GettingStarted

Newbies

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  Newbie starting guide
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- Introduction -

Greetings! This document helps you to get to know few basics considering
Winterkill, and it is highly recommended for you to read the whole guide
through with care. There are very good tips for you to get started. But keep
in mind that you are a newbie, there are players in here who have played for
years and they might be idiots, but that does not mean you have to be one.
Take a short while to read this guide through and possibly learn something
from it. And of all things, ENJOY THE GAME!


- 1. Character Creation -

First steps of becoming a player in the Winterkill community is to go through
the character creation process. During the process you will be asked a few
questions, such as email and if you wish to use ansi colors. You can always
change those options later on so no worries if you did not, for example, set
your e-mail. Setting your e-mail is important, because if you happen to lose
your password, the wizards can send a new password via e-mail.

For starters, you are given 100,000 experience points to start your journey.
Gaining more experience is done via killing non-player characters, exploring
or by some other miscellaneous means. Exploring is recommended for beginners,
it can really boost your first moments in the game.

To get further on with the creation, you will get to choose your guild and
race. The guild of Adventurers is designed to provide beginners with a nice
all-around starting guild. To see all possible guilds to pick in character
creation, type 'list' in guild selection. The list of open guilds can be seen
with the command 'help open guilds'. The race selection comes after the guild
selection, and again the command 'list' will show all the possible races that
can be selected. The selected guild can restrict some of the possible races,
for example the guild of Knights does not allow undead or demonic races to
join. All the possible player races can be seen in any point with the command
'help races'. You can review the statistics of different races with the
command 'help race <race nama>', for example 'help race cromagnon'. And to get
a description on a guild, for example on a guild called Barbarian, type 'help
guild barbarian'.

For more information about guilds and races, Winterkill wikipedia is a good
place to start on comparing. It can be found from the Winterkill (later onrefered
as 'wk') www-pages at wk.fi.


- 1.1 Races -

There are plenty of races in the realm of Winterkill to choose from. But which
suits you the best is a hard question. Generally, at the beginning of your
career, a good choice is to choose a race which has low costs for studying and
training skills and spells. For caster: a good choice would be sprite or gnome.
For fighter: cromagnon or hobbit. Human would be suitable for both. You can
always compare the races at the Winterkill wiki.

For all the races in Winterkill, check 'help races'. A single race can be
viewed with the command 'help race <name>'.


- 1.2 Guilds -

There are various guilds in Winterkill, others are caster based, and other are
fighter based and there's a handful of hybrid guilds who cast spells and fight
with destructive skills! But to get a hand on the game-play mechanics of wk,
it is highly recommended to start with the guild Adventurer. The Adventurer
guild has the all basic things a player needs when starting a career in wk.
If, for a some reason, You do not want to join the Adventurers guild, there
are other good guilds which you can choose from. For example, Sorcerer as a
caster, Barbarian or Knight as a fighter.

For all the guilds in Winterkill, check 'help open guilds'. A single guild
can be viewed with the command 'help guild <name>'.

Until you reach 100m worth, you can use the teleporter located in every major
city. Go to the teleporter and type 'goto guild' and you will be transported
into your guild. Keep in mind that every good thing has to come to an end, so
learn the ways back from your guild to back to one of the major cities.

- 1.3 Advancing levels -

Levels are a simple thing. Advancing a level in your guild almost always
provides you with more spells and skills available for studying and training.
To advance a level, you need to be at your guild which you have chosen and
type the command 'advance'. The cost of the next level can be seen by typing
'exp'. That particular command will also show you how much exp you are
currently having. The part which says "Next level: <level_cost> (xx.x%)"
tells how much the next level costs and your current experience as percent of
the level cost.


- 1.4 Training and studying -

As soon as you have advanced a level in your guild, you most probably get
more skills and spells for further training and studying. To see which skills
are available for training, simply type 'list skills' in your guild. To list
all the available spells, type 'list spells' in your guild. You can see help
files for skills and spells by typing 'help skill <name>' or 'help spell

<name>'. The help files usually contain some information about the skill or
spell, in between the lines or plainly in sight. In case a skill or spell help
file is a stub or lacking valid information, you may contact a wizard to
request an update.

If you choose to be a fighter preferred, a skill called 'kick' is a good to
start with. And if you prefer spellcasting instead, then a spell called 'magic
missile' is a good thing to study first. These two mentioned above are good
for dealing damage as a newbie and they should be very easy to obtain. The
decision on which path to follow is up to you.

Additional information about using skills and casting spells can be found from
help files 'help cast' and 'help use'.


- 1.5 Professions -

Professions are an interesting part of Winterkill. They are small guilds which
offer some specialized skills and spells. To choose a profession, you need to
obtain at least 20 basic guild levels first to gain one profession point.
Advancing in a profession guild is free of charge, because profession points
are used instead of experience when joining to or advancing in a profession
guild. In total, you will get 5 profession levels when you reach 100lvl in
normal guild levels. A good profession to start with is Chefs, which can be
found in the Wintercity (s, e, kitchen from central square of Wintercity). To
see all the professions available, see 'help open professions'.


- 1.6 Perks -

Perks are abilities which can deepen your knowledge of various things. Perks
may vary from guild to guild, but there are a set of general perks which are
not tied to any guild. For example, the perk 'Night vision' should be
available for everyone (gives you the ability to see in dark). Choosing the
perks is up to you.

Perks cost perk points, which are obtained via advancing levels. For every
advanced level you will gain one perk point. To see the list of available
perks, type 'plist' in your guild. To see further information about a certain
perk, type 'pinfo <name>'. To select a perk, type 'pselect <name>'.

It is good to read 'help perks' to learn a bit more of the perks.


-1.7 Dying-

Yes, there will be death present in Winterkill. Do not worry though, there
are ways to get back alive incase you find a monster who will end your days
temporarily. That will happen soon and you will just have to deal with it.
Though you can be careful and use 'consider' command often on our foes.

You may ask 'how to get back to the books of living?'. Well, there are a few
ways for you to get back alive. In Winterkill, members of the guild of Healers
guild are the ones who can bring you back to life. You may ask on channel
'ghost' for a resurrection. If there are no Healers available, you can enter
the Church of Wintercity. Inside the Church is Father Joyri, who provides
resurrection services. If you need to use Joyri's services, be patient with
him. He's a drunkard and you might need to kick him few times to get him awake
and state your needs, ie. kick joyri, say resurrection.

If you happen to be a member of the undeads, you need to be reanimated. To
obtain a reanimation, you should find a casket in a graveyard, there usually
is a NPC nearby, who will provide you with one. In Wintercity, the graveyard
is located at the southeastern corner of the city.

For more information about death, check out 'help death' topic.


- 2. Locations -

Ready to move into an uncharted place! There are plenty of locations to find
and various monsters to kill. But in anywhere you might want to go, keep in
mind that there are both passive and aggressive monsters, and the aggressive
ones can easily be a hapless adventurer's demise. So, keep your eyes open and
mind sharp, you do not know what there might be. The realm of Winterkill is
quite large, for the map of the realm you might want to check the map from the
wiki pages, that might be helpful.

Also, when travelling in the outworld or any virtual map, the command 'map'
will show the nearby terrain.


-2.1 Places to start-

There are four places where you might want to start your mass murdering. All
of those places can be found near the Wintercity, some of them just outside
the walls surrounding the city. The most nearby places are Anthill, Newbiepark,
Looney and Sewers. Every major city has a teleporter, which can be used to
teleport to one of those four areas. The teleporters can be handy, but
remember to learn your way back to city in any case. Remember to use the
command 'consider' on every monster you have not yet fought and often also to
a more familiar monsters, because their level can sometimes vary.


- 2.2 Exploration -

Exploration is a good way to earn experience quickly. For every new room you
find, there is a reward for it in the form of experience. Keep in mind that it
is easy to die while searching for new monsters to kill, so it is recommended
to spend your experience points wisely before finding new evil, aggressive
monsters which can take those points away in a form of instant death.


- 3. Communication -

There are many ways to communicate between players. Two main ways are probably
different channels and tells.


- 3.1 Channels -

What comes to channels, it is recommended to turn the channel 'newbie' on if
you do not have it on already. It is also highly recommended to ask your
questions on that channel if you have any, and in some point you will. The
'newbie'-channel is, as the name indicates, to give advice to and get advices
from other players. So turn it on already! "on newbie"

PS. There are 'public' and 'private' channels. Public channels are those who
anyone can interact and discuss with anyone who are on that channel and
private channels are those which you can create on to which only your friends
can join, they need to be invited though if you make the channel private.

For more information about channels, check out 'help channels' topic.


- 3.2 Private Discussions -

Telling is another way to discuss on matters with someone. Those are private
messages swapped between players. No one else can see them, but the one you
decide to send your tell to, for example: tell cendor hi would only send your
tell to a player called Cendor. Also, you can tell multiple players at the
same time, ie. tell cendor,noose hi! If you happen to have many players in
your discussions, command called 'reply' is a useful command to use. It will
send your tells directly to the latest player(s) who have send you a tell.

For more information about tells, check out 'help tell' topic.


- 4. You as a player -

How to play Winterkill is completely up to you to choose. If you desire, you
may 'roleplay' the game the way you want, but it is not required. You may
simply enjoy the game as the way you choose! Ultimately, the aim is to have
fun.


- 4.1 How to behave -

Even though you may play as you wish, it is good to remember that we are all
but humans behind the keyboard. So saying hurtful things to another players
is not recommended. Treat other players as you would wish they would treat
you. Common sense and friendlyness is highly recommended! And whining, do not
follow that path. Just do not. It is annoying to us all!


- 4.2 Wizards -

The wizards. Yes, theywere once players too, and yes, they too are but humans!
Keep that in mind while you discuss with them! They do not get paid for this
job, nothing, no dineros no rubles, nada! They have just enjoyed the game so
much, that they decided to become developers for the game. Threat them with
extreme kindness and politeness and you will be fine!


- 5. Good to know -

As stated throughout this guide, 'help' is a nice command and it should be
used. Even though there are outdated help files, they will provide basic
knowledge about how things work. And after all, you can suggest a new help to
be written.