I have no idea what I am doing

[Zoubek]

So um hello! I've been meaning to try out Istaria for about 3 years now, buuut I don't have as much free time as I would like to have (who does anyway) and until recently I was playing another MMO (which I had to quit because despite it being F2P I was pumping almost 50€/month just for pets, costumes and stuff – couldn’t help myself). And now I chose Istaria because, well I like dragons (like a lot).

So I was eager to dive in and thus I quickly created character (took me just about hour in character editor – there seriously is no white color for decals? ) and started game on Chaos. What is difference between Order and Chaos? I've read Order is an RP server whit different rules, but I could not find them anywhere (then again maybe I am just blind). Better save then sorry so I’ve chosen Chaos lol. Even though I will go to Order too eventually.

So I've started and my first experience was quite unsatisfying, there was an NPC, Spitfire was his name I think, I greeted him all happy and excited and he just mumbled something about patrol and walked off, how rude. Others were fortunately much more helpful.

One thing I noticed is that there are actually quite nice people around here in Istaria, rare sight those days, especially on internet. There was white dragon, following me around for about half an hour, throwing some buffs on me and generally just sitting around looking majestic, he did not said a single word the whole time though, It was a little creepy actually. I think his name was Haurak? Haruka? I am not sure. Or that other hatchling struggling with gem cutter, I wish I could help them, but I am not really master crafter myself (yet!).

I have few questions though (and some issues)

• When you login there is a message “you're bound to shrine blah blah” Is that just place where you respawn after death? Or is it something more?

• Can I make icons in interface bigger? Or just icons on map?

• Is it possible to display tooltips on skill in hotbar? Like when I hover over icon? I don't remember them all and what they do and cost yet. Going through menus isn't exactly practical.

• I have hard time selecting mobs, especially when there are friendlies fighting close. I end up selecting myself or someone else. Is there like shortcut to select next mob or something so I don't have to click it?

• Battle stance? Red? Green? What is it? tutorial did not mentioned anything about it. I googled something, and some skills are supposed to be more effective in certain stance? How do I determine mobs stance? (assuming they use this)

• Game is crashing like crazy, every 15 minuets or so. Could that be Windows 10 thing? Or perhaps something with AMD? (wouldn't be first)

• Is there a way to permanently switch chat channel? So I don’t have to always type /group blahblah?

• And one last thing chat window forgets opened tabs when I log off, instead when I login back there are 4 open blank tabs and I have to close them and join channels again.

I am sorry if anything above is fairly obvious but I could not figure it out. .

I was little bit afraid of Istaria actually because some old games tend to be … difficult … at controls, interface and some are overly complicated. But so far I am happy in Istaria, yes, combat is kind of slow and makes me want to sleep, but still there is something I find charming. It’s difficult to describe and maybe it's just that all this is new to me. Well we'll see. Anyway this is me and well I hope we will be fighting (and dying - I've mastered that perfectly) together.

So eer this is a bit longer then I thought It would be. Wall of text sorry.

[Elteria]

Welcome Zoubek!
Difficulty is part of the fun in older mmorpgs . However Istaria is rather easy once you learned to know the ways.

I have few questions though (and some issues)

• When you login there is a message “you're bound to shrine blah blah” Is that just place where you respawn after death? Or is it something more?

That's correct. This is the place where you recall. You're able to bind at any shrine in the world. In Cities or on Plots.

• Can I make icons in interface bigger? Or just icons on map?

I'm afraid I don't think so. I haven't seen any options for that. Only way would be to create a GUI mod but that should be a very time intense task.

• Is it possible to display tooltips on skill in hotbar? Like when I hover over icon? I don't remember them all and what they do and cost yet. Going through menus isn't exactly practical.

I'm not sure what you asked for. If you drag an ability or a spell into your hotbar, there is a tooltip already set. You are able to edit that tooltip and add more info if you like, by right-clicking the button and choose the 'Edit Hotkey ..' link. More info is available at http://www.istaria-lexica.de/Hotkeys_and_Hotkey_Bars

• I have hard time selecting mobs, especially when there are friendlies fighting close. I end up selecting myself or someone else. Is there like shortcut to select next mob or something so I don't have to click it?

There are several ways you can target mobs. The game client has a preconfigured keyboard combination (which I don't remember). You can check that inGame under Options -> Key Bindings. I set up mine the following: 'Select Nearest enemy: CTRL + TAB'; 'Cycle Nearest enemy: SHIFT + TAB' and to make the whole fighting easier: 'Attack: TAB'

• Battle stance? Red? Green? What is it? tutorial did not mentioned anything about it. I googled something, and some skills are supposed to be more effective in certain stance? How do I determine mobs stance? (assuming they use this)

On mobs you see the stances the same as on your character. Not much mobs use stances at all so don't worry. Stances give out benefits on certain abilities, like more damage, more accuracy, more defense,... Which benefits you exactly get you can read from the details of each ability. Just right click on the abilitiy button and choose 'show details'

• Game is crashing like crazy, every 15 minuets or so. Could that be Windows 10 thing? Or perhaps something with AMD? (wouldn't be first)

Ummm.. welcome to istaria Those regular crashings happen to most people due to high graphic settings. Open the 'Options -> Video' screen and try playing around a bit. Lowering the Maximum View Distance and disabling shadows does the trick most of the time. By the way, even if you've got a high ended Computer this is worth a try.

• Is there a way to permanently switch chat channel? So I don’t have to always type /group blahblah?

Right click your chat box and open 'Chat settings...'. There you will find a 'Default Command Prefix' line. You are able to enter any available slash command there which will be added infront of what you type in. Such lige /g, /gu, /chat <name>, /say... Be aware that /chat doesn't work with channel names having spaces inbetween.

• And one last thing chat window forgets opened tabs when I log off, instead when I login back there are 4 open blank tabs and I have to close them and join channels again.

That's not the normal behavior I think. The client should autojoin them after you logged out in a common way (not crashing!). I'm afraid I got no solution for you there.

[Zoubek]

Awesome, many thanks.

[Elteria]

You're very welcome

[Racktor]

Welcome to Istaria Zoubek! Seems Elteria beat me to your questions, but they didn't answer your question about Order vs Chaos;

Order is indeed an RP server, but due to the server population these days it's very hard to find actual RP. We are a kind community, but we are also very small and can be very quiet. You'd surely have to be prepared to solo a lot of things or wait until weekends for any sort of help for bigger bosses (I'm thinking ARoP bosses at level 100, far down the road, but still). If someone has free time they'll generally try to help you. Marketplace is sort of Order's general chat like it is on Chaos.. I think. Except we have a lot less of an economy, haha. (You're hard-pressed to find someone who charges a lot for anything. Most people make armor for free if you just gather the comps. I can't speak for Chaos, but I know consignors are a lot more full and stuff is a lot more expensive on them! Money isn't hard to get anyway.)

Order averages 5-15 players on the weekdays depending on when you're around. On weekends, it's 10-20. Expect to see a spike soon: there's going to be a double EXP event from (the tentative dates of) December 22nd to January 7th and people like to try to pop on then to take advantage of it. A big patch will be applied next Tuesday, I think, as well, so expect the servers to be down for a while!

Chaos, on the other hand, you've seen so I don't have to explain much. It's much more busy and has more players. Everyone I have met there so far has been kind but I've almost never really been on Chaos due to all my characters on Order. I've a lvl 19/30 hatchling there named Racktorr (some bugger stole my name about 4 years ago),. though, but I'm really unable to motivate myself to restart. All my other characters are in my signature except Rixar, who is also on Order anyway

P.S. Did you draw your icon? If so I know who you are on deviantART

Edit: As for the highest graphics options, I recently sent in a ticket about that malarky and, after some frustrating crash-hunting, the devs are tracking down the cause. So I have my fingers crossed that it'll be fixed! (The issue is that it devours your graphics memory really swiftly and overloads your client, causing you to crash, if I inferred right)

[Zoubek]

Thank you for your server sum up

P.S. Did you draw your icon? If so I know who you are on deviantART

I did not. I just loved that particular face so much. it looks so cheery and happy, even though the comic context was a bit different.
By any chance aren’t you the person behind Breakthrough?

[Smaug]

Welcome to Istaria

Concerning stances, I do believe they no longer do anything. At one time they did but (someone correct me if wrong) the don't now, so don't worry about using them.

About the chat tabs being blank, join the ones you want then log out normally. The game doesn't save settings until you log out. If you crash out they won't get saved. See if that works.

Default setting for select nearest enemy I think is the F10 key, F9 is select yourself.

The shrine your bound to is where you'll end up when recall, either after dieing or just whenever you wish, you don't have to die to use the recall, can use anytime you want.

Join and use the New Player channel, ask any questions you have anytime. The game is sometimes (being generous here) short on explaining things. Someone will be happy (if we not all asleep) to answer.

Good luck and good hunting grasshopper

!!!Rwrr Smaug Rwrr!!!

[Machaeon]

there seriously is no white color for decals?

On this note, there actually will be "white" decals available in the next patch. They aren't truly white, just a lighter version of the base color but with a white, grey or other light color, then you can definitely get white. (It's on the Blight shard now if you want to see)

Is there a way to permanently switch chat channel? So I don’t have to always type /group blahblah?

In addition to what Elteria said, I would suggest making a separate chat window for group chat and guild chat so you can have a window dedicated to having the default command prefix being /g or /gu.

Edit: I totally forgot but... WELCOME! I certainly hope you enjoy your time in Istaria. I'm always in the New Player chat on Order (usually on either Hetanko or Machaeon, possibly both) if you happen to stop by.

[Cegaiel]

Easy way to make a new tab that will talk to group members only. You can leave the tab there (even if not in group, just leave it there for next time). Whenever you're in a group, it'll just work.

You can do the /g in the Default command prefix, but not necessary doing it this way.



Just add new tab (+ button)
Uncheck everybox (click the empty square button), then tick only the Group box.
Give it a Tab Title you like (I chose Group) and hit ok. Now you will automatically talk to group when you are in this tab.

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• Is it possible to display tooltips on skill in hotbar? Like when I hover over icon? I don't remember them all and what they do and cost yet. Going through menus isn't exactly practical.
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When you hover a hotbar key, it shows a tooltip of what the hotkey does, ie Use Ability: Smash I

If the item that is on the hotbar key can provide a tooltip of the item, then you can right click the icon and choose "Show Details" for that tooltip you're inquiring about. Hotkeys with things like text commands, don't show that Show Detail option. So if see this option (Show Detail) when right clicking a hotkey, then it'll show the "big" tooltip.

[Zoubek]

Thank you, very much all of you. I believe I have perfected my interface now, its actually pretty cool how customizable it is. I even figured out how to make friend list (well not really, someone told me how to do it).

[Racktor]

Thank you for your server sum up

I did not. I just loved that particular face so much. it looks so cheery and happy, even though the comic context was a bit different.
By any chance aren’t you the person behind Breakthrough?

You're very welcome, and I am, actually. Funny that you recognised me under a completely different username, haha.