General new player guide

This is a page for the non-guild specific page for the Newbie Help Guide. For details, rules, and the other pages involved, see Category:Newbie Guide Contest.

Introduction

Hello! Thank you for stopping by the Dragonrealms General Newbie Help Guide! This guide will try and help you get started with the game and teach you the ABSOLUTE basics.

What is Dragonrealms?

Dragonrealms is a MUD, which means it's a text-based multiplayer RPG. You connect to the game and the game's world is described to you in text, as if you were reading a book. You complete actions by entering text commands that you wish your character to accomplish. As long as the command is one recognized by the game, and you used it correctly, it will result in the main window of the game (typically called the Story window) listing the results of what happened. The interface and game world are almost entirely text-based, though there are some limited graphical features, such as certain things like health being able to be depicted in bar form.

Dragonrealms takes place in Elanthia, which is a fantasy setting. There is magic, swords, bows and arrows and the like. There are minor elements indicative of slightly more technology than a strictly medieval setting would have (such as some steampunk style things like mechanical constructs and airships) but you won't find cars, guns, lasers or spaceships to be in-genre in any way.

How to Use This Guide

This guide will attempt to explain the basics of the game to you and get you on your way to adventuring! However, as in any tutorial, you will be required to input things yourself from time to time. When this guide references a command that you should type in, it will list it in the following fashion:

>COMMAND

In this example, you would be expected to type the word COMMAND in your text-entry field in the game and then press your ENTER key. For the purposes of this guide, commands will be listed in all caps, but they can be entered however you wish.

Some commands require targets or modifiers. Usually these will be dependent on the context in which the command is used. As an example:

>COMMAND <PERSON>

In this example, you would be expected to type the word COMMAND in your text-entry field in the game, followed by the name of the person you wanted to interact with before pressing ENTER. So if you were in a room with a guy named Bob, and you wanted to wave at him, you would type the following:

>WAVE BOB

Each section will have different information on the basics of the game and how to play, but understanding how to enter commands will be an essential part of following instructions in this (and other) guides.

Helpful Terminology

In any game, you'll come across terms that are used by long-time players that can sometimes be confusing to new players. Some of the more common terms will be listed here to help you better understand what other players are talking about.

Verb - Typically when players refer to verbs, they are referring to an item that you can use a command on, though for some people verb holds the same meaning as command does. As an example, if someone says they have a 'verbed cloak', this might mean they have a cloak, but when you >SHAKE MY CLOAK while the cloak is worn on your character, you might see your character shaking dust out of the hem. Verbs, whether on items or not, give you additional ways to express things that your character is doing.

Gweth - Short for gwethdesuan. Gwethdesuans are items that can be used for communication at a distance via a thought network. If you are wearing one, you can >THINK <MESSAGE> to broadcast a message to anyone else with the same type of gwethdesuan within range. So for example, to send out "Hello world!" on the thought network, you would input >THINK Hello world! into your text-entry field and press your ENTER key.

How to Search Elanthipedia

Basic and Advanced Search

Elanthipedia has a lot of useful content, but finding what you want is not always intuitive. Here are some tricks.

Basic Search: to perform a basic search, click the link, or scroll to the upper-right corner of the screen, and type your search term in the box. Click "Search."

Advanced Search: Sometimes, the basic search gives you too many results, and you want to narrow your search. You can reach the advanced search option by clicking the link by performing a basic search and then clicking the "Advanced" link.

Under Search in namespaces, you can choose which types of pages to include in your search. The most useful options are:

(Main) any wiki page that is not in a special category (most articles and shops)
Category: any wiki page whose title begins with Category:. This includes the main guild, race, and spell pages, for example, which link to more detailed information.
Armor: armor item pages (with looks, stats, shop locations, etc.)
Shield: shield item pages (with looks, stats, shop locations, etc.)
Weapon: weapon item pages (with looks, stats, shop locations, etc.)
Item: all other item pages (with looks, stats, shop locations, etc.)
Post: archived posts from the official Play.net forum
Title: titles (the kind your character wears around his name)
Checking the "List redirects" option will include pages that just redirect you to another page.

Special Queries

In addition to the normal search options, Elanthipedia has some special query pages that let you search for particular content. To use them, simply select the options you want and click "run query" at the bottom.

ShopQuery: in the type field, include any of the merchandise types listed here
WeaponQuery
ArmorQuery
ShieldQuery
ItemQuery: all other items

When using the four item query pages, "rare" means items that aren't normally available, such as quest prizes, festival merchandise, etc.

BestiaryQuery: Here you can search for huntable creatures by location, difficulty, types of loot dropped, etc.

PostQuery: Search for archived posts from the official Play.net forum (separate topics with a comma)