Beginner's Guide To Istaria, Part 1: Race and Appearance

Whether you're new to MMORPGs, or a veteran, you should always be looking for information about races before you delve into a new game.

Race, more than anything else in an MMO, defines who you are. Sometimes its just a visual thing, and even then you can soon be so covered in equipment you'll hardly recognise yourself, but it's still you. It might be the way you walk, your height, your hair colour - a crazy blue beard or mottled green skin. Whatever it is, it's yours and it helps define you.

In many of the more recent games that restrict you within an inch of your life (such as world of Warcraft (WoW)), your choice of race has a huge outcome on how you play the game. The next area we will touch on is class (your job, essentially), and in restrictive games your class can be narrowed greatly by your choice of race.

So, for example, in WoW, if you wanted to be a shamen character, you will be restricted to four classes - or just one if you play on the side of the alliance. However, Istaria doesn't take this narrow view. With the exception of dragons (who follow a very specific path), every race can be every (and indeed all) classes, both adventuring and crafting.

Personally, I think the Istaria way is a good thing: especially if you want to role-play, your appearance is important. However, play style can often be more so. This means that a person who really likes being a healer may be forced into a race they don't rally have a feel for in another game, which can take a lot away from the RPG gaming experience.

The images you see in the post are the first thing you'll see after successfully loading up Istaria and choosing to create a new character. You're presented with a list of races (on the right hand side of this image), with the one you're looking highlighted. There will also be a short description of the race and its racial traits.

Racial differences in Istaria come in two forms: your starting stats (strength, dexterity, intelligence etc) and your racial abilities (bonuses unique to your race). Frankly, you can ignore the starting stat differences. They are quite small, and once you've levelled up a little you'll barely notice them - any shortfalls are soon pretty meaningless.

Racial abilities are a bit different. To be honest though, if you've got your heart set on a particular race, just go for it - it's not a big deal, as I said before. However, if you're a certain type of player and don't mind about which race you are, a few of the racial traits stand out. This is obviously open to debate, but here are some of the ones that generally catch the eye:

Sslik regeneration: I guess I'm biased here, but the Sslik ability to regenerate is a real peach. It scales as you level, meaning it's as useful at level 100 as it is as level 1, and I've lost count of the time it has saved my green skin. Essentially, it's a heal over time spell that is cast instantly, uses no energy, and works very well indeed.

Gnomian prowess: For 30 seconds, you're twice as fast as normal in either fighting or crafting, which can be a big help.

Saris sprint: Getting around can be a slow process and most races get one brief sprint on a slow recharge timer. Saris characters get an extra one.

Dryad dazzle/Dwarven toughness: Excellent defensive ability, both of which give a short period of super high evasion/toughness - perfect for getting out of tough scrapes or winning close battles at the death. Fiends get a powerful defence against spell damage, which can work in a similar way to the Dwarven toughness.

There are some other pretty good ones too, but nothing beats just being who you want to be - it's not a game that will punish an early decision as many other do.

A note on dragons

Choosing to be a dragon can be both limiting and liberating, depending on your point of view. For many the ability to play a dragon is simply too much to resist, and there are definite advantages. You start as a hatchling (small and cute) but can become a huge, fire breathing and flying monster with an underground lair as you progress through a series of dragon specific tasks and quests.

However, you're just a dragon - there's no multi-classing and your crafting tasks are severely limited. I found it quite monotonous, and haven't really levelled by dragon alternative character much. But that's the thing - with a paid account, you can have the best of both worlds and have bipeds as well as a dragon.

Once you've chosen your race and appearance you'll be spat out into a small area to practice the basics such as movement. I'll take a closer look at this next time, as part of an ongoing attempt at a beginners guide. However, if you can't wait that long, just go into the help channel once you log into the game - there will always be someone around to help out new players.

Don't forget, if you simply want to check out the game for free, you can get an account and play a human for absolutely zilch (of course, once you get hooked, you can upgrade and get all kinds of cool races and housing plots going on). Just head over to the Istaria website and sign up for a free account - www.istaria.com