Guides/Dear Ariella New Player Guide

Dear Ariella, What do we do?

This is the dilemma of the new player often referred to as a "Newbie". After four tales of playing I will attempt to give some helpful hints to get started and continue in your everyday life. Good luck my fellow Egyptian as this is a wonderfully complicated game and enjoyable socially. Our Egyptian slang will be in ().

Love thy neighbor is a good virtue and keeps you from getting poked with sharpened sticks.

• One word about Test of the Obelisk. Each region has a queue to sign up for building obelisks to pass this test. Check the wiki and get signed up. You will also need to pass principles for Test of the Obelisk. When you build an obelisk to complete the list of principles you only need to build a size 7 obelisk (the size 7 obelisk may be torn down afterwards and the mats recovered). The message is not very clear about what size is needed to pass principles only! PLEASE BUILD A SIZE 7 OBELISK TO PASS PRINCIPLES ONLY or it could be construed as jumping the queue in that region. For Test of the Obelisk a player builds the biggest obelisk in that area (you lose all mats if you tear down your obelisk if you have passed this test). As the game progresses more types of obelisks are able to be built. In other words, if the current type of obelisk in that area reaches too ridiculous a size for you to easily pass the test, just wait for another type of obelisk to be unlocked.

• In Egyptian society there are a few things that are not polite. Please do not take resin from trees without Nicking with a Resin Wedge. It's difficult for new players to know that resin does not respawn like coconuts and wood if you take the former. A tool called a Resin Wedge must be used to Nick the trees for them to produce more resin.

I need help! And I need it now!

Are you in distress and need a helping hand or found a possible bug in code? Click yourself -> Special -> Call a Game Master.

• Game Masters (GMs) - General distress call. Your call disappears if you log out.
• Developers (Devs) - For a potential bug or serious issue. Your call stays in line after you log out.
• World Builders (WB) - Terrain problems.

Miscellaneous Tips to make you look savvy

Put up your F3 map right away. You can stretch it and move it all over.

• /cmd or click Self -> Utility -> Information -> Show the Command List
  
• /afk to show yourself as... AFK
  
• /chat <whomever>
  
• /clockloc to turn on your Current Year and Month/clock/present location or Self -> Options -> Little window -> Clock/changes to Clockloc so click again.
  
• /ignore <whomever> or /silentignore <whomever> or /squelch <whomever>
  
• /info <whomever> to see that avatar's information box.
  
• /tell <whomever>.....to talk to someone in Main, but beware that most don't notice!
  
• /join <channel tab>
  
  • New Channel Tab names to come
    
• For Current Events Calendar....Click Self or hit Escape -> Utility -> Show Calendar.
  
• To minimize Items/Skills/Principles Tabs, click on the active tab.
  
• Camera views F5 - F8. F7 is most commonly used. F8 has two settings, hit once (not used often) and then twice. This second view is great for prospecting and for camp decoration. Click self -> Utility -> Camera.
  
• Hit F11 to bring up the Friends List. Hit F11 to reduce Friends List to only those friends online. Hit F11 a third time to make it go away. Click bottom field box where it says "Enter Player Name" and type a player name to enter it or delete one you already have.
  
• To change your appearance...click Self -> Appearance.
  

Guilds. You are not limited to only one guild. They are like social clubs, learning and regional clubs, test clubs and skill clubs. The Goods guild is excellent to do trading.

• How to dig a hole. Have a shovel on you. Make sure the dirt icon appears, usually in the upper left. Click yourself -> Skills -> Dig a Hole.
  
• Pick up your winebook at any School of Body. Before you drink wine, please ask your host which quality wineglasses are best to get points from his particular wine instead of randomly grabbing glasses. One to Two glasses of wine is considered a polite amount since wine bottles give only 7 glass fulls. The host may say otherwise. Three glasses of beer per person is fine because beer kettles give 21 glasses each time.
  
• When eating food, put up a chat with your alt or spouse as a notepad and record the duration of time so you know when the stat boost will wear off.
  
• Iron pots for machines are made in Master Casting Boxes (600 Charcoal to fire) for 20 Iron and 20 beeswax in 10 minutes while Iron COOKpots with 3 Iron and 3 beeswax for Kitchens are made in a Student's Casting Box (100 Charcoal to fire).
  
• Consider paying for a year at once and getting free camp decoration, one free sheep (male or female), a medium stone, 2 cornerstones, and fireworks. You do NOT have to buy a T-Shirt to get this.
  
• A good browser function is Ctrl+F to bring up a Search tool to use when you have a Foraging page up.
  
• Macros are wonderful to use but BEWARE! If you do not respond to a chat and are macroing you can be thrown in game jail.