>>1037365
I tried it for a few months and it was different, but not great.
Built from the ground up to be an open-PvP sandbox, but in the new sense of the terms. Everything is player-made from player-gathered materials, but every step is very formulaic. Mats are divided into tiers. Gear is divided into tiers. Zones are divided into tiers. Everything is done by exactly the same template; there are plenty of examples. Each type of weapon or equipment has a T3 version to a T8 version. The better ones have bigger numbers, but have the same name, the same abilities, and almost the exact same appearance. T2 is brown, T3 is green, T4 is blue, and so on - from armor to gear, even though that means T4 trees must have blue leaves. Every zone looks different, but they're all fundamentally square-shaped; it looks like Microsoft Excel design all over again. You can control territory and build buildings, but only in designated zones in the free PvP areas, or an instanced zone (personal island).
Other than that, combat is pretty fun. PvE is as boring as any other MMO ("don't stand in the red" schlock), and PvP seems okay. It's the same weightless, impactless slop you'd expect from modern gayming, though: cooldowns are low, CC is short, good play relies on pressing a ton of buttons in the correct order over positioning and resource management. I had fun with it all for a few months, but eventually running back and forth between cities to gather and refine and craft and gather more and... it got old, as these games tend to. That's another thing, if you're looking specifically for relaxing gathering - there is a ton of moving between nodes. Lots of clicking, and since everything is mouse-based it can be hard on the wrist. Don't get carpal tunnel early, anon.