9Dragons Online

Put together by dh47, with honors to various people on the forums

I wrote this about a week after the launch of Pre-Open Beta. At that time, we had a lot of newbies and most of this info was not widespread. I planned to finish it and post it on the forums to help the people who didn't have the experience of CB for OB, but I went to Vegas for a week. When I came back, pretty much everyone was an expert on the game already lol. Anyway, I decided to post this just for the hell of it. I've edited it a bit and added some good links to guides. This has really become sort of index of links to other great pieces of information, along with some of my own pointers. If you are new to 9Dragons, welcome! As a great man once said to me in game, "we expect great things from you."

Table Of Contents - Browse through this if you're looking for a specific topic of the game that you have questions on. If its not here, post it and I'll answer ASAP.

Basic Info
Common Acronyms
Getting Started
Levels
Joining a Clan
Classes
Builds
What to Do for the Rest of the Game
Reviving
Elixirs
EXP Manuals
Gameplay Tips
Restats/Reclasses
Hero Bands
Mob Name Colors
Mastery Points
Parties
Party Quests
Karma
Black vs White Wars
Refinement
Collections
To Die Or Not To Die
Specific Quests that are Troublesome


Basic Info
9Dragons is a martial arts MMORPG, massively multiplayer online role playing game. You create a character, either male or female, and work to build your martial arts skills. There are 6 starter clans, and 3 more advanced clans that you can join to learn new techniques and advance in the game's storyline. A word of advice though, this game is grind-heavy. If you're unfamiliar with the term, it means it requires many many hours of often repetetive and mind numbing gaming to gain the slightest level. At earliest levels, you will be leveling up quickly and without hassle. However, soon, the experience (exp) curve takes hold and spreads its evil poisons to your head, numbing it and causes you to lose your mind and get 10 inch glasses as it takes hours to get .01% exp.

Note:
To make all the players of 9Dragons around the world feel welcome, here's a time conversion table I found on the forums, compliments to Slyboi. http://www.timezoneconverter.com/cgi-bin/tzc.tzc

Common Acronyms

SH - Shaolin
WT - Wutang
LoB - League of Beggars
HD - Heavenly Demon
SF - Sacred Flower
BoT - Brotherhood of Theives
^These are the 6 Starter Clans of 9Dragons. Your character will join one of them to advance in the game and get new skills and such.

BE - Blood Essence
^Material used for weapon refinement, a process that will increase the damage of your weapon

BC - Blood Count
^Little number that goes up when you kill mobs. If it hits 999, you get a BE.

Med/Medi - Meditation
^Meditation, process you learn early in the game to recover HP and VE. Can also be reffering to ADV MED/MEDI.

Adv Med/Medi - Advanced Meditation
^New skill that you can learn with Cheng 10 of your clan's basic meditaiton. If you see someone saying "Selling Beggar Adv Medi" that means they are selling the tome for the Beggar's Advanced Meditation. Each clan has separate tomes for this skill.

KF - Kung Fu
^Physical attacks or skills

CK - Chi Kung
^Magic attacks or skills

REZ(S) - Ressurect/Revive
^Read below section on reviving

GK - Good Karma
BK - Bad Karma
^Two types of Karma, read below section on Karma

PvP - Player vs Player
^Self explanatory

PK - Player Kill
^When a player can attack and kill another player without the targeted person's knowledge or consent.

PvE - Player vs Environment
^Self explanatory

STR - Strength
WIS - Wisdom
ESS - Essence
CON - Constitution
DEX - Dexterity
^The stats of 9Dragons, that will dictate how your character turns out.

LS - Losing Self
GC - Gathering Chi
OC - Opening Chi
RC - Revolving Chakra
RL - Raising Light
FD - Five Dragons
SM - Sun and Moon
GB - Golden Blossoms
EC - Elemental Crown
FC - Floral Crown
^Levels that are currently reachable in our version of 9Dragons.

CS - Crimson Snake - Not CounterStrike!!!!
GL - Golden Lotus
HM - Humble Master
LM - Little Master
^Levels past FC. There are more, but I don't remember them ^^

HP - Health Points (Health)
VE - Vital Energy (Magic Energy, Mana)
^Self explanatory.

Getting Started
Watch the 9Dragons Trailers for the individual starter clans, you'll want to get an idea for which clan you want to join (PLEASE PLEASE just consider other clans besides the sword-wielding Wutang and Heavenly Demon). Also, read up on the backstories if you're interested. Once you've got the clan pick happening, and you've dowloaded and installed the game, log in and choose the starter zone where you want your character to begin. Unless you want to explore all the lands before joining a clan, this should be the corresponding area that your future clan is in.

White Clans
Shaolin - Song Shan
Wutang - Wutang Shan
League of Beggars - Tianjin

Black Clans
Heavenly Demon - Mount Yanmo
Sacred Flower - Zixia Dong
Brotherhood of Thieves - Tai Shan

Once one joins a clan, he is prohibited from entering the zones of the opposite color clan. Therefore, all White Clan members are barred from entering the Black Clan zones. Also, you are deemed to be trespassing if you enter the starter zone of an allied clan. For example, a Beggar would be trespassing if he entered into Wu-Tang Shan. Yes, he could enter, but the NPC guards would attack him on sight.

Levels
Many newcomers can be confused by the levels of 9Dragons. I often see people asking, "How do I gather Chi?" Here's how it works, our levels in 9Dragons are categorized first by name, then by number. Think of it as a series of sets, with each set containing 12 levels. You will start at Losing Self 0, the lowliest of levels. Level once, and you will become Losing Self 1. Again, and you will be Losing Self 2. This is where acronyms come in as well. Rather than type out "Losing Self" to tell other people what level you are, we use the acronyms listed above. Therefore, LS1 = Losing Self 1.

When you hit Losing Self 12, you are in the last level of the Losing Self Set. Once you level up from here, your level will change to Gathering Chi(GC) 1. From here, the cycle repeats itself, and if you level up from GC12, you will become Opening Chi(OC) 1. This will continue on all the way until Heavenly Immortal, the last level. =)

There are a few levels that I like people to keep in mind. You should know what level you can join the clan you want, those are listed below. You should also remember that at OC1, you can choose a class and reset your stats. Thirdly, from that point on, through RL12, you may do a second restat or a rechoosing of your class. I'll explain this later. Lastly, I like people to know that at RL 11, they should be able to go and explore the first level of the Conqueror's Cave, aka CC. This is a none mapped area that has slighly better drop rates than regular maps. It has descending levels, with progressively harder enemies. The first level, should be ok starting at RL11. More on CC to follow.

Joining A Clan
Hopefully, you've gone through the tutorial. It teaches the number one thing that keeps you from being hated in the game, reviving. I'll go over that later in case you didn't get it. Now, the path to joining your clan is relatively simple unless you decided the two sword users, Wu-Tang and Heavenly Demon. For all the other clans, all you have to do is complete the relatively simple quests arising from each corresponding area. There is a certain level where, if the requirements are completed, and all pertaining quests are completed, you should be able to join the clan. Below, I have listed the levels you should be able to join the clan as well as a link to all the quests for the respective clans up to Opening Chi 1.

Shaolin - LS6
[url=http://phpbb.acclaim.com/9dragons/viewtopic.php?p=234068#234068]Wu-Tang - GC8
League of Beggars - LS4
Sacred Flower - LS4
Brotherhood of Thieves - LS6
Heavenly Demon - GC8

Advanced Clans are currently not implemented yet, but the joining requirement for all 3 is rumored to be Level 160

The most confusion regarding clan joining usually pertains to Wu-Tang and Heavenly Demon. For Wu-Tang, you MUST have Basic Wu-Tang Sword and Basic Wu-Tang Fist to at least cheng 2. For Heavenly Demon, the final entrance quest can be a bit difficult. I reccomend leveling up a few times, and checking out my own guide for passing that test, posted at the bottom of this guide.

Classes
When you reach level 25, aka Opening Chi 1, and have joined a clan, you will have a chance to pick a class/role. 9Dragons runs on the basic trinity of MMORPGs when it comes to classes, plus one more that is a hybrid. In other words, we have
A melee fighting Warrior
A long range CK attacking Nuker
A Healer gifted with buffs and heals to help the other players
A Hybrid who learns a little of all the classes.

Don't be concerned over which one is better than the other. Games are meant to be fun, and my best advice is to choose the one you feel would be most enjoyable, rather than the one that can supposedly kill the best. To help you choose, an in-depth description of the individual classes is available here

Builds
Ideally, your build should match the class that you choose. Now, from levels 0 to 25, you should go for a warrior build. That means totally ignoring wisdom. Why? You won't learn a single CK technique until you choose your class. You might never learn one even after hitting level 25. Each class has unique and different techniques that you can eventually learn. Builds should supplement these techniques and fighting methods.

My knowledge of builds is not great, I can only offer what tips and guidelines I reccomend you always keep in your head. There are some links to other guids below this.

1)Comfort, is what designs each person's build. I always see people saying "You must have so and so stat at so and so number." Nuh uh, bad idea. Each player is comfortable with different stats. Constitution is a good example. Some players don't feel confident with low health, and will delegate more stat points to CON. Others, will be perfectly fine with lower health, or are willing to use money to buy items that will increase their health. These players will have a lower base CON versus others.

2) Equally distributing your stats is not a good idea. Many first time players do this, including myself back when I first joined 9Dragons. What you want to do, is pick one or two stats, and focus on shooting them high. This should be the stats that delegate your damage. For melee combat, that's STR and DEX. For Chi Kung Users(Nukers), that's WIS and ESS.

3) Allow your builds to adjust. Tying back to the first thread, you may reach a point where you have become better at the game, maybe your more used to watching your health. Or maybe you've been doing PvE for a long time, and want to get into some PvP action. Be flexible. I highly reccomend using your free restat, preferably at RL12. This free restat allows you to change classes and reset your stats. If you pick the same class again, your stats will just be reset. You are then free to correct any mistakes you may have made. More on the restat later.

Links to other Guides:
Amresh2k's "A Stat and Training Guide for Mages/Nukers" I think this is a well-written guide by one of our own moderators =)

Lentz's "Very Practical Stat Guide for Warriors, Hybrids, and Healers" This is what I have come to call "STR build to the extreme" I feel it's good in that it drives home the importance of high STR. However, personally, I feel that one mustn't neglect the other stats as well. I also believe in using the weapon your class is meant to use, just for the sake of storyline and your unique smashes =) Of course, to each, his own.

Nameless1's Lentz Stat Guide Clarified As the name implies, it clarified Lentz's guide, along with the writer's own tips.

Shakaama's "Orochimaru's Real Guide to Elite Gung Fu" If you watch Naruto, you'll understand the references =) This guide has a casual tone and explains much of the early part of the game, including a section of builds. He writes, build-wise, only for warriors though.

Those are the most-read guides I believe. Good luck grasshopper.

What To Do For The Rest Of The Game
The game is great in that its pretty self-explanatory. Note that you won't get quests to do every single time that you level up. At early levels, you will, but as you game on, the quests get farther and farther stretched along levels. Once you hit Opening Chi, you can then duel with other players in Hefei. Should you desire more PvP, there is freestyle PK on certain maps on the Nirvana, and Bardo Servors, and a bit more on the Asura servor. There's also dungeons in the game, places that you really shouldn't do unless at an uber high level, but have great loot and rewards, like epithets. Look for rare manuals and tomes as well, that are unavailable from your Class NPC, who usually gives you new techniques.

Reviving
If someone dies, he can be revived if someone's quick enough. At the moment your health goes to 0, you drop into a kneeling state. A blue bar begins to go down at this point. If someone can double click you, they will transfer some of their vital energy and revive your health, letting you live. However, once the blue bar depletes, you fall down, lying down. At this this point, only a certain skill learned by SM7 Healers or Hybrids can revive you. You can revive yourself, but you will lose exp or gain other temporary stat drops, depending on your choice of revival. Usually, the best choice is to check into a hotel beforehand. If you die, you can respawn at the hotel with the least problems.

I've actually found that sometimes, the hotel revival option isn't the best though, depending on your level. If you have not joined a clan, hotel is the best. But if you have joined a clan, but have not picked a class yet, I've found that choosing "Revive at Clan Base" is the best option. Your Blood Count and Karma are not affected. Whether this is intended or due to a bug, I'm not sure. The third option that can appear, "Revive Here" is the worst choice, don't pick it unless you really have to.

Somtimes its hard to select someone, especially if they died in a mob and you keep accidentally clicking the enemies. In this case, if you're in a party with the kneeling person, you can click their name on the list of party members. Also try using the right mouse button or arrow keys to shift the camera angle.

Elixirs
Elixirs are cool little things. They will add points to a stat, depending on the type of elixir. There are elixirs for all 5 stats, Strength, Essence, Wisdom, Constitution, and Dexterity. One bad thing is though, elixirs can give negative effects if you're not lucky. This will result in negative numbers, versus the positive numbers you get upon succesful consumption.

When you drink an elixir, you could have one of 4 outcomes.
1) You could receive the max benefit of the elixir and walk away very happily.
2) You could receive a bonus to your stat, but it won't be the maximum benefit.
3) You get squat. Nothing happens to your stat. At least you didnt get a negative effect though.
4) You receive a negative effect.

So for example, level 1 elixirs, can give (+1) or (+2). Receiving (+2) would be an example of the first outcome, (+1) would be an example of the second outcome.

Note that whenever you drink an elixir, your intoxication level increases. So far, I believe this only means that your luck with anything in the game, including further elixir drinking, takes a hit and goes down. Don't worry, intoxication clears away quickly by itself.

There are different levels of elixirs in the game. The Level 1's give (+2) as a max benefit. As the level goes up, so does the max benefit, as well as the risk of the fourth outcome listed above.


This is what your stats screen looks like with elixirs. The +4 for Strength, for example, shows that the total number of stats I've added to Strength with elixirs, is 4.


This is what happens if you roll your cursor over one of the (+4), if you were me. You get to see how that (+4) came about. As you can see, the game will tell you when you've maxed a level of the elixir. If it doesnt say "(max)", then it's not maxed.

Also, let's say you take a Level 1 Elixir, but don't max it. You then move on to a Level 2 Elixir and get some bonuses out of that. A lot of people ask, can I go back and max Level 1, or am I stuck with it because I moved on to Level 2 already? The answer is yes, you can go back and retake Level 1's to max it out.

Elixirs can be dropped like any other item by enemies. Also, they can be exchanged for in Collection Requests, but these collections are long and fairly annoying. Plenty of people ignore them and just buy the elixirs from players in Hefei. I believe elixirs are much more common loot in Dungeons and the Conqueror's Cave Maps.

Apparently, elixirs from dungeons are better. Take a looksie at this




So don't get dungeon elixirs for collection, they won't work

EXP manuals
Ahhhh these things are all a healer needs. It has been a loyal mistress, lover, wife, girlfriend, always faithful to me......ok I'm done with that. Now, exp manuals will increase the rate of which your skills gain exp. The ones that can be bought from your clan NPC, multiply by two. There are other, rarer manuals, that can multiply by more. So far, best I've seen is multiply by 5. All you do, is grab one, get in peace mode, double click it in your bag. Few seconds later, BAM, for the next 30 minutes, skill exp is gaining faster.

Important note though, the in game description is kinda lacking. From the NPC, there are basically 3 kinds of tomes.
1) Doubles Exp for certain, defined skills, such as lightfoot
2) Doubles Exp for skills of one class only, the user must be that class to receive the benefits of the manuals
-----There are two types of Class Manuals, ones with a blue border and ones without. The ones without will double the exp of skills from cheng 1 to cheng 3 only, costing 700 gold. The ones with a blue border, double the skills from cheng 1 to 5, costing 1400 gold.
3) Doubles the exp of all skills, but up to cheng 3 only. This is more expensive than the cheaper class manual, which is 700 gold versus this 1000 gold. Therefore, this manual is only good for the time from when you join your clan, to the time you pick your class. If you are heavenly demon or wutang, this isn't very long, and not much worth it to buy this manual

The easiest way to explain when to use what is to go through it in someone's shoes. Bob just joined the clan, but has not chosen a class yet. He should either use manuals that double all skills up to cheng 3 (choice 3) or those that increase certain, basic, clan skills (choice 1). At OC1, let's say Bob chooses a healer class He should know use choice number 2 manuals only, being much more efficient. Now, he gets his WIS buff, and its at cheng 1. He should use the manual without the blue border to increase it up to at least cheng 4. Now at this point, the manual won't double his exp anymore. To get more double exp, Bob needs to use the blue bordered manual. This manual will increase it all the way up to cheng 6. Therefore, you can use blue border manuals on skills that are at chengs 1-3, but it'd be cheaper to use the non-blue bordered ones.

I seriously doubt you understood that...



Gameplay Tips
There are a couple tips that I'd like to give out for those who want them. First off, stay with a few skills to fight, particularly for active skills. Warriors specifically, learn a ton of active skills. If you spend your time leveling each one up to cheng 5 or something, you won't be doing as much damage as you could for that time. Now, I actually don't do this method, I level each active skill to cheng 5 just because I like the animations. In a competetive PK environment like the Asura Servor, this isn't too smart of a thing to do.

Second, take advantage of Chi Breathing. Chi Breathing is done every 12 levels, in other words when the name changes. If one does not go through with Chi Breathing, he/she stays at that level. There are times when perhaps it is better not to level up. Use the fact that you won't gain exp to level up your skills. This is a particularly useful method for healers and hybrids, who have to level their buffs and heals outside of combat periodically to keep up with their character level. You can also farm for gold or items at this point, killing easier monsters over and over while you can still get drops from them

Third, keep meditation and steps on at all times, only turn them off when you really have to. This allows them to slowly level up. And when I say all the time, I mean all the time. Keep them on when your lightfooting across an entire map, when you're going afk in a stand, when your fighting(no duh). The only time I might say not to keep them on, is if you are a healer/hybrid who is going to level his/her buffs while afk...via caveman macro of course. NOT USING A BOT AHEM AHEM

Fourth, be smart about attacking mobs. Early in the game, for warriors, healers, hybrids, we won't have long range attacks to lure individual enemies out of mobs to you. This requires us to get down and dirty and wade in sometimes. However, you'd be surprised at how normally peaceful some enemies can be. Let's say you're surrounded by enemies, but not one is attacking. Rather than initiating attack, always let another come. I reccomend switching from peace to combat, back to peace mode, doing a simple self buff like "Basic (Insert Clan's Name) Protection", or even meditation. Well, meditating might be a bit too much. The point is, mobs see these and only some attack. If you initate the attack, you might find everyone beating up on you for assaulting their buddy. Also, an enemy who started the fight will give up chasing you (should you run away) earlier than an enemy whom you attacked first. To conclude, let the other guy start the fight. Just move around and do something, it will somehow provoke him.

Fifth, do not hang around bosses. When you see a new boss, don't go "OOOOH HE LOOKS COOL! IMA GO POKE HIM!" Usually, a boss is strong enough to one or two-hit kill the players who grind at the surrounding enemies. Leave the bosses for the uber high level people, and stay away from them. I can't tell you the number of times I've seen OC people try to take on the Knife of White Shadows, thinking "He's a white shadow and I can pwn all the other white shadows, so why not him?"

Sixth, pay attention to the economy. Prices for items go up and down based on player supply and demand. Seriously, about a month ago I think, March 2007, blood essences were selling for 60 to 80k at most. Now, I'm seeing them go for around 100k. When you get a drop or some nice item that you want to sell, look around first to see the general price. Check the marketplace forum. Walk around Hefei. I would also reccomend selling slightly lower than the average price, this gurantees it will be sold relatively quickly.

Restats/Reclass
First off what are these things? You can probably tell by the name. Restats will undo all the changes you've made to your stats, putting them all back at 8 evenly. Reclasses are more major, letting you re-pick your respective class within your clan. When you first hit OC1 and choose your class, you are given the choice to do a restat. You'll definately want to do this. Reallocate your stats to fit your new class. If you choose not to do this restat, what happens is the game takes your points, and redoes them according to the class's stats. What I mean is, let's say you become a healer, like the godly gamer known as Dh47. Previously, you didn't have a penalty stat. A penalty stat requires two points to increase by one. In a healer's case, CON. If you started out with 8 in CON, then added 20, giving a total of 28, this now automatically changes. You instead, have 18 CON, you effectively spent twice as many points each time it increased by one. This is why it's a good idea to do the reclass manually yourself, so you know exactly what you're coming out with in the end.

The only reclass so far in the game, is given to you starting from the moment you pick your first class, to until you hit FD1. When you do Chi Breathing and become FD1, you can't do it anymore. Anytime from the class pick to FD1, you can go do this. There's an NPC who offers to do it for you, but you'll have to find him/her. The NPC won't be revealed in a quest or anything. Note, if you do this reclass, but end up picking the same class all over again, all that happens is it becomes a restat. If you do pick a different class, not only are all your stats undone, but you lose all the skills unique to your previous class. Obviously, it wouldn't be right to have a nuker running around with warrior skills would it? I've listed the locations of these reclass/restat NPCs for the clans I know. *EDIT*-Coming Soon- WuTang and Beggar

I highly reccomend doing this thing, even if you don't want to pick a new class. It's the perfect chance to correct any mistakes, or try something different.



Hero Bands
The following information has been copied and posted from posts farther into this thread. Out of complete laziness on my part, is a direct copy.

In order to join a hero band, you must be in a clan - and can only join a hero band made up of other members of the same clan.

In order to start/found a hero band you must be at least level RL1, you must have 5,000 contribution points in your clan, and you must have at least 5 players (including yourself, I think, though I'm not sure about this) who are also willing to join your hero band and who are in the same map as you are (i.e. the map containing your clan HQ). I don't know whether you need to be in a party with your prospective members/recruits (*EDIT* apparently you do) - hopefully someone can confirm this.

When you have all of these prerequisites, you go must talk to the clan NPC in your clan base who creates hero bands (sometimes I think it's the one who accepts clan contributions, but it may be different for different clans) and get a hero band creation quest. My guess is that the quest involves getting enough members/recruits to accept an invitation to join then returning to the NPC to finalize the creation, but again I haven't actually done it myself so this isn't first hand knowledge and can easily be confirmed by people who have created HBs



[b]Mob Name Colors
The color of the names on mobs reflects their level and difficulty in comparison with your level. The game bases it on your level number, not your character stats though, so if you seriously messed up on your build, the colors won't be too accurate.
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Info Contributed by andy5421
RED -- very high compared to you get a friend or 2 or 3 in on it if you tackle it solo most likely you will die. These mobs can hit hard and dodge/resist most of your attacks. If you do manage to get a hit on them it will up your skills. If you manage to Solo a red mob you will get very good XP.

+Weapon/Spell skills
VERY GOOD SOLO XP

Orange: kinda hard you may be able to take out this mob solo but pray for no adds. Some dodging but most hits should land.

+Weapon/Spell skill
Good XP(Solo and Group)

Yellow: These mobs are on par with you and can match you blow for blow. Equal hit/miss ratio minimal mob dodging.
+Weapon/Spell skills
decent XP

Green: these mons are slightly below your level. Most of your shots will land. very little dodging
50% + Weapon skill (may go up may not)
OK experience

White: about 2 or possibly 3 lvls beneath you. Easily beatable.
low XP and low chance of +skills

Light Blue: near the bottom of the food chain here. They will try to put up a fight but in the end you will win unless you get mobbed by same-color mobs or higher. The initial Light blue may fall but the rest may pummel you to death if you don't wipe them out or retreat.

+weapon skill (very slight)
+xp (very low)

Dark Blue: The lowest of the low. These mobs can barely survive your onslaught. Most likely these can be one-shotted.
Very little to no XP
and very low to no +skills

only good for farming junk and grinding for items(Conqueror chests and keys, weapons, rare stuff)
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Info contributed by factory -

Red - 5 or more levels above you
Orange - 3 or 4 levels above you
Yellow - 1 or 2 levels above you
White - same level as you
Green - 1 or 2 levels below you
Light blue - 3 or 4 levels below you
Dark blue - 5 or more levels below you

Yeah they're slightly different, but if basically, the darker towards red, the harder. The exact level differences may not matter much if you PWN like me.

Mastery Points
Mastery Points are simple, they allow you to increase your damage output when using certain weapons. Currently, we have only Basic Masteries and one will max out his basic mastery quite early. It is reccomended currently, that you save your mastery points. If you look here, you see pics from Korean 9Dragons. They have advanced masteries, and these will surely be implemented for us later.

Parties
Parties are an important part of the game that can be both helpful and harmful, and should be understand completely. What a party is, is when players can link themselves together to enjoy benefits such as shared exp or taking turns receiving loot. Also, players in a party are able to monitor each other's health and vital energy in the form of percentages. These are down a line with all the names of the party members listed. Finally, by double clicking on a party member's name, you can see on the map where they are. All party members are represented by blue dots, clicking on a name causes a red circle to hone in on that player's corresponding dot. If you are close to that player, clicking the name will also be equivalent to selecting him/her. This makes it easy to double click and revive on a party member, providing you are close to him/her.

Shared exp is when a player makes a kill, he only receives a portion of the total exp gained from the kill. The rest go out to the other players. As you can see, this makes it a very efficient way to gain exp. One can be taking in exp even when he's in meditation. However, problems occur at higher levels. Sometimes, even with a full party of 9 players, someone gains exp slower than if he went and killed them on individual exp. This is because at higher levels, the fraction of the exp one gains (from shared) is so friggin small, that he'd be saving time by just killing individually. At lower levels though, this is not a problem. My personal preference is to party up until RL level. From there, I usually stop asking for parties. If someone invites me, then I will join, just for the community and sometimes the healer, but I won't ask for parties anymore

"Take Turns" for loot is easy to understand. What it does, is make it so that each player in the party will get loot, one after another. If we have Bob, Joe, and Arnie in a party, the loot will belong to each of them one by one. Bob, then Joe, then Arnie, then back to Bob. This is good for healers because sometimes they do not do much killing at all, and devote themselves to buffing and healing the party. With Take Turns, they will still recieve some gold and the other items one gains. However, if your party is spread out over an area, this can be quite messy. People will be running around all over the place getting their loot. Also, if TEH UBER BOSS KILLING NUCLEAR WARHEAD ATTACHED SWORD dropped under your name, and the killer wants it, he may stay quiet and not inform you about it. After a short amount of time, your ownership is lost, and the selfish jerk will take it. A certain degree of inter-party member trust is needed.

The party leader has the authority to choose the exp and loot options. He/She is also the only one who can invite people to a party or kick them from it. To invite, you select a person, then click the arrow on the little box with their name. It opens a drop down menu where you click invitation. To kick someone from a party, the leader just has to click the little x on their name. If a party leader leaves the party, the party is disbanded. Therefore, if you're the leader and are going to leave, be courteous and transfer the leadership position to someone else in the party.

Party Quests
When you reach a certain level, party quests will become available to you. Party Quests are exactly what they sound like, quests requiring parties. They are made available by buying the scrolls sold from the Hefei Peddler, and fulfilling their conditions. These conditions usually detail the minimum and maximum numbers of players in the party, what level they have to be, and if they need a certain item. Now currently, Party Quests aren't doing too hot. There's at least a few typos in there that cause some hassle, and some of them have not been translated from 9D Korea. As a result, we can't really do all of the ones for sale yet, unless you can somehow change the symbols into their original korean characters and can then read korean....that was a joke. I don't think any of us can change those symbols. For more information, here's two links:

All requirements of the scrolls: http://phpbb.acclaim.com/9dragons/viewtopic.php?t=18329&highlight=party+quests
Excellent Guide to Lou Daiyan Quest(in case you don't like looking at stickies....*cough* noob *cough*): http://phpbb.acclaim.com/9dragons/viewtopic.php?t=12010


Karma
Currently, the karma system is under development. It's not totally done yet. For now, karma is important in mainly two ways: affecting your luck, and gaining titles. One can gain titles based on the amount of good or bad karma they have. Good Karma increases your luckiness in succesful refinement and getting drops, while Bad Karma will lower that chance. Also, karma is required to equip relics. Relics are little things you can carry in clothing pockets that will add to a stat. Blue Relics require more GK than BK, and Red Relics vice versa. For more on Karma, relating to PvP:
http://phpbb.acclaim.com/9Dragons/viewtopic.php?t=24530

Black vs White War
No, this is not racist or anything at all you fools. It's a war! MUFAHHAHAHA!! War between Black Clans and White Clans takes place every week. Rather than repeat info already on the forums, take a look here. I'll just go over some tips.

1)You'll want to be around high RL before you start coming, should be more fun when you're higher level.
2) Your side works as a side, not 3 separate clans, and definately not 100s of individual bands. If you go off on your own and attack the boss individually, while quite heroic, it's not very smart. The only way to win is to have HUGE numbers of people mob the enemy boss at the same time.
3)Defense and offense are both important, but like they say, the best defense is a good offense, meaning, if you can still kill the enemy boss faster than they kill yours, who the hell cares how close yours was to dying? You still win ^^
4)This is important. BUFFS DO NOT HELP THAT MUCH. Rather than waste time standing in your safety zone, asking for buffs, support your side and just go! Many times, wars have been lost by those who stand in the safety zones repeatedly asking for buffs. A lot of people can get frustrated and start screaming at them, but buffs don't make you a god, so you might as well just go!
5)Don't think the wars are just for dex-build pvpers. I'm a STR-build healer(ooh a healer, AND a STR-build, doulewammy. Uou should see my combat record ^^ So badddd) and I still go because it's fun, and other str-builds go too, so hey, I got targets too.
6)Common courtesy, don't rub in your victory for the next couple hours in Lion's Roar. We're all mature gamers here right? ^^

That's it, I'm sorry if some of it seemed too unformal for a guide or something, but BvW wars are something I feel strongly about. Good luck, and enjoy your next war!

Refinement
Should you choose to, there is a way to improve the damage of your weapons, and also make them look cool. Refinement will add to damage and starting at +3, can also make it glow. To refine, all you need to do is take your weapon to the Master Refiner in Hefei, and bring Dragon Blood. Here's where it gets pricey. Dragon Blood is the material used to refine, the higher the level of refinement, the more expensive the blood is. For +1 and +2 refinements, the first 2, you can buy the corresponding blood at the Hefei General Store. For +3 and above, you must exchange Blood Essences with a collection NPC to get them. Keep in mind though, refinement is a chance. There is a chance to fail and lose everything. For +1 and +2 though, the chance for success is practically 100%

Collections
For all of us, our first collection will probably be Wan Daye's Shirt or Pants, made available at GC1 I believe. Collections are basicaly when you gather certain items, and exchange them with an NPC for an item(s). Mainly, there are two types of collections, Wanted, and Resource.

Wanted Collections, once completed, can not be done again. Also, Wanted Collections have a place where you can set the asked for items. This makes it easier to see what you have gotten already, and what you still need. A warning though, once you set the item in this slot, it cannot be removed. Therefore, be sure that you want to go through with finding everything and commiting yourself BEFORE putting anything down. As I said before, an example would be Wan Daye's Clothes. Another is Wan Daye's Weapon, available at RL1.

Resource Collections can be done as many times as you like. They work in the same way otherwise, except there is no place to nicely and neatly leave the collection items. Instead, there is a counter that marks how many of the required item you have. It could be (5/100), meaning you have 5 and you need 100 of that item. Some examples are the elixir collections and the conqueror's key collections.

To view what collections you have available to do, press information, then the living tab, then the collections tabs.

NOTE: The Death Valley and Valley of Hell Collections are made available at RC5

To Die Or Not To Die
Killing yourself can be useful in plenty of ways. One, you can revive elsewhere, and this is a much faster form of travel than Lightfoot. Also, note that when you die, your skill exp does not go down. Therefore, if having 100% exp while farming bothers you, you can go ahead and kill youself...if you're weird. After all, dying does make you lose your entire blood count as well as plenty of karma. Therefore, the only time you have "nothing to lose" by dying, is if you are at 0.00%, 0 GK and 0 BK, and 0 Blood Count.

Specific Quests that are Troublesome
1) Final Entrance Test for Heavenly Demon

This is the final test for entrance into Heavenly Demon, where you have 5 minutes to colect horns from killing chimeras and bring them to a guard. First off, let it be known this test is quite frustrating. You want to be at least GC10 when seriously attempting this. Now, take a look here

You see two areas labeled, 1 and 2. One's in Red, Two's in Blue. Area Two is where most newbies will attempt to do this test...its doable, but its hard. Instead, I reccomend that as soon as you get the test, haul &#!@ to Area 1. From here, you notice that going north is a safe zone. Enemies shouldn't follow you too far north if you need to run. Going to this area is the first part to passing this test. The second, is to concentrate exclusively on regular bloodhorned chimeras. Just ignore the Wild and Violent Chimeras. Not only are they harder to kill, but they have less chance of giving you a horn. Stay with the Bloodhorned Chimeras with nothing else in front of their name.

Note that the horns do not drop on the ground. They are auto-added to your bag, and a counter will tell you _/5 horns when you get one. The _, of course, reffering to your current total. I highly reccomend that you do this with a friend or someone who can help you. A healer or hybrid is great, since they can heal you, but warriors and nukers can keep chimeras from mobbing you to death while you focus on one at a time.

Thats pretty much it....try and go for chimeras that have full health. It seems to me that you have a higher chance of receiving horns from a brand spanking new chimera than one half dead. Anyone on the Nirvana Servor is always welcome to PM me in game if they need some cover from mobs for this test. My HD character is DHunter47, other characters are UrbanDragon and WushuSword. If I'm available, I'll drop what I'm doing and come help you.

Last thing I just remembered. Chimeras have a bleed attack, one of the most common things I see is a guy dieing from a bleed, then getting rezzed by his friend, only to die immediately again from bleeding. People think this is a bug, when it's not. All you have to do is keep reviving the guy until his bleed timer runs out. Unfortunately, this may take so long that he'll run out of time, but at least he won't have died Last last thing, if you run out of time, some people think they have to die to get the quest to reappear. Not true, don't throw your blood count and karma away. Just open up your quest log and press Give Up on the quest. Good luck with this, and don't hesitate to PM me if I'm on and you need help.
- Thanks to LiquidCool for helping in game when I took the test and came up with these tips