Beginner Help

Beginner Help

Guides

Everyone starts on Isla Prima (called "IP" in the game). There are many good things to do on that first island, and it's the only one that can be called completely safe. Before you board the ship to White Stone, be sure to talk to at least some of the NPCs, including the Tutorial NPC and the Wraith. Even some easy quests can be found on the small island.

• Do the Tutorial NPC quests. If you don't read the help, this is the next best thing. You will receive some free items including, eventually, a set of leather armour and a basic sword. That should be enough to get you started, since it's enough for low-level animals and even some monsters.
• Read the Help and Encyclopedia in the game by clicking on the "?" icon at the bottom of the screen (or pressing Ctrl+H or Ctrl+E, respectively). They contain many guides, tips, and lots of information and are a lot of help. However, since a new copy of the encyclopedia is not easily distributed, there may be some errata.
• If you find something on the wiki or in the encyclopedia that (to you) does not seem to add up, you don't have to fix it here - just mention it in channel 1, and you'll be quite likely to find at least one player willing to help you.
• Here we do not use the terms newb or noob or newbie or any other form of those words to describe new players (except for verbatim terms used by the software interface) because we see them as derogatory to new players. However, because of the interface texts, and because some new players deliberately refer to themselves as "newbies", please don't feel offended if players call you a "newbie" in-game - they may be just trying to be friendly.

Fighting

See also: Beginners Guide to Combat

• Right-click until your mouse icon is a sword. Then, click on a creature to fight it.
• The first and only creature you should attack is the rabbit. You may be able to fight rats or beavers, but to avoid losing a lot of health, stick to rabbits.
• No creatures on the isle will attack you unless you attack them first. This is not true in most of the lands beyond.
• Having trouble opening a creature's bag? Is it under the snow, underwater, or under the creature's body? - Easy solution: Drop something. The bag's window will open automatically. As of the 1.8 update, there is a button called "Get All". Open your inventory window, and click the "Get All" button.
• A nearly empty inventory is useful before harvesting or fighting for an extended time. See the Storage section below.
• Once you get a few levels of attack and defense, you can fight rats and beavers. Although there are brownies and wood sprites on the isle, be careful not to click them accidentally because you will surely die.
• The rat cave in the southwest of the island is a good place to fight rats in a closed space.
• Wear armour, but use a weak weapon such as a bone or no weapon at all. The longer your fights are, the more experience you will receive for each fight.
• The Tutorial NPC will give you a free set of leather armour and an iron sword after you complete some of his quests. The items are put into your storage, not your inventory.

Harvesting

• Right-click until your mouse icon is a pickaxe. Then, click on a harvestable item such as flowers or vegetables to begin harvesting it.
• If you walk while harvesting, you will stop harvesting.
• If your harvesting is interrupted, click on the harvestable item again to continue.
• While harvesting, it is considered common courtesy to sit down so that others can talk/harvest also. See the Movement section below for more information.
• A nearly empty inventory is useful before harvesting or fighting for an extended time. See the Storage section below.
• Buy an excavator cape (the brown one) as soon as you can. It costs 2900 gold coins and can be bought from Victor in White Stone City. Wearing the cape will double the amount of items you harvest (but not the experience). It will pay for itself in no time.

Healing, Food, and Eating

• The Tutorial NPC can heal you until your attack or defense level gets to 20.
• You will regenerate 1 material and ethereal point each in-game minute as long as your food level (yellow bar) is positive. To increase your food level, eat food such as vegetables or bread.
• You can harvest vegetables inside the fence by the house north of the #beam me up fire pit.
• To eat food, open your inventory and right-click until your mouse icon becomes the "Use" icon (a pointy finger). Then, click the food in your inventory.
• If you sit, there is a chance to regain 2 material and ethereal points per minute instead of 1.
• Remember to eat, or your health won't replenish. Eating is important as you progress through the game. If your food level goes below 0, it will take longer to harvest, and you will stop reading any books you are currently reading.
• There are other, more powerful, ways to heal by using certain clothes, magic, or potions.

Death

• If you die before your overall level gets to 21, you will respawn at the #beam me up fire pit with all of your items, if you were on continent 1 (Seridia). On continent 2 (Irilion), you will instead go to the underworld and possibly lose some items.
• If you die on either continent after reaching overall level 21, you will go to the underworld and possibly lose some items.
• Each slot/square in your inventory has a 50% chance of being lost when you go to the underworld. It does not matter whether the slot contains 1 or 1000 of an item; the entire slot will be lost.
• The items you lose will remain in a "death bag" (called a "db" in the game) at the location where you died for about 12 minutes. You may retrieve the items by returning to that location. The bag will disappear after 12 minutes or earlier if too many bags appear on the map or if someone picks it up. The timer can be reset to 12 by putting an item into the bag.
• To exit the underworld, walk to the center of the northernmost wall to a flight of steps leading up to an archway/door. As you approach the door, the scenery will become brighter as a hint you are getting close. Click on the archway/door, and you will appear next to the #beam me up fire pit on Isla Prima.
• If you see someone die, remember their name, pick up their stuff, and send them a private message to tell them you have their death bag. Even though you could take the stuff and leave, players of EL frown upon this kind of behavior. This is called "bag jumping", and many players and guilds will ostracize you for exhibiting this essentially untrustworthy behavior.
• A completely empty inventory is useful when exploring dangerous areas. If you die, you will not lose any items because you won't be carrying any. See the Storage section below.
• Gold Coins, some armors and Iron Swords are among the things that don't drop upon death.

Quests

• The Tutorial NPC offers quests that give you experience and, eventually, a sword and armour. (Some of his quests will take you off of the isle.)
• The tutorial will introduce you to many other quests. You do not have to complete all of them to complete the tutorial, but be sure to READ what the Tutorial NPC says so you know which quests are required to be completed.
• Review your quests by opening your quest log. Either click the "View stats" icon at the bottom or press Ctrl+A. Then, click on the "Quest log" tab and scroll up in that window.
• Some quests, called daily quests, can be repeated every 4 game days (approximately every 24 hours in real life). Even for high-level players, the daily quests often provide a nice experience boost, so be sure to complete them every 24 hours. The Tutorial NPC introduces you to two of them: one for harvesting a given amount of a type of flower on a given map and another for killing a given amount of a creature on a given map.

Storage

Main article: Storage NPCs

• If your inventory becomes full, you can put excess items into storage. Talk to the Newbie Storage NPC in northern Isla Prima.
• Right-click until your mouse icon is the "pick up" icon, a downward-pointing hand. Click on a slot/square in your inventory to pick it up, and click again to drop it.
• The Newbie Storage is only active until your overall level reaches 25. After that, you must use one of the storages on other lands beyond Isla Prima.
• A nearly empty inventory is useful before harvesting or fighting for an extended time.
• A completely empty inventory is useful when exploring dangerous areas. If you die, you will not lose any items because you won't be carrying any.
• You can adjust how many items you pick up by clicking the blue numbers on the bottom of the inventory window. Those numbers can be edited by right-clicking on them, keeping your mouse hovered over the number, typing a new number, and pressing Enter.

Making money

• When you start the game, you can harvest vegetables inside the fence by the house north of the #beam me up fire pit and sell them to the tavern for 0.5 gold coins each.
• Rabbits, beavers, and rats drop bones, raw meat, furs, and tails. You can sell these to other players, bots, or NPCs. For example, Tavern NPCs buy brown rabbit furs and raw meat for 1 gc each. Players will offer more for them.
• Money does not weigh anything (0 EMU), but almost everything else does.

Leaving Isla Prima

• Before you leave Isla Prima, talk to the NPC Lasud outside the tavern. She will tell you about the other lands.
• When you leave the isle, pay close attention to the time on the clock at the bottom right of your screen because many of the lands become much more dangerous at night (between 3:30 and 0:30 game time). At night, stronger creatures come out and will openly attack you even if you are in a town.
• If you want to return to Isla Prima, type #beam me or #beam me up. Either one of these commands will teleport you to the fire pit on that island unless Scotty is on vacation.

Movement

• To fine-tune your character's position, press the Ins/Del keys to turn left/right and the Home key to move one pace forward.
• While at storage or harvesting, it is considered common courtesy to sit down so that others can talk/harvest also.
• Press LeftAlt+S or click the associated button at the bottom of the screen to toggle between sitting and standing.
• If you wish to remain stationary, sit down and enable "Sit Lock" on the "Controls" tab in the options window. This will prevent your character from walking anywhere if you accidentally click somewhere else. To walk with this enabled, you must first stand.
• Try out the first person view. You will figure out when it's suitable to play in first and third person view.

Interface appearance

• Windows stuck on the edge of the screen? Switch to full screen mode and back again. This usually shakes them loose.
• Press LeftAlt+B to display material points below the names of players and creatures.
• Press Tab to toggle the display of the current map. You can click on the map to move your character long distances. You can mark locations on your map, too. Read the Help (Ctrl+H) for more information.
• Press LeftAlt+M to display the minimap. The minimap is clickable like the big "Tab"-key map, but you can also zoom by hovering your mouse over it and using the the scroll wheel or the PageUp/PageDown keys.
• On the minimap, your character is indicated by a green dot in the center. Other players are indicated by white dots, creatures by yellow dots, NPCs by blue dots, bots by purple dots, and invasion monsters by red dots.
• Study some addional keyboard shotcuts for faster gameplay. The time you spend to study these will pay back many times over the months (and years for some of us).

Chat

• If you have any questions in the game, type #jc 1. This will make you join the "Newbie Help" channel. You can also join channel 2 (#jc 2, the "General Help" channel). However, channel 2 is for more advanced questions.
• To speak in your selected channel (denoted by a "+" after you click one of them at the top), type @ <text>. Note the single @ symbol in this command.
• To speak in one of your open channels without selecting one, type @@# <text>, where # is the number of the channel. Note the two @ symbols in this command.
• To send private messages or pm, type /<player name> <text>.
• To quickly reply to a private message, type // <text>. The double slashes will automatically insert the name of the last person who PM'd you.
• Emoticons have a long tradition in EL to express moods and emotions. Try a few :)

EL-Terminology

• Become familiar with the abbreviations in the Eternal Lands.

• Once you learn the keywords, you are able to access information much faster when you use the keyword for searching on this website.

• Give it a try and search for: IP, WS, FE, WE, LE, HE, GS, TS.. and there are many more.

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We all hope everyone who plays the game has a great experience and a great time.