Guide for Newbies

This is a guide to let you know about a few things that you should be aware of before you get started.  For help on actually creating your characters, you should also read the Character Creation Guide. 

Traveling - Ship Captains and Carpet Merchants

Traveling by foot on Valhalla can be dangerous, not to mention expensive, especially for younger players.  It is much safer and faster to hire a ship captain or a magic carpet to take you to the city you would like to go to.  A sea captain and/or magic carpet merchant can be found in every town on Valhalla, and they can take you where you need to go.  Say "sail" to a sea captain, and he will give you a list of the cities with ports that he can take you to.  Then say "sail <name of city>" and he will offer to take you there for 100 gold.  The ride only takes a few seconds and is completely safe.   Magic carpet merchants work the same way, but they respond to the word "travel" instead of "sail".

There are also Teleport pads to and from most towns in Valhalla. Some are named and some are not. It is fun to learn them all so look at it as exploration not as a chore.

Death System - What Happens When You Lose All of Your Hit Points

On Valhalla when you are down to zero hit points, you fall unconscious - you do not die.  That is the first thing you must understand.  Even though you see your ghost standing there, you are not dead.

After one minute of being unconscious, you will be asked if you want to open your eyes or 'play dead.' Opening your eyes means that you will stand back up at 25% health with all of your equipment, experience and virtue in tact.  The only things that will be wrong with you are that you will suffer from a temporary stat loss from the dizziness.

If you are knocked unconscious 3 times within 3 minutes, it is assumed that something is wrong from a 'game mech' standpoint, and you will be sent to your home point safely with all of your belongings.

If you are knocked unconscious 3 times in a span of 4-20 minutes, you die.  If this happens, you can not be resurrected for 15 minutes, unless you can make your way to a resurrection shrine.  You can stick around and play as a ghost, but for 15 minutes players and healers can't resurrect you.  Furthermore, you will receive stat/skill loss and the greedy NPC's will be able to loot your things.

However, if you have not yet earned 10,000 experience points you will be able to be resurrected immediately.  For an explanation of why the system was changed, see the page dedicated to the death system.

Ownership

On Valhalla it is possible to make an item useless to anyone other than yourself by putting your mark on it.  You can do this by using the .own command and targeting something that you own.  Armor, bags, weapons and tools can all be 'owned,' but things like reagents and gold can't be.  Once your owner's mark is on an item, it can't be used by anyone else until you use .own on it again to remove your mark.  Thus, when you buy something form someone make sure that it isn't .owned by them!

Lost and Found

Items that have been .owned can be trashed in a bin. You will then see an on screen message saying "Thank you! That item has been returned to the players bankbox." Likewise if you have lost .owned items and another player trashes them they will be returned to you in the same way.  If the owner of the item no longer exists, the item will be destroyed.

Help Button

If there's an emergency where you need a GM's help or there's a question that you have that isn't answered on the webpage or another player can't answer for you, you can use the help button to contact the staff.

Here is what you do:

• Press HELP button.
• Select category (stuck, bug, house or other).
• Enter a description of the problem in the box at the bottom of the pop-up:
• You type in a brief description of your problem.
• You will need to click in each line to write in that space REMEMBER keep it brief and to the point. As you run out of room on a line you will have to click on the next line to continue.
• Press ok and the help page will be sent to all the online GMs, qued into the help-que, and/or logged.

Examples: You're stuck:

• Press the HELP button.
• Choose "STUCK" option.
• Type in "I seem to be stuck, please help".
• Press OK to send your request.
  ...at this time all the GMs will be alerted, the page will be qued and logged.

You find a bug with taming Ophidian Queens:

• Press the HELP button.
• Choose "BUG" option.
• Type in "I found a bug with taming..."
• Continue entering lines of text, clicking on each line as you run out of room, describing the bug.
• Press ok and the help page will be sent to all the online GMs, qued into the help-que, and/or logged.

Added notes on Help button:

1. Try to resolve the issue yourself. If you are stuck, you can either recall out, or try to use path finding. This is in your options menu. Many times someone will hit the help button and their problem is resolved shortly thereafter on their own.
2. Ask yourself if it is really necessary to page a GM.  Perhaps it is only a bug and can be posted to the boards instead.  General questions can be answered either on the boards or by asking another online player.
3. The Help messages are in a lineup.  If you go offline afterwards, the help request is taken off the list. When you come back online (with that particular character) the request is put back on the list, so you do not have to page more than once for the same problem.
4. If you are going to complain or criticize, offer solutions and/or alternatives, be courteous and polite.  Even if you are angry about something, take a deep breath first.  Read the etiquette section.  If you are rude to someone do not expect him or her to be polite in response.

Feedback System

Use the .feedback command to enter feedback about a targeted player.  When you target the player you will be given a menu with the following options to choose from.

• Player being rude OOC
• Attacked without consent
• Player shows good RP abilities
• Player needs assistance with RP
• Other

NOTE: Use this wisely. Attempt to resolve any issue in game before reporting it to staff.  Inappropriate use of this option can result in banning.

Logging Out