=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= The beginners guide to Kingdoms =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Getting started --------------- Now, back to the 'score' fact box again, you can see that you have a small amount of experience points (exp) to begin with. These are mainly to learn how to raise your stats and skills with. As a newbie it can be important to raise your strength (str), since that will help you to be able to carry more, and constitution (con) and size (siz), since that will give you hitpoints. To raise a stat, type 'advance ', ie. for example 'advance str' or 'advance int'. The only exception is discipline, which is raised through 'advance dic'. The most important skills to raise are perhaps perception and combat, since combat is the ability in armed combat - which is what you will be engaging in a lot during the course of the game, and perception is to spot things along the way when you are out exploring, ie. your attentiveness. If you start to engage in combat somewhere down the line, it is also good to raise the skill in that particluar weapontype. The most common is longblade, which is almost every longer sword you come by. To raise skills simply type 'raise '. As you will notice if you try to walk out of the adventurers guild before you have used up these first experience points, there is an easy way to get past this. The command 'standard' will simply raise your combat and longblade skills a bit, and then advance your strength and constitution as far as your exp can take. Gaining and spending experience ------------------------------- As you have probably figured out by now, experience points is the common currency of this game. When you kill monsters or solve quests you get experience, which you then use to raise your skills and advance your stats in your guild hall. Now, this mud is more deadly than many other muds, especially if you are a newbie, so a suggestion is to wait with the fighting until you are over level 4, ie. not a newbie anymore. Be aware though! When you have passed level 4 player-killing might become an issue (See 'help playerkilling' and 'help murderers'). The other ways to get experience that you can do while still a newbie is to explore and to solve some easy low-level quests. Explore is almost a seperate currency, since you need a certain amount of explore to advance to a certain level, but as you will see, explore also gives experience. To find out how much explore you have in the various areas, type 'myscore' when you are standing in your guild hall. See 'help explore' for more info on how to get explore and 'help myscore' to learn more about checking your explore. When you first enter the game you will start in the adventurers guild in Hazeldown on Newbie Island. Newbie Island is a separate area for newbies to try things out in and you will be safe walking around there as there are no aggressive monsters there, and most living things you encounter will be small enough to fight without too much danger for newcomers. Even if higher level players can go there, they usually leave it in peace. Players who have graduated from Newbie Island usually base their adventuring in Larstown. You can travel between Hazeldown and Larstown quickly and easily by entering the portal in the Hazeldown adventurers guild, and standing on the rune in the Larstown guild. Be aware that life can be a bit more dangerous in that part of the world! For information on other good areas to start your exploring in try 'help newbie_areas'. Another good way to get experience is to solve some easy quests. Quests are basically puzzles or tasks that you need to solve using either your brains or your muscles. For a list of all the quests, just type 'quests' in the adventurers guild. These quests can be a little harder to give hints on since they are so individually different, but 'hint ' as stated when you check the quests will give you some clues as to where the quest takes place and what you need to do. Still, it can be very tricky, and the best way is then to ask a higher level player for some hints. Another player is not allowed to do most of the quest for you, but he can give you hints and advice and help you out with parts of it, and this will also get your character some friends out in the mud. Teaming ------- Friends are great in more than one way, and a good way to play this game together with your friends is teaming. To make a team, simply type 'team ', and to add your friends into your team type 'join '. The teams' name can be anything between heaven and earth, but the friends you wish to join needs to be standing in the same room as you for you to be able to join them. Teaming has many benefits, both that you can travel around with your fellow newbies to help each other out, but also that you will share any exp you might get from killing monsters together. Teaming with a higher level player could therefore give you some exp when he kills larger monsters. Exp you get from questing is not shared in teams. For more information on teams and teaming read 'help teaming'. Advancing levels ---------------- The amount of exp each player in the team gets when a teammember kills something is dependant on the player's level. Your level is nothing more than a small sign on how experienced and powerful your character is, and on how successful you are at playing the game. Other than the exp distribution in teams, advancing level has no big advantage gamewise. Your stats or skills do not go up just because you advance level, however your max in both stats and skills does. Gaining more and more experience and spending it in your guild you will soon find that you cannot advance more than a certain number of stats, and that you cannot raise beyond a certain point in every skill. To be able to advance the stats and skills beyond previous reach you will then have to advance your level. To advance your level, you need different proofs of your valor: 1) You need to have more than a certain amount of exp, see 'help explevels' to see how much depending on which level you are advancing to. 2) You need to have explored the world to a certain extent, ie. have a certain amount of exploration points, see 'help expl' to see the demands for each level. To see how much total explore you have, type 'explored' in your guild, and to see how much you have in each area type 'myscore'. 3) You need to have done a certain amount of quests, which normally is around as many quests as the level you are advancing to. Advancing level does not "cost" exp like raising stats and skills does, but instead the so-called exp base (the amount of exp you can't use up) will rise. This is pretty much the same as "costing" exp since you still can't use it, but it's a way of being able to compare the experience of two players. By simply typing 'finger ' you can get a fact box containing some information about a player, the same type of information you stated at login, and a special feature of this lets you compare your experience with your friends' this way. The finger command is often very useful if you want to continue the contact with your mud partners outside the mud, since one of the details is the players email. If you missed putting in your email at login, see 'help email' on how to add it. Although advancing a level might make you higher than your friends in the 'who'-list, and make you seem more aquainted to the mud, it is VERY much advised that you max out on your stats and important skills first. Since advancing level past level 4 not only takes you out of being newbie, but it also introduces you to the playerkiller system. Before level 5 no other player can attack you, but above that the mud can be a hazardous place, and you are almost destined to end up having to fight for your life on one point or another in your life. See 'help playerkilling' to learn the rules of this. Please continue reading 'help newbie_hints' for a continuation of the introductory helpguide.