jcsnider

No we are not because directional blocking would then require a more advanced and likely more intensive pathfinding system which would likely result in a significant performance hit.

Spawn points are set on a per-class basis and can be set for each class in the class editor

In game purchases, memberships and everything of the sort will be possible with source modifications but that is not something we will ever include in the base engine.

I've personally never used XtremeWorlds. Correct me if I'm wrong but it was always closed source? Complete turn off for me. In order to give you a Yay or Nay on any specific feature or system you will have to describe it to me.
Quests will become available sometime during beta. Currently the roadmap is looking something like
1. Finish installing New UI
2. Finish Combat
3. Polish Administration Features
4. Debug
--- Enter Beta ----
5. Add trading
6. Add Quests
7. Debug
--- Enter Release---

You won't see that by default but I wouldn't be surprised to see a tutorial pop up within a few weeks of release and the source being opened up.

If you didn't change the class spawn point then you spawned on map 0 and coordinate 0,0 which is the top left also known at the area under the hp/mp/exp bars. 
 
Used WASD to walk down and to the right some. Or try moving the box with your vitals to reveal your character. 

What yeroC said. 
Follow the guide he found here to create a basic water autotile.

 
Once your autotile is made and working you can make small changes to it for separate frames. Intersect supports 3 frames so just set 3 versions of your autotile side by side, use the animated autotile option and start drawing. You should get a really nice effect.

9 are loaded when you login or warp to a new area.
As you move 3 are loaded at a time when needed based on the direction you are moving. We request and load them before they are technically needed so if it takes time to grab and render them you don't witness any visual defects. 

WASD to move. (Arrow keys will also work in Alpha 1.4+)
E or Left Click is used to interact, pick up items and attack.
Right Click will be used for blocking.
Number keys 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0 are used for the hotbar.
 
I think that's it. Combat is not fully functional yet. We will be debugging and bringing everything online in the next few updates.

Not yet. Adding all kinds of useful server commands will be a top priority soon!

In the editor, just double click on a map border, it will ask you if you would like to create a connecting map and link it to your existing world for you! (See below)
 
http://www.ascensiongamedev.com/resources/filehost/6b6f4f6862692fc345d5e65f12a21e18.mp4  
Then if you open the Map Grid you can see your world as it grows.
http://www.ascensiongamedev.com/resources/filehost/bae4ad942a983b93f232c663cf4276dc.mp4  
Once you get in game, you can't even tell where the map boundaries are!
http://www.ascensiongamedev.com/resources/filehost/beca114e1dad05e041b03d99e014552d.mp4  

All updates should immediately be pushed to the client. (maps, npcs, items, resources, etc)
This is something I am putting off for a little longer but its about time to tackle. Existing bug report can be found here.

As of Alpha 1.0 (we are currently on 1.1) all future releases will have converters to the next. You can start game design now knowing you will not lose content as we approach beta and rc.

I know we resolved this earlier but I would like to update this topic with the solution. The Intersect client stores saved credentials (encrypted) along with options for Music/Sound volume, fps, fullscreen and more in the registry.
Using regedit you can find these settings under HKEY_CURRENT_USER/SOFTWARE/IntersectEngine/SERVER_ADDRESS:SERVER_PORT
You can delete the folder containing Intersect settings to revert everything to defaults.

Trademarking the phrase "Soon" - Soon™. Not the code
Twas/is a joke.

In Intersect I used a list box with some word wrapping tricks to know when to switch lines. -- That's an option.

Click here!

Use the tab page as a tab strip my friend
Just move all of the children out of the current tab page, and then use the arrow keys while they are all selected to move them on top so they are there but not a child of each page.
Then hook into the tab page change code and update all of the content that isn't really in the tab pages.
Cloning = Bad - Primarily since I have never done it, couldn't help you with it, and because it would probably be a bitch to setup all of the event handlers after a clone.

Replace vector with System.Drawing.Point

Fixed it.

Wrong parameters in your DrawMapTile functions.
                    If .Autotile(i) > 0 Then                         ' Draw autotiles                         DrawAutoTile(i, ConvertMapX(X * PIC_X), ConvertMapY(Y * PIC_Y), 1, X, Y, 0, False)                         DrawAutoTile(i, ConvertMapX(X * PIC_X) + 16, ConvertMapY(Y * PIC_Y), 2, X, Y, 0, False)                         DrawAutoTile(i, ConvertMapX(X * PIC_X), ConvertMapY(Y * PIC_Y) + 16, 3, X, Y, 0, False)                         DrawAutoTile(i, ConvertMapX(X * PIC_X) + 16, ConvertMapY(Y * PIC_Y) + 16, 4, X, Y, 0, False)                     End If  
Use that instead, you also need to put something like that in the DrawMapFringeTile functions.

I don't want to leave this unanswered, although the question is irrelevant when put into context.
The way in which I would do this, is with File.ReadAllBytes() and a MemoryStream.
        Dim fileData As Byte()         'File.ReadAllBytes will get the byte aray of the file contents in memory without keeping a lock on the file         fileData = File.ReadAllBytes(Application.StartupPath & GFX_PATH & "tilesets\" & i & GFX_EXT)         'You then laod the texture from that byte array and the bitmap from a memory stream via that same byte array         TileSetTexture(i) = New Texture(fileData)         TileSetImgsGFX(i) = New Bitmap(New MemoryStream(fileData))  
You can then delete or modify your file while still using its contents in memory.

Alright so really you would start out by taking a tilesheet and splitting it into equal squares (probabaly 32x32 pixel components). This can be done with .Net or even my multi-purpose graphic splitter. Then you would save the files based off of their index in each sheet.

In this example, you would save the top left tile as 0. The tile to the right 1, the tile to the right of that would be 2, and so on.
Then in your engine you would have to come up with a logical way to group these tiles or else it would just be a cluster of random tiles in your map editor.
I don't see a ton of performance benefit from doing this. If you don't like the duplicate tiles I would recommend fixing your graphics instead of trying to repair them in code.