Newbie advice

[Zyphyra]

Greetings all,
I have just a couple of questions, and hoping no one minds.

First, can someone by chance give me some advice to avoid any newbie pitfalls?
I am a bit worried when reading stuff that tells me not to team with this one, or that one or else expect to die and I have no idea how to tell who said folks are.
Is it pretty easy to tell what people are in what guilds?
Also, then, can I assume the same goes with talking to folks?
Can people get killed for talking to certain people?

I don't mind RP, but I rather like to get my feet wet first before having to think about who I should and shouldn't be talking too etc.
I've not seen anyone around, so, I've been just exploring, and doing some basic city quests.

As far as guilds, I've not actually seen any guilds.
Can someone give me a brief rundown on how guilds goes?
I am a long time player from an old mud called Unwritten Legends, so, I am used to forced RP.
I don't mind it, I just would like to know what I'm getting into and what I can expect.

I've done alot of reading through the forums, and there is alot of great information here.
I appreciate all those who have come before me and has asked a lot of questions I would be asking lol and the responses from the older players.

Anyways, I think that is it for now.
Hoping everyone is staying healthy.

Z

[Arsicas]

Welcome! Well, darkelves do have a lot of rp stigma behind them because they sold their souls to one of the dark gods. They have horrible reputation in most cities and are outlawed permanently from Elvandar. I think most people would be suspicious of them, so even as a newbie, I’d probably be wary of them.

Most guilds have guild armour that you can pretty easily recognize once you get to know who is in what guild. The clerics of Sathonys and the Order are the main “evil” guilds. The clerics of Taniel and the Crusaders are the main “good” guilds. And the rest kind of fall somewhere in between.

I think you probably wouldn’t get killed for simply talking with the wrong person, although spending too much time around someone with poor reputation will lower yours. It’s more teaming with them that can make people think you’re allied. And also, teaming with or assisting outlaws can get people in trouble. You can check the list of people outlawed in the judge’s office, although I know it doesn’t help if you haven’t met the person and don’t know what they look like. You can generally assume anyone who is a cleric of Sathonys or member of the Order or darkelf is outlawed from Elvandar. Arborea has a smaller list of outlaws.

Another thing that can hurt your karma/reputation is skinning, dissecting, or butchering humanoids or eating their meat, even “evil” NPCs like nibblers, goblins, etc. Scalping is fine, and you can turn in scalps at the palace in Elvandar or town hall in Arborea for a reward.

As far as guilds, occupational guilds are the “main” guilds that have a significant political/ideological stance, and you probably want to learn more about all of them before you decide on joining one. Joining a guild can let you learn certain guild-locked skills, it lets you join a group of people working toward a common goal and holding the same ideological stance, and can help solidify your rp and where your character stands in the world. It also can bring your character into conflict with opposing guilds though, although an established character targeting newbies is against fairplay. But you can expect that, as your character grows, they may get into conflict if they are part of a guild that is in conflict with others. The current occupational guilds are the clerics of Taniel, Sathonys, and Asral, Crusaders, Rangers, Shaolin, Druids, Mages, and Order. There are also the Rogues, but I don’t think they have any leadership currently.

There are also layman guilds, which are the scribes, skalds, and alchemists. These are more “side” guilds I guess I would say. Scribes are experts on language and write books, and masterscribes can learn magic scrollwriting. Alchemists brew potions, and master alchemists can learn how to make magic wands. And skalds are musicians and can learn magic songs. So they’re mostly a rp option with some unique magic abilities that can be rather useful. Someone can join either two layman guilds or one occupational guild and one layman guild.

In addition, there are craft guilds, where one can learn how to make parchments, leather, books, cut gems, or use traps. You can be a full member of a single craft guild, whereas you can join however many guilds you want as a guest member by paying an annual fee of 5 gold per guild to join. Craft guilds are mostly ways to make money or create components to either trade with or use yourself.

Feel free to ask any more questions if you have them. You can also use the newbie line in game (‘newbie <text>’), and if there are any newbie helpers online they can help provide answers in real time. Hope you have fun playing!

[ceinna]

Arsicas did a great job at explaining!

Expect for your RP to be more "forced" if you get into one of the occupational guilds. They typically have a set of rules you will need to follow once joined.

As far as staying away from certain people - at this point hanging out with a Crusader/Taniel might get you in trouble with an evil, and hanging out with an evil might get you in trouble with the goodies. But PK/PvP/any sort of too over the top harshness should be avoided and anything done in regards to that trouble should be able to be solved by RP from the other side. Killing/targeting newbies in PvP is strongly frowned upon and the admin/wizards do not allow it.

A good place to start finding some RP is to possibly join a secondary guild - the scribes (reading/writing/research oriented), the skalds (bard/music oriented), or the alchemists (brewing potions/research oriented). Each of them will at the minimum connect you with an older player to help within that guild which is a great way to make some connections with people. Just be careful, sometimes these connections can have interesting results.

You can ALWAYS feel free to pull someone to "ooc" and ask them straight out player to player what the ramifications of spending time with them might be. All of the older players here want to bring new players in and I know many of us will be honest ooc even if our characters definitely would be manipulative and try to mess with you IC. I am of the opinion that if a relationship is going to make life difficult for a new or lowbie character, I owe it to them to be honest from that ooc perspective so they aren't caught off guard.

[Zyphyra]

Thanks all for answering my questions.