Hometown Advice

[Tiqa]

With my first character, I learned the general lay of the land and can pretty much walk from one end of Thera to the other – not perfectly but good enough. And I learned some ways to make gold so if I had a hometown other than Seringdale, I could probably occasionally afford the Nexus to retrieve my corpse contents quickly. I’m gearing up to start my second character and would like advice if I can handle a hometown other than Seringdale?

Seringdale is centrally located and convenient to run back to my corpse to get my stuff before it is looted. However, I died close to Seringdale mostly at lower levels (spiders, Mansion, etc) so I think that shouldn’t influence my choice of hometown. Most of the time I spent at my later levels were in the eastern realms between Darkhaven and Seringdale - so it would be 50:50 between the two hometowns (if evil).

Seringdale has quick easy access to a variety of essential items with cheaper shops (lights, food, drink containers). Valour is extremely expensive and Darkhaven seems to specialize in expensive, yet worthwhile weapons. I haven’t shopped much in either of those towns for common needed items. Timeran is a shoppers paradise. Darkhaven is near Timeran, which is a town with lots of good, useful, cheap stuff. So shopping after recalling is probably only a problem if your home town is Valour.

Darkhaven also seems a good choice (for me) because I can cash in on trying to kill contracted players – ie. get the guts to actually try to attack someone, I don’t think Valour offers a similar incentive.

My feeling is to stick with Seringdale until I’m more confident and skilled in what I am doing, but I wanted to hear opinions. I’m really trying to get into role play, so going with an aligned hometown fits in, but I have to balance that with game play and if Seringdale is easier that might be more fun. If there is a choice, is Darkhaven easier than Valour? Or stick with Seringdale until you know more what you are doing?

[Mr. Forgotten]

Yeah, you should probably stick with Seringale until you are more confident in your abilities, but i try to go with alignment based hometown type stuff. So Valour for good, Darkhaven for evil and Timaran for neutral.mostly because i dont find it a problem traveling from one town to another, especially with the handy auto minimap in the room descriptions (automap) for those newer people. But go with whatever you feel like because every time you die or recall you will end up back at your hometowns -alignment- temple.

[Vanisse]

if you're comfortably familiar with seringale and want to try a new town, i find that timaran is also very newbie-friendly and is accessible for all alignments, not necessarily neutrals. in addition, there is no waiting time to get into a guild for practicing (although there's no protection from murderous wretches either) and the selection of items there is generally more useful than the ones found in seringale, as long as you aren't looking for gambled items. roleplay-wise, because there are priests of all three alignments along with appropriate temple wings based in timaran, you can incorporate that as much as you want.

darkhaven is great for upper level wild/random item shopping. personally i think the only reason to have a valour hometown is if you like running exceptionally long stretches to get around within your city/to anywhere else in thera or if you want to become a knight. not to mention that you get whacked in the face if you try to go north of it which is incredibly annoying. but that's just my opinion

[Erlwith]

[RebornShadows]

Seringale is a good place because it is as you said in the center of just about everything. Valour is nice cause you can get purples and clears just north of town but it will take you a long walk to get anywhere else without using the nexus. Darkhaven samething as Valour but with good wild weapons and armor. and no clear potions to the north just vials (same thing as purples)

Timaran is nice for the fact if you recall if your good or evil normally they wont check there first. located pretty close to a decent lvl'ing spot and not that far from purples.

so really its all up to you if you want to try and branch out into a new hometown

[Tiqa]

Thank you all for your thoughts and suggestions. And thanks for the info on the free Nexus ghost rides. What a nice feature.

I hadn’t realized that any alignment can live in Timeran. It’s one of my favourite towns. But no protection at the guildhalls? That would be scary not to have even one place in the whole realms to feel safe.

Initially, the idea of recalling to a far away place like Darkhaven appealed to me for a safe get away, but on further thought there would probably be a greater chance of running into more unpredictable evil people there. And I hadn’t considered how much I rely on the Justice protection in Seringdale.

Thanks for helping me think this through.

[Stiehl26]

[bassball]

Darkhaven doesn't really provide a good get away, even though it's kind of far away. Most of the places where you fight often aren't too far away. And the fact that there isn't a whole lot of places to go once you're in Darkhaven, it makes you kind of predictable.

[Ceridwel]

[Vevier]

I really like Timaran. Probably two thirds of my characters live there, and the ones that don't I only hometown seringaled in order to hide my identity further. Its a nice spot to recall to because you can hustle over to seringale to meet a ranking group, or you can find escape routes out three of the exits (all four if you have time/gold and can use the nexus). You have to deal with the Mystics up north, but every town has a couple of bums. One of the big downsides is that you don't have immediate protection if you recall as you might have if there is a justice around in Seringale.

Valour and Darkhaven are way out in the boondocks, so I'd suggest staying with the two all alignment towns for now unless you are going caballed.

[Vanisse]

hahaa mystics.