Hey all my fellow newbies! I was given this advice by an Imm and it seemed to resonate quite well with me. So here we go!

1) Never, and I do mean never get to level 11 without having a plan! You have to know where to get what potions, pills, and gear your specific class is going to need. More importantly you have to know how to get it in a hurry!

2) Learn the central areas! Your hometown and the major cities are key to getting around CF but more importantly learn the major roads! You are going to have to learn how to run before you can learn how to escape!

3) Make friends, ask questions, and make more friends. Without mentorship on CF you are in trouble especially if you have a wrong idea about how things work! Use the newbie channel a LOT upto level eleven to make sure you know your skill, spells, supps and their basic applications.

4) Ask about what race-class combinations allow you the best chance early on to survive and learn. Some races are just a no-no.. Elves for example have a vulnerability to iron. There are IRON weapons everywhere!

5) Eventually get caballed with a character to learn the intricacies of roleplaying and group combat. Also being a part of an organization gives you a leg-up on keeping up with the Jones.

6) Never be afraid to ask a dumb question! Ever! Ask your groupmates, ask your friends, ask an Imm but ask that question because if you do not who knows what you will be doing absolutely wrong.

7) Stay the course. Quitting a character because of PK frustrations, poor Cabal responses, or no Imm interaction leads to your inability to learn the game. Take your lumps and learn from them! This is the absolutely hardest thing to do, even veteran players succumb to rage deletes. Do not do it, just keep plugging and remember to add a new chapter to your role to represent your character's new direction. Trust me on this one, it is the worst thing you could do to yourself.

Cheers.

Hi there! You have done well, your knowledge of the main areas has grown, you have managed to get all your gear slots covered, and you feel like you are the King or Queen of the World! Then it happens... you notice that cute little capital (PK) tag by not only your name but by others.. level eleven.. hmm.. OMG what the !#@@#$, where in !#@#@ did this @$!!@#@#!@ come from!?| Hey they took all my precious stuff!!! ARRGGG.............delete... delete.. WTH?!?! I can not delete... This is NUTS! Okay I will stick it and stand by this nice cityguard... OH FWEEEEEPPPPPPPPPPPPP I was fweeepin naked!!!! CF SUCKS! etc etc.

WHOA there cowboy/cowgirl time to breath and read this list that will move you beyond the next level. So without further ado here it is:

1) First and foremost gear comes and gear goes, deal with it. That nice Sword of Absolute Death that great level 51ist guy just gave you is only going to kill one player: YOU! Don't get upset at your shinies going bye-bye... use the money you have banked and recoup and relearn. By all means use the sword on mobs and enjoy those crazy damage echoes you get!! Just remember you are going to lose it.

2) Cityguards are useless player baits that simply get you killed. You want a relatively safe city to be in? Make sure there is a Tribunal dedicated to that city on and head there. Cities go from great places for newbies to death traps, as do all the major roads, especially the East Road!!!!! A wee bit of cowering helps.

3) The only fairly safe place in Thera at low levels is the Inn of the Eternal star where the guards do assist players. So now you think "Yay the CF staff are not a bunch of savage nutjobs!!" .. WRONG.. that place is a deathtrap, one way in therefore one way out = a line to kill you outside for that Sword of Absolute Vodka.. I mean Death. It is a great place to wait to get a party and to just yack for a bit BUT it is not a hiding place.

4) Okay the veteran players are probably not going to like this, heck the Imms may not as well, but here it goes: get at least ONE of each of the following potions and keep them OUTSIDE of a container in your inventory: Recall(/Return/Homesick) and Teleportation. Even if blind you can see the potions in your inventory and use them.

5) Spam-O-Rama-Ding-Dong-DOH okay an explanation is needed for this so here: for each command you enter and is sent to CF it stacks in a cue that does them in order of received. So those twenty flees you just entered to get away and quaff won't be resolved until your fifty trips have been resolved first. There is no way to clear out previous commands, there should be in my opinion because newbies ALWAYS spam, so you have to start finding the rythm of the game. If you are unsure if a command has been done then don't send another one for a couple of combat rounds, and yes this is Easy to say but hard to do. Trust me, learn to do it, and you will be happy.

6) Finally Elm Street does suck when you are all alone, Freddy has his eye on you and therefore you are toast. Wait minute, you want to avoid getting Freddied, get a group. That is right, get a group, work with a party, you learn more, and you have protection. Also never be shy on asking where the heck you are going and for the leader to slow the heck down. Most people will understand immediately you are a newbie and hopefully NOT take your group to the death trap that is the Past.

Cheers and good luck to you too! If you are feeling bad about money or gear lost I will just say that I have recently lost over thirty gold in ready coin and twice that much in potions and gear purchased.

PS Detect invisibility and flight potions may be useful too.. think about it!

And that was 100 gold I was about to use to secure my position as Kingpin too...

You have to know where to get what potions, pills, and gear your specific class is going to need. More importantly you have to know how to get it in a hurry!

I still don't know that well enough and that after putting quite long time into searching for these specific things. I don't think this is something a newbie can find out in 10 levels, unless someone takes him by the hand, leads and points at the stuff.

I'd suggest learning every possible hometown (at how to get from one to another) well pre level eleven.

Do that, and you know all you need to when it comes to essential preps.

A ton of useful things are sold in towns. Nearly all towns are rather safe, and well-marked roads point the way from one to the next. There's a few reasons to take a good look at what's available:

1) Barter means that if you find something that you don't need (a weapon you can't use, a valuable-but-not-practical item like a gem, etc.), you can exchange it for something you do need. Even if you're doing pretty well as far as gear, you might be able to dump it for a pile of food, saving you currency.

2) Some things vary in price from place to place. Galadon is the busiest, but many of the items there are more expensive.

3) It fills gaps in your area knowledge. If you can't figure out where to get leggings worth a damn, you can probably find a dozen shops that sell decent-ish leggings for a low price. Ditto (to a lesser extent) for more obscure stuff (face-wear, flight potion, boat, etc.)

4) Safer. No place in CF is 100% safe, but taking the main roads from town to town usually means low risk from NPCs. (Once you're in PK range, staying in the most populated areas may also mean that you're easily located by hostile PCs. However, a lot of the smaller towns are both safe and not well-traveled.) Wandering off the main roads means a higher chance of getting lost, or accidentally moving into more dangerous areas.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

>You have to know where to get what potions, pills, and
>gear your specific class is going to need. More importantly
>you have to know how to get it in a hurry!
>
>I still don't know that well enough and that after putting
>quite long time into searching for these specific things. I
>don't think this is something a newbie can find out in 10
>levels, unless someone takes him by the hand, leads and points
>at the stuff.

Well here you go! Level 5 at this time:

<86%hp 100%m 98%mv 2519tnl (30.03%)> You have 11 gold, 2228 silver, and 623
copper, which is worth 56183 copper.
You have 13481 experience and need 2519 more experience to gain a rank. (30.03%
progress)

<86%hp 100%m 98%mv 2519tnl (30.03%)> A large sack is lying here.

A large sack is a container, made of canvas, and weighs 54 pounds 4 ounces.
When you look inside, you see it is stuffed full.
A large sack contains:
( 8) a fresh loaf of elven bread
( 2) an earthenware jug
a practice dagger
a practice polearm
( 5) a potion of curing blindness
a potion of recall
a potion of lightness

<100%hp 100%m 100%mv 2519tnl (30.03%)> A large sack is lying here.

A large sack is a container, made of canvas, and weighs 46 pounds 7 ounces.
When you look inside, you see it is fairly full.
A large sack contains:
a map of Udgaard Loke's Farm
a map of the Troglodyte Caverns
a map of the ancient dwarven caves
a practice mace
a map of Arkham
a map of Hamsah Mu'tazz
a map of Tir-Talath
a practice whip
a practice staff
a practice spear
a practice sword
a map of western Seantryn Modan
a map of eastern Seantryn Modan
a faded map of Feanwyyn Weald
a map of the Dwarven Kingdom of Akan
a map of Silverwood
a map of western Thera
a map of Emerald Forest
a map of Aldevari
a gilded map of Voralian City
a map of eastern Thera


Not too bad for level 5? No?

Took some getting used to the way certain merchants in CF work but I tells you there is GOLD in them there Hills if you know where to find it.

Cheers.

GEEEZUS, I'm jealous. I'm lucky if I can get five gold and I've been playing five years..Its back to newbie boot camp for me.

This is pretty damn good, but it is not wise to carry all that money with you at level 5. Put most of it in the bank.

Newbies would do well to take it on board.

I think you look at this things from an old player's point of view. A newbiew reading this might not even know what you are talking about.

Cities have cool good stuff in shops, yeah.. Newbies won't ever have gold to pay for that stuff. What you pasted having at level 5, a newbie like me won't have at level 30. I count what i pay for food, not to think of shop gear and poitons.
Also from what i ran into, Udgaard, Arkham, and TirTalath are newbie graveyards. No tribunal + no trustable friends + common area = summon-sleep/trip-bash-trip/oneround = newbie steak
If you see someone in your pk range in those places, first run away, than check who it was.
Someone who can see you and pk you, will try to do so unless he knows you from previous group and prefers you as a friend. Although some may have grouped with you before, and will still kill you now, which won't stop them from asking you to join them again later.
Most important thing to know in other cities. Tribunal is your friend. Tribunal is what stands between the newbie species and total annihilation

Before level 15 you don't even know your rolls, untill level 20 or 25 you don't really know your armor. Comparing items is deluding yourself. A newbie can't know what gear is good or bad. A newbie can't even know what is better for him when he DOES see his roles and armor.

Unlike what you said, letting people know you are a newbie, is simply a call for fast death. Even those who won't kill you, will only group with you if they can't find a third to join. Who wants to drag a sack who got no idea where he is, how strong which mob is, what he should attack and how. Newbies should use the great and simple design of the home page to read all they can about their class skills, and try to appear experienced to their group as much as they can. Any other way will ither kill you or make you a "we need a third, and we can't find anyone better" guy.


Groups and people help a lot, but in much more cases they hurt. A newbie is asked for to group, he does, his group realizes he doesn't know anything about anything. . . They kill him.. And after they kill him they kill him few more times.. with a much stronger group.. this ends with the newbie finding no place to hide and just die and go to the previously mentioned #$!@#@$ with no time to relax and breathe, because if he won't starve to death because because he didn't find his cash and food bag, The same nice group will be there to kill him the moment he'll unghost.. and yes They are smart enough to know all the places you might try to run into, and they know all the turns and curves so they'll move faster. The fact that the "where" command will tell them your location room title will make it a metter of seconds for them to get to you once they are in the same area.
The best solution i see to that is: Don't play bad/good. Only play neutral and only group with good, no neutral. Bad will kill you the moment they realize they can, neutral can do the same unless they are gracious. Good are usualy unlikely to do that. And where's the fun with those limitationts?
Basicly this brings a newbie to a state of paranoya when he tries to avoid all possible groups because they all can easily turn on him/lead him to a trap/just realize he sucks laugh at him and drop him to group with someone who killed him a while ago.

Like i said before. Give newbies a chance.

-Tan.