Either bug or incorrect information...or I'm just an idiot.

So is the L3 level up still supposed to happen, or was that a Thing that got removed? Cause the information on creating a character says it's supposed to occur, but neither PC I made (the second was to check I hadn't missed something vital during the OOC rooms somehow) got the boost to level 3. Did I somehow miss a step, or ....?

If you're not progressing to 3, that must be a new issue, or an isolated issue. It seemed to be working last week. I'll play test this soon when I get home.

As an idea, could throw a 'Give 3000 XP' on-use to the door that leaves the first OOC room, or in the conversation with the merchant in the second area, who you HAVE to speak with to get to the IC zones.

It was doing something like that, yes.

Recommend the 'Give XP' section of the script fires before the transition is triggered; putting it after the transition change trigger (if on the door itself) would indeed break it. But you can't put it during the conversation without a check against their current XP, otherwise they could click the door for multiple heapings of XP.