, im a brand new to this server and i chose to try the server out since i got a severe case of old l2 nostalgia. yeah that is a feature in the game that kinda sucks but that very feature is what makes leaving town exciting. you need to be ready to get rekt at any point of time. to be thats why l2 was fun, besides the horrid grind among other things. i would suggest getting those recipes from low lvl monsters that drop, which are useless, and keeping them in your inventory. it should lower the chance of your weapon/gear/useful items dropping
