Nexus War

Vague as it is, it highlights the main points: MMORPG whose functions are heavily based on morality: good, evil, and neutral.

It's effectively text-based, but has a GUI for everything you need at your fingertips. Nothing ever moves, though. Here's an example:



If you have Firefox, you can get an enhanced interface, too. This looks kind of gimpy because my parents still like 800x600 resolution. That's just an example of one of my characters. For a detailed overview on all the different parts, go here.

As you can see, your character has hit points and magic points like any RPG, but they also have Morality points and Action points.

Action points govern everything you do. As you can see on all those buttons, speaking, hiding, and giving all cost 1 AP, as does almost every action. Action Points regenerate at a rate of one every fifteen minutes. This makes it so that people can't play for thirty hours straight and hit Tier 3 in two days; everyone is on equal footing in such a PvP environment.

Morality points are pretty self-explanatory. Do good things: increase morality. Do bad things: decrease it. Evil morality is from -40 to -20, Neutral is from -19 to 19, and good morality is from 20 to 40. Wanton killing of everyone you see is the quickest way to get XP, but angels who only kill evil people will be hunting you.

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Characters

Unlike most MMORPG's, you don't choose a character class to begin with. Everyone starts as a mere mortal and will remain as such until they hit level ten, after which they can become one of the Tier 2 classes, chosen with regard to one's morality. When one hits level twenty, they can change into a Tier 3 class, the highest class one can go. At level thirty, you max out and cannot gain any more levels.

A good strategy when starting a character is to pick a specific T3 class and choose all your skills to best fit that class (character builds).

T1: Mortal - Can be anything. An engineer, a healer, a gunman, a swordsman, a hand-to-hand brawler, a lockpick, a crafter, or any combination thereof.

T2 Demons (if you have a neutral or evil morality when changing classes, you can become one of these two):

Pariah - The demonic figher. They have "explosive" personalities. Best known for their Blood Claws attack and Explosive Murder self-destruct AoE skill. More fighter-oriented.

Defiler - The demonic spellcaster. Known for their poison attack, which is a bitch to deal with, but they can also cast spells, infuse, and make alchemical potions.

T2 Harmanz (the neutral T2 classes, which can be accessed by anyone of any morality)

Myrmidon - The neutral fighter. Its exits are the supreme combat specialists for any type. Can also see hidden people and buff their own combat numbers.

Sorcerer - The neutral spellcaster. Skill set very similar to the defiler, but for neutral, not evil, purposes.

T2 Angels (the good T2 classes, accessed by people with neutral and good morality)

Paladin - The good fighter. Gets big damage bonuses and innate armor very quickly.

Shepherd - The good spellcaster. Skill set similar to the Defiler and Sorcerer, but also has healing skills and the ability to pray to the gods for special help.

T3 classes all have a particular entrance. That is, choosing a T3 class isn't based on morality like the T2 classes, but rather by your T2 class.

T3 Demons

Infernal Behemoth (Pariah exit) - Ferocious, giant killing machines. Teeth, horns, claws, wings, surrounded by flames, and fed by more and more killing. You don't want to see one of these anywhere near you.

Void Walker (Pariah exit) - Silent assassins, they are capable of traveling from building to building without leaving by the Stepping of the Corner, then smothering you in the breath of a dead child. With their invisibility, no door, barricade, or plane shift can bar their travel.

Dark Oppressor (Defiler exit) - Rulers of Stygia (the hellish plane), they receive great combat bonuses while there. Able to enchant armor and weapons, cast spells, and curse others, they are very versatile demonkind.

Wyrm Master (Defiler exit) - The demonic Pet Master. Deals acidic damage by itself, but more often summons hellhounds, imps, and tentacles to do its dirty work for it.

T3 Harmanz

Eternal Soldier (Myrmidon exit) - The greatest fighters in all the Nexus. Super fast, super strong, super resilient, this class has it all for combat.

Nexus Champion (Myrmidon exit) - The most neutral neutral who ever neutraled. Nexus Champions are very adept at combat, especially with bows, but they are also comfortable with spellcasting. Extremely good attack and defense bonuses buff them to outrageous proportions the closer their morality gets to zero. Can also see who killed whom and where the killer is and immediately teleport to the location to unleash.

Revenant (Myrmidon exit) - Very much like vampires, Revenants get innate buffs at night and penalties during the day. Also, they can transform into a bat or a wolf for flying and evasion or combat, respectively. The best for hand to hand fighters, to-hits can get up to 100% and even steal MP and HP from victims.

Lich (Sorcerer exit) - The neutral undead Pet Master. Corpses can be raised into ghouls, skeletons, or Fossil Monstrosities. Unlike the other Pet Masters, there is no limit to the number of skeletons or ghouls he can have, thus creating a giant army of undead.

Elementalist (Sorcerer exit) - Commander of the elements. Can summon pets of various elemental affinities to most effectively kill opponents. Is also the only class that can remain in water.

Wizard (Sorcerer exit) - The ultimate spellcaster. Incredible MP bonuses, spell cost reductions, and spell damage bonuses make them fearsome attackers, but they lack significant innate defenses. They can, however, enchant any armor, weapon, or accessory.

T3 Angels

Seraph (Paladin exit) - The ultimate angelic warrior, seraphs are combat machines that function like clockwork, gaining absurd damage and attack bonuses as well as powerful innate melee and ranged attacks and HP and MP bonuses. The bane of Infernal Behemoths.

Divine Champion (Paladin exit) - Most new people wonder why the location description says there are cars and telephone poles around that seem to serve no purpose. Well, it's for these guys. With Cloak of Steel, they can go into Colossus mode and swing and throw anything they can get their hands on. Also, they are able to use their Cloak of Air and turn into powerful spellcasters, too.

Advocate (Shepherd exit) - The Voices of the Word. Justice is the Advocate's only concern, and while they aren't as combat-adept as the Seraph, they can burn with their Eye of Judgement and consume the sins of others, taking their bad morality. Also good spellcasters and enchanters.

Lightspeaker (Shepherd exit) - The good Pet Masters. Terrible at combat by themselves, they can rely on their summoned Judgemasters for phalanx-like defense, Aethersprites for healing, and their Wheel of Righteousness for incredible attack capabilities. Gracious masters, their pets return to them easily, and they always die a martyr's death, helping their factionmates even when killed.

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Factions

What would an MMORPG be without warring groups? In Nexus War, your characters can join factions and receive nice bonuses and a safehouse in the form of a stronghold with a safe (strongholds are invaluable; if you're spending the night outside of it, you're likely to be killed). Every faction can have political stances toward other factions, and the politics can stir up some juicy drama, too. Raids are relatively frequent, as my four characters combined are invited to two or three every week about.

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Locations and maps

Most of the action takes place in the plane of Valhalla, and most of that on St. Germaine Island. Valhalla is the mortal place. As such, it is also the most populated. Stygia is the realm of the demons and Paradise is that of the Angels and Purgatorio of the Neutrals. Various portals around the maps go between the planes.

St. Germaine Island is pretty interesting in how it's divided up into neighborhoods and districts, just like any city is. Downtown, Iverson, Jonestown, Ridleytown, The Wrench, Southton, Edgetown, and more. Also, there are two other major islands: Maquez Island and Harper Island and various other little ones. Ferries connect the big islands and sewers make for easy transportation on each of those.

Here's a useful map that's especially helpful when viewed in FireFox: http://www.users.on.net/~rabbithole/ubermap/#

On top of that, each square represents a building type: house, slum, mansion, office building, police station, factory, hospital, warehouse, junkyard, or even landscapes like forests and ruins. Different things can be found in different buildings. For example, you're more likely to find guns and ammunition in a police station or gun store, healing items in hospitals or pharmacies, and crafting components in factories. Searching's important for everybody, so check the wiki for where you can find what you need.

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New Character Guide

So, you've created a character, but have no idea where to go or what to do. Here are some suggestions depending on your starting skill.

Also, read the wiki. Not only does it have a new players guide, it has everything you might want to ever know about the game on it. HIGHLY useful.

By the way, if you ever make a character, post your character sheet (click on your character's name anywhere it's a link and post that URL).

Also, if you keep getting taken to the login screen, that's fine. Here's what you do:

Post the link of the sheet you want to view in your address bar. You'll be taken to the login screen. Log in. You'll be taken to the character selection screen. Press the back button. You'll be back at the login screen. Hit refresh, and voilá.

Mine:





Seth: I need to know what your starting skill was to tell you what best to do, but I'll cover the most common ones:

Hand-to-hand combat: Equip the brass knuckles (go to your inventory and wear them) with which you started and go around beating people up.

Melee combat: Check the map and get to the nearest mansion. The shades of brown are difficult to distinguish when it comes to houses, apartments, and mansions, but the word "Northcamp" in the top left is written over mansions. They're found all around the map. Anyway, find one of those or a museum and search until you find some sort of sword (cutlass, scimitar, etc.). Six damage is your target. THEN go out and slice people up.

Ranged combat: Go find a gun store or a police station (labelled as G and PD on the map, respectively), search until you find a gun and some ammo, then go and blow people away.

First Aid: Find a hospital or pharmacy (red or pink buildings) and search until you find a bunch of first aid kits. Then go and heal anyone who doesn't have a full red dot by their name (but first be sure to click on their name and then check the target tab. You'll be able to see how many HP the target has, and the farther away from fifty it is, the better. That is, don't waste your time healing someone with 49 HP).

Engineering: Any and every building is your target. If you want to be bad, remove power from any building that has it or if you want to be good, restore power to any that doesn't. The lightbulb in the top right of the square on the map tells you whether or not there's power. Disabling/repairing generators at power stations gives 25 XP, too. Also, you can repair any broken door. Just keep checking your Engineering drop-down.

Repair Item: Good skill, but hardly useful for a loner. If you get this, join a faction ASAP, get safe access, and start repairing all the destroyed, broken, or worn items in the safe.

Any other starting skill: Restart your character with one of the above skills, as it'll be stupid difficult to earn XP.

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Zerging

If you have multiple characters, NEVER have them in the same square and don't attack the same enemy with two different characters in a 24 hour period. There are tons of zerg flags that you can trip if you come remotely close to anything near alt abuse, which would likely end up in character deletion, so just don't do it. See here for more. I make note of this because I thought I was cute and clever when I started. I would take one character, attack a guy, and then heal him with another character. I had no idea why I could never hit and I was healing for zero. This is just so that you don't have that problem.

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Anyway, I'm more than willing to help anyone out who has any questions about the game. I know a pretty good deal about things and builds and what you need to be doing at the beginning.

When I first started playing, it was pretty slow. I had no idea how to help myself out for a good long while, and it made the experience not so great. Then, however, I talked to some people, got some ideas, set some goals, and started to have A LOT of fun. Enjoy.

--Guido