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Trouble reading? Click here!
Hello and welcome to Sylvan Heart! Now hopefully you have everything working after going through the "How to Connect guide." I suggest flicking along though this guide while playing, since it will (hopefully) help with the first few minutes of your life in Sylvan Heart.
First of all, you need an account. PM Admin Iris or Admin Cypress on the forums with your preferred account and password with a little description about yourself and why you wish to play on Sylvan (no need to write 2000 word essay though). Chances are, you’ll be accepted ^^
Once you have your account, you’ll have to make a new character. Now we have naming rules here on Sylvan, so make sure you don’t call yourself something like “teh_pwnerer” or anything along those lines (as tempting as it might be). Try to think of a story for your character so you can role-play and name him/her accordingly. There are some great name generators out there, and I’ll list a few (thanks to Acacia for the links):
http://www.angelfire.com/rpg2/vortexshadow/names.html
http://www.chriswetherell.com/elf/
http://rinkworks.com/namegen/
There are many more name generators out there, and as always, Google is your friend. Also don’t spend too much time deciding on your skill/stats right now since what you choose on those will become irrelevant as you will see soon. Also, note that the stat caps are at 150 for all 3 stats and skill cap is 1200. However this can be raised up to 1500 through various methods.
Now you’ve created your character, it’s time to enter the world. You start off at a new players area and Bliss the Greeter will do what she does best – greet you. If you head south a little you will see a Skillstone. Double click this and you will get to choose either two skills at 100 each or three skills at 70. Now since there’s no such thing as an objective guide, you will see right off the bat, my own biases creeping in. I humbly suggest you choose two skills at 100, and avoid skills like “Item Identification” and “Arms Lore” since those two don’t do anything here (as far as skills go. Item ID acutally is used to augment equipment, but you can have 0 Item ID and still be able to do it). Also starting skills like “Animal Taming” at 100 is helpful if you plan on being a tamer. After picking your skills, leave via the white portal, and all 3 of your stats will be set to 80 (also if you haven’t noticed, the skills you picked in the character creation window have been reset to 0 while using the skillstone).
Now the area you arrive at the end of the portal is this pretty place called the “meadow.” Sometimes, you’ll see mischievous Skygods doing... whatever it is Skygods do (blow stuff up, throw ambiguous objects at people etc.) The white stone to the southeast side of the meadow is the bankstone. Just type “bank” and it will automatically open up your bank. Who knows, you might find a gift of 20k in there. Also you’ll see 3 portals: blue, white and red. I don’t suggest you head into red or blue portal anytime soon, since those two take you to Felucca where you could get mugged by bandits or even eaten by bunny rabbits (I’m completely serious). The white portal however, can take you to various places of your choice, which I’ll leave for you to adventure later.
Next, we want to head a little east, over to the pavilion. Now I’ve gone and captured a pretty little picture, and I will explain each object with the corresponding numbers.
1: This is the Racestone, where you can pick one of many races. For more info, head over here : http://forum.sylvandreams.co.uk/index.php?topic=721.0
2: This here is the gold merchandise stone. You can buy some handy things like toolboxes and the like. This stone also happens to be the source of unlimited Whipped Cream Pies and Rotten Pumpkins all set and ready to be thrown at someone. Use this knowledge wisely.
3: This is the atonements stone where you can buy stuff for atonements. The trash bag you can buy from here is really handy to carry around, however I suggest you keep this in a separate bag just so that you do not accidentally drag something valuable into it because if you do, it is lost forever.
4: This is the commodities stone where you can buy some basic supplies in 1000 item bulk bundles for 10,000 gold. The supplies range from arrows and bandages to iron ingots and leather.
5: This is the Sylvan Heart website stone. Double click it to open the Sylvan Heart website.
6: This is the donations chest, where kindly souls decide they have too much gear and donate some of it to new players. You can get some real decent stuff in here so it’s worth looking around.
7 & 8: These portals take you to a place of holy matrimony and for those of you crazy enough to get married, you might want to head there with your beloved.
9: Takes you to the Sylvan Glade where you can relax and open a cold one.
10: Probably the place you’ll be most interested in, and that’s the New Player Dungeon. Here you can lay down the beats on some monsters, created for the sole purpose of testing how efficiently you can slash/stab/crush/burn/shoot a live target.
11: This portal will take you to the Sylvan Heart Library where you can find books of all kinds ranging from guides and tutorials to songs and stories. The books are written by both staff and players. If you write a book that you'd like to have placed in the library, simply send a message to admin Cypress.
12: Evil!!!!! I have no idea why they’ve put this rune here (probably to hear the death screams of new players). However, if you’re a tough guy/girl and you think you have the minerals to take on hordes of Vu’s undead cronies, feel free to cast recall. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
13: This is the fountain where you can get a drink or fill pitchers, buckets, and barrels with water to take with you during your travels.
Now for some helpful commands
[grab – Sick of having to double click every time you kill something? Well using this [grab command, you can loot all corpses in a small area around you. Additionally, you can set what you want to loot by typing [grab options and ticking what you wish to loot (gold is always looted). Also, the [grab bag command is available to avoid your inventory from getting overly cluttered (mine seems to get cluttered anyway). Just buy a spare bag from an innkeeper and set!
Note: If you die and then use [grab before you have your grab bag in your backpack, it will unset your grab bag and you will need to set it again once you get it back or get a new one.
[atone – Sylvan Heart has a system of “atoning” for the things you have killed. Warning! This command INSTANTLY removes the corpse and all loot contained inside the corpse. So make sure you have used the [grab command first! Also atoning gives you some pretty little skulls which can be saved up and used to either trade or buy incredibly good things. I suggest you ALWAYS atone, because it reduces lag on the shard and is also beneficial for you as they are very valuable to other players and you can also spend them at the Virtue Skull (VS) shop; more on this later.
[bandself – Instantly bandages yourself. Alternatively, you can use [band to bring up a targeting cursor to bandage someone else (but if you’re anything like me, you won’t have [band macro’d *cackles evilly*).
[c – This command shows who is online and also allows you to chat publically if you type [c (insert text). However, avoid spamming with this command or you may find yourself muted. You can also click the blue dots next to the player names in this list and send people private messages.
[hunger / [thirst – Shows your hunger/thirst levels. This is explained further down.
[pm (insert player name here) – Allows you to send a private message to a particular player.
There are more useful commands related to sorting out loot and junk, and they are listed here: http://forum.sylvandreams.co.uk/index.php?topic=1008.0
Food, Water and Vendors
You must eat and drink in Sylvan to stay alive. If your hunger or thirst levels drop below 5, you begin to lose hitpoints/mana/stamina so beware! Before hunting, always make sure you check your hunger/thirst levels with the [hunger or [thirst commands. You may also have noticed vendors do not sell essentials such as bandages, tools, and food. These things must be bought from player vendors from the vendors area (this was done specifically to encourage player interaction and is also a viable business).
Also, just a little west of the meadow, you’ll find “Dalos, the buyer of all,” which is basically an NPC that pretty much buys everything, so after hunting it’s good to stop by here and sell off any unwanted loot.
Sylvan Heart Houses
Every new player gets a free 10x10 house, so you might be interested in getting one. First of all find a place that you would like your house and page a staffer by pressing the "Help" button at the top right corner of your window and then clicking "General Question about Ultima Online." A box will pop up where you can kindly ask a Skygod for a 10x10 and hopefully if a staffer is available, you will get your house. Also, if you already have a bit of gold and want a bigger house, what you can do is get the 10x10 and then sell it off for 59,000 gold then buy a bigger house with that money + money you already have. It’s important to note that houses in Sylvan Heart must be placed by staff and cannot be done by players. Also a maximum of 5 houses are allowed, 2 large, 2 medium, and 1 small. Also 2 house plots may be placed together so you can have a massive 36x18 house!
Another great feature we have here are yards. These give you a little more space to play with and you can buy some nice deco from the Deco Mall (southern end of Magincia). If unsure of where this Deco Mall is, ask another player or staffer for directions.
For more information on housing costs and storage head here: http://forum.sylvandreams.co.uk/index.php?board=7.0
Guilds
Now, if you’re the type who enjoys joining/creating guilds, feel free to join/create one. There are many guilds out there, so pick one that you believe fits you well or get a group of friends together and make your own. It’s also a great way to meet new people and go on group hunts, which tend to be great fun due to the many custom monsters we have in Sylvan Heart. There is a guilds section in the forums where you can either look for a guild or advertise yours.
http://forum.sylvandreams.co.uk/index.php?board=6.0
Events
There are two types of events in Sylvan Heart, one being the “on-the-spot” events, such as Paintball, Champion Spawns, Evil Twin Spawns etc. and set events which include Role-playing events and Petwars. It’s important to check the forums for notices of set dates for certain events such as petwars and make sure you turn up! The events centre can be found South-West of the Magincia Meadow (if you get lost, you can either ask a staffer to pull (teleport) you or follow someone else).
Also there are often events and tamables released at certain times such as Christmas, Valentines, New Years etc. so keep an eye out for announcements on the forums!
For more information, head here: http://forum.sylvandreams.co.uk/index.php?topic=1927.0
Voting
At Sylvan Heart we encourage players to vote; it only takes up a few seconds of your time and you can even do it during a world save. More votes mean more additions to our family, and that means more fun for all! Remember, the more the merrier!
The Law
Don’t forget that there are certain rules that are expected to be followed by players, so to avoid breaking them and getting into trouble, I suggest you take a quick flick through the Rules sections of the site.
Forums and Community
Although not compulsory, contributing to the forums and community is a great way to make new friends and also stay connected. It’s easy to accidentally forget about others and just solo-hunt the whole time, so I encourage you to get some people together and go hunt some bigger, scarier things. Also, contribute your voice and opinions on the forums. Remember this is a family shard, so everyone should be treated with respect and courtesy and you will receive likewise treatment.
Last words
Lastly, thanks for reading this guide, and if you have any trouble or just want to chat, feel free to PM pretty much anyone and most importantly, enjoy yourself – Welcome to the Family!
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