I'm also adding some original stuff, like party dungeons (Comparable to instancing in WoW) with huge boss fights and small quests inside. :D That's one way you can earn gear in-game. Another is through Pvp Arenas/WoE, and still others are massive quest lines. You could also donate, but that's not fun.. LOL. It's for lazy people but... I like getting free money to run the server. >___>;
There's also many quests that you can do as a party, and I've got a system already set up for when all the 3-1/3-2 classes have been released 100%, so that you can do another chain of quests to change into those. xD
I've even got a Pvp sort of thing where, you choose one of two sides, and both sides duke it out on a huuuuge Pvp map, with a large team stock. First team to run out of lives loses. And, to make it more interesting, there are crystals on either end that respawn every 5 minutes, and if you kill them, the other team loses 100 Stock. That gives you the incentive to not only protect your own crystal, but organize strategic attacks against your enemy. :D (It's also got a 1-damage only script, so that things like edp sinxs won't 3 shot the damn thing. Everyone has a chance. Skills also work on them, unlike Emperiums during WoE.) I've also implemented the new castles, which are huge new castles, complete with many different points to stop enemies. It's completely redone. There are a few points on the map that have walls that are triggered by a smaller emperium in a different point on the map, which when destroyed, release the walls and allow access. The guild can fall back from defending the broken point, and continue defending from a different point. This brings more strategy to WoE than crowding around one point on the map and massing characters there.
I've got a huge range of custom equips, which are also huntable in-game, via a few somewhat challenging monsters/mvps. I'm working on getting sprites for thew viewable weapons/headgear.
All these are designed to always give players something to do, and also attempts to make it balanced for Donators and regular players alike. xD
I also will not release the sets (The really good sets, with some very nice bonuses) until a few months into the server, because Donators would have an unfair advantage over those who don't (To start off) donate. They would have to compete with those players in some cases in order to earn their own sets, which is unfair in my opinion. So, these items will be allowed to be donated for once the population is either suitable or has made a few sets via Pvp/Dungeons/Questing.
Anyways, that's the gist of it. I've got plenty of other ideas under my belt, but those are a lot of them. Lemme know what you think. (Especially when the server becomes live.)
I have my own vent server as well, for those of you who want to use that.