Money

Unlike in real life money is on the streets. Sometimes as coins sometimes as items which can be sold. Sometimes older players just drop their small coins to avoid burden. Once I found 6000 Genuan Cent in a shop and I took it to the money changer and is was about AM$40.--, a fortune for a newbie. So just keep searching and sell the stuff you find. It is also a way to tm other.points.

There are two obvious exits: north and south. A guard thief and Shifty Jim are standing here. A lit torch is in a torch holder on the wall and one Ankh-Morpork ten-pence and 9 Ankh-Morpork pence are on the floor.

If one asks on the talker how to make money the answer often is: Kill, loot and sell. As tiny newbie you can't kill NPCs which carry lots of valuable stuff. Often older players just kill for XP and take the more valuable coins. You can recover buried corpses and loot them empty. It sounds disgusting, but it is a proper way to get some money.

search You start to search around. > You have a good look at the ground and scavenge one Ankh-Morpork ten-pence from a gutter. You pick it up.

Items are sold in general stores or fenced at the Thieve's fences. At first general stores will give you a bit more money as the fences, until you have a bit higher valueing skills. If the items are stolen they can't be sold at general stores, so fencing is the only possibility to cash the items. A way for thieves is to launder the items and it is described on the thieve's website.

Often found clothes are in very bad condition and they won't bring much money, but there is a way to repair them without needlework skills: just bring them to Gapp's temple and put them on his lower altar and they will be repaired for free. It needs some faith skills, but if you have completed the faith task in Pumpkin Town it is sufficient.

Once you have spare AM$25.-- visit Mr Rendtnor's Jewel Store on the Plaza of Broken Moons and become a valued customer and he will fix jewellery for free in the future.

I admit these are no ways to get rich very quick, but it helps you to get enough money to advance the first levels and to buy some basic equipment.

A quick word to equipment: All Guilds have newbie boxes, coffers, wardrobes, chests somwhere. Most boxes have an age and/or guild level restriction, but feel free to take stuff for yourself. Don't get the idea to empty the box for money, most of the stuff isn't worth that much to get rich and if you get caught punishment is possible.

If you get older money making is getting easier. Thieves is pretty self explaining, they just shift money into their own pockets. But every other guild has it's way to gather money. There are a lot P-Shops (Player shops, shops rented and run by players) who buy stuff one can provide (Wizards can provide scrolls, blorps, Witches healing and other teas, Priests faith rods...).

XP - Experience Points

Basically you'll get for everything you do experience points. For some actions more for some less. Even if you just stand on a corner on the streets you get a tiny amount known as heartbeat XP.

The command score gives you a full view of your score while score brief will give you, as the name suggests, a brief overview.

score brief Hp: 1801(1801) Gp: 372(372) Xp: 195294 Burden: 20%

Unfortunatly for me, some players might disagree, the disc is very combat orientated and therefore fighting and burying will get you most XP. Wizards are very good at making XP with their spells and the same is it with priests. If you play a none combat oriented thief or a witch it is harder to get the same amount.

A very popular way to gain XP is to group with other players and to roam cities and terrains and to kill every killable obstacle. Grouping is popular because all XP generated are shared.

Another method is idlechasing. It is based on the same principle as numberchasing but with a lot less action and far less deaths involved. Basically players group together in a nice and quite corner and run commands.
As mentioned above all commands generate XP and are shared in a group. So everyone is running commands which fit to his guild or his liking. Mages and witches do magic, Warriors fighting commands or judging weapons and armour, Thieves and Assassins covert stuff and priests faith. There is also a lot of crafting involved (yes you can craft on the disc, like embroidery, engraving, quilting,...).
The possibilities are shear endless.

A more peaceful way to gain XP is questing. Quests are a rather popular way to gain a large amount of XP in a very short time. On the official disc site is a page with quest solutions. If you read the full solution or hunt them down with just a few hints is up to you. Don't ask for help or solutions on a public channel, it's prohibited.

A rather new way to gather XP are achievements. Those can be achieved in very many different ways. Some are skill related, age, ability, completing tasks... All of them are rewarded with XP. From small to rather large amounts and some of them will bring you fancy titles (like Flatulent for eating 10.000 cabbages). The big difference to quests: you may ask for help, solutions and discuss them in public.

And what's the fuzz about those XP? You need them to advance your skills. Simple as that, and the higher you get the more you need. Just as an example: To get a primary skill of your guild from level 0 to level 300 will cost you 4.738Mio XP and AM$592.33
Harsh, huh? But it's not as bad as it sounds and XP will sum up pretty quick and no one forces you to advance from 0 to 300 on the spot.

Advancing

First you have to differ between primary and none primary skills.
Primary skills are defined by your guild and your specialisation. Priests are a different matter, because they have the complete faith tree no matter which deity they worship.

Which skills you advance at the start is up to you. The best way ist to check out the rituals, commands, spells you want to use and which requirements they have. Some are learnt at certain levels, other need certain bonuses in different skills to succeed.
As a general rule: bonuses are far more important as levels.
To depict this the top 5 in the skills other.perception on Flatline's site:

• Level - Bonus
• 560 - 545
• 674 - 500
• 600 - 490
• 610 - 475
• 800 - 462

Back to advancing: Primaries can be advanced up pto level 300 in your guild. It's different for every guild where one can advance. None Primaries just to a very lower level. Some to 5, 10, 50 levels.

Once you reached the peak of your guild there are two ways to advance: Learn from yourself or from another player. In most cases the second choice is the best. It costs a considerable lesser amount on XP to learn from other players. If you're looking for a teacher in a specific skill check out flatlines site again and find a teacher with a high ETB (effective teaching bonus).

TMS - Taskmaster

TMs are free levels for a skill or learning by doing. When you steal something which is on the verge of your skills it's possible to get a tm. Unfortunatly it's much easier to get a tm at lower levels.

If you get a message like:

You continue sneaking. Saving... You realise the methods of sneaking inside more fully.

You have gotten one of those desired and beloved tms. To check which tm you've got just type hskills.

Fri Mar 27 18:49:41 2009 - covert.stealth.inside increased by 1 level to level 16.

Stats and rearrange

So how it is possible that the bonuses like ot.pe (skills are usually abbreviated) mentioned vary that much?
The answer is simple and highly complicated: different rearranges. This will only be a short visit to rearranging, because it is a most complex and most discussed topic on the disc.

There are five different stats (score stats will show you yours).

score stats Constitution ... 13 Strength ....... 13 Weight ......... 81.5kg Dexterity ...... 13 Wisdom ......... 13 Intelligence ... 13 Height ......... 174 cm

Every player starts with 13 points in each stat, rearranging is 'just' shifting points from one stat to another. As this can be done only once and will affect your entire gameplay it is a very difficult matter. A messed up rearrange can ruin a character completly.

A short extract of the skil/stat relation on fighting.melee. Dagger for example needs lots of dexterity and a bit of strength and nothing from the other skills. Heavy Sword uses 1 part of Constitution, 1 Dexterity and 3 parts strength.

fighting	Con	Dex	Int	Str	Wis
melee	1	2	0	2	0
dagger	0	4	0	1	0
sword	0	3	0	2	0
heavy-sword	1	1	0	3	0
axe	1	1	0	3	0
mace	2	1	0	2	0
flail	1	2	0	2	0
polearm	2	0	0	3	0
misc	1	2	0	2	0