Demise: Rise of the Ku'tan - Demise Advice for the new Player

Blue Knight
Demise Advice for the new Player

1. RTFM: Read the manual/on-line help lesson. This also contains a list of the shortcut keys. There are no cheat keys or ‘trainers’ for this game, so read about the game and learn from your experiences. Demise On-Line Information System

2. Read Lok’s Demise Strategy guide: Very important character creation and development information. Demise World (Dot Com's site)

3. Read the help topics on Shadow Beast’s site, but avoid the spoilers!
Shadow Beast's site

4. Keep up with the Demise forum(s) and don’t be afraid to ask questions. Especially read any post in the Demise Knowledge Archives (except the spoilers!). Demise Knowledge Archives We are trying to make a collection of the best of the old posts and shared information using ‘Archive:’ posts in that forum. The Demise community has a strong distaste for cheaters and hackers so don’t ask about that stuff on the forums. Demise Forums

5. Keep up with the latest Demise news from Artifact-Entertainment: and get to know their whole Demise site. Demise News

6. Make sure you have the latest patch(es) applied. Demise Patches

7. Play a bit to get used to the game and interfaces. Try a Giant Warrior/Explorer to start, you may want to keep him for later use!

8. Plan your character(s)! Decide what you want (Single Player, Multi-Player; solo, 2-4 char party, races, guilds, etc) to start with and your initial leveling plan. Stay flexible! Remember that there are NO mistakes and no ‘right’ way to do things! Just do what makes the game most enjoyable for you. Don’t be afraid to re-start or create new characters. Read the guides listed above carefully. They contain a lot of good character creation advice. A good balance is necessary whether you are running solo or a multi character party. Fighting, blasting (attack spells), healing, perception, movement, thieving and charming are all necessary abilities. Some of these can be substituted by the use of magical items (scrolls, rings, rods, etc) and some can’t. Some guilds combine two or more of these skills, but at a reduced effectiveness/increased cost compared to the specialist guilds.

9. Don’t Rush!!! There are many games to play within this game (leveling, mapping, quests, treasure hunting, zoo populating, etc) so enjoy all that are fun for you. Many of us have been playing this game for years!

10. Dungeon level 1: Use your hands (don’t equip a weapon), because 2 swings with your hands is better that 1 swing with a bronze weapon. If your hit points (HP) drops below 50% get back to town fast! You will automatically heal when you re-enter the dungeon (at a cost of days/weeks of your life force, but don’t worry about that – you’ll find plenty of Potions of Youth and Blood of the Ages that will make you younger later). Dying is much more costly that healing. When you collect enough gold you can use the healing fountain in town, but it costs too much at your early levels.

11. Dying: Dying is a part of this game. It will cost you some age, but as long as you learn and stop dying too often you’ll be fine.

12. Backup and Restore: Very important! This game is not like a lot of the 1st person shooters or other RPGs. You don’t save just before an encounter and then restore if you get wiped out. When you do a backup or a restore the game exits and you must restart the game. Few of us are patient enough to recover from a bad experience that way. You pay for your mistakes in this game, learn from them and move on. Nothing is final except a crash that wipes out your game files. To avoid the only ‘final’ mistake - make sure you use reasonable backup methods. Turn on the Auto-Backup feature. It will create a backup of the key data files in the autobackup folder each time to start Demise. Do a manual backup often, like when you’ve had a good run of leveling or mapping and you’re ready to stop playing for a while - so backup when you exit. The manual Backup command will copy the data files to the backup folder. Copy the backup files to another disk or Zip them onto a set of floppies. You never know when your disk or OS will crash and you DON’T want to lose all that time you spent developing your characters. You can always find another of those neat
13. Leveling Up: When your character is ready to level to the next Guild level you go to the Guild Hall. It is important to know that when you level up you are fully healed and all your Mana is restored. You will need a certain amount of gold and experience to level up. You will know that you are ready to level when the experience required is displayed as TP#### - the TP means ‘To Pin’. Pinning means that you have gained enough experience (minus 1 exp point) to level up two levels and any additional experience you gain will be ‘wasted’. A common strategy is to take your character into the dungeon, gain enough experience to pin them, return to town and level up, return to the dungeon and go to the nearest room to gain the 1 exp point that you need, return to town and level up again. Watch those hit points though! An easy way to see what you need to level is to hit the Enter key and then ‘/g’ followed by Enter. This will display the Gold and experience needed as well as if you have a quest that needs to be satisfied.

14. Stacking/Combining Items: On the first few levels, try to conserve your healing items (crystals & potions) as much as possible. You can combine many items in the store (stacking!) so make some large stacks and put them in the bank.

15. Selling Items to the Store: Identify all items fully in the store (except unaligned items you recognize and cursed items), then sell them. Don’t use a tome or a stat-raising potion unless you know its alignment! If you use a stat raiser that is not of your alignment, you could lose a stat point! Most items including weapons and armor have an alignment. If you equip an item not of your alignment bad things can happen! Identify cursed items to the ‘mostly identified’ state, then sell it - that will get you the most money for the item. If you identify a cursed item fully it will be worth nothing.

16. Bounty Board: If you are playing single party mode, check the bounty board each trip back to town. Make sure you always have a few inventory slots and companion slots available for each of your characters in your party before going to the Bounty Board - if you earn a bounty but don’t have a slot for the reward you lose the bounty! If your slots are full a quick trip to the store and companion store before going to the bounty board is due. Delete any bounties that are beyond your abilities or dungeon levels - they will quickly be replaced.

17. Companion Store: This is your Zoo and 1st source for quest monsters. Occasionally a monster will ask to join you - always say yes, and if you get it back to town sell it to confinement. (There’s no real benefit to pay for the full ID - you don’t recover the ID gold like you do in the store). If you ever need that monster for a quest or bounty, you’ll be ready; plus you’ll be able to later view the monster’s stats so you can be better prepared for future fights with more of his kind.

18. Character Stats: Raise your character’s natural stats as quickly as possible to their max value (the value in the character screen will go to bold when their natural stats are maxed out - you can raise them higher by equipping items that have temporary stat boosts. Constitution is very important to max out your HP growth as you level. Dexterity is very important because it will give you a better chance of first strike against the monsters and better chance to open trapped chests without tripping the trap. Some people run a ‘Tome/Potion Fetcher’ character to collect stat-raising tomes and potions to max out the stats of their other characters before they enter the dungeon. (Good use for that Giant Warrior/Explorer!)

19. Inventory slots: I move all the items I equip or carry as part of my adventuring inventory to the end of my inventory slots (starting at slot 40). This way the first 20 slots stay free to pick up new items with and it’s easier to manage them in the dungeon and in the store. I also try to keep my inventory slots synchronized between my party members so I know where to find things (like I equip my weapons in slot 40, my amulets in slot 25, etc).

20. Buffers: Read the help lesson about how to use the buffers. You have 10 of them for spells or items and can use those spells or items with a simple Shift-# key sequence. Use the first 1-5 buffers for your attack spells, because they are the easiest to hit fast with one hand. Use the middle/late buffers for the spells you use when at peace (like I set buffer 9 to magical entry because it is right above the letter ‘o’ which is used to open a chest - so a quick 2 key sequence (shift-9 & o) opens a magically sealed chest).

21. Dungeon Level 2: Don’t go to dungeon level 2 until you get to guild level 10 in your first guild. Qualify for the Dagger of Stealth (1st 2 swing weapon) as soon as you can!

22. Dungeon Level 3: You can start checking out dungeon level 3 when you get to guild level 15-20 and have the Dagger of Stealth. Make sure you have an Amulet of Ultravision equipped or you won’t be able to see the ‘invisible’ monsters and they’ll take you out pretty easily. Level 3 contains the entrances to the first ‘water zone’ that you will encounter. Walk carefully on the beach and make sure you know where the stairs are! (Amphibious Breathing and/or Magical Flight are necessary to survive in the water zones).

23. How deep should I go? The general guide to what dungeon level you are prepared to run is divide your highest guild level by 10. For those people who are impatient and want to get down faster than they are really ready, the guide to use is the ‘ass kicking’ guide – if you go to a deeper level and you’re getting your ass kicked pretty bad (and dying a lot) then you’re running too deep. Go back up and level your character some more before returning.

24. Upgrade your weapons, armor and items as soon as possible. There is a suggested weapon guide post on Shadow Beast’s site (and the Knowledge Archives) that may help a lot. The common practice is to use the leather armors rather than the plate or chain. The negative Dex cost of the chain and plate usually outweighs the A/D benefits. A good site to find out information about items and monsters is a French site (English version) by The.Killer and The Sensei http://demise.free.fr/principal_a/index.html or Shadow Beast’s site.

25. Banking Characters: You will NEVER have enough bank slots to hold the items you want to save for later use and you want to keep as many of your inventory slots free to carry more treasure out of the dungeon. You can create extra characters just to sit in town and ‘hold’ items for you. For example I created a character called ‘Curses’ and banked one each of the cursed items I found in case I needed it for a quest or a bounty. I created another character called ‘Crystals’ and banked stacks of healing crystals and ‘Greenies’ (stacks of 4) for later use. I bank stat boosters, scrolls and weapons/items that I know my characters will need during their journeys but don’t qualify for yet. (Actually, I bank some of almost everything and also keep my store full. This is in case there is a store wipe required in the next patch).

26. Quests: There are three sources of quests you will receive. 1) Lord Gherrick’s quests which create a story line to follow and the chance for some nice rewards as you play (these are optional and you must visit Lord Gherrick in town to receive and fulfill these quests). 2) Required Guild quests must be fulfilled in order to progress to certain levels in the guild up to level 101. You will always get a reward when you satisfy these quests. These quests are assigned by the Guild Master in the Guild Hall when you reach certain levels in the Guild that you are in. 3) Random Guild quests are assigned by the Questmaster in the Guild Hall at random levels of you guild, but not at the levels that contain a required quest. You will not get a reward for satisfying a random quest. You must either satisfy these quests to continue to level that guild or forfeit the quest. You can forfeit a random quest only when you are pinned in that guild with a penalty of the loss of 2 levels in that guild and all the experience gained for those 2 levels (Ouch!). It’s a good idea to check out Shadow Beast’s site to see the next few Guild quests that your characters are approaching so you can try to bank the required item or monster well in advance (especially the Cutthroat quest!!!) of needing it. There are two types of quests: Kill (kill a certain type of monster) or Return (return with a certain item or monster). Some of the items you must return with are unique items (only one!) and they are located at a fixed location - you just have to figure out where! My advice is don’t ask for or look for spoilers, they will ‘spoil’ the excitement and feeling of accomplishment for you. If you get really frustrated, ask for a hint on the Demise Forum, but specify that you don’t want the answer! Note that some people have spent weeks trying to satisfy some of these quests, so if one is taking a lot of your time you’re in good company. It sometimes is a good idea to switch to another guild and level that one up while you are looking for the quest item. If you get a Kill quest and you have that monster in your confinement store, you can buy that monster and return to the dungeon to kill it. Note that you can NOT attack a monster in the dungeon entrance area. So go to the nearest room where you normally find monsters and then right click on your companion and select the attack option. At the time of this writing, your character must be in the first character slot to be able to attack their companion. Also, if you are running a party, it doesn’t matter which of the characters kills the quested monster, you will still get credit for the kill.

27. The Seer: The Seer, in town, can provide resistance spells for some Gold. Beginning on level 4 these resistances are very necessary and worth the gold that they cost. The Seer can also ‘find’ monsters and items for you, but that costs a lot and many feel that the Seer is not reliable. Others swear that the Seer can ‘generate’ a monster if you ask enough time (lots of gold!). Until I got my Sorcerer up to the Seer’s level for the Resist spells I just used the Seer for the resistances and Amphibious Breathing.

28. Teleporters: You will run into teleporters in various locations in the dungeon. Teleporters come in two flavors: Fixed and Random. Fixed teleporters will transport your entire party to a fixed location either on the same level or on a different level. Some Fixed teleporters are VERY nice to help you move quickly around the dungeon. Random teleporters are the most common and will transport your party to different, random locations on the same level. This means that your party will be split up and may end up in areas that you haven’t mapped yet - so you are ‘lost’. Getting your party back together can be quite a challenge, especially if you are running a party of ‘speciallists’ instead of ‘mushpots’. Of course if you are running a solo character you don’t have the ‘re-joining’ challenges. If you are teleported to a location over a water area or a drop off area (no floor) you will fall to the level below. Be prepared!

29. Mystic Portal: Every new player asks about the Mystic Portal spells. There are two. Establish Mystic Portal and Open Mystic Portal. Make sure all your characters cast the ‘Establish Mystic Portal’ at the steps where you enter the Dungeon. This will be the ‘target’ for the Open Mystic Portal spell. Your characters won’t get access to the Open Mystic Portal spell for a long while, however, Crystals of Mysticism (Greenies) provide an early access to the Open Mystic Portal spell by ‘using’ the crystal. Of course there is a cost to this - you age a month for every use of a Greenie. All characters should carry a Greenie or two for emergencies. Other than emergencies, you won’t need to use Greenies to get back to town until you get below level 6. Up to then, effective use of fixed teleporters make the walk back to town fairly easy.

30. Dungeon Level 4: You will need Acid and Poison resistance starting now. Lots of monster groups to gain experience. You should also start finding Crystals of Mysticism (Greenies) at this level. Each of your characters should carry a couple. Then when you use a Greenie to cast Open Mystic Portal you will be teleported to the spot where you cast the Establish Mystic Portal spell (get to town very fast!).

31. Dungeon Level 5: You will need Stone and Magic resistance starting at this level. You will also need to use steel weapons. You may start finding Potions of Youth at this level.

32. Dungeon Level 13: You will need draining resistance starting at this level.

33. Dungeon Level 15: You will need Mind/Mental resistance starting at this level.