Hello, I used to play this many, many years ago. I saw the name of the site and thought I'd pop in. I don't remember how anything works here, but I am in the mood for figuring things out again.
Any tips on getting started again?

A user with a lower ID than me! Hello! :D

Oh wow there's so much new since the last time you played. I don't even know where to begin.

We're actually right in the last bit of Winter Fest right now so that might be a good starting spot. I recommend doing a bit of fighting in the fest zone to refresh yourself on the battling system. Maybe beat a few bosses there and get some new avatar items while you're at it.

The level cap is 75 now and there's a new area called The Lost Grove that is pretty difficult but a great moneymaker for when there's not a fest going on. At some point Krin decided to make the learning curve a straight vertical line. If you've finished the current storyline in Ethernia you're able to enter the Lost Grove by talking to the Princess again.

There's been more than a few pet art revamps so most of the pets probably look a bit different than you remember.

There's been several other site revamps as well. Like the Wardrobe and Nurturing. You may not notice since it's been a while but trust me... they're much better than before.

I'm messing around in the Winter zone right now. Figured out that giving my pets some stat points actually helps quite a bit lol. I'm trying to figure out the base stat/max stat thing for better battle pets. Are the bosses the people-looking things that have a ton of health? I've fought a few of them. I don't quite understand the ice sculpture thing, but I have one growing, I think.

I haven't looked into the Lost Groove yet, but I will check it out.

Yes, those are the bosses. They respawn every 5-6 hours.

The ice sculptures are like.... growing your own pet. You can choose how many traits they will have (up to 3) and which slots they'll be in. You can also boost their stats with the right items. They'll grow on their own over time but you can also speed up the process by giving them agents every so often when they're needed.

So a pet's base stats are its stats at lvl 0. You can always see a pet's base stats in the parentheses beside their total stats. So for example, this pet has a base strength stat of 100. That pet is also an example of what we call a 'max stat pet'. A max stat is a pet that has reached the highest base stat possible in all all area. 100 in st/int/agi/dex, 200 in mana, and 2000 in health.

There's also something called 'wild stats' that are a special feature of pets caught in the Lost Grove. LG caught pets will have a wild stat that is sort of an add-on to the base stats. That's what the second number in the parentheses by the base stat number is. For example, this pet has a base strength stat of 12 and a wild strength stat of 47. It is possible to breed wild stats into max stat pets too. We call max stat pets that have wild stats 'Super Stat Pets'.

Is it better to buy a semi-statted pet to breed or should I just start pumping items into my basic pets and start breeding from scratch?

And Lost Groove seems scary. The first battle almost took out my main defense pet. Where is the best place to get better gear?

You can buy gear on the broker. You'll probably want to search for Vinethorn gear. Vinethorn is gear dropped from bosses in the Lost Grove. It's going to be the best lvl 60 stuff you can get. Once you unlock the Blacksmith in the LG you can upgrade it as well. If Vinethorn is too expensive for you right now you can use the Exotic items and upgrade to Vinethorn later.

For the record, Stoneweave armor is better than Vinethorn and Primordial is better than Stoneweave. But those 2 are both very expensive.

Yea, the LG is very demanding. There's a new feature in the LG called Move Ranks. Basically your attacks have their own exp and levels and get stronger. It takes a fair amount of battling to level up your ranks but they're well worth it.

Stat pet projects can be very time consuming since you can only increase stats using items on hatching pets. You can save a lot of time by buying pets with higher stats and breeding them.

Thank you so much for the advice. I bought some armor and beefed up my team. Hopefully, fights will go quite a bit faster now. I'll start working on building up more money so I can buy a nice starter pair for breeding. Any good gold making tips?

There's a few ways to make money. Selling fest items is a good way when there's a fest going on. Fighting in the Lost Grove will get you armor that you can sell back to the site for gold. Some people like to nurture, buy philters with the scales, and sell those. I'm not a nurturing fan, though. You can also do missions in the first 2 towns for afk gold.

As for selling fest items, I have some old avatar/fest items. Like Sylstia's 1st Anniversary Party Hat and other random old things. How do I get a good price idea on them? Would I just post on the forums with a list of the items and take offers or is there a good way to make sure I don't get ripped off?

Making a pricing thread can certainly help you get a decent idea of worth. Honestly, though, if it's an Avatar Item pricing thread then it'll probably be me answering. I can give you a rough idea on what to expect for avatar items if you like. Old items are often hard to price because they're not often on the broker but I can tell you what to expect.

As for the Anniversary Hat... it would go for quite a lot. I personally wouldn't let that go for anything under 2mil.

What old fest items do you have? Nowadays fest items simply disappear after the fest is done (when Krin remembers to run the script) and unless it's a very special item it's probably not worth much.