkup in the future. Often I'll go through my friends list and make space for them, so that I don't accidentally wind up going back on my words.
Usually, though, I'm not doing anything more productive than rambling in gchat or inspecting everyone within a 100 m radius to check out their character creation masterpieces, so most of the time I welcome RP with open arms :P

I know you said you don't want to join a guild, but I'm still going to suggest you consider it anyway - not every guild has a strict 'storyline' that you have to adhere to, many are just groups of likeminded individuals. And most guilds regularly host in-guild RP events or informal gatherings; these are usually open to the public if you happen to stumble across it, but they aren't always publically advertised (I assume to reduce the number of trolls).

Nonstructured RP events are also good to check out - Desert Rose Trading Co used to host a tavern night every monday (the thread is stickied on these forums, actually)...DRTC has since merged into Envisage of Night, and now EoN runs the tavern nights, but it's still essentially the same concept; show up, meet folks, RP! I've had plenty of interesting storylines develop with people I met at these events, and the EoN tavern night is just one of several weekly occurring events, so there's surely at least one out there which your character could go to, even if he/she isn't the tavern-y type.


If you'd like, feel free to send Alysse a message ingame, and I'll add you to my friends list :) as stated above, almost always up for RP and no worries, I promise that I won't be attempting to get into your character's panties/well-tailored boxer shorts at any point :P

DRTC has effectively merged into EoN: all the officers (and most, if not all active members) have moved to EoN.
Tavern Night continues as per usual, every monday at the Chebika tavern, never fear!
The only difference is that now the people running it have the EoN symbol above their heads rather than the DRTC one :)

The Aman race was enslaved by the giants, so I'm not really sure they ever had a 'home' before Kaiator, really. When the empire of the Giants was destroyed, Kaiator was built atop the ruins of the Giants' civilization.

Save for popori, none of the races in Tera 'evolve' or have ancestor species; they are today the same as they were when they were created by their individual gods. The Aman, for example, were created by the god Amarun (though he basically abandoned his creations, and they now worship Kaia for her part in freeing them from the Giants).
As you guessed, they're reptilian/draconian: think bipedal dragon-folk.


Lore's a bit hard to find, as it's scattered all over the place and is in small snippets, and you sometimes have to mine through official stories and the like for it. The best/most comprehensive source of lore I've found is on the Iridium Shield site :) They've done a pretty excellent job of compiling all the information.
http://iridiumshield.guildlaunch.com
On the left hand sidebar, there's a link to the 'Reference Center (Lore)'

Hope I helped at least a little! ^^

The elven race used to be comprised of High Elves and Wind Elves. The two sects were involved in a war, and the High Elves won, killing off the Wind Elves.
As Roda said, giants are in the game. Baraka are the smallest of the giants, and there are some BAMS which are giants. Giants are, however, very rare, as the Giant empire tried to overtake the Gods, and the Gods punished them by nearly wiping out their race.

Lore has support for interbreeding between humans and high elves: the first diplomatically elected leader of Velika was a man named Gallian who had a high elven mother and a human father.
For the record, humans have also been shown to be able to breed with Castanics: ingame, in the Celestial Hills area, there's a family with a human father, Castanic mother, and a little Castanic daughter.

RPing is basically like telling a collaborative story with other people around you. You go into RP with an idea of what your character's personality is like, and then have them react and respond to situations around them. Sometimes RP with someone will be casual and everyday-life-of-your-character-ish, and sometimes it ends up developing into epic plots and stories and such ^^ it's fun!
While on CH you may see in /say chat ((text in brackets like this)) {or like this}: that's Out Of Character (OOC) text, as in, not something their character would say. Otherwise, for the most part, when talking in /say or using /e, people are RPing.

Tokumei on CH? I play Alysse (and Lady.Alysse when I want her in cloth for RP) - when I log on in a couple of hours I'll add you to my friends lists. If you have any questions about the game (I've been playing since beta), reducing lag from Aus, RP, guilds on CH, or anything of the sort really, feel free to ask me :3

Welcome to Tera, from a fellow Sydneysider!
PandoraVyn's said 'roleplay server =D' and I have to say, I firmly agree. Celestial Hills is heaps different from MT in that the community is very close knit and waaay friendlier.
Despite the slightly lower population, CH always has a healthy number of people on, at all times of the day - I swear, I'll be on at like 10pm our time and expecting everyone to be asleep, but I'll log on and get barraged with hellos from my guildies :)

And, though it's preferred, you don't actually have to be an RPer - a number of people on the server don't RP, and are just on CH for the friendlier atmosphere.

Vigh's done an excellent job of keeping his vanarchy provinces top notch for the entirety of his term, which has basically been nonending since June last year. Until this term, DRTC was ranked as the number one Vanarchy guild on Arun.

Things happen, real life happens - surely you can understand that?

I can say that "2. Custom Emotes" is already in the game, and has been for a fairly long while. The command is /e
so, for example, typing: /e clasps his hand onto his friend's shoulder
will give you: yourcharactername clasps his hand onto his friend's shoulder.

As for the rest, I throw my lot in with you - I think they'd be excellent additions to the game.

Hey Nams!
First off, I wanna say there's little to be nervous of with regards to joining the RP server - I was completely brand spanking new to RP when I first joined, and was absolutely terrified I'd be lynched if I committed a social gaffe or whatever...but I've found the community really welcoming and helpful.
If you're REALLY nervous, you can do what I did for a while...roll a toon, level them up a bit, and just watch the RP happening around you for a while until you get a little more comfortable with it, and eventually you'll probably get comfortable enough to join in.

Most (if not ALL) the guilds on Celestial Hills are more than happy to show a newbie the ropes actually. I may as well toss my own guild's name out while I'm at it...the Desert Rose Trading Company really helped me gain my footing in the server and learn how to RP, and RP has basically become second nature now thanks to their help.
I'd strongly suggest you find a good, friendly guild, and be upfront with them about the fact that you're new to RP and that you'd love any helpful tips and advice they can give you.


As for your questions...

No, I don't think there's a TGRPS regarding character death - people tend to take it however they see fit, depending on the situation. My character, Alysse, isn't much of a fighter, so most of the time when I'm playing the game and killing things or whatever, I'm not in character (IC), and so don't need to explain it when Alysse dies.
The few times that I HAVE been IC during one of Alysse's deaths, a healer has ALWAYS been present. Usually I've played it as "Aly took a particularly bad hit to the head and was knocked out," and then the healer explains the rez away as bringing Aly back into consciousness.
In the end, I'd say how you decide to play death out depends on the situation and your own personal preferences.


Your second question merits a similar answer: there's no TGRPS. Really, it's up to you/depends on the situation.
As a general guide...
Global and area chat are both out of character (OOC). Some guilds have IC guild chats, others have OOC. My own guild's main guild chat is OOC, but we have a private IC guild chat channel set up for IC interaction. The way that we explain the IC channel that is through the use of 'harkening shards', little gems that are given to company members that allow them to communicate across distance.
Distance whispers are generally seen as OOC, unless your character has some way of communicating with the other person's character. During face to face RP, whispers are usually seen as IC, unless you employ ((doublebrackets)) or some other way of implying OOC communication.


Hopefully I've managed to help at least a little~
If you've got any further questions or need clarification on anything, feel free to ask here or to send me a private message!
Or you can add my character (Alysse) as a friend ingame, and I'll be more than happy to answer whatever questions you can come up with to the best of my ability :)