The game does take some inspiration from some of the greatest mid-2000s MMORPGs! Glad that you had a responsive experience, the current server is hosted in France so in AU there is likely large latency but many parts of the game were designed to function under high latency. Though some areas need some work to feel even smoother.
Very glad you had a good experience! We'll be expanding the world further in Alpha 2's release so hopefully it'll become something awesome in 2025.