How to Start Playing: A Walkthrough for Newbie Bipeds

6/21/2005: I wrote this little walkthrough in answer to someone on another board who had read that the biped tutorial is a bit confusing and is in the process of a revamp. As we are getting some new players in the game these days, I thought it might be good to put the walkthrough here. I will do my best to keep it updated.

I encourage all comments, corrections and elaborations from other players.

/////**** Walkthrough ****\\\\\

Character Creation. The first thing you will do is create your character. During the character creation process, just goof around with it a bit: look at different classes and play around with customization of appearance. The you will be able to choose both a first name and a last name for your character.

Biped Tutorial. After creating a character you will enter the game in the biped tutorial area (unless you created a dragon; but this tutorial is for bipeds). You will begin to get tutorial screens that will tell you all the basics of the game, and your first time through you should probably not turn them off.

Run along the path you see ahead of you and keep running until you seea guy standing at a pedestal. If you right-click and greet him, he will tell you about the Gifted Ones (which you are).

Go into the caves by that dude and talk to the trainers inside about some basic adventure and crafting classes. You can join their classes at will, and then leave the class by joining another, if you want -- not just in the tutorial but throughout your life in Istaria. There are tutorials that show how to gather resources and how to fight. In crafting, you will make a basic object while you are there: a blade or a cap or a spell. The trainers give you all of the equipment and formulas that you will need to carry out the tutorial.

When you are ready, run out of the cave and down the hill to another large building and enter it. At the bottom of the stairs you will see a dude who will give you a Fedexp-type quest: to help him out. Agree to it and he will give you an envelope to deliver to the Steward of the first city you go to, New Brommel. That dude will give you some coin to get you started when you meet him.

Exit through the door in the room where you got this quest, and you will see a portal (big round blue thing) and when you run up to it you will see that it offers you New Brommel, which is a starting town. When you are ready to leave the tutorial area, select it, click on "teleport" andyou will port there. Before that, though, if you want to practice more in the tutorial area, there are crafting and adventure areas where you can craft things and kill monsters just to get the hang of it.


The Starting Island, New Brommel. When you've ported to New Brommel, you'll find yourself standing on a portal arrivakl pad. Look around and you will see signs. Follow the signs that say "To town" and you'll get to the center of town (running down a hill).

There is a large square there and in the center a tower (aka a shrine). If you right click on theshrine (need to be close enough) it will ask you if you want to bind to it, and you should probably say yes. Then if you die, you can click on the recall button in your upper left screen and it will return you to the shrine. There are many objects in game that you can bind to. This one happens to be very convenient to start out with. So if you get lost or if you die, you can always get back to a place where you know where you are by clicking on recall.

You will find Steward Gareth Ironhand standing by a lamppostin the square justsouth from the shrine, and you can complete your fedexp quest by greeting him (which you do by rightclicking, as usual). He will give you 50 copper pieces and if you like he will tell you a bit more about Istaria.

Note that you are standing next to a road that leads up a hill to a portal. That portal will allow you to leave New Brommel and visit the other main cities in Istaria. Also note that the Imperial Herald standing next to the Steward can hand out Imperial Assessor quests that are fun for exploration of Istaria.

You'll be there on New Brommel with other newbies. You can get up to level 10 (roughly) in both adventure level and crafting level on the Island if you want to. When you know the game better you will find other areas to huntor gather in.

Trainers for 4 adventure schools (mage, warrior, scout or cleric) and 3 crafting schools (scholar, outfitter, blacksmith) are located inside the cave with funny flashing symbols out front; the cave is just across the tower that you bind to, and a bit north of the Stewart. The trainers will give you basic equipment you need to gather resources or for combat, and crafting machines are located near them inside the cave.

Also notice that in the square where the binding tower is, you will find a building with you bank vault inside (type v or double click the vaultkeeper to open it). You will also find a consigner and a pawnbroker standing under a cloth shelter.

The consigner is and npc who allows you to sell goods that you craft or loot to other players. The pawnbroker is an npc that will give you coin for loot or resources you harvest or items you craft that you don't want to sell on the consigner.

This and looting mobs you've defeated is how you will get money in the game.

Crafting. You can get quests from your crafting trainer (the trainer of whatever school you joined in the tutorial; alternatively if you want to change schools, just greet the trainer of the school you wish to join).Greet thetrainer and then click on the hotlink thatusually says "something to do" and you will get a screen from which you can select which task to undertake. There are two kinds: crafting quests and FedEcp-type delivery tasks.Once you have a crafting quest, it is time to run around New Brommel looking for the resources you need to gather for your quest.

To gather resources, you need to have the proper tool equipped. Then you just double click on the resource to start gathering. You can identify active resource nodes by moving your mouse around on the screen; resource nodes light up upon mouseover, as do all other clickable objects.

Machines that allow you to process raw resources into usable ones are located out in the field close to the resources. Once your inventory is fulls of processed resources, it is time to return to the trainer area and process them into finish items on the machines located nearby.

You can also sell both processed and raw resources to the pawnbroker for fast coin.

Adventuring. There are no adventuring quests per se on New Brommel. But there is a great abundance of mobs to kill, and leveling up to the point where you are ready to go out into the rest of Istaria is fairly quick.

Just run around a bit to get familiar with where the mobs are. Generally, the farther you are from town, the higher their level will be. If you get into trouble, you can run from a mob and it will eventually give up chasing you. Some mobs(grulets and maggots) are not aggressive unless you attack. Others (zombies and skeletons) are more aggressive and they are also social, i.e. they will help an ally who is fighting you.

You can pawn the loot you get for coin. But some of it is worth holding onto: formulas, for example, andmonster partslike maggot mandibles. Some of the monster parts are trophies, and can be turned into trophy hunters for cash and experience. If your inventory gets too full of trophies, just put them for the time being in your vault.

The Rest of Istaria. Once you are ready, it is time to move on to the big world of Istaria outside of NB. Run up to the portal SE of the town square and then choose a destination!

If you are running a quest from your crafter or the Imperial Herald, then you will know which destination to choose. Buit if you are not running a quest, you may wish first to visit your racial city!

Human: Dalimond
Dwarf: Aughundell
Saris: Kion
Elf: Feladan
Fiend: Kirasanct
Half Giant: Mahagra
Gnome: New Rachival
Sslik: Sslanis
Dragons: Dralk and Chiconis.

However, in Horizons there are level tiers, and you are in Tier 1 to start out with, and until level 20. Thus if you want to get serious about crafting and adventuring right away, the best choice is for you to go to the tier 1 area, which is presently Lesser Aradoth (i.e. Sslanis or Kion). Choose one of those two cities, and then explore the town.

There you will find trophy hunters and Town Marshalls who will hand out adventuring quests or reward you for collecting trophies.

You will also find both adventure and crafting trainers. As in New Brommel, the crafting trainers will hand out quests, too. Resources are scattered all over Lesser Aradoth; download and install Pekka's maps to see reource and machine locations. Alternatively you can simply run around the island, exploring and finding stuff for yourself!

You will find processing machines out in the resources fields, more or less near the resources themselves. The finishing machines for crafting usable items from resources are located near the trainers in town. You will also find machines in player built structures out in the countryside.

This FAQ will take you on from here!

Where to Find Help in Game. Even with the tutorial, you will have many questions. It is good to join the marketplace channel so you can ask questions. People are very helpful in that channel. To join it, click on the little chat balloony-looking icon at the bottom of the chat window; it will give you a list of avaialble channels. Then double click on marketplace channel or rightclick and choose join. You can also just rightclick on the chat window and select "Browse Player Chat Channels" to see the list.

The boards here at community.istaria.com have lots of current, useful information.

Good luck, and have fun!