I can say a lot about AE. I played it over a year, including 1 year upgraded. Actually, it had much potential. But there are countless problems. In the end it's a endless disappointment like the most other online games.
Apart from arbitrarily support, cheating and scripting, the game itself is affected by massive micro-management. If you want to play active and successful, you have hundreds of appointments ingame where some little thing has to be clicked. It's a bad handling and a waste of time, cause it wasn't completely dev'ed.
As a result, you need a mass of time and often the whole day is determined by it. You don't play AE when you have time. You have to direct all your daily scheduling to AE. It's important to remember, that it takes much time to learn this complexly game anyway, and it takes time to socialize ingame too.
Furthermore, there is a problematic relationship between free acc's and upgrade acc's, as well as inactive accounts and NPC's. Personally, I find the community degenerated, the few active players in 2019 consider it like a private playground.
All these problems aren't resolved by joining a guild.(!)
This is unacceptable today. At least, AE doesn't deserve to be called "MMO". Why the dev's do nothing is speculation.
Only a place for gaming addicts and loosers without real life. Ultimately - keep your life and time and never try it.