Ok, im entirely new to this stuff and ima need a run down on just about everything that the "game tutorial" doesnt mention. i have yet to have found an example of how to use certain skills.

an example would be the bless skill. i type "Use bless" and it tells me im preparing to use the skill, then it says its ready and asks who to use it on. ive tried everything in known english to use the skill on myself or another player with no success. if i try the command use bless on, or use bless at it tells me i dont know such a skill. are there actual maps of the towns and such? ive looked but the only map i have found is a graphical map that looks nothing like it would in the games ascii getup.

also, how do you join a guild? how do you learn new spells, i was reading on training and "studying" spells but the study command only studies the area around you and theres no actual description that tells you exactly how to join a guild or who to even talk to regarding it.

unless ive managed to miss a bunch of things in the tutorial that took for ever to complete, i just cant find the information im looking for.

To use most skills you will need to have a target, this is achieved in one of the two following ways

use <skill> at <target>

or

use '<skill>' <target>

That target can be a monster, player or item. The game will tell you if you try a skill on a thing that cannot be affected by that skill.

For Example:

use bless at rigger

or

use 'bless' rigger

you can also use 'me' to target yourself

use bless at me

Spells work the same way

cast 'cure light wounds' rigger


As for guilds, type help open guilds to see a list of guilds for your background, then ask on the newbie channel for help finding that guild. You will need at least 1 free level to join a guild, and you will also need to take all 5 levels of your racial guild before you can join an open guild. (that all means you need to be level 16). You can get to your racial guild by using the portal in the adventurers guild, I think there is a portal in pleasentville. There are instructions available when you get there.

Suggestion to Wizes:

How about the first time a newbie gets to level 16 in each background, a helpfile is displayed showing only the open guilds available to them, and which continent they can be joined on (and possibly a portal to get them there?)

Many skills use a target. There are a few ways to do targeted skills, which you use is up to your preference:

Note that the first form has single-quotes around the skill name, and doesn't use the "at" keyword. The second form uses no quotes, but separates the skillname from the target with the word "at". Some skills/spells don't need to be targeted...to do an untargeted skill, use one of the following three methods, paying close attention to the quotes that i use:



Some areas have maps internally...typing 'map' will give a view of those. Namely, the main city on each continent has this, as do some individual areas like pleasantville.


Guilds are left a touch vague at the start because we want people to progress in the game a bit before having to worry about it. You can't join one until level 16, so you get a bit of time to get situated. Check out 'help free levels' and 'help levels' for a bit of info. Basically, once you hit level 16, you'll check out 'help open guilds', pick a guild you like (research from www.bat.org/help/guilds) that is available to your background, and then find the guild on the realm map. A few guilds have complex joining processes, so if you can't figure how to join it, feel free to ask on newbie channel.

is there a site with a full run through of the entire game? like maybe even a stratic page?

having to ask for help sucks when nobody answers your questions. im the kind of person who likes to go to a web page and it tell me what i need to do to get something or some where. then i do what it says. it takes less time most of the time.

Near impossible in two ways.
1. The whole game is (in some ways) bigger than WoW and couple other MMORGP's combined.
2. Information about quests (read: walktroughs) are prohibited.

Your best bet for information about the game is the help files (help <topic>), the newbie channel (newbie <blaablaa>), batwiki.
With hands (read: playing skills) and equ, almost any background can be used to fill any of the holy three roles (tank, dps, healer) so thats a bit hard one to answer.
If you want nothing to do with spells, go nomad. While good religious gb heals and makes the world less panifull evil relig bg does the opposite. If you want simply blast things to part, go magical bg. The more spell oriented your character is, the more harder it will be to solo.

The number of combos is quite overwhelming, there is no absolute optimal as some features of combos are more important to other players than others.

There are couple universal things that dont seem to change over years beside of the need of the holy three classes in any serious party.
Those are that for a newbie its easiest to do exp as a barb/ranger, casters first equ set should be spr, blasters with under 1k spmax and/or with less than 3 damage types suck.

Best way to know if a combo is good is to see it yourself or look ingame for similiar combos and party with them. There is also couple guides that are all found in these forums. Side of those, you just need to find out yourself i.o. ask around.

help newbie in game or http://www.bat.org/help/help?str=newbie

Bless skill is bit nasty as you can only bless other people that have the same alignment as you do. This is not obivious from help skill bless.

Other questions were answered quite well already.