Welcome to your beginners guide for getting started in Varamexia.
Text-based games such as this are good if you do not have time to sit and pay attention to the screen, but still wish to gain a sense of accomplishment.
While playing you can meet new online friends, form guilds, and work together towards a bigger goal all the while not taking away from your real life obligations.
Varamexia does has some basic rules to follow so please read through the ‘Laws’ page inside the manual. (Located on the left side of your screen under ‘Home’ in the manual.)
That being said, now that you have registered and became a Varamexian survivor, you may be wondering what all of these tabs, menus, and links are used for, this guide will provide you with basic knowledge to help you through your first days.
All new players receive 2 bronze hatchets, 2 bronze pickaxes, 2 banana chisels, and 500 coins. These three different types of tools can be used to start-up woodcutting, mining, or crafting but that will be explained further in this guide. You will need to equip a tool based on the skill you want to be training. To equip a tool to your right hand you can either right click the tool in your inventory with your mouse and one will be automatically equipped, left click your mouse and see the stats on the item as well as choosing to equip it, or lastly you can hover over your name at the top of the page and go to ‘Your Character’ page and equip your tool from there using the same methods. Your Character Page is where you can unequip tools and gear, check on your stats, and also see active personal buffs. When you have progressed further in the game you may have multiple skills that you have gear for, this page allows you to make Setups so that you can switch between skill gear without having to remove or equip everything piece-by-piece.
Most level 1 tools are available to buy through the ‘Market’ at Maki, except the Bronze Compass and Young Mortar and Pestle. Each of these tools cost 50 coins from the npc. You can also buy tools from player’s shops or use Trade chat to ask if anyone has them for sale. (Trade chat is limited to one line per chat announcement every 15 minutes.) You can also use the Manual to locate shops that may have that item up for sale. If you open the manual, on the left hand side of the screen under Game Play is ‘Item Search’. After you have successfully found the description page for the item you were looking for, this page contains everything you need to know including whether or not shops are selling it, how much it’s being sold for, the quantity, and also if players are buying that item. It’s a great reference in the future especially to price check items you may get as drops.
Below is a list of skills, locations, and the tool necessary to start working.
Alchemy - Maslo - Young Mortar and Pestle
Bee Keeping - (Any locations that you build an apiary in) - Bronze Smoker
Combat - Garu (Combat consists of Attack, Strength, and Defence.) - Bronze Sword/Food
Construction - Stende - Bronze Saw/Mallet
Cooking - Maki - Banana Tinder Box
Crafting - The Swamp - Banana Chisel
Exploring - Sentry Cross - Bronze Compass (not necessary)
Fishing - Exove - Banana Fishing Rod
Gardening - Garu (Any location you build a garden in.) - Bronze Spade
(No tool needed if you are picking rice at Garu.)
Hunting - Forbidden Forest - Bug Net
Mining - Mt Garon - Bronze Pickaxe
Necromancy - Arknor - Banana Staff
Smithing - Hanavi - Bronze Hammer
Sorcery - Garu
(Any location where a mob is located. Bosses not included. No tool needed.)
Woodcutting - Minur Forest - Bronze Hatchet
Garu has some additional skills that do not give you experience.
(example: Feeding the Ducks may give you a feather or Sweeping the Streets may give you coins.)
Storage
Storage will be your best friend when it comes to combat or if you do not like having a lot of items cluttering up your inventory. The types of storage you can have are:
Sheds:
Sheds are good for holding onto small amounts of items. Sheds are not able to have gardens built on them.
Personal Shed: This shed is the only type of residence where you can house any of your bound to player items.
Huts:
Huts tend to hold more items, and you will have the ability to make garden extension onto them.
Shops:
Shops while good for selling and buying items, are also a good temporary storage. Any items set to zero (which is done automatically) will not show up in your shop for sale to others.
Guild Compounds:
Guild compounds are by far much bigger than residences, and take right around the same amount of materials to make. These storage spaces are shared with your guildmates. Permissions to add and remove from compounds will allow you to add and remove from them.
Skills
Generally everything you want to know about a skill can be found out on it’s skill page in the manual. This can be accessed one of two ways. The first way is accessed from the manual, clicking on skills on the left panel, then clicking on the particular skill you wish to know about. The other way is by hovering over your name at the top of the page and clicking on skills. This page will show your skill level, as well as give you a link to that particular page. You can also access the particular skill manual page, by clicking on ‘Look Up’ at the bottom of the page while working on a skill.
These manual pages will let you know what tools can be worn and at what levels, what foods you can eat to reduce your timer, let you know what percent success you have in making items made through that particular skill, as well as the location you need to be at for that particular skill action.
Success Rates
Each new skill starts out with a 30% Success rate. Your first 3 levels in a skill will stay at 30% success, and every level after that will increase by 10%. Once you are at 10 levels above the minimum requirement of the skill action, you will have 100% success in this skill, meaning that you will have no more failures in this action. You will unlock a new skill action to do and have the option of switching over to try it out. Though keep in mind, that this new action also starts at 30%. Most players will suggest that instead of jumping to this new action right away, that you should wait until you have reached at least 60% to 70% success, as the gains per action per hour are more beneficial than you would receive starting the new action with a longer timer while you still have the chance of having many fails in the new skill set.
30% - First 3 levels
40% - 4 Levels over
50% - 5 Levels over
60% - 6 Levels over
70% - 7 Levels over
80% - 8 Levels over
90% - 9 Levels over
100% -10 Levels over
One exception to this success rule is Exploring. In order to have 100% success in opening chests and exploring caves, you will need to be 50 levels over the minimum required level. (Exploring success maxes out at 99% so you will still have a chance to fail at opening a chest or exploring a cave. Though at 50 levels over the required amount you will benefit in obtaining the most amount of drops from chests and caves.)
Exploring Success rates
30% - First 19 levels
40% - 20 Levels over
50% - 25 Levels over
60% - 30 Levels over
70% - 35 Levels over
80% - 40 Levels over
90% - 45 Levels over
99% - 50 Levels over
To view your current success rates you can do this one of two ways. One you can go to manual at the top of the page, select Skills on the left panel, and then click on any of the skills that you are curious about. The second way would be to hover over your name up above, select ‘Your Skills’ and then click on any of your current skills that you have worked on. Once there, scroll to the bottom of the page to see skill actions and your percentages, or press and hold Ctrl+F to bring up your browser's search bar and type in the name of the action that you are looking for.
Guilds
Guilds are a great way to come together with other players to gain more levels, gather materials, and help each other out while in the process of making new friends. As a team effort to help each other along especially newer players that may have questions or need advice on gear. Joining a guild is as easy as posting in world chat that you are looking to join. Do bear in mind that most guilds once allowing you to join will give you a grace period before allowing you to pull from the guild compounds. This is a period of time where they will get to know and trust you.
Quests
There are many quests that can be accessed here in Varamexia. You can find the quest locations and who you need to talk to via the manual within the sidebar on the left. Each quest can be clicked on to read the requirements in order to fulfil each duty. Most of the quest pages will show what the reward is. Rewards are not to be announced inside of World chats. (The only exception to this rule is whispers and guild.) To find the NPCs for each quest, you will want to navigate to the menu panel on the left side of the screen, and click on ‘Players’ Here on the top, you will see a list of NPCs that you can start quests from. You click on the name, and in the middle of the work screen you will see text that will allow you to start, or back out of the quest. You are able to start many quests at the same time, and finish them at your leisure.
Yerv is a Holiday NPC, he only spawns on Friday, the 13th.
Combat
You can begin combat 12 hours after you sign up. Make sure to be alert and active at the computer when you are training combat, as dying will cause you to lose all of your items in your on-hand inventory (Not including bound items. Bound items that are being worn while dying in combat will be destroyed). Make sure to have food in your inventory to heal, as health does not regenerate over time. Make sure to have armor and weapons with you. You will have the ability to cast spells on mobs and you use essence in order to do this. Essence will regenerate over time. There are also specific foods that you can eat that will replenish your essence. For a more in depth explanation of combat, please visit the Combat Basics guide within the forum. (*note: make the words ‘Combat Basics into a hyperlink with this link here: https://varamexia.com/forum/2015/index.php?p=viewtopic&id=3 )
Settings
Under Settings you will find a variety of things that you can change within Varamexia.
Your Account:
Will allow you to change your Password, Security Question, Gender, Email. Will give you the option to add your Steam ID. Give you the ability to opt In or Out of Chat Games, Halloween and Christmas Event. Give you the option to have Worded botchecks or Image Botchecks. You are also able to Reset your Quests here. Beware though, you are only ever able to reset your quests once, so do keep that in mind when you decide to reset all of your quest. A better time to reset them, would be when you have completed a lot of them, or have finished all of your quests.
Chat Settings: If you disable a chat channel, you will no longer see any posts made in that section. Disabling other actions will also make it so that you do not see these things. Below is listed the type of chat channels as well as other options and what their functions are.
World chat: This is where you will find yourself first being able to talk. (Your name will be displayed in white.)
Trade chat: This is where you will find people buying, selling or trading for goods.(Your name will be displayed in blue.)
Guild Chat: This is where you will chat with your guild members if you do not feel like talking in world chat. (Your name will be displayed in Green.)
Help Chat: This is where you will go to to ask any questions you have that you are not able to find answers for in the manual. (Your name will be displayed in Yellow.)
Global Chat: Global chat consists of notifications from disasters, invasions, mob death taunts. (Death taunts can only be seen if a user has a premium account)
User Logins: Allows you the ability to see when other players log in.
Quest Completion: Shows up in chat when a person completes a quest.
Duel Requests: Dueling on here is harmless, it is strictly for fun. You will not lose items for losing a duel.
Chat Image: When enabled will show an arrow next to usernames, this arrow can be clicked on to access other player profiles
Chat Numbers: When enabled, any time a player posts, a number will appear next to their names off to the left. [1]World, [2]Trade, [3]Guild, [4]Help.
There is also: Forum Settings, Privacy, Game Settings, and Invite Player. These settings are fairly self explanatory.
The Crystal Store
This is where you can help promote Varamexia and keep the servers up and running. By donating you receive the currency known as Crystals. Crystals can be used to send out invasions, buy extra emotes for chat, purchase Premium Bonds, Change Crystals into Platinum coins as well as a variety of other things.
Making a donation will add to the Skeleton chest. When the skeleton chest is full, 60 hours of skulls will be applied. (Skulls are gathered by doing skill training, and are a random drop. [Skill name] Skull will gain you 1k exp, [Skill name] Epic Skull will gain you 5k exp in the skill that you have acquired it from.)
Premium Bonds will allow you to have a premium account, such as extending your Botcheck from 30 minutes to 1 hour. The ability to ‘stalk’ other players to see what town they are in and see mob death taunts in player chat when a player is slaughtered. To see all the benefits of having a premium account check here where you can try out two days of free premium. (* note: make the words two days of free premium into a hyperlink with this link here: https://varamexia.com/gamestore/2015/index.php?p=lookup&id=38 )
Tickets
In the event you need to make a ticket to report a bug or to submit a feature request. Hover over your Mailbox up top, select Messages and then click on ‘Ticket’ up in the top left corner. Select the appropriate subject and fill out the body of the form. Once you are happy with the ticket you are filing out click submit. If you find that you have reached the max limit of text for the ticket and are unable to send, just send the ticket in portions. Please make sure to include the ticket number of the prior ticket so that the staff knows which order to read your submission in, as they may be spread out in the event of others submitting tickets as well. This will help staff along to find and read all of your submissions together in the event you need to split your ticket up into portions.