The Newbie's Guide to Shaiya

Table of Contents
Introduction
Equipment
Monsters
Colors and Code
Slang
Adventure, Maps, and Exploration (Also covering the use of water)
Parties and Party Member Roles
Last Tips


Introduction
To start, there are many other guides for Newbies that are available. There's only one problem that comes to me when I read all of them. They cover many things, good things, things I will not bother covering, but they don't cover basic, easy, things that every newb wants to know. They cover things like character builds, the best stuff, where to train for how long blah blah yada yada yada. They don't cover what the different colors of the names on monsters mean, where to go to have some fun, how the big the game is, and how to traverse the maps, the slang on online games, and various other topics. I will try to cover these things in a clear, short, grammatically correct Guide. So then, let's get off to the adventure! I will add here that I will be adding some training areas to help newbs get into the game a bit more as well as cover the quests to get out of the first area.


Equipment
Okay, one of the biggest things in Shaiya, the weapons, armor, necklaces, bracelets, rings, boots, helmets, gauntlets, and other things you will wield and wear. To start, each class or set of classes (ranger/archer and fighter/defender) have special equipment. A ranger cannot wield a bow, and a archer cannot wield a dagger. A fighter cannot wield a battle hammer as a defender cannot wield fighter's weapons. The armor goes the same way, except, for example, rangers AND archers can both wear cloth armor and fighters AND defenders can wear copper armor. Pretty simple system right? Yep, it sure is. There's also levels associated with each piece. In other games you can wear armor with a level higher than you, but in Shaiya, you can not. In Shaiya you can only wear armor equal to or below your current level. Equipment can get expensive , but they do seem to do quite a number on your stats.


Monsters
Got to love the evil beats who try to kill you. Each beast you kill give you a number of EXP that will help you level up, they also provide you with loot when killed. Now, when killing a monster you can dodge by double tapping your movement button, this doesn't help much at all though. You'll also find as you get to harder monsters, you'll want to use your buffs and debuffs to your greatest advantage. There's also people called Kill Stealers, they, as the name implies, steal your kills. They can also be referred to as vultures. They seem to swoop in at the last second and deliver the final blow, stealing your loot and EXP. Others think it's cool to battle it with you, henceforth stealing it. If you keep getting your kills stolen you can try to report them. To do this take a screenshot of the player stealing your kill, and report him to Aeria. A small counter action is simply to note to the stealer that this is your kill, simply saying "This is my kill buddy" has saved my from a stolen kill.


Colors and Code
Colors of text mean a lot in Shaiya, as do colors of monsters and players name. The colors of text don't change much, but here are what the few colors mean:
Gray - Simple chat that show to everyone in your vicinity
Brown - Trade chat, often used as a simple global chat, not just for trade
Green - Various system messages (correct me if this is not green)
Light Green - Party chat, only members of your current party/team can see this.
Pale Red - Whisper or private messege, only the sender and receiver can see it.
Red - Yelling, only the people on the same can see this chat. (correction may be needed)
Pale Purple - Guild Chat, only your current guild (not party) can see this.
The colors of the name of monsters mean even more than chat colors. Each color shows how much stronger the monster is than you, they are as follows:
White - Way too easy, I mean, it's like paper against a rifle. No EXP given
Light Blue - Way too easy, not as bad as white though
Dark Blue - Easier than most
Green - Somewhat average
Yellow - Medium strength, they're the best to train on
Orange - Harder, they seem to be much harder to fight, you'll nearly never win
Red - These can be beat if you try hard enough, and they don't one hit you, although it is better to just run on past them.
Purple - These things will kill in one hit. They are much stronger than you.
Grey - You like life? Don't even look at one of these, they'll kill you tenfold in one stare. No EXP is given for killing one.
Please correct me if I missed any or got any wrong.


Slang
Slang plays a big part in all online games, as in Shaiya most of the abbreviations are the same. Here's a simple list of most slang
WTB - Want to buy
WTS - Want to sell
WTT - Want to trade
brb - be right back
KS - kill steal/kill stealer
PK - player kill/player killer
PvP - player vs. player
PVE - player vs. enviorment/player vs. monster
lol, lmfao, lmao, lolz, lolololololol - various forms that means the character is laughing, the last two forms I would highly discourage.
LFP - Looking for Party
ATM - At The Moment
afk - Away From Keyboard
Tank/Meatshield - Defender
AoE - Area of Effect (regarding the area a certain spell will effect)
LFG - looking for group
LFM - looking for more, people who have a group but want more people in it
WTB - want to buy
PC - player character
NPC - non player character
Mob - a group of enemies
Those are only a few of the slang words used in Shaiya, the most popular I have seen. If any need to be added tell me please.


Adventure, Maps, and Exploration (Also covering the use of water)

Adventure, or mighty adventure. It's what everyone wants, it's what they get. There are many maps, you can traverse to the different maps by use of portals and gate keepers. Most map changing portals are kept by oceans, on docks. There's three PvE only maps and also three PvP only maps. There may be more maps I have not yet been to. They are huge maps too, and there quite a number of dungeons and Pandorashys, correct me if I am wrong. Then there's water, tons of it. It you swim in the ocean as far out as you can, you won't get anywhere. But you can swim along coastlines to get to different parts of the map and across lakes and rivers to get to different areas. Sadly though you cannot swim to different continents. When exploring be careful of monsters, some are hostile while others are not. Keep your eye out for greys and reds.


Parties and Party Member Roles
Parties are groups of people that go around the world of Shaiya helping each other. A party lasts until you log out or exit the party. The party itself is nothing binding, I believe part of the gold collected and EXP splits up between members. Being invited to a party means that the particular party wants you to be a party member. Being somewhat of a newbie myself I do not know how to invite folks to my party, though to accept there should be a button. Then once in a party comes the issue of your role within it. For a Defender you would be the 'tank' or 'meatshield'. Which means you run into the monster(s) and start unleashing whatever you can upon them as well as soaking up all the damage. Basically you hold them away from the archers and mages who stand back and damage them from afar. Healers stand more off to the said, of course healing those wounded in battle, mostly the tanks. If I were a party leader I would keep another Defender or two by the healer and long range hitters in case a monster wanted to mess with them. Assassin's or the closer range Rangers, strike to the back of the monster quickly, pulling back. As the tanks stand there and hold the monsters, then the Assassin comes in and deals high damage into the back, at the same time trying not to get hit.


Chatting
When you chat or type something in the chat box it will pop up above your characters head. To enter something in chat, click the chat entry field, which is a small box below where all the words and coming up, or pressing Enter or Return (the same button, it's the one with the arrow that looks like an L but rotated) should do the trick. Once you see the little | cursor type what you wish. Pressing Enter will send the message through, making it appear above your head.


Last Tips
Here a few tips are you finish up this article, I've put them in a Q&A format.

Q: Okay, this is really getting dull, will this game ever pick up and get better?
A: Hang in there, at level 10 the game changes a lot, you finally get to get some new stuff and start the PvP aspect.

Q: How do I make money?
A: Tons of ways, the easiest is to kill monsters and take their gold and loot, selling the loot.

Q: I'm SO tired of grinding!
A: So stop, take a break. Sell some loot, do a quest where you don't have to kill anything. Just jump around and look at the scenery.

Q: Okay, so you see, I'm stuck in the middle of NOWHERE and want to get to civilization, how do I do that?
A: Open your chat box and in the normal channel type /town

Q: What's the matter, I can't type in Trade chat?
A: You cannot type in trade chat until you reach level 10.

Q: Does typing in Trade chat cost any money?
A: Nope, totally free.

Q: When do I get my mount?
A: At level 40 you can buy a mount for 11 million gold (yeah, it's a lot but you don't waste your gold on useless stuff you'll have enough) in Apulune/Iris from the Mount Seller.

Q: Why does the game say for 18 and up?
A: That would be for some blood and cussing as well as nudity (yes full fledged nudity, I have not seen it on players but I have on monsters, Mercenary Arachnids to be more specific), there are also sexual themes. A note on the nude monsters, what I have seen, it as from the waist up only, I don't know if there is anything down further.
Q: Can I fly or anything like that?
A: Nope, although there are some unique features in Shaiya, mostly that it's a very high quality free game, and it's PvP system which works like a charm.

Q: My computer is lagging horribly, what should I do?
A: Well, you downloaded the game so I would guess your connection is fast enough, so if you go into the options there is a graphics selection, if you go into there and slide the sliders to the left and unselect the water feature it should help a lot. Remember you have to exit the game and reload it (not re download it) for the settings to work.


I hope my guide helped some, any feedback, comments, and other information is encouraged and accepted. As well, if anyone knows where I can get fairly large maps of Shaiya (for the light side, I've never played the Fury) I would like to add good training areas for newbs. A short PS note to GMs or anyone who has the power, it'd be a good idea to add WHY the game is for 18+ as for the children who may need some kind of parent approval. I searched the entire site, some of the forums, and asked some players and found nothing until I made this post and found the arachnids.

This bit is from a mmOverload. The best MMORPG Guide site on the net.

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