I have played heavily and regularly on a few servers. ALFA, neversummer, nordock, anphilia, stormplay, kingdom of cormyr. I have been a dev for 2 servers, and a dm for 2, and have half of a software design degree knocked out. I bought the basic D&D boxed set when it was new on the shelves, and started dm'ing the next week. Not tooting my horn, just pointing out that I do have a wee bit of experience with D&D.
But I'm still a noob when it comes to this server, because every server is different. It's a pleasure to play on a good server that you didn't create or help write the scripts for, because you don't walk in knowing where everything is.
Another great thing about being a noob is that you have a fresh perspective on the world, and see things that aren't noticed after playing for a few weeks. Hate me or love me, I'd like to share what i've noticed so far.
Layonara is a fresh breath of air for roleplaying in NWN, with the most people acting in-character I have seen anywhere. When I first logged in I was shocked that
everyone is in-character. Sure, people slip up, but for the most part all talk is roleplayed. There is a fair amount of running which discourages roleplaying, but sometimes you want to get X done in Y amount of time, or have been chatting for an hour and just want to go kill something.
There is a system in place of active DMs.
Count your blessings, for they are many. For nearly all servers, there is a cycle. The mod is created, the scripters get tired/burnt out/unappreciated/want to see things done differently while the DMs slowly become less active. A falling out happens, and half the team leaves. The remainder that are left are fearful of their mod and restrict access to it, and the scripters that are left (if any) tend to start writing sloppy code or are unable to fix script bugs that pop up. Nordock went that way, kingdom of cormyr did, stormplay, a few others - so it may not be the golden rule, but it happens a lot.
Not here. Here there is a large system of DMs that cover all times of the day/night, and further broken down into quest, character approval, cdq, etc, in a superb system that
works. On top of that the big cheese is an active participant, the DMs work well together and create original and fun material.
Power-leveling, kill stealing, loot hogging, monster dragging. It'll happen everywhere, there is no avoiding it. DMs may see nearly every message you send and can jump from map to map in the blink of an eye, but they can't be everywhere. Nor should they have to be. I have seen powerleveling here a few times, but not like the cancer it is at other places. Loot hogging (one person gets all the loot, over and over..) does happen, but that's not a concern - that's up to the players to talk about in-game or to simply group with others. Kill stealing I have see happen frequently though. Someone of higher level will run up and slaughter the mob you are attacking, maybe loot them, and then run off. Or if you have fought your way through a cave they will run right past, kill the leader/boss, and run off. Does this mean it's common here? Not necessarily, I may just be getting bad luck and seeing it often. I have lost many oxen/died many times due to a high level running up though. . They may try to heal me after the fight (most can't), but if I usually spawn two and they spawn a dozen there isn't anything left of me to heal. This is pretty annoying. I've given up on crafting until I can defend an ox against the large spawns that they spawn.
A personalized diety system. This is uncommon, and if they are doing that it is only the first step in a custom system, great things will come in the future from this.
Custom feats, an expanded cnr recipe database, racial languages - those are all great things, and required though to put into the module. Custom feats that do not disrupt the balance are a great addition. The system of racial languages here is the best by FAR that I have seen anywhere, kudos to the scripter for that! CNR recipes... few players understand what those require. They're simple to add to - more skills, crafting tables, raw materials, etc. But adding the recipes themselves is mind-numbing work that requires a lot of time. I made a system myself that went up to roughly 6000 recipes, and afterwords refused to even look at my computer for a week.
Maps, player handbook. I've only seen one other place with a player handbook of any type, or with decent quality maps. ALFA. But remember that someone has to take the time to decide a structure for the book, think up the material, do another draft of it, add pictures or have them made, correct misspellings, and put out the final project. Having ANY type of a handbook is a great thing.
Players. Sure the servers crash sometimes, and more frequently than on some other servers. NWN is not bandwidth intensive, but the more players there are, the more lag normally. We are limited sometimes by the hard code that Bioware put into the engine, and there are a LOT of scripts in there! But look at how many players are on the server, no matter what the time is. 20? 30? 40? Look at the other huge roleplay mod out there, and you'll see perhaps 20 playes on spread out over 20 servers. And they do not have rideable horses, scabbards, or a lot of custom scripts/systems that have been added here. Their hakpaks are larger and I don't remember them even having custom music.
Leveling. There is a system in place here which requires you to do a DM run quest to advance past level 20, and you can
request a character development quest at any time! Praise your DMs, for their continued involvement and for having such a love for the game that they are willing to do this, for nowhere else do either of these happen that I know of.
Noobs. I have not seen 'noob' said once here. Zero times. Neither as an insult or as a kindly term meaning 'new to the module'. Wow.
Website. Sometimes the website gets neglected, as everyone is working on the module itself. Here it is actively monitored with posts answered quickly, and this forum system is better than PHP2 even! A larger variety of emoticons would be useful though.
Custom/nerfed spells. I haven't run a spellcaster except for a very minor druid, I do not know if there are additional spells added (I added about 150 balanced spells easily, they are out there are simple to put in) and usually it's Harm/Time Stop/etc that are nerfed - haven't gotten there yet.
Maps. There are a lot of maps here so I have heard, but low levels don't explore outside of the starting areas generally - that nasty death thing pops up when they do.
From exploring Mistone I have seen a lot of villages, but not the amount of supporting wilderness maps I would expect. That seems strange, since a village requires a LOT LOT LOT more work than a wilderness map, and if the seamless area transition system is not being used, maps can be added very easily. Then again, maybe the other continents are heavy on wilderness maps.
Merchants. This is the only area that puzzles me. NPC vendors that can be hired have been perfected, and cause less lag than a crafting table with a moderate amount of recipes tied to it. I find the lack of items to purchase frustrating, and that it requires me to go ooc to arrange any type of a sale/purchase.
I could go on, but the 'need' to write it up has ebbed, plus i've heard over a dozen people saying hello to my pc while I typed it up.
Thank your DMs daily for their hard work.
Thank your scripters even more.
Appreciate what a jewel Layonara is.
Leaf
Impressions from a noob 
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