Part one: (now caracters limit to post, ark-team: Why?) I had a disciple, my second in about 9 years, just graduated. Happy about that. I think, perhaps, perchance, I'm not the worst mentor-type. Certainly not the best. Hopefully qualify as useful - I'd settle for that. Selling myself as a Mentor is definitely not my strongest skill tho! Anyway, tried to be a salesman in RL, that also did not seem to be my destiny. There are a number of good posts by experiended Mentors, and for any disciple of mine I'm not shy to defer and direct to these. At the same time, I thought I'd post a list of things that I could refer any future disciples of my own to read up. Lazy as I am, this might either deflect some banter about basic stuff, or, better, lead to more directed - perhaps intelligent - diving into the details of EU. So here it is, suggestion and error corrections are most welcome! Welcome to Entropia! A unique virtual universe, where you really are your avatar. Remember that, and that everyone else also is a real person. Behave accordingly. Our chat's should not be tabloid bullshit. I'm sure I'v sinned myself over the years - people makes mistakes. It's in our nature to mess up, from time to time. Don't beg. Besides being bad manners - bound to make you unpopular - money is real in Entropia. And, as we come from all over the world, a dollar for some is more than for others. I'v met people of all ages in EU. Some high professionals in their choosen careers, students, unemployed, ateists and religious. All kinds. Entropia seems to attract a lot of creative and interesting people. I hope you will meet and befriend the best of them! Having money - PED - is someting you want, but don't be desperate. Slow slow but sure. A small deposit can last you long as a new Entropian, and you might want to have a look at the starter pack's in the webshop. But you should also spend time gathering resorces. We get "vibrant sweat" from the animals - MOB's. You have a free tool for this, that will not decay. If you walk - not run - in the terrain you will find fruit, dung and stones that you can sell. This walking around will also make you familiar with the terrain, useful. Now, at your very start (or if you been about a while and neglected it), register for all Missions on whatever planet you are. It's free and no limits as to how many you can have going. You never know when you might happen to do/find/kill something relevant, so make sure you get the points. Missions gives rewards. Often in skills, but sometimes in Items. Time to mention the Entropedia, our "wiki". Not always up to date, it is still a very useful source of information. You will find lists of Missions there. Information on the MOB's, what type and how much damage they do, for example. And much more. Explore it. Then there are the forums. The main ones are the planetcalypsoforum and the arkadiaforum. There are others for other planets, and a site called cyrenesecrets.com seems the best for all things related to planet Cyrene. entropialife.com - check it out. They run many events outside the "standard" Entropian events systems, and they have a smart piece of software called the Entropia Tracker. Read up on that. For you miners, there's the mininglog.com, good tool. Both of these are approved by MindArk. Mentors and Disciples You may want a mentor. Your mentor should be dedicating time to educate you, and preferably be a bit experienced. It is not your mentors job to give you things and pay for expenses, and you should not expect such. If you are not happy with your mentor, discard and find another. It's better to take some more time and learn properly, than to rush for graduation (and the grad rewards). Upon graduation you will get a useful armor-set, and some trinket. Gathering Vibrant Sweat and other resources "Sweating" MOB's will make you some money and skills. And it is social, at sweat-groups you can meet new friends. There are certain locations on the different planets where people will regularly meet to work together to get sweat. This is efficient, because you will get hit less by the targeted mob and in the end get more sweat per hour than if working alone. By walking rather than running around, you will come upon fruit, dung and stones. These spawn randomly, be observant. Zoom out from your avatar, and set some graphics low to get rid of grass and such, to better see. Walking around like this also has the advantage of giving you knowledge of the land. You can also cut trees, but for this you need to spend a little PED. The basic trecutter tool, the PH-1, costs 5 PED. Walking around looking for cuttable trees combines well with searching for fruit, dung and stones. When you have a trecutter equipped, cuttable trees nearby will have a round yellow target on them. There are 3 sizes of trees, yelding different size planks. You will need a PH-2 for level 2 trees, and so a PH-3 for level 3. You can cut all trees with the PH-1, but you will then only get the smallest planks. Oil/other stuff that spawns There are two oil rigs that spawns oil on the ground, for you to pick up. Both are located in areas where players kan kill each other. I'l write more about PvP (Player versus Player) shortly. One is on Calypso, and often "closed" by hostile people who will keep you from getting a share. There are also big MOB's around there (Atrox Alpha to Stalker). The other is on Arkadia. The oil drops there are smaller and infrequent, but most of the time the place is friendly. Rocktropia has a spot that spawns some bottles. The bottles are only 1 PEC (1 PED is 100 PEC) each, but spawns are rapid and as long as you can reach the spot, it's fairly safe to be there. Toulan has a place that spawns Diagen Dops (I think they's called). It's PvP, but may not be occupied by others as Toulan has way less visitors than it (by my opinion) deserves. part 2 in next post.....
