Getting Started on EA
As a new player one of the problems you might have is figuring out what to do next. I enjoy cruising around exploring but after a while you might want to get onto the fast track and start getting things finished. So here is what I do whenever I make a new character, the idea is to get to the end of the game and be in a decent position for PvP.
This isn’t a walkthrough you can look up quests on the forums here or ask in game if you are having trouble. This is more of a rough guide of what to do and when to do them.
Note: This is just my personal preferred path, other people may do things differently. You dont HAVE to do these things or in this order!
1. Basics
2. Crests/Gideon/badge up to crest 9
3. WT/MC to lev 8
4. Stonetrile
5. Advanced Interceptor
6. Polycycle
7. Termine pilot
8. Shapeshifting Lev 4
9. Magic to level 3
10. Level 11 armour
11. Scav 1 Quest
12. Strength Ring
13. Runepoly
14. Level 12 armour
15. Scav 2 Quest
16. Runebosses
17. Gather up Keys in Cata
18. Magic Scrolls (4f tombs)
19. Magic to level 7
20. Shapeshifting, Dbot, Sarin, Grison
21. 13 Armour Quest
22. Hiding 16+ or magic level 8 with invis scroll
23. Rest of the game
24. Trading Post
1) Basics
KeySetup: I change the keys to what suits me better and bind jump, jetpack and hide to the same button. This will cause annoying hiding spam in your text box but will raise your hiding slowly as you play.
Quickbar: You will want to go into your inventory and “add to quickbar” healing potions, your armour and your jetpack. Pressing the tilde ~ key will equip everything in your quickbar. I don’t add my badge or strength ring to quickbar because your stats increase slower the higher they are, so you only want to use your stat boost items to put equipment on, then you take the stat boost items of again. (unless you are doing PVP or running through a hard area and not fighting).
Look at a map: Go on to the webpage and have a look at the world map to get a rough idea of where things are. The compass is a little messed up at the time of writing this so north may not nessisarily be north on the map you are using but just get a feel for where things are.
Rebirth: Remember to rebirth a lot, when you die, you go back to wherever you rebirthed last. To rebirth you need to be in a safe zone and you just press escape and click “rebirth” or type /rebirth into chat. Saves you LONG runs back when you die.
Levels & PKable: Melee, WeaponTech (WT), Mind Control (MC) and Shapeshifting (SS) are the skills that determine your level.
If all of them are under level 10 then you don’t lose anything when you die.
If one of them is level 10 or higher then when a monster kills you, some of your stuff will be on your corpse and you will have to run back to collect it.
If one of those skills is over level 12, then other players can kill and loot you outside safe zones.
So, ideally you want to stay under level 10 for as long as possible for questing, at the very least try and stay under level 12.
Leave the starting area.
2) Crests/Gideon/Badge
This is a quest line that starts with your race leader.
(HF) Celeste (Crest)
(HM) Darius (?)
(AP) Stryfe (Gideon)
(BL) Bo (Badge)
Each quests you do will give you an item that boosts your strength and dex. This is handy for equipping new gear. You will want to focus on doing all these quests up to your 9th Crest/Badge/Gideon.
3) WT/MC skill
As you are doing your crests/badge/Gideon you will need more weapon tech or Mind control (for frogs) skill every so often. When this happens I head to ashandra. Ashandra is a giant spider that lives in the solithic caves (these are the caves outside trendor the human city). Its easiest if you ask someone to help show you how to pull and fight ashandra because it is pretty easy if done right, otherwise you might die a LOT. Don’t go crazy with WT/MC you want it up to level 8 but you really don’t want it over level 10 at this stage.
I would buy dual guns on the trading post early on to help level, but its not required, they just look cool and help you level a little faster.
Keep one of her shells for a quest later on, you can sell any spares.
4) Stonetrile
This is just for frogs, if you are level 8 MC (I think, might be lev 7) you will want to start your stonetrile quest now.
5) Pilot Quests
Now is the time I start my pilot quests, there should be a person with something like “Lady of the air” under their name somewhere near your race leader. They will start the piloting quests. Do the first two interceptor quests then head off to BM (Black Market) to do your advanced interceptor ones. The BM ones can be tricky so rebirth and be prepared to die a fair bit.
6) Polycycle
After your interceptor license quest you are sent off to talk to someone about a vehicle. This quest only gives you a hoverbike not a Polycycle like I thought. The hoverbike is fun but the fact it needs fuel to use is a bit of a let down. With that in mind you can probably skip it for now and come back and do it when you feel like a change, It might be improved in the future.
This is when I would buy a rune poly on the trading post, if that isnt an option for you, you can survive okay without it.
Poly does 100ish damage a hit (normal poly does 200ish), it doesnt count towards your character level, has about 1500 health and you can use one as soon as you finish piloting quests. Rune Poly can fly and barely gets hurt at all by most of the nasty stuff you have to fight, and rune poly hurts things that most weapons cant hurt so its REALLY worth thinking about getting one. Normal poly is nice because of its damage but all round rune poly is my favorite (yes even more than death poly).
7) Termine Pilot License
Next quest I do is head to a blobic up on a hill near the blob bridge under a tree to start my termine pilot license. You don’t really need to do ALL of the quest just enough so that you get your piloting to level 3 so you can use your new polycycle. You can skip this if you dont have a Poly.
Note: You dont actually need a hoverbike to do this quest.
8) Shapeshifting
Now is usually the time I get my shapeshifting to level 4, and do enough of the quest to get the ean orb. There is a frog(sial) on Sial island who starts the quest. Ean orb is level 4 and lets you travel fast. Attacking stuff when shapeshifted raises your skill. Shapeshifting turns you into a monster with its strengths and weaknesses.
9) Magic (lev3)
Talk to the frog in the magic shop in 4 falls, then sit around for about an hour casting acid missile until you are level 3 magic. (You need level 3 for some quests coming up)
10) Level 11 armour
This is your first set of Non-drop armour, so when you die the armour stays with you. (Hopefully you are still under level 10 at this stage, so you wont lose anything anyway) I also don’t bother with any of the level 7,8,9,10 armours I just use the store bought lev 6 armour until I complete this quest. It starts in AMC (Arilou Mining Cave).
*Keep all the excess junk left over from this quest. (And all quests for that matter).
11) Scav 1 Weapon
Scavenger 1 quest is a quest that starts on MR (MoonRift) and the guy will ask you to collect assorted random junk. Most of the junk he needs you should already have.
For Scav 1 you will need Nailas comb which is a magic quest, you need lev 3 magic to start it. You can do it twice once to complete the quest and get a magic scroll and once to run off with her comb without completing her quest. (I usually just steal her comb)
• Something Rusted (11 armour quest)
• Report on smuggling in the Black Market (11 armour quest)
• Comb for a fair lady's hair (Nailas comb)
• Digdig root (beg people for one of these or buy one)
• Gi Bat head (11 armour quest)
• Shell of the lesser spider lord (ashandras shell)
If you really want you could do all the extraction quests so you can harvest your own digdig root, but it’s a lot of effort for just 1 plant.
I forgot to mention that Scav 1 gives you a level 10 weapon that you cant lose when you die.
12) Strength Ring
Hidden around the world are 9 Dominion eggs, you need to collect one of each then talk to a guy in the bar in trendor and he will give you a +20 strength ring. This is very useful for equipping the higher level items you are now getting. Remember to take it off when levelling though.
There is also a +20 Dex ring but you cant wear it at the same time as the Strength ring, so I never use it. All your armour needs more Strength than Dex so the Strength ring is more use (not to mention it gives you more health for pvp).
13) RunePoly
About now you will need some type of damage that isn’t “normal” so you can actually hurt any of the blob or human NPC’s in quests (remember how long it took to kill forgrals gang?). If you dont have a rune polycycle you should complete your rune boss quests or buy one on the trading post.
Your rune bosses quest starts with someone near your race leader, it’s the one that talks about killing shadrix in black market. Just make sure you are able to wear your level 11 armour and your scavenger 1 weapon before tackling the rune bosses.
14) Lev 12 armour
This starts in fire town, You will definitely want to have some type of rune damage for this quest or it will be fairly tedious. You can do all your rune bosses before doing this quest but I just use a rune poly. Make sure you bank all your stuff if you are over level 10 before trying to get to firetown.
12 armour is incomplete, you have to go into catacombs and kill specific monsters for the remaining parts, but the way the game works right now I am fairly sure you can just ignore the missing parts and just aim for a full set of 14 or 15 armour instead. (You used to have to have a complete set of 12 armour to get a full set of 13 for a full set of 14 etc.. but I dont think that is the case at the moment. I am fairly sure you can skip the missing parts but I only just got 12 armour so I havent tested)
15) Scav 2 Weapon
Starts in the same place as scav 1 quest and is a similar kind of quest.
• Belt from a flob (championship belt of grak, first champ belt)
• Jewel that is blue (12 armour quest)
• Sample of a certain kind of ore (rocap ore)
• Hammer in need of repair (12 armour Quest)
• Dark Egg with the shortest name (Zi egg)
• Something that can be used to start a fire (Detinu flint)
• Rune from a greater spider lord (living rune, shadrix)
The ore is a similar deal as the digdig root from Scav 1, you can do all the extraction quests and harvest the ore yourself, or just beg people for some.
Scav 2 gives you a level 11 weapon that you cant lose when you die, in my opinion the best weapon for killing monsters.
16) Runebosses
I love my Scav 2 weap so I usually wait until I have it before doing rune bosses. This quest starts by talking to someone near your race leader. It’s the one that tells you to go kill shadrix in BM. You want to make sure you can equip non-drop armour and your Scav weaps first. You used to be able to do them in a poly or shapeshifted too but I always do them on foot.
17) Keys in Cata
This part is really optional but its something I always do. Now that 12 armour is complete I head into catacombs, there is a room in there with a lot of water and some floatey eye things (eyezoras). In the water there is a chest that has generic keys. I rush in there and loot as many keys as I can then die then get my body etc. It’s a pain but the keys are handy. You really only need 2 keys, but if you get about 20 you should be fairly set for keys for a while. If you can buy some keys, skip this part.
18) 4 falls Tombs
Look up a map of 4 falls tombs on one of the webpages, then head in there and use your newly aquired keys to get the greater healing scroll and the Radius flames one. If you have spare keys get all the spells.
19) Magic to level 7
Raise your magic to level 7 casting Radius flames. I use keytext to macro magic and tell it to press my middle mouse button once every 6 seconds, then bind my quickbar slot 10 to radius flame and middle mouse.
Keep greater heal on you from now on, greater healing is on a separate timer to your potions, so you can use both at the same time when you get hit hard.
Speaking of which, you will want to start looking at getting good potions around this time too Peroxi or at least orbic heals.
20) Shapeshifting
I tend to reset my weapon skill "/destroymyskill weapon tech" after the runebosses so that I stay under level 10, this means I have to use polycycles and not use shapeshifting, but when I die I keep all my stuff, its a bit of a tradeoff so its up to you how you want to do it but assuming you dont reset your weapon skill...
By now you are probably over lev 10 and probably lev 12 anyway, so You may aswell raise up your shapeshifting. Useful orbs are Sarin, Deathbot and Grison. Those orbs will come in handy for 13 dungeon (CoA cavern of the ancients?) and future dungeons because they have a high level of death and rune protection. Some people do shapeshifting waay back when I do polycycle but I prefer poly because it doesn’t count towards your level and I hate running back to recover my body.
21) 13 armour quest
Starts in Catacombs (12 dungeon). Long and annoying quest. Handy to have the above shapeshifting orbs for it. But after 13 is done you are free to do things at your own pace for a while.
22) Hiding/Invisibility
Hiding you want to be 16+ or have the ability to cast invisibility spell. I think for invis spell you need to buy it on the trading post. Hiding can be a pain to level and it doesn’t have a great success rate until you are over 18.50%. 16 will be a little annoying but usable. Its FAR easier to get 8 magic and use invis scroll.
You can hide/invis next to npc’s and talk to them or use it to get a bunch of mobs to stop following you, or use it to harvest plants in peace. Don’t harvest plants while afk if you are over level 10! Remember its a PvP game.
Invis/hiding will make the game MUCH easier. I tend to get invis about this point and work on my hiding once I have all my armour and weaps and am doing PvP.
I think your skills raise slower if you have lots of them at high levels which is why I make an Alchy Alt even though I play a HF. Hiding levels slow enough without things like alchemy and melee slowing it down even more. (I don’t –know- if this is true, it seems right and was what I was told)
Get used to flying around with no weapon equipped in dangerous areas so you can cast invis and greater heal.
23) Rest of the game
By now you should have a fairly good idea of what to do, After 13 armour there are no more armour quests just armour drops. So you head into 14 dungeon and kill stuff till you get what you want then move on to 15 armour etc. After 15 armour or maybe even before, you will want to go back to your race leader and get your crests/Gideon/badge to 15 and then start your last two weapon quests (IC and Netlauncher for humans).
24) Trading Post
I know that some people dont have the money or the credit card to use the trading post but there are a lot of good things on there and they are fairly cheap and they help support the server costs.
The essential things I couldn't do without which you can ONLY get on trading post (at time of posting) are:
1) Invisibility Scroll
2) Rune Polycycle
3) Dual (whatever your characters level 1 weapon is, they are great for leveling)
Just make sure you buy the ones you can use, HF=human female, HM=human male, BL=blobic, AP=amphib/frog. There are lots more great things on there but those are the items I would definately buy. All three of those are yours forever and cannot be stolen or lost when you die.
