Advancing and Developing your character

Choosing a guild

Your guild represents the way of life you will choose for your character in a world that simulates a reality of medieval fantasy. Each guild has its own distinct advantages and disadvantages, but balance overall. Some may be weaker at low levels, but make up for it at higher, some may be weak in defense but powerful in offence. Joining a guild offers the advantage of a greater range of abilities, access to special guild rooms and allows you to socialize with a bunch of friendly, like-minded people.

Which guild you can choose depends largely on your chosen class(es). For example, if you are a priest you must choose a priest related guild such as cleric, druid, healer etc. (E.G.: If your class is warrior you cannot be a necromancer because it is a mage guild.) For a list of available classes with associated guilds please click here. Which guild is best for you to join depends on your class, race and of course what you will enjoy playing the most. Viewing the page provided for class and guild info (link given above) will really provide you the best assistance here.


About your character's statistics

On Ages of Despair your character will have five major stats. When you type score, you will notice that your character has five base stats. Each race has different maximum stats. Your stats will raise automatically as your character gains levels.

The stats are:

Developing your character

When you were in the character creation process you chose a class now that you are logged on to the mud you have (should have) chosen a guild. You now have a class level and guild level that you can raise as you advance your character in the game. You must advance your class and guild levels evenly. For example, you cannot get to level 10 if your guild if your class level is only 9.



Learning abilities (prayers, skills and or spells)

When your character is brand new, you don't have any abilities. You won't even be able to wield a weapon until you have trained it. What abilities you can learn depends on your guild. (E.G.: Rogues only have skills to develop, they do not use spells, songs or prayers. Clerics on the other hand learn prayers and bards learn songs etc.)

It is suggested that you raise a few levels before you start trying to develop your abilities. The reason for this is because the higher your guild level, the more skills will be made available for you to train. You can develop (train or study) abilities inside your main guild room. There should be a list in the room when you type 'look' that will give you directions on what you need to do.

How you advance and develop your character's abilities is very important. When you are a new player you start of with 50 free training points that you can spend on learning/developing your abilities (I.E.: prayers, skills, songs and or spells). After you have used up your free training points, it will cost you experience to raise them. Each ability will max out once you have trained them to up 100 (this usually takes a long time). The higher you have developed an ability, the better you will do at it and the higher your chance of succeeding at it. You need to choose wisely which abilities you work on and develop as it will effect how well your character does in combat. When starting out, some abilities will be more important than others. If you don't already know what skills or stats to raise, ask an online knowledgeable player for some advice. (note: make sure that you train in a weapon skill or you will not be able to wield a weapon when you want to go out and fight!)


Getting Equipment

Before you run out and start fighting monsters it would probably be wise for you to get some armor and a weapon. As a newbie, you won't be fighting anything very difficult, so any basic equipment will do. You can borrow one weapon and a piece of armor inside the LNPA equipment room from Terril. Remember to always 'wear' your armor and 'wield' your weapon before going into combat. If you try to wield a weapon and it tells you that you do not know how, it is because you never trained in that weapon skill (see above about abilities). So make sure that you borrow a weapon that you are skilled in using.

If you wish to get more equipment or something other than what is offered at the LNPA, you can buy equipment at the smithy which is located 3 north, 4 east and 1 room north of the login room. 3 north, 1 east and 3 rooms north from the login room you will find the main shop where Ghorim has a wide variety of things for sale. (Suggestion: Stick to using the LNPA newbie equipment until you can save a little money.)

Once you have equipment you can see what you are using with the 'eq' command. When you type 'eq' you will see something like this:

Click on thumbnail to see full view. Image will open in a new browser window.

Equipment saving

Players are able to save their items after they log off the MUD and through game reboots. However, in order for to do this you must have a place where you can store them. On Ages of Despair players can purchase a houses, but they will also need to buy a chest if they wish to store their items. Lockers are also available for rent if a player cannot afford a house and chest yet. Being able to save your equipment is a special luxury. To be able to save your items forever is indeed awesome, but it does cost a fair amount and is not intended for newer players. Players usually spend time saving up their money just to buy a house, it is not something that will come instantly, so don't expect it. Until a time comes when you can afford this special feature.


Checking your inventory

This is a command you will use often. The inventory command (also known as 'i') when typed will show you a list of all the things your character is currently carrying, except for the ones you have wielded, worn or held (you view your equipment with the 'eq' command). The 'inventory'' command also shows you how many coins you have on you and the total weight amount that you are carrying. When you type 'inventory' or 'i' it will look something like this:

Click on thumbnail to see full view. Image will open in a new browser window.

Healing

There are several ways to heal on Ages of Despair:

Death finds us all sooner or later

If you play on any MUD, sooner or later you will get killed and die. Death sucks, but keep in mind that it is just part of the game. When you die you will lose 3% of your total experience amount. The total experience you lose will be withdrawn from your free experience. Note: depending on the amount of your free experience at your time of death you might be left with a negative amount of free experience.

When you die your soul leaves your body and you will be a ghost. As a ghost you will not be able to speak, use channels, carry anything or use a large portion of the normal mortal commands. You will have use of the 'wizcall' command which should be used only if you are having a serious problem or if your character is bugged.

To bring your character back to life, you must go to the cemetery and 'pray'. Clerics will also have the option to study the art of resurrection and will then have the ability to bring you back to life. As a ghost you may speak on the ghost channel by typing 'ghost <mesg>' if you need help getting resurrected.

Warning! When you have received a new body you are still rather low on hit points (hp). Do not go running back to get your things and money from your corpse without healing a bit first. The monster that killed you will still be aggressive towards you and will attack you if you enter the room.

There is no limit on how many times you can die, and you will never be thrown out from the game due to dying.



Gaining experience and earning money

If you want to continue to build and develop your character you will need to earn some experience. Players earn experience by killing NPCs (non-player characters). On occasion can also get experience from solving a quest, puzzle or finding a special hidden area or object. You will be told when you've received experience this way. Note that while you get a little experience for just being in combat with the monster, you get most of your experience for the actual kill.

How to get money is simple, but might take a little time. In general you get money by taking the items from the corpse of a monster you killed. Keep in mind that some monsters have more value than others. You can always 'look' at a monster (E.G.: 'look rabbit' or 'exa rabbit') before attacking it to see what items it is carrying before attacking it if you only want to kill things for value. Any items you take from a corpse can be sold at a local shop for coins.


Going into combat

You can attack a monster by typing "kill <monster>". You may also find that some monsters will initiate combat and attack you. While in combat, you can use "look at opponent" instead of the name of the monster you are fighting. Probably one of the most important commands is 'wimpy'. The 'wimpy' command when set will make you automatically flee from the room if your hit points get too low. This won't guarantee that you will never die, but it helps a lot.

Below is a list of different commands that you might find helpful before going into combat. They should be rather self explanatory. If you need a more detailed explanation type 'help <command name>' at anytime while you are logged on to AoD.

Directions to helpful places

If you have actually read through all this, congrats! You will have more knowledge and a better understanding of the game than some level 10 players didn't put the effort into trying to learn how the game works!

Here are helpful directions to good places for new players to gain experience, and many other important places that you will probably visit often as you journey through the mud. All directions use either the east gate or the Loriah login
room as a starting point.

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