General Game Facts for Newbs

So you want to play Realms of Despair huh? You must hate yourself.

Gameplay

• The game has tons of worthless dead areas, and some with mobs that actually have good gear.
  • Learning what is what will take you some time, as a lowbie, and again as an Avatar.

This can be fun, and I suggest leveling up a bit with your basic newb eq and then asking other for where to go explore to find some useful gear. Spend some time with that before worrying about really anything, just explore, have fun, find shit.

Then, its on to the Avatar gameplay, which consists of one thing:

• Hack and Slash stuff for gear:
  • Some mobs permit you to have multiple characters logged in and helping (i.e. they have no ip check on characters)
    • This is calling being 'multi' or a mob being 'multiable' and there's lots of neat tactics you can do.
    • Example: Your mage casts immobilize on a mob while your 3 other characters whack it to death.
  • Some mobs DO check how many characters are connected from your IP and punish or slay you if you're not ip1.
    • You need to make friends, join a guild or order, and group up.

In the end-game, here's what the rest of us are doing:

• Have farmed and scribed and brewed up all the items, scrolls, and potions you will need. Store these on storage characters, or in your guild, order, or house.

• Have multiple sets of spellbots (mage and cleric triggered to cast spells on you) drag those around to different runs.

• Have least one of every Class character, plus special things based on align or 'paths' available to some classes.

• Have a ton of useful aliases and triggers. If you aren't going to do this, I hope you can type REALLY fast and your wife is either deaf or has already divorced you.

A Note On Scripting

Outright automated scripting is not permitted, however, you can set up a shit fuck ton of aliases and really help yourself out. It significantly behooves you to do this. Aliases to recall, reset, restock, refavor, speedwalk places, switch gear, quaff potions, complete repetitive tasks faster than you'll ever be able to type. You can play without these, but you'll honestly be acting a fool compared to everyone else who's basically just mindlessly punching alises/macro's and letting triggers do the work while they watch old episodes of Star Trek TNG and scroll reddit on their phone.

Historically, muds were build by nerds who were into things like shell scripting that got serious and learned C. If you're familiar with the linux shell, bash scripting, etc, then you'll see how these games are crafted in that light and begging to be played in a similar light. Anybody who says SOME degree of client-side scripting is 'cheating' frankly just doesn't really understand that what they're doing here is playing what is effectively a shell game that uses bastardized *nix commands and is entirely made by people and for people who enjoy that sorta computer crap, and it has, I earnestly believe, always been intended to be part of the nerd fun here.

Just don't script a leveling bot, or anything that runs without you actually at the helm. Make your typing life easier, and reaction times at computational speeds, that's all.

Characters

You are going to need to level EVERY class character, and really multiple of each. Ideally in your arsenal you have:

• Storage characters
  • Fighters (Warriors/Paladin/Rangers) have 25 STR and can carry 1000lbs. You'll need several.
• Mage+Cleric to buff your characters with all the buff spells. Multiple sets are convenient to move around.
• One of every other class
• Specializaions:
  • There are 7 Mage paths
  • There are 3 Cleric pathsand one you may want both devout and evil align of some.
• Eventually, 'armies' of 8 of a class you can walk around and wreck house with. (8 barbarians = "Barb Army")

So, I suggest starting with a Fighter character (see 'help genre' for clarification of the genres)

After you've got an Avatar fighter, you can use him to run around and explore, and gather and store lowbie gear.

Then, try a Cleric. They get a spell at level 14 by going evil align that is basically gamebreaking and are the fastest class to level. You'll then be able to cast sanctuary on your guys and do some fun cleric quests and stuff, they'll teach you how to be a magic user and eventually just become a spellbot for you.

Next, a mage to fill out your spellbot pair with the cleric.

After that, roll a dice cuz it doesn't matter, just make everything.

Notably Barbarian is totally different. They have a different entrance area and 'hometown' so that's a change of pace for ya once you're sick of releveling the normal shit.

Stats

Your stats are going to end up being best set based on what equipment you can get as an Avatar. You'll likely have to remake characters with better stats once you get into the game and actually know what equipment you can get. A lot of people will tell you to set some stat high for a class, but then in the end, you find that there's ample equipment for that class with that stat and you're way too loaded on it, and should have put stats in other places that aren't supplemented by equipment as much. Anyways, its not a huge deal until you're into the game and have made a few characters so, just try your best for now. If people say to set stats like it actually matters, take that with a grain of salt until you're a more experienced player who knows more about what eq you will ACTUALLY be wearing as an avatar.

Mechanics

The game is a hack and slash, and the 2 mechanics directly tied to combat that comprise the entirety of the gameplay as an avatar are quaffing heals, and issuing attacks. Combo with the mob/loot situation: "rare pops", and that all she wrote folks.

There ARE some puzzles in the game, some tricky business you have to read and figure out, but, that's the minority.

Healing

The healing mechanic is made difficult due to the fact that you become 'full' after quaffing potions. How many is based on your CON stat, but suffice to say its between 6 and 14, and historically, was 8. A lot of people still run on 8.

So you quaff 8 potions, and have drink from a magic spring. You'll make those when you fight, and then spam a ton of heal commands and drink spring, over and over, until you die.

Attacking

The attack mechanic is made difficult due to the lag state that happens after you attack. Different attacks cause different length wait-states, between 1-5 seconds, during which you are taking damage, and cannot do anything else.

Loot

Mobs exist in static locations, and have static loot. However, they have pops. Sometimes fairly often, sometimes extremely rare. The end-game becomes killing a mob 300 times to get that rare pop.

Grind

SOooooo that means that MOOSTT of the time you will doing this:

superhit dragon
....You are stuck in wait-state for between 1-5 seconds, taking damage.....
heal
heal 
heal
heal
heal
heal
heal
heal
drink spring
superhit dragon again
....repeat for 5 minutes...

The Dragon is DEAD!!
<no pop>

Despair....

Reset and Repeat.

Real Examples

Multi Example

So, here's an idea of how you'll be using your many characters in the end to go get some junk:

Step 1: Take a mage/cleric/warrior/barbarian character as a group out to the area (fully stocked) Step 2: Use the mage/cleric to buff up your warrior and barb Step 3: Send the mage inside to sleep a few mobs, back him out to your camp. Step 4: Send your barb inside, past the sleeping mobs, to mob #1. Kill him. Return to camp. Step 5: Send your warrior in, do some commands to get a hidden key or two to get deeper into the area Step 6: Use the warriors 'stun' command to fight and kill the mobs you are after. Hope for pops. Return. Step 7: Wait for the area to repop, then repeat this whole process.

Run Example

Step 1: Make 6 friends. Step 2: All stock up and head out, bringing spellbots, storages, killers, etc to the run camp spot. Step 3: Log clerics to kill the first guy Step 4: 5 Log warriors, solve the puzzle and go kill the second guy, while 1 guy maps a maze Step 5: Log some other class and all meet up inside the place Step 5: One guy does some crap to open the path forward Step 6: Kill guy3 Step 7: Hope the thing pops Step 8: Continue to guy4 Step 9: Fight guy4, halfway through, some people flee out and switch to other characters Step 10: Hope for sweet pops Step 11: Despair. Repeat.

Pre-Step: Farm up a bunch of the necessary keys for this run (kill a mob repeatedly, and search a lot) Step 1: Move spellbots, and 2 killer chars to camp. Have 5 friends do the same. Step 2: Get the npc to prog upon walking into that room Step 3: One person loads up a barb army to kill the guardian quickly Step 4: Log on first step killers, enter area using farmed keys. Step 5: Kill the first sequence of mobs Step 6: Clear the beyond area of mobs Step 7: One person moves forward to map a maze and puzzle solve Step 8: Log secondary killers, use more farmed keys to have them enter the area Step 9: One guy does a thing to open the path forward Step 10: Prep secondary killers and kill the big bad you're after. Step 11: Hope for pops. Despair. Repeat.

On The Subject Of Gold

Let me tell you a tale my friend. There once was a game, a roleplaying game, where adventurers set out to slay the beasts of the wild, taking in whatever spoils they may find, often spoils to improve their own status and security.

Alas the day came when the beasts were slain, and the spoils were unwanted. "What to do with these?" asked the intrepid adventurers. "I've got it!" exclaimed one noble young man. He slyly eyed his cohorts and from his lips he cautiously and with an conniving undertone he put forth the idea that would change all souls in his realm for eternity... "We take it to town, and sell it!"

There was a day when the realms were populated by many adventurers, and many who ventured out in small packs, traversing widely varied lands and encountering widely varied beasts and bastards of all types. The spoils were bountiful, but not as bountiful as the secrets of those far off lands, and their hidden and hard to reach spoils.

And such it came to pass that those in town were glad of the adventurers and the marketplace of exotic relics of far off lands and beasts, and paid handsomely in gold for the items of their desire. An economy of gold and goods sprung up, and many were fevered to pay in gold for that which they had not the effort or interest to risk their own hides for.