[Beginner] Seeking Guidance

Hello, I've been considering playing Seal Online and I was wondering what those of you who already play have to say about the game. I'm still looking into a few of the game aspects but I think I'd enjoy the game. How is the community? Is it active, would you recommend me joining it and why?

If I do decide to play I have my eyes set on casual play and eventually becoming an Archer. Is there anyone who would potentially be willing to guide or inform me, as a beginner, on a few things?

I really do hope to hear from some of you and thank you for reading/responding. :)

P.S.: Sorry if the post seems a bit vague.

Hi, 2007 player here - note that my help may be outdated, so I can't offer any information on the community, but from 2009 knowledge (where I quit)

Pros:
- Quite possibly the best battle system I have played, maybe it's combined with the unique graphics, but either way it's so rewarding to grind in this game
- Very, very awesome spell animations
- Just a really relaxing game overall
- In my day there was an amazing community, I rarely ever saw hackers, very helpful players, although I would estimate about 30-40% of them were foreigners (mostly Indonesians)
- After levelling up a bit (I would say to roughly 50, it's not hard) it gets very addictive

Cons:
- Huge walking distances
- Grinding, lots of it
- Quests are irrelevant, usually better to just grind
- In my day the playerbase was low-medium, then YNK made the fatal mistake of deleting everyone's characters so I would imagine it's extremely low now, but this is just a guess
- Large imbalance, some characters were ridiculously weak (knife jesters, AoE warriors) some were ridiculously strong (Assassins) and some could not be played from the start without gigantically massive funding (dart jesters)

If it still exists I recommend searching the level 10 in 10 minutes trick

Now as a question to any veteran and current players, what's the EXP rate now in comparison to the old one? And do monster drops still give 10% of their value when sold (it used to be 100% years ago)