ZOE'S HINTS FOR LOW LEVEL CHARACTERS

If you expect to find info to help you when you first start the game, sorry. This isn't it.
This section is for those who have played, gotten the hang of it, and now want to start over or build a new crit or skill a new skill, and are tired of working 5 days to get to skill 5.

EXPERIENCE:

Go S from Nork and swim across to what is known as 'yeti island'. Stay along the edge of the water, away from sharks and alligators, and use a distance weapon to kill wolves and bears. They are each worth about 1000experience points which really adds up quick. be ware of the bears for they can swim. If you don't have a distance weapon, jump on and off land to kill and get out of range, though this will be risky. This should get you to experience level 6 or 7 within 30 minutes (when no red crits in sight, move to another alt.)

Now get protstun (maeling twig) and wear a large yeti and run down to n-4. Don't stop along the way until you get to n-3 and you have a zoo of 10 or more crits you can kill. Once in n-4 roam the entire level killing crits. They are pretty easy and give 1000-2000 experience points each. This get's you to experience 10 within a day.

Allthough the above works fairly easily, most prefer to spend some time coining (see below) and buy the exp up to level 10 from the gambler in the E of nork town. This does work faster and is recommended, but requires an hour or two of hunting the same area, which quickly becomes a drag.

If you don't like taking risks keep killing large zoo's in the nork dungeons(n-4,n-5) and gambling.
If you do like to take a chance, move to the frore icefloes. Be sure to wear a kitty or at least 250points worth of ice prot, and minimum a set of scales and skill 8+. Carefully start at the edge of the snow covered area in the NE of frore town. With a weapon concentrate on killing iceworms and bears, with psi attacks concentrate on iceworms and snowtigers. Stay 4 hexes away from tigers at all times, they charge and can hit for 150. Each is worth 11.000 or 12.000 experience points.

Upon reaching experience level 13, you may, experiencewise consider yourself a 'medium character'.

SKILL :

Don't bother paying the trainer yet. The skill will come so fast it will only slow you down to twig back and forth.

Wear a large yeti or better. Bring some prot stun (buy a twig in maeling), bring the weapon you want to skill in, a sack of heals and a succor scroll.
Click the add and make a party.
Go to n-4, up to the Northern most corridor (leading W) and kill each zoo you find while heading W.
All the way W in the N room you will see stairs (you will be about skill 5 at this time). Go up the stairs (n-3.5), out the room and head all the way N to the picture of bones on the floor. Go through the secret wall E, further E to the set of double doors. Go in those double doors and fight the 'Ogrechief'. He may push you around a bit, not much damage though. When he is dead (skill 6-7 now) set a twig and go pay the trainer from the coin and gems you picked up from the zoo's in n-4. Twig back and the Orgechief will be back in a few minutes, Start killing him again, this time stop just before he dies and drop an IH to heal him to double skill gain.(do this no more than twice with one crit, all skill will be gone after the second time).
Repeat the process until you make skill 8 or 9.
This all shouldn't take more than 1.5 hours.

When at skill 8 or 9, wear a large yeti or any scales and a kitty. bring a shield if available.
Go to VT, head S and climb down. Swim E and a little N and climb up to get to the single griffon lair. Swim E and S to the hole next to red dragon lair to drop down and open W wall to go to twin griffon lair.
Click the add and make a party.
Kill the griffon(s), IH when comfortable. After no more than 5 or 6 kills you should be skill 10 or 11.
This may take several hours depending on the damage your skill does and the availability of the griffons.

Skillwise you may now consider yourself a 'medium level character'.

COIN:

In my experience n-3.5 provides the fastest and easiest coin at lower levels.
Bring some 'cure blindness' potions and up to 12 heals.
Go to SW of nork town. A guard there stands by a set of stairs. Go down and into the door S SW. Kill the orcs and shamans and take their coin and all the long green (barrel shaped) gems. They are each worth 900-1100 coin. A full sack should get you about 20.000coin per trip in about 15 to 20 minutes.

Also loot the frore lair piles for diamonds and other gems. At times 150.000 coin from them isn't unusual.

GEAR:

Basically looting the frore piles is the best way to go. Loot for items while hunting too. There is always the possibility.
As for armor and robes, you will need some help obtaining those required for the hints above. Most will be easy to ask for. Scales however may be more difficult. Untied silver dragon scales should be around in a fair amount.

ZOE'S HINTS FOR MEDIUM LEVEL CHARACTERS

You have arrived at the point where many players start getting frustrated and the thought of quitting pops up once in a while. This is because at experince level 13 the hitpoint doctor/trainer will sell you hitpoints for increasing amounts of coin. The maximum amount that can be bought depends entirely upon the class of your character. It is strongly recommended that you buy as many hitpoints as he will sell before resting up past experience level 13. This will, however, require an average of 25million coins per character. In my experience a barbarian is able to coin fastest of all classes. Rolling up a barb just for purpose of coining is a recommendable thing to do. This way you have one crit to coin until you are sick of it, and another character to play with to have a break from coining.

EXPERIENCE:

Gaining experience remains easiest on the frore and alerian icefloes. the alerian caves hold large zoos that will give a nice boost too, but regen is slower there, so you will run out of crits fairly quick. Until you reach experience level 16 the above remains your best bet.
Remember to wear good blocking armor and a lot of iceprot on the floes. Once used to the area you will wander into the center more often. try to stay around easily recognizable landmarks (patterns of stones, grass, water) so that should you die and get stripped you will know roughly where to find your dp.

Gaining experience points up to level 18 is a tedious process. Allthought the icefloes still provide a valid amount of experience points, the King Mino dungeons become available at this point. You will find a set of stairs in a grassfield surrounded by a cave wall, far E from the frore E gate. Go down to enter KM-1. The crits are not as easy, but provide a lot more, a lot faster. High level protstun and some training in how to handle strong zoos is required. There is no special trick to this area. Just survive and kill.

Once you have made experience level 18 you may, experiencewise, consider yourself 'Intermediate'.

SKILL:

Put your best blocking gear on and all the combat adds you can find. (ie scales, robes, combat rings, boots, bracers, necklaces, the whole 9 yards).
Go out the W gate in frore and cross the water all the way to the west until you see a wall. you will see 2 little islands along the coast. Stand W from the most Southern one and open the wall to the W (use a grenade from n-5, a door or illusion spell).
go into the room and start fighting the minotour. This crit has a lot of hitpoints and may take an hour or two to kill. You may want to twig out to pay the trainer inbetween. This will quickly take you up to skill 12. Once that skill has been reached the minotour will still give good skillgains up to skill level 14. Since the regen is slow (3 hours) the frore floes will provide some good skill (and exp) in the mean time.
From skill 13 until skill 15 the alerian Ghoul Lord is the crit to beat, in combination with the frore minotour. Ghoul Lord regen is 1:15 hours and gives great skill.
Wear combat gear and poison prot if you have any.
Go to aleria and out the W gate. Find the set of stairs in the grass and go down. Head E then NW until you come upon a northbound hallway with doors on either side. The second door on the E has a secret wall in the back of the room. The hallway behind it to the N has a wall that can be opened to get to the Ghoul Lord lair. The crits around him are best dealt with first, since the deathrats can stun with their bites, and ghouls poison.

Upon reaching skill level 15 you may, skillwise, consider yourself 'Intermediate'.

COIN:

At this experience level coin is always short. The most available coin at exp lvl 13 is found in the 'denaba' or 'acid' caves.
Wear the best defense gear you have. Do NOT wear bracers! Once you get to the cave hurry to pick up a pair of pitch black bracers. They are acid prot bracers and you will need them. If you have an acid amulet wear that too. Lucky players in posession of Black dragon or Mama dragon scales need not worry. The scales have built-in acid prot.
Go to W frore up to the water's edge. Find the set of stairs on the coastline and go up ready to open 2 walls. open the walls to the W next to the hole. walk to the wall past the hole. Open that wall and run down two sets of stairs. You are now in the acid cave. Skeletons hit reasonably hard (40-100), clearthing jumpkick for up to 150. The denaba (purple snakes) are non hostile, and once a player enters the cave they will start fighting the other crits. Therefore you don't have to fight anything, just loot from the denaba's kills. 100.000-200.000coins per trip is average, depending on how long the denaba have been killing.

Maeling dungeons also provide good coin. Enmiss prot, fireprot and (on m-2)lightning prot are needed there.
Go E out of maeling and along the S side of the cave wall until you see a stone building. In it are the stairs down to the maeling dungeons. The crits are not too hard to kill.

barbarians with 400 or more hitpoints can start attempting to loot the smaller lairs, although I do not advise doing it on your own.

GEAR:

At this point you will be able to join a party on a Red Dragon, maybe even a Black dragon hunt (depending on hits). You will also manage to hunt the caves W of maeling for yellow robes, hithelms, bracers etc if you don't already have them.
Frore icefloes are also possible for large yeti and kitty, as are griffons for Bruce armor.

ZOE'S HINTS FOR INTERMEDIATE LEVEL CHARACTERS

So, you made it to 18/15 did you? Congrats!... If not 18/15 and just browsing out of interest, don't get your hopes up too high. It can takes years to get to the end of this chapter. That's the fun part of Drak, you're not done even when you think you're finished.

EXPERIENCE:

I could tell you to grunt nork dungeons n-7 and n-8, live in km-5, wipe out aleria 6 times a day, but i'm afraid the time has come to move to Cobrahn. Barbs may prefer km-5 until about 20/17 as may courageous paladins, but on the whole Cobrahn yields more faster.
Subscribe to Cobrahn and have a friend meet you at the entrance, for alone, uninformed, you will surely die. Don't wear any gear, unless you are a psiuser and have an uzi. Have your friend grab you a bd and some boots, sash and shield while you go to the store to buy 2 3/3 rings. Then go peek around the first corner of the timmy caves, and try to single out one or two crits for you to kill. Thus starts your first cob experience. You will gradually advance into the caves and find more gear like yellow robes, gaunts, helms, stat items... Once dressed go to tree town and do the first hitquest. Then on to desert town, hopefully, to do the second hitquest. Each quest gives an additional 100 hits that disappear when you leave cob and return upon reentry.
If you don't have any friends to help you, well, good luck. Steve will be enthralled. Still, wear your best combat gear to cob then, nevermind psi prots, and try to ruff it while you search for gear.

You will find each crit worth a nice amount of exp, and plenty around to kill at most times. The above mentioned timmy caves will be your home in cobrahn until the average 20/17. If you happen to come across a red and a gd scales from an overgenerous friend you'll be able to expand to the SW caves, possibly the forest floor.
You should now be in the vicinity of exp 25, considered by me to be 'advanced'.

SKILL:

Until skill 16 the timmy caves will be your best skill area since the others are too deadly. Once at skill 16 I assume you will have learnt enough about cob to have some friends and knowledge that will get you the gear needed to survive the second easiest areas in cob (SW caves, forest floor, timmy -1, Boris caves).
Up to skill 17-18 I suggest skilling on the small yeti's E NE from tree climb down. The ninja's in the desert give great skill too, even up to skill 18. After skill 18 the amount of skill points required to get to the next lvl remains the same until skill 23, so technically these areas will last you till skill 23. Practically though, the increase in skill (and exp) will allow you to venture into the psi tower, swamp, jungle and even attempt the keep entrance/doomtown on occasion, but that's up to you. Psi users will find the lack of skill appaling and will probably concentrate on finding psiscrolls instead.
At this rate you will have arrived at skill 23, and considered by me to be 'advanced'.

COIN:

Once in cob, grab all gems you can carry, pop the rest on the hexes and bank the megs. When you're able to comfortly hunt the swamp (21/19 in my opinion), forget about the gems and gather eggs instead.
NO more needs to be said about coin from here on.

GEAR:

Cobrahn = gear. Let me elaborate.
The violant nature of cob forces you to rely on the protection from your gear as well as the bonusses that can be obtained. Not all gear can be, nor should be, handed out to all sizes of players. Just like nork and aleria, you have to earn your keep, which for some gear is simply impossible below a certain size. If a crit can't be hit below skill 18, there simply isn't much a player at skill 17.99% can do. Also the need for special gear doesn't come until you become able to hunt a specific type of area. Timmy+0 caves have no psi attacks, so don't beg for reds or ningi helms as long as you can't cross the forest floor. Don't ask for Lori gear when you can't hunt the jungle/swamp areas, especially if you are not a psi user. Some fighter classes can benefit severely from wearing Lori robes, but there are alternatives that allow fighter types to function perfectly while psi users are geared with Lori gear first. Vice versa for ningi gear.
There is a lot to learn about gear in cob, too much to begin typing here. As you grow you will learn, which is the way it should be.

ZOE'S HINTS FOR ADVANCED LEVEL CHARACTERS

25/23 already? Damn! You're good.
From here on you will basically be on your own. Your size allows you to go most anywhere and do most anything, whether alone or in party. If, however, you would like to talk to people about something, anything, or have questions, I suggest you ask the following :
- Your friends in the game. The best sources are mouth to mouth.
- The ZOE guild members, what they don't know they'll find out.
- The FURY guild members still playing.
- The BORED guild members still playing.
- The RAGE guild members still playing.
- The SV guild and ASH guild members still playing.

All of the above have multiple well sized crits and overflow with gameinfo about any class. If you know no one from the guilds on this list, chances are you're not on the right page for your size, not in tune with the game's social aspects, or have been such a bad boy/girl that you are rightfully ignored.
There are a great many others who provide correct, useful information. The reason why i only mentioned the above is because they are the ones known to me to be the size and have the experience to help players ranging in the 'advanced' class.
Cool, I made in onto that list ;)

EXPERIENCE:

The swamp, dragons and giants give good exp, but the giant keep is your best bet now.
SKILL:

What can i say... giant keep/doomtown.

COIN:

see 'intermediate'.
It is now also possible to accumulate coin by performing favors for payment. Allthough frowned upon frequently it is still an option for those able to solo lairs, do enchants or imbues, or work together as a guild to increase funds for guild purposes.

GEAR:

Any gear not yet acquired will most likely have to be obtained in a party.