Anyhow, I am not taking back anything I have said previously...
But I did start from more or less zero in the Underdark... Level one, and I passed over a +3 Tower Shield, +1 EB Weapon with +1 Magic Damage, and a mundane iron Full Plate. That character of mine is now at level 14, and this character of mine now has three +4 AC Items, Mithral Full Plate, and the rest of his equipment is either at +3 or slightly better. In all due honesty, this character of mine would have probably had more of those +4 items under the old loot system, the one that was in use a few years back.
Anyhow, based on my recent experience in the Underdark, I would not actually advice anyone to play down there unless they make use of a build that can actually solo the content from level one to early, mid, or late epics -- or -- see the effort to actually form up parties by asking around in either Discord, IRC, or here on the forums. Of course, the active hours of the server do change day to day, but generally speaking you can mostly expect to play alone as the Underdark players generally tend to hide their locations, and usernames, and level ranges. Which means that you do not have the convenience of just going wherever the players are at the moment, like you could do on a whim on the surface. Thus, from the face of it, there is not going to be all that much player to player interaction, your character is going to be more or less alone, while the surface remains populated. If you do run up to other players, it is going to be a bit of a mixed bag of all kinds of possible weird outcomes. You will encounter 'Drow' that some could in all due honesty describe as 'Moon Elves' in both appearance and behaviour -- and I can fully well understand why some would not exactly say nice things about them from a strict lore perspective, and a part of me would point towards early first and second edition D&D and their encounters with 'Dark Elves' and state how there is actually a lore based niche for that kind of characters. You could also encounter characters that role-play the whole 'suspicious malice' aspect of 'Drow' role-play -- and even if your characters do not come to blows straight away, do you really have any in character reason to party up with the other character? This kind of encounters tend to be of the kind where you are simply balancing on the tip of the knife, where every word has to be considered ten times over, and usually the best outcome is to just walk in different directions. Some people will use their weird made up words of their own creation, and while some can argue how it adds flavour; well, too much salt in my soup is still too much salt, and no argument of the waiter will change that fact. Then at times some of the surface characters get lost in the Underdark, and it can be either a hit or miss. Finally, you got the few high level Underdark characters, with their full stealth investment and nothing to do in all due honesty. Historically speaking, any interaction with a lower level character usually quickly slides into the realm of
griefing. Thus to avoid accusations griefing, you will just have a high level sneak or two follow you around while taking notes of whatever you do, and I imagine that it is simply because they have nothing better to do. Thus they will trigger more spawns as they move about, and higher level mobs if they are 'first' player in an area, thus once again; it is good to have a character build that can solo the content from level one to the epics. At some point you will just get sick of it, so you too will toggle yourself hidden in the Scrying Tool, and voila, it further gives the impression that no one is actually playing in the Underdark. All of this above sums up to and manifests the desires of the Underdark characters to leave the Underdark behind, because grinding the areas all alone will eventually get rather boring.
Oh, and with the epic sneaks sneaking about, you cannot even taunt back at the 'intelligent' NPC mobs, lest an 'unseen' sneak player sheds crocodile tears to the Dungeon Masters about the mean words said to the emotionless and mindless NPCs mobs.
Will someone please think of the mere lines of code, indeed.
Anyhow, when you play in the Underdark, you will eventually just want to leave it behind. This will not change with brighter areas, because the primary cause and effect is the lack of players to interact. Which brings me back to the topic of Spell Resistance. Rest in an exterior map, lose Spell Resistance until you rest again in an interior map. It will act as a mechanical incentive for the 'Drow' on the surface to act like 'Drow on the surface' if they wish to retain their Spell Resistance, or lose it, which in turn lessens the mechanical advantage the 'Drow' would have on the surface.
Oh, and speaking of the skin color of the Drow... Please, behold, the many faces of Drizzt Do'Urden:
And what about Viconia from BG1 and BG2?
Or who remembers the cover art for one of the NWN1 expansions that had two completely different skin colours for female and male drow?
And there are the IWD1 and IWD 2 portraits:
If you are offended by what I said have said above, I have recieved my last warning, I have discussed Intuitive Attack, so report - for I do not mind. Getting me banned is nothing special, it happens every week. But you could also choose not to be offended, this place needs more banter, your choice.
Sunmaster Barristan Schulltze 
