To be successful in Alsherok, you must be familiar with how to use some of the great features we have in the game and to adopt a smart playing style. While you will learn about most of them as you play the game, here are a few of the more important ones for your reference.
The use of banks in the Lands is more for money storage rather than actual investing. So don't expect to get interest or anything. Storing money in the banks is useful because you will need a backup supply of money in case your character dies and you need immediate gold coins with which to buy new replacement equipment. It is always better to be prepared than not. To use the banking feature, the command 'deposit amount' will store the amount of gold coins specified in your bank account while the command 'withdraw amount' will get the amount of gold coins and give it to your character. You can also enter in 'balance' when you are in a bank to see the current gold total in your account.
Followers and charmed creatures are creatures which follow and obey your character's commands. You can order them to pick up things, kill other creatures and help you in fights by using the command 'order followers commandname' where commandname can be almost any legal command such as sit. For example, 'order horse sit' will make a horse pet, who is your follower, sit down. You can obtain followers by using the charm spell on certain creatures, summoning creatures or by purchasing pets. Some of your followers can also be used as mounts. By typing 'mount followername' and 'dismount followername', you can ride on and get off mounts such as horses. Mounts are useful because they save your character's movement points while traveling outdoors. Being mounted also prevents your character from drowning in certain situations as the mount will stay afloat.
Another feature found in Alsherok is the frequent running of quests for the players. Quests are special roleplaying events or puzzles run by the immortals for players to solve. Usually those that take part and are successful in these quests will get a rare quest prize which is completely one of a kind. So, if ever you are around for a quest, take part and have fun. Challenge yourself, the immortals and other players in a race to solve the quest. Its our way of making Alsherok a fun place to play. Mudmailing notes to other players and posting on boards is a good way of relaying information to other players in the Lands for them to see later. Posting on boards is more or less a public forum which can be used for discussing ideas, notifying other people of something or making suggestions to the immortals. Using mudmail is a more personal messaging service. To post on boards, just type 'write subjectname' where subjectname is a one line header for your post. You will then be put into a writing buffer. Just write your message and then follow the directions to exit. You will then need to type 'post' to place your note on the board. When you want to read notes posted by other players, type 'look board' and then 'read #' where # is the number beside the note. To learn more on using boards and mudmail, type 'help note' and 'help mail'. Remember that you should never abuse the board or mudmail system by using vulgarity on it or by using it to abuse other players.
To send a mudmail, type 'sendmail recipient subject' while in a post office where a mailbag is present. This will begin a message to the recipient with the specified subject. You will be placed into the line editor to compose your message. If you want to check your mudmail, simply type 'check' to see if you have received any mail. This is also done whenever you log in. You do not need to be in a post office to check. After typing your mail, you must deliver the mail by typing 'deliver' while in a post office. Note that mail messages are NOT automatically sent once completed. To list your messages in the mailbag, type 'look mailbag' while in the post office. To retrieve the mail, type 'receive #' where # is the message number specified from the mailbag.
For those that are new to Alsherok or to mudding in general, it always pays to know how to work together with your fellow adventurers. Grouping and exploring the world is always better than exploring alone. Together, the players can combine their skills, spells and ideas to work together to accomplish almost any task. To group together, the players select a leader and everyone follows him or her by using the command 'follow playername'. The leader of the group can then type 'group all' to combine the group and when the leader of the group moves around, all the players grouped with him or her will move together. Other useful commands for grouping include the command 'group' which shows the statistics of all those in your current group, 'gt' which is the grouptalk channel and 'assist playername' which assists the player when he or she is in a fight.
When you explore Alsherok, always remember to venture out properly equipped with food, light sources, recall potions and other such necessities. Bring along a pencil and paper and draw out a rough map when you explore. It always helps not to get lost while adventuring. When attacking a creature, use the spells and skills at your disposal. Some can be very effective against your opponents. And if all else fails, just flee and come back later. If during the course of your explorations, you find something that doesn't seem to have any use at the moment, just keep it. You never know when it might come in handy to unlock some dark secrets. In fact, try to keep most of the things you find at lower levels for they might be useful at some point of time. To enjoy the true experience of playing in Alsherok, you have to love your character and interact with other players. Treat your character as if it were an extension of yourself for it belongs to you and no other. Instead of reading the story, you can be a part of shaping the very Lands itself.
Lastly, we also have a deity feature where your character can devote to the cause of one of the Alsherok deities. For further information on this, go to the deities page in the information menu.