, what server are we one
Blue Dragon
What's the guild name
DrunkenBeard
So can somebody bring me up to speed?
...not succinctly in a single post. The game is way more complicated than it first appears, and it
is NOT a WoW clone, even if it at first appears to be one. A lot of basic mechanics in the game are totally different than other MMOs. Whereas some mechanics you might recognize.
explain the schools a little
I've only played Emei, but my impression that choice of school does not limit you in terms of gameplay as much as other MMOs. It kind of looks like everyone can in theory do everything. That said, almost the entire guild is either Emei or Shaolin. It wouldn't hurt to choose something else, though there is a fair amount of school-vs-school rivalry separate and distinct from guild-vs-guild play. So if you do choose a school that none of the rest of us are in, that does mean that you would necessarily be not playing with us in those particular school events. Honestly...it's not that big of a deal, though. I'd suggest choosing something you like aesthetically. Note that Shaolin only accepts men and Emei only accept women.
Shaolin, Emei, Wudang and Beggar's Sect are "good" schools. Scholars and Tangmen are "neutral." Royal Guard and Wanderer's Valley are "evil." From what I've seen/read/etc, Wudang and Emei are supposed to be the best tanks (but note that the tank/heal/dps dynamic doesn't really apply here the way it would in WoW.) Scholars and Wudang appear to have the best AoE. Shaolin seem to have a lot of stuns and crowd control. Wanderer's valley have very loose school behavior restrictions, so if you want to kidnap and kill players, run around naked, etc. they're probably not a bad choice. I don't know anything about the Royal Guard.
explain the schools a little, better, etc, etc? And whatever else you think is important
A guide is in process of beign written. The wiki is insufficient. Here are a couple tips to get you started:
1) Note that the world is open pvp. After a couple hours newbie protection, you can and will be attacked
anywhere.
2) Don't even worry about trying to understand how the xp/leveling system works right away. You
cannot kill stuff for xp. It doesn't work that way. You can do quests for xp, but xp itself doesn't give you "levels." It's more complicated than that. To begin with, just "do stuff." Whatever you want. If you want to quest, then quest. If you want to wander around and explore the map, then do that. If you want to farm green beans, do that. Play the game. Have fun.
2) If you want to properly take care of mechanical things so you're not neglecting your character growth, do the following:
* Do the basic tutorial quests that teach you how to fight, parry, choose skills to cultivate, etc.
* Choose a meridian to train. It will be the button with > on it below your avatar. If you don't know what any of the stats do, that's fine...just pick one so that training time is not lost, and you can sort out the details later. Note that while you can only "discipline" (train) one at a time, you can have several "active." Active means that it's giving you buffs. Active meridians don't necessarily need to be the same one you're training. Again...just pick one to train, and pick some to activate for buffs. It will make more sense later.
* Once you're able to cultivate your self recollection skill, you may as well. But be aware that it's pretty much wasted once you choose a school (if you choose a school, but you probably want to) because you can only have one internal active at a time. So by all means train it, but plan to switch to a school skill early. If you want a general ballpark, I'd say plan to have chosen a school no later than self recollection level 5. If you get it to five and haven't chosen a school yet...ask around and go find one. Anything up to that, sure it's wasted training...but it's just not that big of a deal.
* Buy life skills early. Even if you don't train them. There's a daily skillpoint gain limit, but the daily limit accumulates if you don't gain the skill points each day. So...600/day limit, but you could do nothing for a week and grind it all out at once if you want. But you need to learn the skills for the limit to start accumulating. Note that it will take probably 200 liang to buy all gathering skills, so don't plan to do it all immediately. Losing a couple days of skill limi accumulation is not a big deal. But do be aware of this and learn the skills when you can.
*** Standard training advice *** Once you choose a school, train that school's internal...for a long time. At least to 20. Doing this will take a long time. Once you're training a school internal, basically keep doing that until you know what you're doing, and you're safe.
3) Don't be surprised if for your first 10 hours of gameplay you constantly feel like you have no idea what's going on. In many ways the game
looks like a standard WoW-clone, but then it regularly throws curve balls at you that leave you totally confused. Don't stress over it.
4) You'll hear about Team Practice. "TP." Team Practice is important. You need to know what it is. . It's basically a group event/guitar hero/DDR minigame that you can use as a massive skill cultivation dump every day. But...honestly you don't need to worry about it for your first couple days of playing. Plan to do it, but don't even worry about it until you have in the vicinity of 100,000+ cultivation sitting around that you can't spend.
5) You can learn
all gathering skills, one manufacturing skill, and one cultural skill. Don't worry about whether you "need to take" mining if you become a blacksmith, etc. Everybody gets all gathering skills. It's not an issue.
6) Note that the currency system is complicated, and the in-game translations of the words for different types of money are inconsistent. Money that you get from quests/drops/selling vendor trash/etc cannot be used to trade with other players. Money for trading with players only comes from selling to other players, and a few special things like kidnapping offline players and selling them into slavery. If you manage to get any currency that has the little silver lamp next to it, that's precious and rare. Don't spend it on silly things. Regular currency from quests/vendors/etc is not in terribly short supply. Don't worry about hoarding or spending it all if you want. Once you're in the guild, there's an infinitely repeatable caravan escort mission that generates about 11 liang and only takes 5-10 minutes to do.
7) Ask questions. But ask
specific questions.
Incidentally, I'm in game now if you want company.