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Beginners Guide.

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Beginners Guide. Empty Beginners Guide.

Post by Guest Wed Oct 06, 2010 3:40 pm

Adding an edit 11/07/2011:

A General overview of the game.

*Aro is Lord_Arogandor

First this game is in what is called beta stage and I think it will be for sometime, this is a bonus as everything is new almost all the time and Aro works very hard to include the millions of things he has planned for us to be able to do. Plus if things dont work, expect an upheaval as we get used to a new code or way of doing things, be nice when you say something is not working, Aro works on this game in his free time at no cost to us, plus if you have a problem, if you can (dont worry if you cant) try and also suggest a solution or a way to fix it. If you can do coding, feel free to write Aro and offer your help Smile.

Because of all these factors this guide will be outdated in some areas and stable in others, Im about to do another edit of it. However, it still should give you an idea on what you need to do. THE THING IS you aren't going to be able to make a plan for what path your going to be when you grow up immediately. This takes time, plus understanding, in some ways this game looks like every other leveling up butcher/baker/miller/blacksmith/etc game. But it very definitely isnt. Which is the best thing about it.

In a day you can run a field, look after 3 animals and also use your stamina, all to make money, this can happen within your first 2 days of play.

How Stamina and Skills work here:

Stamina is the amount of energy your character has to spend each day, and you can spend this stamina in a great, great number of ways. Each time you use 1 stamina, you increase your skill in whatever work you use your stamina in. The more you increase your skills the more it lowers the amount of stamina that you need to do that skill. As you need less stamina to carry out your duties, the more duties you can do per day and of course the more money you can make.

NOTE it takes a long, long time to increase your skills. Getting to 100% in a skill can take you a year or even more and before you get "omg, Im so not sticking around for a year", there is just too many ways to make this game fun and your going to rob yourself by not being persistent. Lets face it every game seems incredibly hard at the start. This is just the same, but much friendlier by far than any other game I have been in.

So, at the start, you can take your time, dabble here and there, figure out what you like and what direction you want to go, this is not a race, by any means. But it is very, very rewarding once you get into it more fully. There is skill in absolutely everything that you do. Take fields for instance, you have a ploughing skill, a sowing skill and a harvesting skill, then on top of that you have an over all farming skill. Animals...take cows, to increase your skills with cows you feed yours everyday, milk them every third day, and then you can use your stamina to work for the town and breed them, all of these actions go towards increasing your cow skills and the more you do them, the less stamina you will eventually need. (feeding most of your animals costs you nothing in feed or stamina, by the way).

I have not even touched on all the other cool things you can do and the skills you can choose to increase. JUST LOOK THOUGH, DONT TOUCH! Till your ready too. ^^ or if your a dabbler dabble away. If your not ask your Town Mayor first what skills the town lacks and perhaps go for that, until you get to know all the other skills and their requirements, then you might feel more comfortable doing your own thing. Oh by the way, if your in Spero, apparently we are all smurfs, so um welcome new smurf!

Check out the Book or References section of the forum, if the info is not there, ask questions in the Questions forum, we'll all answer you and fast.

A little bit on Economics:

Okay, economics, yes there is money to be made, and you can do it! But we are also all still working at whether certain things work or pay as well or better than others and how it all inter-relates. The best way you can think of this world is that its real life economics in a way, you start as an apprentice where everything is expensive until you get to higher skill levels and then your finances increase along with your ability to produce better materials that help with your tasks. I know, another level to how to decrease your stamina use and benefit you. Razz. I tell you this game is superb for complexity if your into that sort of thing, or easy enough if you dont want to get in to deep for those that just want to work on their skills of choice and merely feel the burn of achievement. When I first started and complained about it being hard to make a killing, not a living...you can make a living, but it is harder to make a killing (on the market), I was told the following. 1. The age of the game means peasants didnt make a killing ever, and its trying to be realistic, but also maintain a certain carrot incentive, if you focus on a few skills at a time, thats where you will find your carrot and 2. all you really need to do in a day to look after your person is eat something, then its just spending stamina to get money and raise your skills. Once you pick on a direction though, you will find it easier..then in a day you can run a field, run 3 animals, spend your stamina to get a wage or spend it in your workshop and sell things on the market.

So New Person what do you do in your first few days?

Day 1: Do the Grail Tutorial Quest and the Indentity Quest, you get free items and money.
Day 1 to 50: eat a free bread at the Town Bistro. Don't be shy if their there, eat them.
Day 1: Buy 3 animals, 3 chickens or 2 chickens and 1 cow. Chickens give you an egg every second day and you can make these into meals, saves you money. Cows though only give you 4 milk every 3 days, they dont help you get full, but (Oh yeah, even eating increases skills Razz) they increase your physical resistence, this helps when you travel outside town where you encounter monsters..(I know, this game just keeps giving stuff to do, read guides ask questions, seriously :p). Cows will also give you 8 meat after 70 days.
Day 1: If you have left over stamina, go to the Labour Hall, there you can begin work on other peoples fields, (you do not need any tools except a plough for ploughing). If you do not have enough stamina to work on a field, you can go to town jobs where you can use up all your stamina by helping to breed animals. There are other job categories that you can do, so take a look, however you should really decide to take the job that increases a skill that you want to increase. I.e. If you have chickens, breeding chickens for the town, helps you raise that skill higher.

You are going to need a knife by day 30 to butcher your chickens. If there is none on the market, best to make a post in your town, if no one answers write to Aro who can help you find someone, and get one.

USE UP ALL YOUR STAMINA IN A DAY. It doesnt accumulate.

Day 2: Dont forget to feed your animals and feed them everyday, do this job before doing anything else, since it costs you stamina to milk and collect eggs, so you want to spend you stamina there before spending anywhere else.
Day 2: Buy a field it will cost you 100 stamina (write your Town Mayor and ask what field is a good one to take). This will use up all your stamina for that day, but its worth it.
Day 2: Check out what other people are paying in your town for ploughing units and hire for people to work units on your field. There is the opportunity to hire 10 units for each of ploughing, sowing and harvesting, 30 units in all. If you are going to pay 30 bronze per unit, you will need to have 3 silver pieces. So in the early days you may have to juggle working your field yourself and hiring (working the field yourself means that usually you can only work 2 units a day, thats like 5 days for each section to be done :/), OR you could eat a free bread each day from the town, sell your eggs and milk and hire workers and use your stamina elsewhere. This can help you get better established, and faster. Remember that its better in field work to only choose to increase one of those skills at a time, if you choose to sow, just pick field jobs that ask for sowing..and so on.

BIG NOTE: The ingame help button is worth taking a look at. Its information direct from the game maker and will help with some questions.

The following is an update of my old guide: However, I recommend that you take note of the above to really try and understand what this game is about and read the book of references and ask questions about anything that you find confusing.

Basically I have had a couple of new people start here. Now, Im a newbie going to be writing this guide. So I am very open to suggestions.

And so we begin:

1st do the quest.

When you first log in, immediately do the quest (its the blue book on your screen.) I does not take long and you recieve your first meal for free, as well as money and a couple of items. 1 should be a shaft and the other you get to choose from the following:

A Plough - used to plough peoples fields and increase your ploughing skill.
A pickaxe - used to go and mine for iron - iron helps you make other tools.
A wood axe - used to go and chop wood in the forest.


Benefits of the different items:

A Plough: Helps you plough your and others fields. The more you plough the more skill in ploughing you gain, the less stamina you need to use. Lets you work a few jobs and not just 2.5..which is typical amount of units of work you can do perday as a new person. Pick this item if you plan to rely on miners and not mine. There are advantages and disadvantages with all options. And as will be a common theme through out, to get ahead and maximise your earning potential, you only want to pick a certain few skills to build at a time.

A pickaxe: Used to mine ore (iron mine is close to Camaar), (coal mine closest to Spero), iron is used in most every tool, If you want to travel and increase your mining skill. Then this item is perfect for you, eventually you possibly want one of every tool, so that you can do a lot more. Travelling costs stamina you dont get paid for and there are risks in meeting monsters and losing health points. But it is fun Very Happy

A shaft: You should get this from Bandulf the wise during your quest, if you dont, its still one of the cheaper items you should be able to afford from the private market.

A wood axe: Too go and chop wood, you will want this tool eventually if your into travelling. But I would say that the plough and the pickaxe have a greater new person value for now.

Making is always better than buying, you get the skills yourself and your not paying for someone elses. However, you must balance this with picking certain things to excel in. Do not try and do it all. Again to get ahead and maximise your earning potential, you only want to pick a certain few skills to build at a time.

Daily work & Stamina.

You get to spend 100 stamina per day, this is how you earn a daily wage.

Places you can spend your stamina for wages:

Other Peoples Fields: Typical unit of work will cost you 40 stamina. As you keep doing the same type of job, eg you only do ploughing, or only select jobs for sowing your skill increases each time you do it. Then you need to only spend 39, then 38 and so on for each unit. This leaves you more stamina to spend elsewhere. Hence the value of picking to only a few skills to increase at a time.

Town Jobs: Usually helping breed town animals so they can be put on the market. You can nominate how much stamina you want to spend here from 1 stamina point to 100.

Workshop orders: This can be the most profitable place to work, again you can nominate how much stamina you wish to spend from 1 to 100. Please remember if your town is small and field jobs seem to be lingering, work there first, if each person has to work their own field at a normal 2 units per day and 10 units per ploughing and 10 per sowing and then 10 more for threshing. that is 15 days of simply working the field and then add the 5 or so days for growing..produce every 20 days would have our markets bare for far to long a time. Perhaps we can be more choosy once our town has more people. Until them..ATLEAST SPEND ONE UNIT ON FIELD WORK. You'll get where you going a little slower, but this game has a beauty that shouldnt be rushed.

Selecting skills to improve and proffessions.

You have a lot of choices in what paths to choose, each time you reach a high enough level, it costs you less stamina to do the same job, meaning you can spend more stamina doing something else and more wages for you. See the other guides. Typically you are not just one of the following but a combination.

Possible choices:

Blacksmith
Carpenter
Tailor
Brewer
Alchemist
Miller
Baker
Miner/Smelter
Woodsman
Fighter
Chef
Field hand - Ploughman/woman
Field hand - Sower
Field hand - Harvester
Farmer
Labourer
Chicken farmer
Pig farmer
Horse Owner
Cow farmer
Sheep farmer
University Teacher
Healer
Armourer - to be added fully.
Fisherman/woman
Trader

Retreat:

You can go to retreat, but the games a bit sly..or the game creator is *stares at Aro* you need grail tokens. If you go on vacation for 14 days, you will need to use 14 grail tokens to keep your char in retreat. See how to get tokens below. through your character page, however there is a time limit on how long you can do this I think, pays to write to Aro and ask him and then let me know in this guide thread so I can update ^^

Tokens:

The easiest way to get grail tokens is vote every day at mmorg voting site, you'll find the button on the bottom right most ingame screens. AND if you introduce a new person to the game you get 10 grail tokens per player.

You can also please Lord Aro in some way Wink...buy reporting bugs, making good suggestions, helping him out when he needs it...what did you think I meant? Oohh that...well yes, there's certian perks he likes to enjoy, so if you feel up to perking him up, have at it Wink

The most useful use of grail tokens for me is spending 10 to get an extra silver this is very useful for when your first starting out.


Animals:

Very important to purchase immediately, they can keep you in food, specially chickens. Two chickens and a cow is not a bad combination for your first animals. Fields, dont go there till you have all the animals and tools you need for them. And a bit of money behind you. Then by all means its time to purchase that field.

You must feed your animals every day, this costs you no stamina or money for food. Just click on your animal and feed it. Every 3rd day for chickens there is eggs to collect. The more skill (called attitude) you gain the more chances you will find more than 1 egg a search. To speed up your skills progress, spending your stamina on helping the town breed chickens helps.

To feed your animals costs you no stamina, but you gain skill points. To search for eggs or milk your cows it will cost 10 stamina points, so its best to go to tend your animals first just incase you need to expend your stamina. If you miss a day collecting eggs, they will be their the next day for you to search, if you miss several they will still be there to find, but you wont find them all in one search, you will have to keep searching and spending 10 stamina points a time till all eggs are collected.

There are more comprehensive guides for the different animals, needs and benefits. Basically for whatever animal you keep on the ranch (you can only keep 3 at a time) its a good idea to help breed or work with those types of animals in some way to speed up the increase to your skill level and therefore gain the benefit of not having to use as much stamina or getting more than normal by way of production.

Fields:

Strongly recommended that you make a spreadsheet on the costs to hire on your field against the cost of your field output and what the town will pay for your goods. Few people I know have managed to lose money from their fields.

There are 4 different types...best ask your town leader what sort the town needs then produce that. Im still learning about these myself. In a nutshell there are phases the field needs to go through. For example the corn field has 9 phases. 1st phase is ploughing, for this you need a plough or your field worker does. You have 10 Units of 40 stamina to complete the ploughing, you can do 2 units and hire for the 8 more, this sometimes can take several days to complete, especially if no one takes the job offers. Once that stage is done, you wait till after the next reset, and its time to sow your field, again 10 units need to be worked in this phase, but you need no special equitment this time. Then there is the growing phases from 3 to 8. Phase nine is the harvest, again 10 units of stamina is needed until the phase is complete and the corn is in your inventory.


Last edited by Airy on Sat Oct 22, 2011 5:34 am; edited 22 times in total

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Post by Guest Wed Oct 06, 2010 3:41 pm

Okay its a start, but Im getting tired tonight and since its going to be a little big, perhaps good to stop now and get peoples input. Plus you can feel free to fill in the blanks of my education so far.

Hate to write it all and to have gone in a completely wrong direction.

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Post by Guest Wed Oct 06, 2010 11:08 pm

1 - I think some items from this list was moved, I think the knife and herb bag.

A herb bag
A Plough
A pickaxe
A knife.
A staff.
A wood axe.

2 - A staff is not the same as a shaft. A staff is a weapon and can be equipped, a shaft is a tool.

3 - You want to go too much into detail in some places. For example with animal fields you could simply say its a good idea to start with 2 chickens and 1 cow and then refer to the guides already made. Unless you want everything in this guide, in which case it will not be a newbie guide.

In my opinion a newbie guide is something short and sweet that quickly explains how you get started. Not sure how big you meant your guide to be? See it as constructive criticism.. I'd love to get some on my guides Wink
And I don't think its wrong to have several guides on the same matter, as different people have different views on things.

Notes to self
-Whine to Aro about retreat costing tokens is silly

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Post by Guest Thu Oct 07, 2010 12:58 am

LOL its how I work right now, once refined we'll be sure to split it up. I do do very comprehensive guides however, so that up there is rather typical. Wink

I'd like to get confirmation on 1 somehow to see if it changes for each person. Joseph got fish for his meal and I got cheese, he says he did not get a staff. But got to choose from the list.

2. thanks

3. Yes, sadly I went splat and wrote this in the middle of other things. As I get input I'll refine it. Power of edit Wink. And I've heard some people just want to know what button to hit and not why affraid Im a why kinda girl. Razz

It will probably get bigger before it gets smaller, you see Im coming from the place where this is my second game and I also like to know things indepth. Once I do, I can definitely pull it apart and create smaller things from it, or as you say others can make guides as well. Right now, some of my thoughts are even open to...did I get it right? LOL.

And its not criticism its critique and very acceptable. Wink I wish I did know enough to critique yours. I'll see if I can give it a shot though. Since you've very kindly said more than 'it looks great!'

Note: Laughing My thoughts exactly.


Last edited by Airy on Thu Oct 07, 2010 1:07 am; edited 2 times in total

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Post by Axel Ackland Thu Oct 07, 2010 1:02 am

Since there is no eradication you can sit in the hospital and be fed for free ^_^

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Post by Lord Arogandor Thu Oct 07, 2010 1:19 pm

Nice work Airy!!!!

The current tools a new Seeker can get from Bandalf are a Pickaxe, Woodaxe & Plough.
Lord Arogandor
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Number of posts : 2995
Location : Somewhere around the Grail Monastery
Registration date : 2008-09-19

https://thegraillords.net

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Post by Guest Thu Oct 07, 2010 8:10 pm

I personally recommend the plough as the tool of choice initially. A newbie is not likely to want to start wandering out of the towns just yet, not until they can learn how to feed themselves and be able to protect themselves a bit. A plough allows them to work ANY field job, since sowing and harvesting require no tools. And to make a plough can be a long and expensive process.

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Post by Guest Fri Oct 08, 2010 10:39 am

I agree with DiLasso, even if I regretted my choice of a plough.. *glares at Aro as he told me to get a plough* I'm not the farming type. But yeah for a newbie, its the best choice.

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Post by Guest Fri Oct 08, 2010 10:45 am

I got the plough too...but I regretted it too when I was in camaar, since then I had no pickaxe to go and make making other items cheaper...but I can write the pro's and cons of each choice maybe and say the plough is highly recommended because there are dangers in travelling immediately.

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Post by Guest Mon Jul 11, 2011 2:44 pm

I updated this guide, added some changes to the guide part, but mostly I think the guide needed more about what people should expect from the game and a general overview. People for the most part have a completely different expectation of what GL is about.

So, still wordy Niveus, but I think the first section is now the more important one.

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Post by Dracula Mon Feb 24, 2014 9:19 am


Day 1 to 50: eat a free bread at the Town Bistro. Don't be shy if their there, eat them.

until 30 days old (according to the popup tips)


Day 2: Buy a field it will cost you 100 stamina (write your Town Mayor and ask what field is a good one to take). This will use up all your stamina for that day, but its worth it.

its x units for x stam (dont remember how much,info around here somewhere) and you get this during the first quests with a boost from a follower



we should rewrite most of this

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Post by Stringer Tue Oct 24, 2017 11:31 am

Initially you can only have one animal unless the ranch is expanded and this one animal is the tutorial chicken.

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