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22Apr

Aion: A Guide to Elyos Spy Quests

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When I first thought to make a listing of spy quests in Aion, the idea was that folks could be sure to finish all the parts of the different lines before certain zones became unavailable due to leveling. I can remember on at least one occasion my quest progression was halted when I found myself leveled beyond the rift’s parameters. It was a sad time, as I was prevented from obtaining the rewards and titles involved. Even worse, I was left with an incomplete quest in my journal. Oh, the horror! I moved on, but there was always that nagging feeling of something missing.

All that has changed. Once the Fast Track server was introduced, the level limits on the rifts preventing Daevas from returning to enemy lands were removed. Now, any Elyos or Asmodian can return to those lower zones and wrap up any unfinished business. Of course, with so much to keep you occupied at the higher levels in Aion, you probably wouldn’t even have time to flit back to the old haunts just to finish up old quests, which makes getting them done early all the more important. So to help you out, here’s a guide to the Elyos spy quests in Morheim.

Although there are a variety of spy quests sprinkled throughout many levels, today’s guide is not going to concern itself with anything in Balaurea, such as the weekly quests from the different organizations, or even in Beluslan. This listing will cover just those missions that involve travel from Eltnen to Morheim. Many of the various quests are a part of just a few distinct lines; starting one will lead a player along a chain of quests. These chains begin in Eltnen and Sanctum.

I’ll categorize these in a way to cut down on the number of trips into enemy territory, hopefully increasing your odds of survival. You might still want to take a few high-level friends along, though, since the way rifts work has changed the element of surprise has been taken out of the equation and it’s harder to sneak around. Also, the higher-level quests are in rough areas with nasty mobs who happen to see through stealth at almost every turn.

Into Morheim

The very first spy quest an Elyos is introduced to is A Teleportation Adventure in the Eltnen Fortress. Little Sonirim wants to test her teleport abilities on you. Because being a lab rat always turns out well, right? If you have never done the first step of this quest, I recommend taking it but then holding off. If you have done the first step (and summarily been teleported to the outskirts of the Morheim Fortress), don’t complete the second step until you are level 26+ and have gathered the rest of the Morheim-related spy quests. That way you can travel there at your leisure without waiting for a rift. Doing so also puts you close to your objectives. Even better, when traveling on your own time frame, you avoid the Asmodians who camp the rift openings.

If you have used both free teleports to Morheim up, things become a bit more difficult (and even annoying) but not impossible. Although all rifts heading to there open at the same time, it’s only for a total of six hours throughout the week, so you have to plan your excursion according to a tight schedule. The good news is that if you make it through a rift you don’t necessarily have to run the missions right then if you don’t have the time; Elyos who log out in Morheim won’t be teleported back to their obelisk, so players can just get to a safe place and park themselves until they have more time. (Please remember to log out though and don’t just go AFK!)

The next step on the spy quest journey is visiting Heropres at Novan’s Crossing. He starts you onMessage to Spy. Also be sure to complete Plant Poison Antidote from Celestine at the edge of the Manduri Forest as well so you can take the follow up spy quest Celestine’s Antidote. Once you have both of these, head back to Eltnen Fortress to speak with Valerius, who will advance Heropres’ quest and give you That Old Elyos Spirit.

Now, you are almost ready to go into Morheim. Before you go, make sure you have 15 Theonia on hand from the broker or be prepared to harvest them (essencetapping 130+), as the spy you meet up with in Morheim, Medea, gives you the quest A Gift of Love, a prerequisite for yet another spy quest. Also, put all the quests on your tracker and consider bringing a friend/guard or two, both for protection and for fun.

There and back again

Once in Morheim, the quest chains continue. Medea gives you her quest, and Deputy Lamipedon — who finishes Valerius’ quest — gives you Respect for Deltras. Hint: When you activate the firecracker, be sure you are out of range of the wandering guards’ aggro because they hurt!

After you finish up the Morheim portion of all these quests, head back to Elysea and complete the remaining steps and prep for the next round. Grab A Letter to Medea/Advise of Love (there is some discrepancy about what the current name of the quest is, and I am unable to corroborate in game) from Jinus in Sanctum. You can then run back to Morheim and complete this one right away or and hold on to it until you reach level 38+, when you can grab the remaining spy quests. And before embarking on the trip, don’t forget to grab some friends, too — the remaining quests are in difficult areas.

Of the remaining spy quests, one is in Sanctum and the other two are in Morheim itself. To get Going Out of Business in Protectors Hall, players must first complete the chain starting with Fake Stigma from Dionera at the Eltnen Observatory (The middle step, Black Cloud Fakery, involves traveling to the Upper Abyss and finding the unmarked Black Cloud Island — see inset.). The other quests aren’t taken until you are actually deep in enemy land. Tayga, Bane of Shugos, is acquired from Chaomirk deep in Mist Mane Village in the southwest corner of Morheim. You get Ganimerk’s Espionage from the same place but from Ganimerk.

Once you complete all these, you can return to Elysea to tie up the last of the loose ends, turning in your quests and reveling in the loot and glory you gained. You can then either settle back and just adventure in your home lands or — if you happened to catch the rifting bug — continue your forays into enemy territory. But remember, there are new spy quests and adventures awaiting you in Beluslan. That, however, is a guide for another time.

10Aug

Eudemons Online BIG Boss Hunting Guide

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OK so, some of you already know how to hunt for loot from bosses so this guide is not for you. This guide is to help those who are not very good at boss hunting, or do not have much luck with the method they choose to try.

The method I am going to explain here is a combination of various sources of information, which after being tried and tested vigorously, seems to work rather well for getting mountains of rare loot. I am not professing that this is the ONLY way of doing it, nor am I suggesting that my method is 100% flawless.

So here we go:

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The Hunt

Firstly pick an area to hunt at. This can be “forced” upon you if you only have higer level eudemon pets, as this is a critical part of boss hunting (as I will explain in more detail soon).

Usually the best thing to do is to go to your favourite hunting grounds. I usually go to Icyland as I just like the atmosphere of the area. What you need to do on arrival is simply check out the population of the area… in other words are there LOTS of opther players around? or perhaps hardly any at all? The fewer players the better… this increases your chances of finding and successfully slaying a boss without interruption.

So, you have picked your hunting area? There are not many other players around? GOOD! Lets move on shall we?

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Locating the Boss(es)

As you will know, boss creatures have a typical “spawn area” which they will appear at or around, approximately once per hour. If you are not sure about where the particular bosses spawn that you are wanting to hunt, refer to the Monsters section of the Eudemons Website, found at http://www.eudemonsonline.com/guide/monster/monster.shtml

This will give you the approximnate coordinates where you may find boss creatures, though I suggest looking at and around these areas as the bosses do not spawn directly on the coordinates most of the time… they tend to be a screen or two in any direction of the spawn coordinates. After a bit of practice at hunting your favourtie bosses, you will find them more easily.

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Will the Boss drop loot?

Here is the assessment of the situation… so you have found a boss in a secluded map area… you are ready for the kill! But wait!

Here are a few things you need to make sure are correct before proceeding.

1. It is critical to make sure you DO NOT ATTACK THE BOSS WITH YOUR CHARACTER! Do not attack it, not even 1 time… this can ruin the whole exercise.

2. You must make sure that you have a eudemon pet in your bag, which is at least 3 levels below that of the boss creature, but no less than half of the boss creatures level.

IE If you are hunting a level 93 orc, (for best result) your pet needs to be between (93/2=46.5 (rounded up) 47) 47 and 90.

3. It also helps to take a longer time to kill the boss, so using some pets with low attack will also help, but it is not always critical.

4. If there are other mobs around, try to lure the boss away to a seculded section of the map. This will help you to keep your “boss killing pet” from dying easily, as well as take you away from any players that might wander past.

If all of these criteria are met, then the boss will drop good piles of loot around 95% of the time according to my testing!

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What bosses drop the BEST loot?

OK so you killed your fist boss and it dropped a bundh of yellow stones and some refined junk? Well there is one more thing to know about to get the best loot.

Each kind of boss has at least 3 level breackets… The lowest level bracket being “refined”, the second being “unique” and the last being “elite”. Some bosses have a fouth level (like the Genasi), and some only have 1 (like Scopions).

You can check which level brackets exist again by checking the monsters section of the EO website http://www.eudemonsonline.com/guide/monster/monster.shtml

So, to get the best loot… you will hunt the highest leveled boss in its bracket. For example the Orcs in Icyland, come in three levels… level 91, 92 and 93. Level 93 orcs will always drop elite items and are the best level for redstones. This does not mean that it will ALWAYS drop items, it just means that if it DOES drop items, they will always be elite.

I find that Redstone will tend to be most common from the highest level boss, but can also be found occasionally from the middle level boss, and very rarely (I’ve gotten 1 out of 50 attempts) from the loewst level bosses.

————————————–
The Re-cap

So here we go-

1. Check to make sure nobody else is around (or as little as possible)
2. Lure away boss from spawn areas of other mobs
3. Do not attack boss with your character
4. Use a low attack pet, leveled between (boss level / 2 (rounded up)) and (boss level – 3)

HAPPY HUNTING!

—————————————————————————-
*AFTER THOUGHT*

My experience using this method often goes like this-

I go to Icyland, and kill 2 or 3 orc bosses (I try to get the level 93 ones) and then I end up going back to town with an inventory composed of the follwing items in a typical 3 boss hunt:

1-2 redstones
3-6 violet stones
5-8 yellow stones
15-20+ elite items

This is my “typical” haul from using the steps shown above. Good luck :)

10Aug

Composing Guide of Eudemons Online

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Every eudemon has its own Growth Rate (GR). It is inborn so you cannot change it. It would be lucky for you to find a good GR eudemon. However, GR can be changed with composing. You can increase the GR of your eudemon. But you need to sacrifice other eudemons’ lives.

Composing
There area total offour types of composing: Major Composition, Minor Composition, Initial composition, Luck value composition.

You need to find Professor Aderes to start composing. As a decent eudemon professor, he can assist you to precede four kinds of composition to make outstanding eudemons.

Composing will make your eudemon drop back to level 1. But it doesn’t mean you will have to train your eudemon harder to regain its original level. In about 3 hours of training, you will be able to regain your eudemons’ level. Each composition gives your eudemon a chance to get talent. After composing, just level it back up to level 50 and your eudemon will regain back to the previous level that you have composed. For example, if your main eudemon was level 75, after composing, when you raise it to level 50, it will jump to level 75.

Major Attribute Compostion
Major Attribute means the main attribute of an eudemon. For example, WarriorPatk main attribute is Atk; while WarriorPatkdef’s main attribute is Atk and Def.

Once Major Attribute composition succeeds, your major eudemon’s GR will increase. For example, your WarriorPatk’s, Atk GR is 11.4, after composing, it’s Atk GR might increase to 12.3. But you will need to retrain your eudemon from level 1.

If the composition fails, both major eudemon and minor eudemon will return to level 1. Major eudemon’s GR will not change.

Major Attribute Compostion Requirements:

(1) Quality of Major eudemon below 5-Star:

A. A Major eudemon of at least level 50.
B. A Minor eudemon of at least level 20.
(After composing, you need to train your eudemon to level 50 to regain its original level)

(2) Quality of Major eudemon above 5-Star:

A. A Major eudemon of at least level 60.
B. A Minor eudemon of at least level 20.
(After composing, you need to train your eudemon to level 60 to regain its original level)

(3) Quality of Major eudemon above 10-Star:

A. A Major eudemon of level 70.
B. Minor eudemon of level 50. It also need to be a Star eudemon.
(System will inform you which kind of Star is need.)

With the growing of your eudemon, the requirements of Major Attribute Compsing will be stricter. Once the score of your eudemon is above 1500, you need to find the same element eudemon to compose. There are currently five elements in Eudemons Online: Wind, Earth, Water, Fire and Thunder. Thunder is the rarest element, you can use eudemons in this element to do any composition.

There is a possibility of failure. But don’t worry, once failed, the only change is that your eudemon will be level 1, nothing else.

Minor Attribute Composing
Minor Attribute means the attributes beside the major attribute. For example, WarriorPatk, its major attribute is Physical Atk, while Physical def, Magic Atk, Magic Def, Hp are the minor attributes.

You just need to bring two eudemons to do the composition. This kind of composition will never fail. Once finished composing, your Eudemon’s minor attribute GR will increase and it returns to level 1.

Minor Attribute Compostion Requirements:

A. Main eudemon needs to be at least level 70.
B. Minor eudemon’s minor attribute’s GR must be higher than the main eudemon in one aspect and at least level 40.
(After composing, main eudemon will return to level 1 and its minor attribute GR will increase.)

Initial Status Composing
Every eudemon has its attribute at level 1. During this composing it will change your eudemon’s level 1′s attributes. This kind of composing will never fail.

Initial Status Composing Requirements:

A. A Main eudemon of at least level 70.
B. A Minor eudemon of at least level 40 and it’s initial attributes should be higher than the main eudemon in at least one aspect. For example, the main eudemon’s initial HP is 24, while the minor eudemon’s HP is 120. After composing, your main eudemon’s HP would be 120.

You may ask why we need to perform initial status composing. If you notice, there is a Potency System in the game. If you researched how your eudemon’s get high mark, you will know why we need to do this kind of composing.

There is a lot need to be explored, hopefully you will not be lost in exploring.

10Aug

Eudemons Online Ultimate Exp Balling Guide

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Want to make some quick EPs? Why not start filling exp balls? It’s a 100 percent safe and fun way to make EPs!

What is exp balling?
Exp balling is a steady and reasonable fast way to earn EP’s without any risk. Why? Because you can’t lose what you are making, even when you get PKed you don’t drop exp balls.

How to start?
You need atleast 200 pot, preferably 300+ but 200 is enough to start effectively. Make sure you got God Blessing, if not, let a friend or your own mannequin buy the empty exp balls from the grocery for 245k each.

After you bought around 10-15 exp balls and around 100 randoms, maybe more or less, depending on how you play you can head to island, from there you pathfind to vulcano and go to Lost Land, there you walk to the right and talk to the NPC to enter Catamaze, this total trip costs 730k. If you got God Blessing don’t forget to get your free 2x exp from Sodar. How to find Sodar? Click on PathFinding at the top right of your screen, then on market and then on Double Exp, this will take you to a guy named Sodar, talk to him.

Start by killing monsters while in no team at all. Decline all requests and just fill one at a time. The amount of exp balls you fill per hour depends on your Battle Power and amount of sapphire gems.

Why are Sapphire Gems better then Amber Gems for exp balling?
A Super Amber gives +30% on a monster right? Well those 30% bonus only count for the kill exp, let’s say a monster gives 50k exp for killing it (exp without the damage exp), well instead of 50k exp you get 65k exp. Let’s assume you get 200k exp for damaging the monster, that means the total exp is 265k.

With a Super Sapphire you get +25% bonus on killing the monster + on the damage exp (notice how you get exp whenever you damage a monster? well that’s what I mean with it) AND +5% for killing the monster, so let’s assume you get 200k exp for damaging the monster, that means instead of 200k exp you get 250k exp, instead of 50k kill exp you get 52.5k kill exp which makes the total amount 302.5k exp.

As you can see, Super Sapphires work better and that’s why all exp ballers including me have them.

Note: the +5% kill exp in the second formula is from the 1 BP you get from having a Super Sapphire.

How to start from scratch?
Boss hunt until you got a 2 soc weapon, 1 soc boots and 1 soc bracelet, fill these with refined sapphires.

Remember, sell 3/7 of your exp balls for gold to make up for the cost of the empty exp balls, randoms and trip to cata. Always make sure you can stay long enough to make profit because once you log out you appear in Cronus.

A few things that affect your exp balls per hour:
-> Amount of times of good randoms (on good spawns)
-> Amount of times of bad randoms (on bad spawns)
-> Amount of total randoms you use.
-> Amount of blue spawns that you find.
-> Amount of lag and kills per XP skill.

Things you need to learn as a beginner:
-> The right time to press the hotkey to switch a full exp ball for an empty one.
-> The amount of randoms per exp ball that you need, this depends on your playing style so experiment with it yourself.

How do “Blue Spawns” work?
Often when you kill a monster you see a blue spawn laying on the ground, these things give cool free bonuses, a few of them are:
-> +50% experience for 10 minutes
-> +60% experience for 10 minutes
-> +80% experience for 10 minutes
-> +100% experience for 10 minutes

-> +50% recovery of your XP skill bar for 10 minutes
-> +60% recovery of your XP skill bar for 10 minutes
-> +80% recovery of your XP skill bar for 10 minutes
-> +100% recovery of your XP skill bar for 10 minutes

-> +50% dodge for 10 minutes
-> +60% dodge for 10 minutes
-> +80% dodge for 10 minutes
-> +100% dodge for 10 minutes

-> +50% gold for 10 minutes
-> +60% gold for 10 minutes
-> +80% gold for 10 minutes
-> +100% gold for 10 minutes

-> +50% attack for 10 minutes
-> +60% attack for 10 minutes
-> +80% attack for 10 minutes
-> +100% attack for 10 minutes

When you stand on 1 you can get 1 from the above bonuses, the ones you aim for are +experience and +recovery.

If you pick up 2 of the same spawns, let’s say experience, the first one is +80% experience and the 2th one is +50% experience, as you can see the 2th one is lower but sadly from now on you will only get +50% experience.

You can have 1 of each on you at the same time, but not 2 of the same, so if you got one on you and you pick a 2th one of the same kind you will delete your first one and replace it with the second one.

This means you can have luck and increase everything but also bad luck and loose your +80% experience for a +50% one.

These 2 things sound as really little things but at a long term these 2 things can increase your income quite good if done correctly.

Here follow a few tips to get the max per hour with exp balling:
-> Tell friends not to whisper you but use friends chat instead, or tell them not to talk for a while.
-> See an enemy? Just random away, even if you can kill him, the blue name makes you a target and will kill you eventually so better stay white named and continue to kill.
-> Close as many things as you can until you have no lag at all, this way you don’t get stuck or lag during XP skills.
-> Put empty exp balls on the hotkeys 1~4 and use that to switch full balls for empty ones, helps a lot.
-> Don’t pick up any gold or items, eggs only the valkery and vanquisher ones.
-> Appoint your highest star eudemon as Tactician in the Knights Table, this will increase your exp per monster to.
-> The most important tip: Stand on any blue spawns monsters leave behind, these often increase your exp (work the same as sapphire gems) or make your XP skill recharge faster!

Using these tips you will fill alot faster and get the max per hour for your pot.

I’m getting killed at Island …
As you may know, Island is a dangerous PK place, especially the “docks” since there are no guards there. The good thing about God Blessing is that you get a free Star Eye from the same guy where you get your 2x exp, you can use this Star Eye as long as you want whenever you have God Blessing.

The first trip is the hardest, pathfind to the Vulcano NPC at Island hope you don’t get PKed, take a few randoms with you and if you see a PKer on the docks just random out and try again in a few minutes.

Once you reach at that npc right click your Star Eye and set that place as your teleport place, from now on, every time you appear on the Island and you right click your Star Eye you will appear there, this way you won’t get PKed while heading out to fill exp balls.

Castle
The castle is more besides some cool looking place, once you reach level 3 you can build a level 2 teleporter for 200 EPs. This is an investment that takes a while to earn it back but worth it if you are going to make exp balls for a longer period of time.

What does a level 2 teleporter do? This NPC allows you to teleport to LostLand for only 100k, this way you don’t have any risk of getting PKed at Island and it saves you 100k per trip!

Like I said, it’s only worth investing in this if you are gonna make exp balls for a longer period of time.

How to sell exp balls effectively:

After you filled all the exp balls you bought you can head back to market, always use a mannequin for selling. Why? Because you can keep filling exp balls while your mannequin is selling for you.

Look for the average exp ball price in gold and EP on your server and sell 3/7 of your exp balls for gold to make up for all the costs and the rest for EP (your profit).

What also can be useful is to find daily buyers, I got 5 daily buyers in my legion and thanks to this I sell 100+ exp balls per day at all times.

If the selling goes slow do NOT lower your exp ball price, this will start to ruin your market, thanks to people who did this is the average exp ball price on Las Vegas only 5 EP so I really suggest you don’t do it.

Staying the same level
After level 124+ you can’t exp ball effectively anymore but I suggest to stay level 100 or lower, why? Because you need less exp to fill an exp ball which makes it able to fill more per hour.
Here are a few ways so you won’t level up, you can use these tricks to get rid of any exp you get from God Blessing:

PK -> Go with a higher pot friend to EvilBeach in Vulcano, take off all your items and put them in your warehouse. Now let your friend summon a mage pet and attack it, the pet will kill you and you will lose 1%. Your friend gains 0 PK and takes over some of your exp. Revive and keep doing it until you are back at your satisfied percentage (you will spawn at Evil Beach again).

Mentor -> My favorite trick that I personally use all the time, ask your mentor to meet you somewhere, delete him as mentor and re-add him again, doing this you don’t have to wait 3 days and you will loose a certain percentage every time you do this (depending on your level). This is the fastest way since it usually takes me around 10 minutes to get rid of 90% at level 100.

Well I hope this guide helps a bit, thanks for reading.

24May

Allods Online Warrior guide

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Allods Online Warrior guide written by soldeus, leader of Primal Instinct guild, NA CBT player and his Orc Lundeus – lvl 20 Brute. Although the author named it ‘Orc Brute Guide’ it’s really about all Warriors, not just Orc Brutes. We’ve just edited it a bit. (Hope that’s ok, Sol) Enjoy!

Levels 1-20 closed beta phase 2 Orc Brute Guide
What you need to know about your char’s main stats:

-STR increases physical dmg(0mg really??)
-FIN ignores armor by a % to increase dmg
-EXP reduces your chance to miss
-LUCK you can ignore early on your % is fine(effects your crits and anti-crits which will be explained another time.) Courtesy of Asegnar the Troll. Later you’ll need that stat as well to minimize the number of your “unlucky” blows thus boosting your DPS (Editor’s note, later – EN)

To be a successful DPS Brute, you need a healthy mix of these four core stats.

Now you’re saying “what stats where?”

I mainly focused on Finesse because high end pieces lack it at the moment. So it’s a good idea to invest free stat points in FIN (EN)

@10 you want to shoot for:
11% phys dmg(STR) – Should be higher @20(EN)
30% armor pen(FIN) – Fine for 20 lvl (EN)
10% miss rate(EXP) – Fine for 20 lvl (EN)
Leveling your Warrior

leveling a Brute is a bit different from other classes, they start out slow and become a wrecking ball. They really come into their own when they learn Agonizing Blow. Early on it’s pretty tough, it will get easier from 7-10. Always invite stragglers on kill X amount of Y quests, not only will it speed up the process, but you might just make a healer friend struggling with the mobs out of it!
Warrior’s Skill Rotation

Step 1: Powerful Blow x 3
(if) there is no bleed effect, repeat step 1
(if) the bleed effect is on the mob Move to step 2
Step 2: Agonizing Blow x 1
our skill cycle gets much more complex later on.
Money

“I can has cheezburga?”
So if you stick to doing quests and buying gear from vendors, money will get pretty tight. One element that Allods has that not many other MMOs have is the resale page. Meaning you can BUY what people vendor. This includes blues.

I typically find a blue on a vendors resale page, put it in the AH with a 400% mark up and it sells rather quickly. Do this and you can afford power pots to be a beast XD
Where to invest Skill Points

This early in the game, skill points can make or break a character.

For levels 1-9 you want to pick up:
Powerful Blow rank 3
Agonizing Blow rank 1
The next skill you will want is Agonizing Blow rank 2, this will require level 10
Weapons: What to use and when to use them.

1 handed weapons give your skills a 3second cd for most with standard energy consumption.
Paired weapons give your skills a 1second cd with reduced energy consumption.
2 handed weapons give your skills a 3 second cd for most with standard energy consumption.

The CD’s for certain skills that are not dictated by weapon worn remain the same CD.

For armored kiting targets I use a 2hander
armored non-kiting targets I use paired weapons
vs a 2 hander I use sword n board

“BUT-BUT-BUT I want to TANK!!”
Straight up – roll a Paladin Archetype. They are Russias MT’s, Brutes just slap on a board and off-tank adds.

In conclusion, follow this loose guideline and you too can crit for 1508dmg with Agonizing Blow and 667 Powerful Blow at level 10.
Levels 10-20

“What Weapon should I use?”
Use what the game gives you. I got paired axes from XAES in CBT1, but any weapon will work early on. At level 13, lookout isle will have a group quest for a 2h axe. Use this. At 16 you will get a rune lesson quest that will give you paired axes, use these to replace the 2h. At 18(?) you get the quest for Glomo in Dead Sea this will give you your new 2h axe. Hold onto the 2h axe and the paired weapons as both are useful in different situations.

I solo quested personally, only leveling with Fatigue, I wasn’t in any hurry. Group up for Destroyer/Demonologist/Glomo you can solo the rest.

24May

Atlantica Online’s economy and guide to making more money

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In the Fourth Age, the Era of Global Recession, when the stress monster reigned supreme, sending the helpless pocketbooks fleeing for the hills, there arose a champion to fight for the masses. This was the MMO: an incredibly cheap source of entertainment that allows the average Joe and Jane to blow off some steam by hitting a dragon in the head with a hammer. Come home and relax, kill some monsters, chat with your guildies, and buy and sell your virtual goods in a stable, reliable market.

Oops. Stable, reliable market? Not anymore!

Whether you’ve been reading the AO forums or not, chances are that you’ve noticed that prices keep going up, and up, and up, and up. That long-awaited shiny new piece of conqueror’s armor is going to cost you an increasingly large amount of shiny pennies. When I first bought my Conqueror boxes, they went for less than a million each. Now, just a few months later.

We’ve seen more than 100% inflation in only two months. Holy cow! (For those of you interested in such comparisons, the average annual inflation rate of the US Dollar is about three percent).

The theories for the cause of inflation are many:

Some say that the inclusion of the Hwarang quest, which requires 500 collection points (points which would have previously been spent on equipment boxes) and its heady 100m in cash has resulted in an overflow of gold.

Others have noted that removing the ability to JP indy items (i.e. torn pages, water dragon scales, etc) has removed an easy source of Sea and Earth Elements, which are often used in the Barter Shop to obtain high end crafting items. Thus high end crafters (i.e. the ones with the full bank accounts) have had no choice but to rely on Dragon, Conqueror, Freezing, and Divine gear to obtain their elements.

Still others have blamed the various minor adjustments, a supposed ninja nerf in Goonzu loot and an overall 80% reduction in item drops.

Whatever the reason, it’s quite clear that outfitting our mercenaries in the latest gear grows increasingly costly. We are left with a choice: do we try to stick our fingers in the overflowing dam as it breaks apart, calling on players to be less greedy as if the market wasn’t simply following the tides of supply and demand, or do we accept that that the dam is lost and build a boat, stock it full of delicious ripe apples (so as to avoid scurvy), put on our pirate hat, raise the ol’ skull and cross bones, rattle our cutlasses, then sail forth to pillage the seas?!

Okay, perhaps I got a little carried away with my metaphor, but nevertheless I say: avast!

And so we come to the useful part of the article: how to make money in AO. Of course you’ve got your obvious methods: do some quests, kill some monsters and break their piggy banks, scam honest players by selling a freezing orb as a crystal ball of harmony… er wait… ahem… but I’m here to offer you some tips and tricks and hopefully soon you’ll be sailing along, your weapons glittering as they smash newly-killable monsters left and right.

Jackpot

Jackpot is a non-secret alternative method of looting and the savior of my constantly depleted bank account. All of the high levels know it and use it, but I find that many low levels are simply unaware of its existence. I even have some level 90+ guildies who ask me what jackpot is all about.

The process is simple: buy a jackpot license appropriate for your level at a fixed price (300k for II, 3.6m for IV) from the market and let the looting begin. You’ve got twelve item slots to fill with quantities up to 9999 and at any time you can acquire all (which simply moves the items into your inventory) or you can select one item in the list and do a “Jackpot Challenge” which converts all of the items in your jackpot window into a single item, the quantity of which depends on what else you’ve got in there.

It is with the Jackpot Challenge that the real profits come about. At first, you can just leave jackpot on and simply pick any items you want, this is one of the best ways for low levels to get Ashen Crystals, which you’ll need to upgrade mercenaries. Once you get into higher levels, though, you’ll want to start setting up a specific jackpot by finding some highly used low cost material to place into your first slot, then filling the rest up with high value boxes and goods. For the purposes of demonstrating this, I used a low level boss to get an enchant II box and then ran ind. dungeon 101 (and photoshopped the result into the same picture):

In this case the result (using prices on my server) is worth twice as much as the input. Ta-da, magic makes it happen! Though some people accumulate month-long War Cry jackpots worth billions of gold, your best bets are commodities that many crafts use: topaz, animal bones, crystals, etc.

The Box Method

This is a golden oldie: you buy an equipment box or a book box or an enchant box or some other box, open it up, and sell the result. As of this writing, a shogun equipment box is selling for 240,000 gold. And yet a ghost warrior heavy armor, which can be found in the box, sells for nearly 4 times as much!

For the uninitiated, you might be saying what, what, what, what, people are dumb! but it’s a rather simple economic principle. The more processed a good is, the more money it will sell for. Take raw shrimp, for example. I’m a cooking elitist, I like to make everything from scratch and so a bag of fresh raw shrimp might cost me $5. But on Tuesdays I become exceptionally lazy, so let’s process it some more, let’s say it’s been de-shelled, de-veined, and pre-cooked. Now that same bag is $7. Let’s go the extra mile and say on top of being de-shelled, de-veined, and pre-cooked, it’s also been spiced up with Chef de Gustave’s famous cocktail spice mix. Now the bag is $8.

The box method works on basically the same principle. Someone is paying you for having the fortune of finding the specific piece of equipment they wanted.

Quest Resets

Though often touted as a source of experience, quest resets can also be good money makers. In early levels, your options are limited, but there remain several good opportunities. Mercenary recruitment quests can be repeated to obtain the summoning marbles or other goodies (like the small marionettes in the Witch quest). At the 80-90 level range, inventor and necropolis ring quests can net you an extra nickel to buy some soda pop at the store.

Once you get into the higher ranges, though, many veterans suggest that the repetition of certain quests becomes a necessity. This starts, at least in my experience, with Knud, found in the Frozen Adlivun. For a relatively minor number of steps, you’ll get a whole bunch of experience and gold and a final reward of 3 Freezing Boxes. Once you’ve so thoroughly exhausted Knud, such that if you ever see a Chimera again you’re liable to vomit, you can move on to James the Pretender, whose final reward is 3 Divine Boxes. Plenty of other quests will do, though the above two are some of the most popular.

And, since Ndoors recently increased the maximum number of quest resets from 50 to 100, you can enjoy double the Chimeras!

Gambling

Ah, vice. Nearest and dearest to my heart. If ever there was a MMO in which gambling was an option, it would be Atlantica Online. The game’s very lifeblood, its item mall, is based upon the gambler’s addiction: just one more Hercules box for a hydra!

I hesitate to include gambling as a method for making gold as, nine times out of ten, you’ll end up short, but… what am I saying?! Everyone loves to shoot for the big score! Just be careful you don’t end up gambling away the armor off your back. Here are just a few of the options for gambling in AO:

Box-opening: many high-end nation or guild dungeons reward expensive boxes that contain items needed to recruit the game’s best mercenaries. Evil Protector Boxes, which come from the guild dungeon Valley of Oblivion, have a rare chance of containing a Crystal Ball of Harmony (aka a cboh) which will be worth at least 1 billion and probably much more, depending on your server’s economy. Others include Nimrod Boxes, Prison Safes, and Pirates Chests. The boxes are quite expensive, though, and can result in you throwing your computer out the window after you get your millionth mandragora.

Medici’s Gold Box: a newly implemented feature, and obviously a gambling gold sink, where you spend 1 million gold for boxes that contain mostly experience books but have a chance of containing a rare weapon such an Officer’s Shotgun or a Stormbringer. I’ve only seen a single rare weapon pop-up on Delphi, but there you are.

Arena: Every 4 hours (3, 7, 11, etc. EST, or GMT-5), 8 mercenary heroes and one of their several pre-set formations are randomly placed in a tournament against each other. Using the game’s sometimes frustrating AI, they battle it off until one is the champion. Either remotely or through Maximus in person, you can place bets on the winner, the 1st/2nd match-ups, and the final rounds.

Going into the full ins and outs of successfully gambling on arena is an article in and of itself (I have a suspicion that it will be coming soon), but I can offer a few easy tips. Learn to recognize the strong formations: any formation with several Red-tooths (Red-teeth?), Alexandra with lots of spears, Hasard with a back row of gunners, etc. Likewise learn to recognize the weak formations: any formation with Raphael or Alkinarpay, archer heavy builds (excepting when combined with Guan Chang), or other bad mix-ups. Keep an eye out for high-dividends. When I was first getting into arena, I would often put minimum (10k) bets on high dividend 1st/2nd or final round match-ups because, even though they had a low chance of winning, you can never be certain with the arena AI.

In short, don’t despair about inflation. Sure, it’s tough to see everything going up in price, but one of the major draws of Atlantica Online is that the market has everything. When that’s the case, you end up with a complex economy, where every little change can cause far-reaching and sometimes unintended consequences. And, call me crazy, I think that’s really cool.

17May

TLBB Brief Guide to Pet Island

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Pet Island

Pet Island Monster Map

A defining feature of TLBB is the many pets that are available for you to capture, breed, and raise. You can have anything from a cute rabbit, a majestic peacock, a terrifying tiger, or a mischievous monkey, just to name a few. As well as looking awesome and adding some chic style to your character, pets also play a crucial role in the player’s performance.

The primary function of pets in TLBB is to support the combat function of a player. Pets can compliment the strength attack, spirit attack, or even the agility of a player. Pets are crucial for PVP or PVE. Pet capabilities and capacity is just as, if not more important, than player’s capabilities.

Pets can not only provide important buffs for their players, but can also deal incredible damage to an opponent, sometimes far greater damage than a player can do themselves.

Therefore having the right pet/s to suit your playing strategy is essential.

Gotta Catch ‘em All: An Overview

Pets can be obtained in a number of ways: you can get one as a prize from an NPC, you can hatch an egg obtained from your novice pack, you can breed a pet with a friend, or you can catch your very own.
First of all, if you haven’t done the “First Pet” quest, I suggest you do that first as it will teach you the basics of catching your first pet. To start the quest simply visit Master Zhao at Da Li (160, 156).
So, you have done the “first pet” quest, you know how to catch ‘em all, but where can you catch ‘em all?

Getting to Pet Island

Map of Luo Yang ~ Click to enlarge

Pets are mainly (but not exclusively) caught on Pet Island. Unlike many cities or locations in TLBB, Pet Island is not reachable on foot or mount. The only way to get to Pet Island is via Cherry Yun in Luo Yang (182, 155).

Cherry Yun is located at the Pet NPC at Luo Yang as labelled on the city map.

Talk to Cherry Yun and she will teleport you to Pet Island.

Nana White and Cherry Yun at Luo Yang ~ Click to enlarge

Pet Island

Pet Island is inhabited by a range of various wild creatures that are located in mobs throughout the island. These range from low level swallows all the way up to Stegosaurus’.
All mobs are wild creatures, so, for example, a Monkey will be a level 15 “Wild Monkey” when it is part of a mob.
Killing the mobs will spawn either a catchable wild version of that creature, a young version of that creature (level 1), or a rare version of that creature (level 1). For example, killing Wild Monkeys may spawn a catchable level 15 “Wild Monkey”, level 1 “Young Monkey”, or level 1 “Rare Monkey”.
Successfully catching a spawn will place that spawn into your pet inventory as your very own pet.
Not every kill will spawn a catchable pet, and the spawn rates between the different kinds of spawns is varied too. Wild and young catchable creatures spawn at a far greater rate than rare catchable creatures do (hence the name, lol). Wild are by far the most frequent spawn.
Catchable spawn are easily identifiable by their name, which will turn blue/white when it becomes catchable and your mouse pointer will take on the appearance of a pet collar.
Also please note, the number of pets that you can carry in your pet inventory will depend on you character’s level. You will commence with 2 slots available for pets, which will increase by 1 every 20 levels. The maximum number of pets you will ever be able to hold is 6.

Pets, Types, and Locations

The following is a location map for the various catchable pets on the island and their type.

Pet Island ~ Click to enlarge

Location	Pet	Level on Pet Island	Minimum Level Required to Summon	Type
1	Swallow	5	5	Agility
2	Rabbit	5	5	Spirit
3	Turtle	5	5	Stamina
4	Monkey	15	5	Agility
5	Puppy (Dog on autopath)	15	5	Physical
6	Hedgehog	15	5	Distributed
7	Raccoon	25	5	Willpower
8	Squirrel	25	5	Spirit
9	Lizard	35	5	Distributed
10	Parrot	25	5	Spirit
11	Wolf	25	5	Agility
12	Mantis	35	5	Physical
13	Crocodile	35	5	Stamina
14	Owl	45	45	Agility
15	Tiger	45	45	Physical
16	Boar	45	45	Physical
17	Badger	45	45	Physical
18	Ostrich (Shy Ostrich on autopath)	55	55	Agility
19	Eagle	55	55	Agility
20	Silkworm (Young Icy Silkworm on autopath)	55	55	Spirit
21	Polar Bear	65	65	Stamina
22	Leopard	55	55	Agility
23	Peacock	65	65	Spirit
24	Unicorn (Wild Unicorn on autopath)	75	75	Physical
25	Gorilla	65	65	Distributed
26	Rhino (Rhinoceros on autopath)	75	75	Stamina
27	Sharp Tooth Tiger (Sharp Toothed Tiger on autopath)	65	65	Agility
28	Stegosaurus	75	75	Stamina
29	Bat	35	5	Distributed

Pet Types

Agility refers to the pet’s ability to increase accuracy and evasiveness.

Stamina refers to the pet’s ability to increase physical defence.

Physical refers to the pet’s ability to increase strength attack.

Willpower refers to the pet’s ability to increase spirit defence.

Spirit refers to the pet’s ability to increase spirit attack.

Distributed refers to the pet’s shared enhancement.

Island Guardians

Pet Island is also inhabited by Island Guardians and Toads who protect the island’s inhabitants from players that attempt to capture them. At this stage (Feb, 2010) there are only the guardians and Toads, however later updates will introduce further guardians including the uber cool Invincible Cat.
Guardians and Toads are the bosses of the island and as such generally require teams and strategy to defeat. So it is not advisable that you try to kill them on your own (unless you are level 50+ and you want to go the level 20 guardian on your own).
Island Guardians are aggressive bosses that are constantly roaming the island looking for players who are farming their fellow island compadres, so make sure you avoid them unless you want a fight to the death.
Toads are generally dormant unless you attack them or you get too close to them.
The Invincible Cat roams the island with a posse of baby pets who are passive unless you attack them.
The island bosses are:

Boss Name	Level	Drops
Island Guardian	20-80	Travelling bag and grid box Drug recipes Weapons and equipment Recipes
Malicious King Toad	80	Level 1 gem inlay spell Level 1 inscribe spell Dark silver nuggets Cotton coth scrap Refined iron fragment Essence of soil Essence of clouds Level 1 synthesis spell Remedy pearl Divine fragments (not bound)
Malicious Toad	50-74
Red Toad	40
Invincible Cat	25, 45, 65	Travelling bag and grid box Weapons and equipment Sets Drug and food recipes Recipes Pet skill scroll for area attack Advanced pet skill scroll for area attack Couple teleporting skill book: lover’s call

Island NPCs

There are 2 NPCs on Pet Island:

Island NPCs

Cha

Cha (81, 31) is the Pet Island guide and the NPC that will teleport you out of Pet Island.

Coldland Sha

Coldland Sha (84, 37) is the island’s pet dealer. Coldland Sha will buy your captured pets from you for a price.

Tips

A couple of tips that you may find useful:

Whilst farming pets on Pet Island you will be constantly attacked by the Island Guardians who are continually roaming and very aggressive. To minimise your chances of dying whilst moving around the island make sure you travel by mount on the island wherever possible.
If attacked by a guardian whilst farming use your primary hidden skill (received from the 9 jointly signed recommendations received for completing all the beginner quests). Primary hidden will turn you invisible for 5 seconds, which will generally be long enough for the guardian to move on. Please note though, that primary hidden will stop working when monsters are 10 levels higher than you are.
When travelling on Pet Island or farming pets try to avoid paths or sandy areas as these are commonly patrolled by the guardians. Staying “off-the-track” will decrease the likelihood of being attacked.
When looking for a rare pet you will undoubtedly spawn many wild versions before finding the rare that you want. Wild pets are a good source of making money. Coldland Sha will buy your unwanted pets from you, however the higher the level of the pet the more he will pay. So you wont get much money from Coldland for your young pets, but will receive a decent reimbursement for a decent level wild pet. Level 45 wild pets, for example, will sell for about 20 odd silver each.
Wild pets carry bones, which are used for raising a pet’s savvy. The higher the savvy level of a pet, the more bones that are required. This means that wild pets that carry a high number of bones (eg. 8 or 9) can be hotly sort after by players trying to raise their pet’s savvy to the extreme. Therefore always check the bones of the wild pets before you sell them to the NPC and if they are holding 8 or 9 bones then it may be worth trying to sell it directly to other players.
Don’t take any money to Pet Island that you don’t want to lose. Pet island is notorious for dying at the hands of bosses or from Pkers. So bank your money before you go to Pet Island, or bank the money you make on the island often.

17May

TLBB Guide in Earning More Gold

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Introduction for making money in D.O. Wish you get rich!

I really don’t want to SAY something universally known, just EMPHASIZE: even living in Song Dynasty in China 1,000 yrs ago, you cannot live without money! As well as in D.O.!

To let you better know how can you earn money in D.O, I would like to point out a truth, during your lifetime when you are not playing DO, you make money by working, lottery, or investment (which is either working or lottery depends on how well you know the field that you are going to invest).

So, the two defferent ways of making money in game:

Taxonomy 1, works in DO, including:

1. Waterprison Quest
For detail info, experience if the best teacher.
Rating: 1, no one do this quest at all at current CN server.

2. Life Skill (materials)
Practise mining, and planting. When you upgrade to 7 or above you can sell your production.
Rating: 4
Very benefit if you are expert, for example, in CN server the lv10 materials for weaving is sold in 45g/40 items. Want that income?

It can be tiresome when you practise those life skills as well as doing guild quests for contribution points. In the 3 cities you can upgrade from lv1 to lv5, and then you have to upgrade in guild, also the guild have to be prosperous enough:

lv5 to lv6, 100 Contribution Points
lv6 to lv7, 250 CPs
lv7 to lv8, 500
lv8 to lv9, 1000
lv9 to lv10, 2000

Planting: Comflicts will occur when the 3 cities have no vacuum fields, you have to grab others’ fields, also vice versa, they probably remember and war you when you go “outdoor”.
Mining: Be warn when you are mining infront of another miner who comes to this ore a bit later…

3. Life Skill (Buff and class quest)
Rating: 3
Cooking, pharmacy give you a chance to make items for supreme buffs, but you need not only practise and do guild quests, but you got to find recipes.

Class quests can be very tricky after lv40.Learning herbalism/pharmacy/pharmacology to produce byproduct remedy which can be obtained randomly during pharmacy; or learning planting/fishing/cooking/regimen to produce class quest dishes.
In CN server, Changyou team now sell supreme buffs in token shop. For class quest items, in CN server, 1 class quest item ranges from 3g to 5g.

4. Trading Quest
Rating: 2
Again ask for veteran merchant player to help, also, don’t forget to join a guild with GOLDEN merchant routes. Kind of bored.

5. Fight evil in Suzhou
Rating: 2
Actually you are fighting for treasure maps. Percentage of obtaining a treasure map: 50%, I did the experiment, did the quest 150 times and got 73 maps. On sale price: 3g to 4g50s

6.Teleporting Invocation
Rating: 2
Learn the skill in Da Li, cost 30g. Then produce “flight tickets” to sell. 1g per one.

Taxonomy 2, lottery in DO, including:

1. Events. Rebel, for gem or Shopkeeper’s Manual; Thief raid, for class skill books; the 3 chain quests in Suzhou, for set equipment. Good chance to become arriviste.
Rating: 5. Great XP too. Keep an eye on any new released events.

2. Bosses. Cat/Red frog on pet island(later you will have Dog on the pet mt.), and those bosses at grassland (sorry I can’t translate precisely). This always leads to guild war, especially the boss at Twin Island.
Rating: 4

3. Horse gangsters. Fight the gangsters which released when someone is digging treasure maps. (Seems currently unavailable in US server)
Rating: 4

4. Sewing and Crafting
Rating: 3. This really depends on how well you respect the GM and Changyou team you can suffer great loss on buying materials. However I respect them well, so I made a 8 stars amulet which is +1700 spi atk, +154 fire atk, +89 int, +9 critic sold out immediately in 7,000g.

Taxonomy 3, investment in DO, including:
1. Breeding pet. Got an 2,000+ tal rare, you fatten.
Rating: 4. You have to tame young pet again and again for a better growth rate.

2. Play the market.
Rating: 3.

This introduction may not cover all, and some of them might haven’t been released here, please forgive any mistakes that I made, only for references.

17May

TLBB Assassin Guide

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ASSASSIN

The Assassins Kung Fu is so well known for its mystery that its apprentices are regarded as wraiths. Assassins are masters of the physical and ice attacks, dealing quick powerful combos, but the most terrifying skill is their ability to move unobserved.

Location: Assassin’s Peak

Combat Skill:

BOOK I

BOOK II

BOOK III

BOOK IV

BOOK V

BOOK VI

BOOK VII

Mounts:

Level 40…………………………………..Level 60

23Apr

More beginner’s guide to Star Trek Online

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Last week we discussed starting out in Star Trek Online, from creating a character to beginning the tutorial. Let’s jump right back into it this week. I’ll run you through the rest of the Federation tutorial, adding a few helpful hints as we go. By the end, you’ll be ready to set sail in your very own ship … even if it does look awfully similar to everyone else’s ship.

Skill Points

Our first beginner’s guide took us through the end of the first leg of the tutorial. You’ve cleared the Borg off the U.S.S. Khitomer and have selected your first Bridge Officer. This is also the first time you receive Skill Points, Cryptic’s alternative to Experience in STO. At the top left of your screen, just below the Ensign 1 (that’s your rank and level) and above your nameplate, you’ll now see the shiny Skill Up button. Click on that to open up the Skill Tree.

This is where you improve and strengthen your character’s abilities. Take your time browsing through the column all the way on the left, because those are the skills available to you for now. They cover space and ground abilities, and at this level, each one costs 100 skill points. You’ve got 300 points right now. I suggest working to max out Starship Command first, because that improves your ability to handle a starship on a few levels. Whichever skill you choose, hit the tiny upward arrow three times, and then hit accept in the flyout menu to the right. Now you’re ready for the next mission.

Your Second Mission

When you beam up to your ship, your newly selected Bridge Officer informs you that the Borg attacked while you were away helping the U.S.S. Khitomer. Everyone who mattered has been slain, which leaves you, improbably enough, as the highest ranking officer. Congratulations, you’ve earned your own starship by default!

The wreckage of a fight against the Borg floats all around you, so it’s time to help out your fellow starships again. Your officer will explain starship movement, so pay attention. Some handy tips:

Steer your ship by holding down both mouse buttons at once.
The R key toggles your throttle between full and stop.
The F key allows you to interact with other ships more conveniently than using the mouse. (This works on the ground as well.)
Full Impulse is much faster than simply going full speed without it. But turning is harder, and Full Impulse sucks power from your other systems. So don’t use it if you’re about to enter combat.

Once you complete the first three steps of the mission, you’ll be sent to destroy some damaged Borg probes. This is basically target practice, and your Bridge Officer will explain some of the finer points of space combat.Before engaging the probes, check out the weapons panel in your interface. The default setting shows your Phaser Arrays hotkeyed to 1 and 3, and a Photon Torpedo hotkeyed to 2. Right-click on the two Phaser icons, which should turn their outline green. This means that those weapons will automatically fire during combat whenever they’re available. This way, you only have to worry about manually firing your torpedo.

Destroy four Damaged Probes in this area, and then warp ahead to destroy four more probes. The latter probes will fight back, but they’re easy. Just pay attention to Zachary Quinto’s tips and you’ll be fine. Warp down to the Vega Colony to continue.

Your Third Mission

The remainder of the tutorial walks you through some more complicated ground and space combat. On Vega, you and your Bridge Officer must zap some Borg drones and disable some of their technology. Make sure you skill up some more when you first beam down. And read up on Kits, which are equipment that grant you special ground abilities. Kits are available based on your career path, and you may choose one from four possibilities at the beginning of the mission. Obviously, many more Kits will become available as you progress through the game.

After you’ve saved four civilians and shut down a Borg device, you return to your ship and warp into combat with more Borg. Help your allies destroy a Borg cube and a Borg sphere, and then warp to Earth Starbase to complete your training as a member of Starfleet.

Second Star to the Right…

Congratulations! You’re almost ready to take the helm of your starship and go save the galaxy from Klingons, Romulans and Crystalline Entities. You just need to visit Admiral Quinn’s office for a hearty pat on the back.

So approach the starbase and beam down, then head for the glowing turbolift straight ahead. You’ll find the Admiral in his office. Speak with him to learn more about your starship. You’ve inherited the Miranda Class vessel in which you started the game (unless you have a pre-order bonus providing an Enterprise lookalike). Complete the Welcome to Earth Spacedock quest to complete the tutorial and receive your first ship console. We’ll discuss ship consoles in more depth in another Captain’s Log. For now, I suggest the tactical console. Equipping it to your ship will make your weapons slightly more powerful.

Accept Quinn’s three other quests — New Orders, Skills Trainer and Stranded in Space — and then talk to Commander Akira Sulu, conveniently located in Quinn’s office. For whatever reason, many new players have had trouble finding Sulu. It was such a problem in beta and at launch that Cryptic added random dialogue to the NPCs outside the admiral’s office to explain Sulu’s whereabouts.

Complete the New Orders quest with Sulu and learn about sector space and patrol missions. Then accept Patrol the Vulcan Sector. Now there are two more stops to make on Earth Starbase. Leave the admiral’s office and head counterclockwise around the station. This will take you first to the Shipyard, where you can find Malcolm Sissel to advance Stranded in Space.

You can also customize your ship here (the first time is free with each new ship), so make sure you do. Because you can’t choose other ships until you reach Lieutenant Commander in 10 levels, you’ll be just one in a sea of Miranda Class vessels. So be creative with what you’ve got.

Continue counterclockwise until you reach Personnel, then speak to Commander Balt to complete the Skills Trainer quest. He’s got loads of handy info on advancement both for your character and for your Bridge Officers, so read up. Also, go ahead and spend the rest of your available skill points if you haven’t already. Once you spend the full 1,500 that you should have by now (again, I suggest maxing out Starship Command, then maybe go for Starship Attack Vectors), your rank changes from Ensign to Lieutenant. A Lieutenant you shall remain until you reach level 11.

That’s it! You can explore Earth Starbase to find a few more features, including the Bank and the Exchange. But at this point, a beginner doesn’t need to worry about those. Now beam up to your ship by hitting the Beam to Ship option on the right side of your screen or the icon to the left of your minimap that looks like a man standing in front of a two-way arrow.

21Jul

Chaos Online beginner’s guide

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Chaos Online is a free to play massively multiplayer online role-playing game. Aside from the standard features that you’ll find in most MMORPGs, the Growth System is a unique aspect of the game. This system allows the players to create and upgrade their equipment. With it, a player only needs to create a single set of equipment. You can upgrade each item both in terms of level and quality; including weapons, armor, eudemons, gems and even mounts. The War system within Chaos is unlike any other MMORPG. Race war is extremely breathtaking since there are two different races (three in the near future) fighting it out and nobody knows who will win the war. As an added bonus to race war; Chaos Online also has an event called Border War which is held five days a week in preparation for Resource War. The winning race of the Resource War controls the battle field mines until the next Resource War. In addition, there are many other extreme challenges you can join in on.

Looking at the image below, you can see all of the different aspects of the game’s user interface:

Character Information
Mini-map
Chat Window
Hotkey
Weapon Experience& Level
Window 1—-Community, Guild, Quest, Mail
Window 2—-Characters, Items, Skills, Team, System Setup
Weapon Hotkey, Mount Shift F9, F10 &F11
Attack Mode Shift
Equipment Repair Reminder
Exp. Bar ( Blue Bar shows your current experience)
Target Character HP
Shopping Mall Entrance
PK Protection is On
Emotion System
PK Protection On/Off
Robot On/ Off

Hotkeys

Q –> Quest
B –> Back Pack
C –> Character
M –> Map
S –> Skill
P –> Mail
T –> Team
F –> Friends
G –> Guild

Chaos Chat System

There are six different channels on Chaos Online:

Public: The people around you can hear you.
Whisper: Only the target can hear you.
Team: Only the members of your team can hear you.
Guild: Only the members in the same guild with you can hear you.
Race: Widely used channel. People in the same race with you can hear you. (Requires Vitality to use)
World: Used to talk to everyone on chaos online. (Need a loudspeaker to broadcast to world.)

Beside the chat box, you can find a smile icon. Click it and it brings up the emotion icons and you can click to use them. In system settings, you can easily change the chat font colors.

How to create a team and set up team.

You can create a team to invite other players to join, or you can simply join other players’ team to gain extra experience.

Click the Team icon on the quick bar (Hotkey: T) to bring up the team panel. Set up the team and press the OK button. There are different settings within the team panel, this is what they do:

Auto-Team: If your team is not full, you will send to the team invitation to others automatically.
Forbid-Team: The team is closed and other players can not apply to join the team.
Experience Distribution: You can set up the team experience distribution. Owner means the experience is not share; Average means experience is averaged and each team member get the same experience.
Item Distribution: You can set up the dropped items’ attribution to owner, or free: anyone can pick them up or random: items are randomly distributed to the team member.

Once you have clicked the OK button, you will find a Team List Information panel under your avatar. The more people a team has, the more extra experience will be gained. You get 4% extra XP per person on the team, regardless of their level. As long as they are on the same map as you, you will get that bonus toward your XP when you kill a monster.

How to join an already existing team.

Ctrl+Right Click and click Team to join a target’s team. The team leader will see a request panel and simple click OK or cancel to make a decision.

Getting from Level 1-20.

In total, getting to level 20 will take between one and two hours. So log in and you’ll find yourself at Myth Village since you’re a Natarian. Talk to the Novice Guide and claim your Newbie Gifts and you’ll get a Treasure Box. These boxes will only open at levels: 10, 15 and last but not least, 20. Then they will disappear forever! But don’t worry, at level 10 you will get a Random Mount ranging from a Motorcycle, a Horse or a Tiger. At level 15 you will get an antique from the Treasure Box that can sell for 50K (50,000) Gold to any NPC that sells items. There is a downside to the Newbie mount…It will only last for seven days!

Do all of the novice guide quests so that you can get familiarized with the game. You will also learn a few skills, one of them is called Crystallize. This skill allows you to make level one Crystals when your Cosmo Energy is filled up (Blue Stuff at the top left next to your Character Name/Level). Click the letter ‘S’ on your keyboard and the Skills Menu will pop up. Drag the skills you want into the ‘F’ spots. For example: F1,F2,F3 etc. After you’ve done the Novice Guide quests you will have perfect level eight armor and a ring or so.

Don’t forget at level ten to open your Treasure Box for that cool new mount of yours! Remember that Newbie Mount that you got will only last for seven days! You should either start saving up 500k or buy Diamonds and purchase a Mall Mount. After you’re level ten or so you should click on one of your City Plumes. Once you are at Paradise City, you should click ‘M’ on your keyboard for your Map. Scroll all the way down on it and click South Paradise. Once you get to South Paradise you should kill Sama Stone Evils which shouldn’t be too hard. This will take about an hour at the maximum time. Okay so you got to level 15? Click your Treasure Box and you’ll get an Antique. Since you’re level 15 you’ll need to start killing a new monster! Attack Nipolan Beasts until you’re level 20 and hopefully you have learned where to train from now on!

13Apr

Places to Kill in EVE Online

Posted in Articles Recommend, eve online | Leave a comment

I’ve been a mercenary, a pirate, an anti-pirate, a salvager, a mission runner, and an explorer. I’ve fought in Factional Warfare for the Caldari State, assaulted Player Owned Stations in Empire, and flown suicidal fleets into 0.0 space. There are thousands of players that populate the vast universe of EVE Online, each one following their own path on a single server. There are no set character classes or careers, and it’s up to the players to decide what they want to do. From peaceful industrial activities, like mining, to vicious piracy; there is a wide variety of roles and professions to explore. Isk, the currency of New Eden, is a driving force behind any profession. If you are having fun, or making money from it, then it’s perfectly valid, and if you can find something that gives you both, then you may have just found the path that’s right for you.

Now, as much as the freedom of choice is one of the great features of EVE, the sheer variety can be utterly daunting for new players. The purpose of this article is to provide a brief overview of some of the different areas available for those players looking for a fight. Don’t think of these as specialised careers, but just as options. They are all different facets of the combat system in EVE; each one uses a similar set of skills for different ends, whether it’s shooting NPCs, or other players.

Let’s start of with the simple stuff: The killing of NPC pirates, also known as ratting, is an age old activity and nets you a small amount of loot and isk (the game’s currency) from the bounties on their heads. These can be found at the asteroid belts in a system, and occasionally near gates and stations.

A step up from ratting is mission running. Missions are the closest thing EVE has to traditional MMO questing. Various security division agents, working for the assorted factions, hand out missions for players looking to shoot at NPCs. These reward you with isk, as well as loyalty points that can be redeemed for special items available from that faction. Now, onto the more exciting stuff: Player versus player combat!

While you are in the relative safety of high security space, shooting actual players is a bit troublesome, as the NPC police will appear out of nowhere and shred your ship into metal confetti. The answer to this problem is a war declaration. As long as you can pay the fee to maintain it, your corporation can declare war on any other corporation, and attack them anywhere in space, without the police intervening. There are whole corps dedicated to warfare in empire space, either for griefing defenceless players, or seeking out worthy opponents.

Another use of the war declaration system is mercenaries. Not everyone in EVE is willing or able to fight, but if they have the money then there are guns to be hired; why start a war with someone when you can pay other people to do it for you. Essentially, you get paid to shoot people, and while it’s great if you can get a regular stream of customers, you have to be patient, professional, and prepared to get involved in other people’s politics.

For those players who don’t want their shooting to be constrained by the rules of empire space, there is the “wild west” of 0.0 space. It has a little bit of everything, as well as large scale territorial warfare between hundreds of players in major alliances. There is no law out there. Anything goes, and if you don’t want territory you can just fly around and try to kill everything you see.

Then there’s Factional Warfare, which was introduced last year as part of the Empyrean Age expansion, and pits the four main factions in EVE into two sided war to take control of certain low-security regions. All you have to do is sign yourself, or your corp, up to one of the four militias and start capturing systems for your side. Factional Warfare agents also offer special missions as well, but just watch out for the opposing militia members, and pirates.

Both adored and despised by the EVE population, piracy is the ancient art of shooting someone and taking their stuff, and it’s a big part of EVE, whether you like it or not. Once you stray into low-security space, you too can become a target for the big bad wolves of New Eden. However, as enjoyable as indiscriminately killing other players might be, there are some penalties to consider. The more people you illegally kill, the lower your security status goes. This stops you from entering certain high security systems, unless you want to be shot on sight by the police. If it gets below minus five, you will become a free target for everyone in the game.

In response to piracy, there are various anti-pirate organisations that actively hunt down outlaws. A good example would be the Rancer Defense Force. Fed up with constant pirate attacks on travellers moving through the Rancer system, a group of players have recently banded together with the sole purpose of removing them from the area. It’s an important example, as there is no “anti-pirate” class. It’s entirely created by players seeing an opportunity (usually to make money) and taking advantage of it.

While it’s entirely possible to just stick to one area, these are not set careers, and most pilots have their fingers in many different pies; most of the players that I know have some form of secondary income to support their PvP habit. The main thing to remember is that there is no “endgame”; there is no definite finishing point. Whether you think it is a strength or a weakness, EVE is not a game that tells you where to take your character. You log in and decide what you want to shoot today.