General Tips to remember:
- type /join 47 in the main chat window to switch to the NOR chat channel.
Remember to sell all the loot you find and purchase mana crystals and skill books as a new player. Later on you will want to ID the Rings / Amulets/ belts for your gear but at first just sell everything and get your skills up. Your fellow NOR Guildies can probably help you with basic items to get you going.
When looking for a vendor to purchase spells and skills from "Talk" to the teleporter NPC. They will tell you where the shops are in any town to get what you need. (For Magic skills go to Monmouth and go 1 left. For Spells go to Drune and go 1 up. For weapon skills go to Usk and go 1 right, 1 down, 1 right. For Thief skills like acrobatics go to East Leinster and go 3 down.)
Classes / Race / Stats
Right now, due to Min/Maxing, there are basically 2 main characters to make.
1. All Intelligence Elf Wizard (AIEW)
2. All Strength Giant Warrior (ASGW)
What that means is that these Race / Class combinations are the maximum possible potential for Wizard damage output and melee damage output. You are given 8 points to spend on attributes during character creation and you put all 8 points into either Intelligence or Strength respectively. You can see what race / class combinations have what starting attributes here: http://realmserver.wikia.com/wiki/Base_Statistics
Also, your alignment will decide for you which schools of magic you start with. If you set your alignment to "Good" you start with level 2 Thaumaturgy (think heals) spells. If set to Evil you start with level 2 Necromancy spells. Either is fine, but I suggest starting with Thaumaturgy as my leveling strat involves extensive use of a Grand Master Thaumaturgy spell.
Right now pretty much everyone is multi-boxing. It is within the acceptable ToS so it's OK to do. A 2 person Team will easily get you to level 500.
If you are new to the server, I suggest leveling a Wizzy first. Wizards can enchant gear and give you a significant advantage. Otherwise I would suggest multi-boxing a wiz and a warrior.
Starting Out
All new players get housed in East Leinster. So, when you walk out of your house you will end up at the East Leinster Teleporter. From there just go one screen right and you will see a tent. Go into the tent. Inside the tent there are several vendors. These vendors sell skills and spells and potions and weapons and armor for new characters. You will want to find the NPC that sells Magic Skill Books (right side) and purchase the Sorcery skill books. Learn them if you can. (you start with a couple free skill points)
Go into the trap door in the floor. This is the entrance to a nooby dungeon. Once inside go through the first door and kill everything till you get to the end of that level. You should be level 3 or 4 when complete. Collect everything and sell it back to the vendors after your run. Repeat this for all 4 of the levels inside this dungeon. Buy as much Thaum and Sorcery skill books and spells as you can. This should get you to level 20-25. You may need to repeat the dungeon a couple of times. Your goal is to learn up to Summon Faery (Thaum) and Multiblade (Sorc) before moving on. Alternativly, if you are a warrior you will need to learn Expert in your weapon and Summon Faery.
Getting Going
Once you can summon a Faery (Thaum) and have multi-blade (Sorcery) you are pretty much good to go. Purchase as many greater Invisibility potions from the spells and scrolls vendor as you can afford.
From the East Leinster Teleporter, teleport to Caer Fandry. From the Caer Fandry TP go directly south 6 screens to the Fenris Caves Dungeon. Go inside.
Clear this dungeon fighting as many of the monsters as possible. There are some larger fights near the end you may not be able to do right off. However, I found that most of the fights are relativly simple if you follow the below strategy.
1. Drink a Greater Invisibility Potion Immediately before the fight. (Even If Already Invis from Last Fight) If your invisibility drops mid-fight you will probably die. You don't lose anything really so not a big deal, but who likes die'n?!
2. Once in battle, Summon A Faery in the lower left corner of the screen.
3. Summon More Faery. Try to keep 3 on the field.
4. Killl the monsters. Use Multi-Blade or whack them with your weapon.
5. Win.
As you level up, you want to keep learning your Thaum and Weapon Skill or Sorcery. Eventually you will get to be able to Summon a Faery Queen. Substitute summon Faery Queen in the process above. Once you have Grand Mastery of Thaumaturgy and Sorcery (or Weapon Skill) you should immediately start learning the skill Meditation. You should be able to run this cave until you are around level 100.
(Alternatively you can run Thieves Hole dungeon. It is all Melee monsters like Fenris. You can alternate to break up the monotony) Thieves Hole is 1 South of the Wen Teleporter then Left about 10 screens.
Moving Up
Once you get to around 100 you should have GM Thaum and Sorc and working through Meditation. At this point you should no longer need greater invisibility potions ( the Warrior MIGHT). Head to the Festering Hate Pool. From the Wen Teleporter go 6 screens up and 6 screens right.
Clear this dungeon and work on getting GM in Necromancy. Avoid the big Lich fight and the Fury fights for now. You should use Daemons for those which you won't get until you GM Necro. You use Faery Queens on the melee monsters because Faery queens cast shift which causes them to randomly teleport around the screen when struck in combat. This forces the monsters to chase them all over the screen and uses up their movement and attacks. If you summon a non shifting friend to help you the mobs get their full attacks and can easilly defeat your summon or in the case of Devils, heal themselves when they do damage.
You can run FHP until you reach level 300. A wizard should work to GM all schools of magic and then Acrobatics, Weapon and Critical Striking. A Warrior should focus on Weapon, Critical Striking, Acrobatics and GM Thaum, Sorc, Necro and Meditation. Also, identify the rings and amulets you find in here (and belts) you should find all the gear you need to get started in this place and chant it up with STR/Dex/Regen/Shield (Fire, Ele, Cold, Poison, Acid, Missile).
Essentially, Summoning faery Queens and casting Multiblade until you reach 300. once you can summon Deamons, you can take on the Furies and Liches (get a DMP amulet you should have found one by now). Warriors may want to skip the Furies altogether. As, they shift and the fight can take a long time due to chasing them all over.
Getting 500
Once you are at level 300 you have essentially gotten all of your skills and spells. You are ready to roll. Head over to the Forgotten Dungeon. Invis strategy does not work in here. Your mage should use Shift (cast extension prior to the first battle) as the first spell of the first fight and then make sure you cast it again before it runs out. I usually re-cast it in the first fight of every wing. It lasts for many fights (longer with extension) so you don't need to do it every fight.
This is where multi-boxing becomes almost required. These fights can be hard when first attempting them. The Tauren inside Forgotten Dungeon have HUGE amounts of movement and can get all the way across the screen and back on one round. I run 2-Man teams though here with little difficulty. (War and Mage) I let the Warrior beat on the melee monsters while multi-blading the entire enemy group with the mage.
This place is where you get your new weapons and some boots. You can run it till you get to 500. Altogether should take about a week.
Disclaimer: There are other methods and dungeons. This is how I do it and its pretty safe and effective. Will get you geared up and leveled to 500 in a week or so pretty easily.
Enjoy!