Guide:Beginner Tips

Note: The purpose of this guide to help new or returning players catch up on the all the updates and tricks to play and enjoy this game. Please do not suggest any Bad Practices or Bannable Tricks!
== Introduction ==
This is a suggested guide compiled from various players.
== Starting Out ==
* Create a novice on your account and check if Warp Portal's Booster Event is running. For more information about this event click here.
* After leaving the ship, speak with Agi Up npc . This will help you to move around places much faster.
* Using the minimap visit the NPCs with "Quest" Dialog. These quests award Novice Potions, Fly wings and Butterfly Wings. They also award some small experience.
* After this, it's recomennded to visit Criatura Academy in Izlude 
== Criatura Academy ==
When inside, speak with Academy receptionist to register.
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Registration will grant you free equipment and potions:
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* Take the Academy Tutorials
* Take the Enchant Tutorial located Southwest of Izlude (Recommended)
* Hunt Monsters outside of Izlude
After reaching Job Level 10, head back to Criatura Acedemy and up the 2nd floor and choose which class you like to take (certain classes may still need to undergo tests). For more information about classes check here.
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== Eden Group ==
Speak with Eden Teleport Officer to visit the Eden Group.
For more information about Eden Group please click here
Inside speak with Secretery Lime Evenor and choose the option - Join the Eden Group.
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Note: Make sure you have registered in the Criatura Academy first or else most rewards below will not be received! 
On joining the Eden Group you will receive the following:
* (Increases EXP obtained from enemies and missions)
* (Temporarily Increases STR INT DEX stats)
* (Temporarily Increases AGI, Movement Speed, and Attack Speed)
* (Allows you to teleport certain towns)
* (Teleports you to your save point with a long cooldown after use)
Starting at Level 12, you can obtain basic equipment from the Eden Group which should be enough up to level 99.
* Talk to Instructor Boya at the front desk to start the Eden Group Equipments Quests.
Eden Group also has a Dungeon Teleporter which teleports you to some dungeons for a one-time booking fee.
Certain classes are required to take their next job in order to complete Instructor Ur's Eden Equipment Quest which starts at level 60.
== Miscellaneous ==
After changing class, check Bounty Boards and Eden Group Leveling Quests to decide on your next destination for leveling (Recommended Town: Payon).
Merchants and Acolyte Classes can take advantage of Mercenary System to help with leveling.
== Leveling Tip ==
=== Lord Xeres' Leveling Tips ===
F2P/Newbie possible route:
* 1 - 13: Willows and Spores in Payon Forest
* 13 - 30: Ant Eggs in Ant Hell, Do not touch the ants
** 13 - 40: Ant Eggs in Ant Hell, Do not touch the ants. In case the next level range is difficult.
* 30 - 60: Orc Warrior and Orc lady in Orc Villages. Be careful of Orc Lord
** 40 - 60: Orc Warrior and Orc lady in Orc Villages. Be careful of Orc Lord
* 60 - 70: Orc Dungeon floor 1 or 2.
* 70 - 84: Evil Druids and Wraiths in Glast Heim. 80+ Bounty board in geffen
** 70 - 90: Harpies bounty board in Juno fields
** Gramps low TI are very difficult for newbies and f2p players, please do not try this
* 84 - 99: Dark Priest in Glast heim. Bounty Board present in Geffen
** 90 - 99: Dark Priest in Glast heim. Bounty Board present in Geffen
=== Mage Leveling Tips ===
Recommendation taken from ShinRai for newbie mages
* Level Range: 10 - 20+
** Mob(s): Mandragora
** Map(s): North of Geffen
** Skill(s): Fireball
** Bounty: East Geffen
* Level Range: 20 - 30+
** Mob(s): Bigfoot
** Map(s): 1 East and 1 South of Payon
** Skill(s): Firebolt, Firewall
** Bounty: Payon
* Level Range: 30+ - 50+
** Mob(s): Orc Warrior, Orc Lady, Orc Baby, Orc Zombie
** Map(s): Outside Orc Dungeon (Orc Village) and Orc Dungeon
** Skill(s): Fireball, Firewall
** Bounty: East Geffen
* Level Range: 50+ - 70
** Mob(s): Geographer
** Map(s): 1 North and 1 West of Aldebaran
** Skill(s): Firebolt
** Bounty: South Aldebaran
* Level Range: 70+ - 80+
** Mob(s): Goat
** Map(s): 1 North and 2 West of Aldebaran
** Skill(s): Cold Bolt, Storm Gust
** Bounty: Juno
* Level Range: 80+ - 91
** Mob(s): Harpies
** Map(s): South of Juno
** Skill(s): Heaven's Drive
** Bounty: Juno
* Level Range: 91+ - 99
** Mob(s): Stapo
** Map(s): South of Veins
** Skill(s): Fire Bolt, Meteor Storm
** Bounty: Veins
==Whale Method==
For fast leveling, you need the following gear in order to do this with ease, even though its not mandatory.
Only meant for the first 100 levels, after that you need the corresponding gear for each class.
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* ideally with 
* Any accesory like a with a 
* +4 or higher refine 
=== Places to go ===
One of the Possible Routes for Leveling (Whale Method)
* 1 - 70: Alberta Sunken Ship Floor 1 / Eden Group Quest 56-70 Collect missions for fast lvls
* 70 - 85: El Mes Plateau / Low TI at lvl 70 with reduction gears and buffs.
** Harpies with Bounty Board Bounty Board Quests
* 85 - 150: Low/Mid/High TI with Gramp's Turn-In
* 150 - 175: Illusion of Abyss Turtle Island
* 175 - 180: Abyss Glast Heim / Magma Dungeon F3
* 180 - 187: Einbech Dungeon F3
* 187 - 192: Ancient Odin Temple F4
* 192 - 200: Abyss Lake Dungeon F4
=== Alternative Places to go ===
Eden Group Leveling Quests and Bounty Board Quests are the game's way of suggesting mobs for you to level up against. And don't consider the quests by Eden Group as quests you need to be in a party in to complete. The "group" part of Eden Group is simply part of the organization's name. Additional leveling suggestions tailored to your class can be located on your class' respective wiki page. The Leveling Spots page also has recommendations of where to level up. If you're having trouble with mobs in the recommended areas then make sure you're doing Eden Group Equipments Quests to get gear. And make sure to buy a shield if you're playing a class that is using a one handed weapon and can equip a shield. For example the thief can equip a guard or a buckler from the armor merchant once you choose to switch to that class from the novice class.
Should you instead want to find your own way around and see whether you can fight certain mobs, there is always the Navigation window in-game that can help find mobs and their details. Start by finding the name of a mob that you wish to fight (like Orc Warriors for the Geffen bounty board quests), then open the navigation window and type in the name of the monster you want to fight into the navigation window and press Enter. If you were to type in orc warrior it will bring up 3 entries, [M][3] Orc warrior, [N][1] Orc Warrior and [M][1] Orc Warrior. The M stands for monster and N stands for NPC and the numbers inside the square brackets are the number of locations which have that monster there. Click the top M orc warrior entry and it will show a picture of the orc on the right hand side of the window as well as that the monster is level 44. It will also show 3 areas that have orc warriors on the right side of the window, gef_fild03, gef_fild10 and gef_fild14. Click either gef_fild03 or gef_fild10 and then click the find button. You should see arrows on the ground if you were successful at working with the navigation window. I recommend finishing up by opening your map and seeing where the game wants you to go to get to your destination. 
Just keep in mind that the navigation window has its share of issues. One thing you can do to try and fix navigation issues is to check that the service checkbox is checked on the right hand side of the navigation window. When this setting is checked it will make it so that the navigation system will take routes that cost money. However, sometimes no matter what the setting of that checkbox is set to, the navigation method will direct you to take routes which involve the dungeon teleporter NPCs like Cool Event Voting Staff or Kafra Voting Staff to get, for example, from Payon to Prontera. See the screenshot on the right for an example of what the Payon to Prontera navigation looks like. This suggested route will take you through Glast Heim which has level 100 mobs in the area. Also, depending on the results of in-game voting, one of the dungeon teleporter employees won’t let you teleport to the destinations they offer. However, the navigation system will still recommend that you walk over to them. So, if you're trying to get from Payon to Prontera just use the Kafra employee's teleport service. Or walk there.
== Additional Comments ==
Note: Please add any new information below this line and I will format and add it to the main section
== Shopping Boards ==
Shopping Boards allow you to search other players’ shops (but only within in the map you are located in) for items that they are willing to buy and sell. Should you wish to view a shop’s expanded details you can double click the shop’s name in the Shop Name column. If you need to view an item’s details you can right click the image of the item in the left-most column. There are a few tips listed below which need to be kept in mind when attempting to use or attempting to locate the shopping board in order to avoid frustration.
* Searches are case sensitive. This means that typing in “red herb” instead of “Red Herb” will yield the result “Selected Item does not exist” at the bottom of the shopping board.
* Searches are limited to one attempt per click of the Shopping Board. This means that once the Searches left: 1 field becomes 0 after a successful item search, you will need to close the shopping board window and then click the shopping board again to bring up the window to do another item search. Attempting another search when the Searches Left field is 0 results in the message “unable to search” showing at the bottom of the shopping board.
* Pressing Enter clears the typed text instead of doing a search.
* Shopping Boards are located in towns and have a radius of 3 tiles around them that players cannot stand still in. This makes the shopping boards fairly easy to locate once you get close enough. It also can lead to confusion for newer players that are trying to walk through their radius because they will suddenly stop being able to follow the navigation arrows if they aren’t clicking far enough away to walk through the radius.
* Shopping Boards are not listed as an NPC that you can navigate to in the Navigation window. Because of this, it is recommended that you view the Shopping Board page to get their rough co-ordinates if you are having trouble locating one. The one you may most frequently be using is the one located at . Simply click that blue text and it will copy the navigation information into your clipboard. Then press Enter in-game to bring up the chat, paste it in and the game will show you navigation arrows to roughly where that specific shopping board is located.
==Window Shopper Catalog==
Since shopping boards can only do 1 search at a time Catalogs offer a better experience when searching multiple items. They are sold by Catalogue Magician in Prontera.
*Catalogs can be used before setting a shop to lookup prices.
== Earning Zeny ==
Moved details to Guide:How to Make Zeny page
== Identifying items ==
So you have a piece of equipment with grey text that can’t be equipped and when you right click the item the description says to appraise it. Gear that is found off of monsters has to be identified either with magnifiers or the merchant class’ skill “item appraisal”. You get some magnifiers as a part of the tutorial but let’s assume you don’t have any in your inventory. 
In order to locate a magnifier you could either search the item database for a or search for a Tool Merchant using the in-game navigation system. The Tool Merchant in Izlude is located at . 
Once you have a magnifier in your inventory you need to double click it to appraise an item. The game will then pop up a window showing all unappraised items in your inventory. Click one of the items and press OK. If you have no items in your inventory that can be appraised when you double click the magnifier, it will get used up anyway. 
It works similarly for the Merchant class’ Item Appraisal skill. Double click the skill or, if you dragged the skill onto your skill bar, press the key associated with that skill. Then a window will pop up showing all unappraised items in your inventory. Click one of the items and click OK.
Once identified the gear will have white text and show a number in square brackets. This number is for how many cards can be slotted into the piece of equipment. If you want to read more about carding equipment I recommend reading the Card System page. However, due to the price of cards, this feature of the game may be out of your reach for a while.
== Miscellaneous ==
Here’s a tip to getting around faster. You know how you get as part of the tutorial, or you can buy them from the tool merchant, or even find them being dropped by MVPs? If you have to travel from the eastern map edge to the western map edge, you can use a couple fly wings to try and get in the middle of the map to cut half the travel time off of that map. If you get closer to your destination its even more time shaved off traversing the area. This strategy doesn’t work as well on a map like because the map is split down the middle which could strand you on the wrong side of the map if you didn’t bring enough . Unless your goal is to use to get across the divide without having to take the long way around.
== Suggestions from mebo ==
I'm a new/returning player myself and am a perfect consumer for this guide. There are a few things in this guide I would alter and some I'd also think would be helpful to add here.
=== Alterations ===
* For the leveling recommendation items, a new player isn't going to have access to that amount of funds for those items. I just searched those up on the shop and those prices range from 70M - 500M. This may not seem like much to an existing player, but it's nowhere near obtainable for someone starting out.
* For "Places to go" when leveling, Alberta Sunken Floor is not a new-player friendly place to go. https://www.divine-pride.net/database/map/treasure01 shows levels 34, 42 and 48. This level range should be adjusted. When I started, I grinded one map south of Prontera for awhile. Rockers are also great experience. Of course there are several other zones, but Alberta Sunken Floor is not good to start with.
* How to get to these maps in "Places to go" would also be helpful. As a brand new player and especially as a non-VIP player, you are very likely not going to have the starting funds to afford teleporting around with Kafra, so this should be taken into consideration too.
=== New Content ===
* It would be helpful to highlight how the Shopping Board works. I haven't played iRO in years, but I don't recall this being a thing when I played. The quirk with having to close/re-open the window after each search should also be highlighted (because of the one search at a time limitations).
* For leveling, the Eden quests and Bounty Boards should be considered. Although they don't provide an immense amount of experience or anything, they're still a viable way to level. I used the 1-20 board for 150 Rockers and 150 Elder Willows myself.
* Some methods to earning some starting zeny would be nice. Potions get spammed early and it's hard to generate enough zeny to keep up with the demand (depending on where you're leveling). I made 60K selling Jellopies and found out that players will buy Sticky Webfoot for a decent amount of zeny. Where and how to farm for those should be highlighted.
* How to identify items? This seems pretty obvious, but to a new player, it may not be. Where to buy a Magnifier, etc.
* How the mail system works -- claiming dailies, etc.
* How /navi <loc> <coords> works.
* Explain how Gramps works. Probably not worth going into too much detail as there's another write up about him, but a short mention.
* Mention of accompanying resources to the wiki. https://db.irowiki.org is a great resource for finding where items drop, monster locations, etc.
I am sure I will think of more as I'm playing (I just made a new character on a fresh account that's 54/4), but that's all I've got for now.