Introduction
Welcome to Initium! This is a quick guide for after you've read:
If you skipped these you won't understand much of what this guide has to offer, it also will save a lot of dying and restarting.
The Guide
This guide assumes you've read all those links listed above and messed around with the buttons, but not necessarily started playing yet.
Part 1: Understanding where you are
You start up in the city of Aera, you don't level up but increase your Stats, which are 5/5/5 (Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence). You have no gold or items, and only paths readily available are Aera Countryside, Town Hall and Inn.
Part 2: Gearing up
Click the "Nearby Items" button, there a lot of items can be found, mostly Small Wooden Club, if possible try to pick some armor as well, make sure you meet the strength requirement for it, leather armor most of the times has 5 or less for requirement.
If possible, pick up Leather Armor and Cloak and Heavy Mace which are a very good item for starters (It requires slightly more than 5 strength, which means it will take a couple fights to be able to equip it)
You want one item on each slot always, otherwise any hit will deal full damage.
Click on the little bag icon on top right or press "i" to open Inventory. There items picked up can be found and equipped.
Part 3: Exploring
After gearing up, head to Aera Countryside and press "e" to explore, exploring will find you monsters, new areas, old combat sites and destroyed camps. You should probably ignore the latter two, although old combat sites (where the monster is damaged for example) could be a result of a player dying, so that means extra loot if you beat it.
Part 4: Fighting
Chances are you found a Troll, if it's a Trifelinikis or Orc Scout please run from it, as they are too strong.
You can attack with the hand you got a weapon equipped, if you have a Shield or no weapon, it will show as "bare handed".
Each attack results in a counter attack, please go to Combat to learn further. Also each attempt to attack increases all 3 of your stats, that means even misses or blocked hits counts.
If your HP gets to half, running from the battle should be on your mind, if it gets to 1/3 it's definitely not worth the gamble, just run, heal (read next step) and try again.(You can go back to old sites by clicking "show hidden paths")
When the monster reaches 0 HP, you can then loot whatever it had: Gold and Items. After done, press "f" to forget the combat site (this deletes the link and helps not cluster your paths list, be aware once done you can't go back to it).
Part 5: Healing
You probably got hurt on that fight, if the HP is below half it's highly suggested to heal.
Healing can be done in: Houses, Inn, Camps and a few permanent resting points scattered on the map.
The closest available is back in Aera, the Inn, go inside and press Rest, each hp lost equals to 1 second wait.
Healing inside houses grants the Well Rested buff, which increases strength for a few minutes.
Part 6: Rinse repeat
Now repeat those steps until you feel both comfortable with the game and get strength up to 6.5, this will allow better items to be equipped.
Part 7: Better gear
After finishing with last step, get the gold and try finding better gear, both on the floor or in the market of Aera, optimal gear to look for would be: Helm of the Troll King, Scale Mail and Scale Leggins or Half-Plate, Mithril Shirt or Snakeskin Shirt, Hardened Leather Gloves, Plated Greaves and Orc Shaman Staff. All those can be bought for less than 5.000 gold total.
The order of importance of an item stats is: Block Chance/ Dexterity Penalty > Damage Reduction > Dura.
The amount of damage it blocks for each damage types varies according to what you will fight. All those items listed cover pretty much any low to mid level monster.
Part 8: Farming gold and buying a house
You probably couldn't afford all that gear at once, but with at least a decent armor or a bit of caution you can farm on the High Road. Looking on the map (press "m") it's 2 areas away from Aera.
After arriving, kill Thief for decent gold (avg 200) and leather gear in case you lack any item slot yet. Aim to get 2.000 gold and head straight back to Aera Town Hall, and buy a house.
Leave the Town Hall and a link to the house will appear. Be careful, sharing the house link with others grants them access to it forever, same as if you party someone inside it. Also if you are not premium, make sure to save that link so if you die you can go back to it, as getting killed makes you forget all paths.
Make sure you also grab a Small Chest, which is the most common gold storing item, drop it on your house floor and deposit the quantity of gold you'd like to keep safe.
Part 9: That's it!
You concluded all the basics, you probably are well geared and with decent stats and a house. From here you can follow many paths to set up your next goal. I will list a few:
Farm gold
You can now head either to further on High Road and farm Brigand or go to the best place for gold which is Charred Cavern, followed by Drake Cave, make sure to have all that gear I listed equipped, dragons are no joke for an unprepared traveller. Brigands drop avg 300 gold, and Young Green Dragons can drop UP TO 3.500 GOLD from experience.
Farm better items
A good place to farm for better items is Black Mountain, but to head there it's advised to have Macuahuitl, those weapons deal mixed damage, and that means it will always hit the weak spot on the Black Guard. Also upon arriving, loot a Full Plate from the floor, if possible one with 10% or less of dexterity penalty. Avoid Longsword, which is a horrible weapon, you can sell it to others as people like them anyway.
Beat the Troll King
Troll King is a boss on the end of the Troll Cave, to reach him you need to find hundreds of Troll, because that area is an instance, that means if you don't move quickly enough to next area, reinforcements arrive, sending you back to the entrance. The respawn on it is every 2 hours, so it can be quite hard to find it there. The rewards are a very good shirt, Mithril Chain Shirt a solid Light Mace of the Troll King, the very good starter Helm of the Troll King and up to 20k Gold.
It's highly recommended to use Orc Shaman Staff and Full Plate as the king does bludgeoning damage and is also weak to it.
Explore around
Just go exploring around trying to find new areas, maybe you find a fun spot to farm or a cool monster to see.
Drink
Yes, drink, head to the Inn and get drunk, it gets hard to talk while drunk and your accuracy will surely take a hit.
Premium has a lot of features, but nothing game breaking so don't take this as P2W approach at all, it's completely the opposite. Check your in-game profile to find out more about it.