Looking at his panel, Lin Yu could only silently type a 6. His defense was down to a few hundredths, and both his physical attack and speed were below one.
On top of that, his health and stamina were both only 5.
The only consolation was that his spirit attribute growth had reached 3.2.
And why were there hunger and hydration values too?! Did he have to eat and drink in the game? Would there be negative statuses like broken bones later on, too?!
17:31. Looking at the time displayed in the bottom right corner, Lin Yu was a little surprised.
Oh! So he had spent over five hours just creating his character!
Come to think of it, didn't this game have some kind of beginner's guide?
After carefully checking the panel and finding that there really didn't seem to be a beginner's guide or anything of the sort, Lin Yu decided to open the game's official forum and see if there were any guides.
Huh??!!
Looking at the panel in front of him, Lin Yu was too shocked to speak.
It took a full ten minutes for Lin Yu to recover from his shock. Looking at the content on the forum, he couldn't help launching into a furious rant.
"What the hell is all this?! This is porn, right?! Porn, right?! It's definitely porn! Can they really post this stuff out in the open?"
"How long has this game even been out? How is someone already using it to shoot porn?!"
"Where are the officials? The moderators? Is nobody going to do anything about this?"
"Oh, right, it seems the officials really can't do anything about it. Come to think of it, does this forum even have moderators?"
"Ah, I should've known. With the game being like this, there was no way the forum would be normal!"
After ranting for a while, Lin Yu finally got it out of his system. As the forum continued to refresh, he began searching through it for information.
"What the hell is all this crap?! Give me some useful guides!"
Among the masses of posts full of pointless information, Lin Yu actually managed to find a few useful guides.
[The most detailed starting guide to "Epochal Shift" is here—a must-read for new players
1. Race selection
When it comes to choosing a race, I recommend picking a mixed-blood. Some new players might not know what a mixed-blood is, so I'll explain it to you newbies as briefly as possible.
A mixed-blood is...
Of course, if you're a luck god, you can also gamble on the upper limit and choose human.
In theory, a human can roll 13 legendary traits and 3 SSS-rank talents. Still, I have to advise everyone not to gamble. The extra traits are too much of a trap. Compared to the human race's upper limit, its lower limit is just as low. You can't delete your account in Era, so if you roll trash traits and talents, your account is ruined right out of the gate. That's why I recommend using the human race's mixed-blood mechanic, which guarantees a lower limit.
Here are a few races I recommend mixing with.
Demi-human—elf: Mixed-blood elves have some of the best character models in the game, hands down. Their traits are also fairly well-rounded, with bonuses to both physical and magical abilities. A mixed-blood elf can pair with just about any class.
Demi-human—troll: Mixed-blood trolls are all about raw stats. Paired with a physical class from the Combat Profession System, they make top-tier battle tanks. Their traits grant as much as 3.0 strength and constitution growth, comparable to a dragon's, and they come with high health regeneration and physical armor. The downside is that their agility and spirit growth are relatively low, at just 0.5. I recommend a bloodline combination of 5 troll and 5 human. Troll talents are pretty trash, so I don't recommend taking them.
Demi-human—dwarf: Newbies looking to take a physical class or a logistics class like forging can also consider mixed-blood dwarves. Dwarf traits are fairly well-rounded too. Aside from the lack of a spirit bonus, their strength, constitution, and agility growth can all reach 1.5, making them fairly balanced.
Dwarf traits also include a forging bonus and a forging skill.
There's something very important I want to tell all you newbies in advance.
In Era, you aren't given any weapons or equipment when you enter the game, just a set of clothes and some basic supplies. With a forging skill, you can make usable weapons from the simplest materials. That's a huge advantage early on. Most importantly, mixed-blood dwarves don't have as many height restrictions and can be set as tall as 1.8 meters.
Oh, one more thing: when choosing a race, I don't recommend picking magical beasts, nature spirits, or undead.
If you pick one of those races, you'll spawn directly in the wild and won't be able to enter a Newbie Village.
2. Class selection
Classes in Era are divided into the Combat Profession System, Knowledge System, Faith System...
3. Introduction to Newbie Villages
There's only one rule in the Newbie Village: players can't attack each other. That's it. The NPCs in the Newbie Village don't give out special quests or unique quests, either, so there's no need to keep trying. There are some special buildings in the Newbie Village, and you can use their respective functions just by entering them.
Every Newbie Village has a different layout, so I can't provide a map, but all the special buildings that should be there will be. I'll give a brief introduction here.
Training ground: Entry is free. You can train here to gain experience.
Tavern: You can buy food here. Apparently, you can work here if you meet certain conditions, but I haven't found out how yet.
Materials recycling shop: You can turn in materials here. The owner is a total profiteer, so don't go unless you have no choice.
Village chief's house: There's an NPC at the door who should be the Newbie Village chief. You can submit stone and logs to him, which raises something called the Village Construction Level. Nobody knows what it does yet. You can't enter the village chief's house at present, and I don't know if you'll be able to later.
Library: You can spend money to buy skill books here, or pay 50 copper coins to borrow books for one hour. Players without learning-enhancement talents shouldn't rely on borrowing books to learn skills. I worked it out: learning even the simplest gathering skill takes an hour of reading without a talent bonus. You'd be better off spending 10 copper coins on a gathering skill book. But I've heard that some classes can apparently gain experience through reading.
Inn: You can pay 50 copper coins to stay for a day.
General store: You can buy some things here if you need them.
Blacksmith's workshop: You can rent a room for one day for 5 silver coins.
Alchemy workshop: Like the blacksmith's, you can rent a room for one day for 5 silver coins.
Hunter's Hut: There isn't much here, just a hunter NPC. You can get a repeatable hunting quest from him, but I don't recommend going out of your way to do it. Monsters in this game are ridiculously hard to find, and they're extremely smart. They'll ambush you, work together, and run away if they can't win.
Lumberyard: If you have an iron axe, you can leave the starter village to chop trees and turn the wood in to the lumberyard owner for some copper coins. It's worth doing: one tree gets you 5 copper coins, and some classes also gain experience for chopping trees. You can buy an iron axe at the general store, but if you want to chop wood, I recommend buying a woodcutting skill book. The woodcutting skill comes with a system-assistance function; otherwise, you'll have to chop trees manually.
Quest board: You can post quests and accept them here. Quests appear at random, and it's hard to grab one.
Pharmacy: It buys medicinal ingredients and sells medicine, but the amount of medicine is limited. I don't know how often it restocks, so if you want to buy some, it comes down to who's quickest.
Mine: Much like the lumberyard, you can sell ore to the mine owner.
One complaint: the currency in this game is actually an item.
4. What newbies need to know
After entering the game, you have nothing except the set of clothes the game gives you and the 1 silver coin, 5 loaves of bread, and waterskin in your backpack. Don't spend your silver coin recklessly. I recommend going to the library first and buying a gathering skill book. Once you have the gathering skill, you can collect plenty of materials outside the Newbie Village and turn them all in for money.
Money is important in this game. You have to pay for both food and water, and you must keep your hunger and hydration levels up at all times. If either gets too low, you'll suffer a bunch of debuffs and continuously lose health until you die. Dying in this game not only gives you a negative status that lasts two hours, but also wipes out all the experience you've gained at your current level.
One last thing: newbies should form a party before leaving the Newbie Village. The wild monsters in this game are sneaky as hell. If they see you alone, they'll come straight over and gang up on you.]