Why does this guide exist? Well, because sometimes it can be a little hard to find all of the information, and I know of no place that you can go to find it all in a single spot. Hopefully this guide will help explain various aspects of Atlantica Online, and help you enjoy this excellent game more. Also, please keep in mind that I won't be going into detail on any one section. This is more of an overview than an in-depth guide. Partially because I want to keep this short enough that it will be read, and partially because I'm not arrogant enough to think I know everything there is know about this game.
PvP or PvE?
While this isn't even really a choice until you hit level 20, you do need to keep in mind the difference between PvP and PvE. PvP, or Player vs Player, refers to the Free Leagues (FL) and the Weekly Competition. PvE, or Player vs Environment, refers to fighting the various monsters in the game. A party build that works great for PvE might not work so well against PvP, and a PvP build might have some trouble in the questing areas. Also keep in mind that until level 50, you won't have a full party and that will hurt your ability to progress in the Free Leagues. I am not a PvP'er, I only participate in the FL causally, and don't really care if I win or lose. If you want advice or help on this part of the game, you'll have to search elsewhere.
Your Party
In Atlantica, you control a group of mercenaries. You'll always have your Hero, plus up to eight other mercs with you to fight the evil monsters. So what are you're options? Meet the Heroes:
Sword - Single attack, melee
Spear - Single attack, with a line attack skill, melee
Bow - Single attack anywhere, ranged
Staff - Single attack, ranged
Axe - Hits adjacent enemies, melee
Gun - hits all enemies in a line, ranged
Musician - Line attack
Meet the starting Mercs
For your starting mercenaries, you have the option of choosing Swordsman, Spearman, Archer, and Gunner while in the very small starting area. After you leave the starting area, that choice expands to include the Shaman. You can never have a Musician as a merc, that one is main only.
Skills
The key thing to keep in mind about skills is that you have a limited skill point pool, and it is expensive to undo training. This is a general newbie guide, not a build guide, so I only have three comments on skills. First is know what they do. In game, you can go to Game Info->Mercenary and find out basic information about all the mercs in the game, and their skills. Second, it is generally agreed that specializing in one or two skills is better than trying to learn all skills. Third, some skills are main only. What does main only mean? Anytime you see something that refers to the 'main', it's talking about the character you created, your hero. Break Down and Chaos Wind are the two low level main-only skills you will encounter.
Crafting and Enchanting
I have a separate guide for this, so I'll just go over the basics. Crafting allows you to create the various armor and weapons your main and mercs will need. To learn the skill, you either need to find an NPC to teach you, or get a player to teach you. Getting a player to teach you is free, but can be hard sometimes to find someone willing to teach level 1 skills. Learning f Aion an NPC will cost you 10,000 gold plus 1,000 per current skill level. So level 1 = 10k, level 2 = 11k, and so on. Cooking, medicine, ring, and I believe one other are all taught to you as parts of quests. Most NPCs wander, but some are stationary. You can go to Game Info -> NPCs to find where they are.
You of course need materials to craft, the easiest method of getting these are buying them on the market. After you have materials, you can start crafting. In order to craft you must fight. This is quite a bit different f Aion most games. Every battle will give you a certain amount of workload to complete your crafting project.
Enchanting is where you take two identical pieces of equipment, and combine them to form a better version. Everything starts as +0. To create a +1 Spirit Sword, you need two +0 swords, and a weapon enchant stone. You will find/be given weapon enchant boxes, which can be used to get either a weapon or armor enchant stone. I wouldn't recommend getting to hyper about enchanting spirit gear, because you will outgrow it very fast.
The Market
The market is the easiest way to purchase items, but can sometimes be a little confusing. To access the market, you must be in a town. Playing the market could take up a whole guide, but there are some basics to keep in mind. First, never pay above fixed price on a item. That is just someone trying to take advantage of people who don't understand the system. The game never runs out of fixed price items. Second, if at all possible, do not sell items in a town that has above a 2% rate. Third, when looking for specific items, it is easiest to use the search function. Unlike names, the search function is not case sensitive.
Peer Chat, Whispers, and Forming a Party
Quite often, you'll see people say 'looking for LDP' in the peer chat. First, what is peer chat? Well, it's basically the global chat of the game, but you'll only see people talking that are within a certain level range of yourself. The plus side is that any group requests you see in the peer channel are close to your level. The down side is occasionally you get see half a conversation. This is not to be confused with the 'chat' tab, which is local area chat only, and not restricted by level.
OK, so what does LDP mean? It means Long Distance Party. In Atlantica, even if you're not in the same area, you still get bonus xp at the end of every fight if you are grouped. This bonus xp goes to all of your characters. If you actually fight together, you get additional bonus xp, the xp is distributed somewhat evenly to all your mercs, and you have a higher chance of getting bonus monsters that are worth double xp and might drop material boxes. Quest requirements are shared, so there is really no downside to grouping in this game.
OK, so I've sold you on the benefits of grouping, you just saw Languard chat out 'looking for LDP' and so you want to join up. Using the /t command to send a tell, you type '/t languard Hey I'll group with you' , and nothing happens. Huh? Well, for some odd reason, player names are case sensitive in Atlantica. If you want to send a tell to me, you'd have to use /t Languard. Likewise, if you want to send a tell to someone called 'HiThErE', you need to have the capitalization perfectly correct. By the way, if you do make a character with alternating cases like that, I will hunt you down and thwap you with a live rainbow trout.
The End
Of course there is a lot more to Atlantica than this, but again this isn't a be-all-end-all guide, just a quick one to cover some of the less explained areas of Atlantica that I feel are useful for a newbie to know.
