New/Returning Player Guide

**Welcome!** The point of this guide is for new and returning players to get their bearings on the changing world of BlockGame. Together, this guide and the wiki as a whole should be your one stop shop for any questions you may have during your time playing.

For new players, it's assumed that you've connected to the BlockGame server and have completed the Tutorial. If you'd like a refresher, you can always warp back to the Tutorial by putting `/warp Tutorial` in chat.

Although the Tutorial covers many of the features of BlockGame, they will be covered here as well along with many other topics.

# Changes between Vanilla Minecraft and BlockGame

As BlockGame is built upon Minecraft, the game also features many changes and deviations from the default systems.

## Death

When you die you no longer drop all of your items. Instead, you lose some of your Currency. Otherwise, you spawn at the last bed you slept in or at Origin.[verify]

## Crafting

Several of the crafting recipes you know from vanilla are either changed or removed. The vast majority are still there but don't be surprised if you go to craft Bread and find out you can't using the usual method. However, many recipes have been removed completely for progression's sake. Here is a short list:

* Weapons
* Armor
* Tools (Pickaxe, Axe, Fishing Pole, ect.)

Your best bet is to either experiment on your own, which we highly recommend, or search for it on the wiki.

## Hunger & Food

The hunger system is largely untouched except for the change that starving to death is possible. You will not starve down to half a heart, you will die.

Food has been changed heavily. Some of the food may fill you more or less than you remember. Some of the food items have yet to be converted to the current system. You'll be able to tell if it's been changed by looking at the tooltip and seeing the << Consumable >> text.

On top of this, some food items have been expanded upon. I recommend trying to experiment with putting raw food items in both a furnace and a smoker to see what happens.

## Health & Armor

Both Health and Armor have been expanded. The UI for Armor has been completely removed and the Health UI has been restricted to the default 10 hearts. Instead, you'll notice some text UI above your hotbar that displays your current stats for Health, Armor, and Hunger. Your stats will be mentioned later in this guide but for now just know that this UI is here.

# Basic BlockGame Features

## Your Character

As with vanilla Minecraft, there are several systems that make you... well you! There are two chat commands you're going to want to remember:

* `/profile`
* `/stats`

These commands make up your character in BlockGame and are the key drivers of progression. Hovering your mouse over the icons will tell you a little about their functions.

### Profile Menu

The profile menu is where you'll track your progression not only in your character and class but your professions as well. Simply mouse over any of the icons to view the tooltip and the information tied to it.

### Stats Menu

The stats menu is where you can view and allocate stat points that you gain when you level up. Currently, there are three stats you can choose from:

* Strength
* Agility
* Intelligence

Each stat has several smaller stats assigned to them. It's up to you on how to spend them but rest assured that if you change your mind, you can freely reassign your points by clicking the icon in the bottom right of the menu.

## Currency

Currency is what makes the Realms of BlockGame go 'round. They're used in many of the recipes you'll find, needed to keep your town afloat, and required to gain ranks. All those things will be talked about but for now know that Currency will be needed and there are several ways to gain it. Here are just a few:

* Finding Chests in Myrkheim \*BEST VALUE\*
* Completing Quests
* Doing Profession Activities
* Defeating Dungeons

Now, Currency comes in several item-based forms ranging from Golden Coins to Gold Bricks. Each with their own value assigned to them. Once you've found some, there are two chat commands that you'll need to know:

* `/deposit`
* `/money` or `/balance`

### Depositing

The Deposit Menu is what pops up when you put `/deposit` into chat. Here is where you'll put all of the Currency items you've collected. Once you're finished, click the book icon in the bottom right of the menu to officially deposit the items into your personal "bank". At this point, you should see a system message pop up in chat of how much you just deposited.

If you should want to check your personal "bank" balance, do either of these commands:

* `/money`
* `/balance`

A system message will popup in chat with your current amount.

## Ranks

The Ranks system is the main Currency sink of BlockGame. Each rank gives you a different bonus or additional piece of functionality to help you while you're playing. Here are a few of the potential bonuses you'll find:

* A backpack the size of your default inventory
* The ability to Warp to Origin
* Increased number of Auctions you can host
* And many more!

To access this menu, simply put `/Ranks` into chat and the menu should pop open for you. From this point, an array of Cubes should be in the menu and depending on their color will determine if you have either:

* Currently are or have passed that Rank (Emerald Block)
* Is the next Rank for you to unlock (Gold Block)
* Cannot get that Rank yet (Redstone Block)

Clicking on the Gold Block, as long as you meet the Currency requirement, will unlock that rank and it's privileges.

## Professions

Professions are a key part of your progression in BlockGame. In other MMORPGs, Professions would be left for players wanting to do a little more than the usual getting to max level process with it rarely acting as anything more than a vehicle to become wealthy. In BlockGame, it's more than that.

As of patch Beta 1.0.29, there are 6 Professions in the game.

* Mining
* Archaeology
* Logging
* Fishing
* Herbalism
* Runecarving

Most of the Professions line up with your typical Minecraft gameplay. Mining requires you to mine stone and resources, Logging wants you to cut down trees, Archaeology wants you to dig, and Fishing has you fish. Leveling these Professions are pretty straight forward. What can become tricky is the special resources that come from all of them that you'll want for progressing your character's gear.

Going to an NPC in Origin and seeing what they want for a Brass Pickaxe can be daunting when you don't know any of the Materials in the game. Don't worry, that's where this wiki comes in! Simply navigate to the Professions pages and you'll see where to find the material and what tool is needed to get it. However, this is an MMORPG so I do heavily recommend experimenting to figure out where to get the material, though some may be trickier than others.

## NPCs

BlockGame has many NPCs and for the rest of this section we're going to specifically talk about friendly NPCs that you'll find along your journey. Most of these NPCs you'll find in Origin, the main city of BlockGame. Origin is host to a variety of characters who do many things from selling you mining supplies to turning you into a full blown wizard given you have the materials and money necessary.

These NPCs are your gateway to progression throughout the game, regardless if it's progression in Fishing, combat, gear progression. Talking to these NPCs will open a shop dialogue where you can view all the recipes they have to offer.

## Crafting

Crafting in BlockGame is a little different than your typical vanilla experience. Most of it is done through NPCs. When you talk to a friendly NPC, their shop dialogue will have at least one recipe. Left clicking on this recipe will craft the item if you have the materials and currency required. Right Clicking on the recipe changes the UI to show several things:

* The final result
* Each item and the amount of it needed
* The recipe
* and a back button to go back to the recipe selection menu

These are all the bare minimum of what you'll need to jump into BlockGame and have a good time.
Let's jump into some first steps!

# First Steps

Immediately coming out of the Tutorial, you'll arrive at Yggdrasil which acts as the main hub between the Realms of BlockGame. As of patch Beta 1.0.12, you'll have access to three realms:

* Myrkheim, the exploration Realm where most of your resource gathering will take place
* Midgard, the home of Origin,all player made towns, and the Dungeons of BlockGame
* The Bazaar, the realm of player made shops

My recommendation would be to go to Midgard first and to familiarize yourself with Origin. You'll be coming back there frequently.

## Origin

Origin is a big place with many shops. Don't feel bad if you don't remember where they all are all the time, it'll come with time.

There are many NPCs in Origin and each one has a unique purpose. We don't need to talk to all of them, just make a mental note.

While you're here, why not make a stop at the community farms on the North and South side of the town hall? Just make sure you replant what you take, please.

## Our First Goal

At this point the Realms are your oyster. However, there's a lot to do so we're going to need to focus ourselves and decide on something to do.

For the rest of this guide, we're going to talk about traveling to Myrkheim and the Realm itself, then we will talk about some starting activities.

### Myrkheim

If you remember the end of the Tutorial, they gave you a warp command, we'll want to make use of that now. If you don't remember the command it's `/warp Yggdrasil`

Now, instead of walking into the Midgard portal, enter the Myrkheim portal.

Welcome to Myrkheim! Depending on the day you're playing on, Myrkheim may be freshly generated, on Mondays, or the area surrounding the spawn may be stripped or modified by other players. Do know that there is a 1 to 2 chunk diameter around the spawn platform that is protected so to do anything, you'll have to leave the are of protection. Beyond that area, Myrkheim is just like any other generated Minecraft world. All the biomes up to version 1.18.2 are in the game plus there are some additional structures that have been put into the game for you to find and explore.

Just remember, **Myrkheim gets reset every Friday at 14:00 UTC (7am Pacific, 10am Eastern)** so anything you leave there will be removed if not taken with you.

### So... Now what?

Well this is the interesting part of MMORPGs, you get to decide what to do. In BlockGame, progression is very linear and you'll naturally be funneled into progressing towards the next tier of a profession or set of gear.

My recommendation would be to choose what type of play style you like for combat. Is it Melee DPS? Tanking? Ranged Physical DPS? Maybe Ranged Magical DPS? These are the choices you have and you don't have to dedicate to just one but picking one now is the best thing to get you moving forward.

Beyond that choice there are a few things you'll want to immediately start doing in Myrkheim. Most of the starting recipes have a very similar list of ingredients you'll need. Pristine Wood, Sticks, and Pristine Hide. The crafting recipe for Sticks is the same as vanilla but the Pristine items you'll need to get from Chopping trees and Killing animals. Pristine Wood is a common drop from any tree you chop but the Pristine Hide will require another step.

### Pristine Hide

Pristine Hide requires you to get Leather Scraps which drop off of most animals. From there, you'll need to take 8 of them to Leatherworker Seymour in Origin to turn them into 1 Pristine Hide. Rinse and repeat this until you have enough Hide to get the item you're wanting.

There's an alternative route for this. If you explore Myrkheim, you may come across a chest with a yellow name. This marks that it's a BlockGame modified chest and that it has items for BlockGame in it like Currency, a Class EXP book, Common Repair Powder, and some Pristine items like a Pristine Hide. These can be very good sources for Pristine items.

# Your First Milestone

With those basics out of the way, here is a little direction for your first challenge.

The Sunken Cells is BlockGame's earliest dungeon you can do. Given enough skill, you can go into the Dungeon as early as level 5, if you know where the entrance is, with a Bow and be able to complete it. Level 5 is a bit early for my taste so let's make that a little bit easier for you. Here is an ideal gear list:

* Character Level 7+ (You need to be 7 to buy the Sunken Cells item from Hunter Hanzo and learn the location of the dungeon)
* A full set of one of these:
	+ Tier 3 Warrior Armor
	+ Tier 3 Guardian Armor
	+ Tier 2 Archer Armor
	+ Tier 2 Mage Armor
* A Bow and 1 Arrow (Melee weapon or spells optional)
* An Everburning Torch (Optional but I found it handy)
* An Everbubbling Conch (Less optional but still optional if you're patient and quick, you'll find out why)
* A Flint Arrows or Sparking Arrows (I didn't use them on my run but they may be useful)
* Food, I liked Bread or Roasted Potato depending on my health situation
* and finally, Health potions (Check with Alchemist Nina in Origin for the recipe)

With these items, you should have everything you need and more in case you make some mistakes which you might unless you look up the dungeon ahead of time which is absolutely okay.

Do note that the Everburning Torch, Everbubbling Conch, and Arrow items are offhand items and one can only be held at a time so you will have to choose. I used the Torch for most of the dungeon.

With this milestone, you'll need to learn about most of the Professions and level several of them to get the materials necessary for the gear I suggest and you'll probably have to either make a town or join someone else's due to how much stuff you're going to be lugging around. Of course, you could buy or trade for the items from other players or even fish some of these up, it's an MMORPG baby!