Project Gorgon Guide

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====== What Is This Guide? (Introduction) ======

=== What is Project Gorgon? ===
Project Gorgon is an old-school 3D fantasy MMORPG (massively-multiplayer online role-playing game) developed by a two-person team that features an immersive experience that allows the player to forge their own path through exploration and discovery. Project Gorgon features an ambitious skill based leveling system that is not class-based, thus allowing the player to combine skills in order to create a truly unique playing experience. The game features a massive array of over 100 skills with intricate synergies between them. 

=== Why I started this guide ===
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When I first started, I never imagined that this guide would eventually span over 30 pages of information and grow so big that I would decide to put it up on the web as a wiki instead. I originally wanted to have a short and simple Google document covering the NPC Favor system and have a few tips for new/demo players that I had met in game that were often level 10+ in combat, but still didn’t understand aspects of the game that I considered essential to know. I also had played the game with a friend that occasionally asked me questions about specific skills that weren't necessarily detailed on the official wiki, so I wanted to have it documented as best as I could.

I quickly learned the game was just too big -- and there were several features too important -- to contain everything that I wanted to cover in just ten pages. The guide has grown even more from there and could be double in size and still not cover everything the game has to offer.

If you do just want a top ten list of things to know, which was the original intent of this guide, skip to the section labeled [[topten|TL;DR: The Top Ten Most Important Things To Know]].

The intention for this guide -- now that it has grown -- is to be something any new or demo player can casually read before they even load up the game, possibly before they even install it. If you have some downtime, you can casually read this guide while at work, in the restroom, or whenever you aren't able to actually play the game. I desperately wished something like this existed when I first started playing, because I had downtime at work and I was constantly wanting something to read about Project Gorgon while I wasn't playing it.

This guide will definitely contain spoilers, however I will try not to really spoil anything too major that is story-related. I will still try to be as detailed about common early issues and questions that affect gameplay as much as possible.

To some players, there is a fine line between spoiling and giving pertinent input in this game. In many cases, I will be falling on the “too much information” side. This will absolutely rub some people the wrong way, but I am writing this guide for players like myself that want to know important gameplay-related details -- such as how important getting a shovel and leveling Compassion is as a newbie if you want to be a Priest later on. I would have preferred to have learned this early instead of learning a month after starting the game that something I wasn’t doing early on was actually a big deal.

It's very important to note, however, that a huge part of the appeal of games like PG **IS** exploring and learning things for yourself. There's a sense of achievement you get from both discovery and mastery that simply cannot be replicated if you are just looking at min-maxing based on a guide like the one I've written here. Don't research too far into certain things unless you are sorely stuck, and play as much of the game as you can without a guide, you'll enjoy it a lot better if you do!

All that said, this guide is not intended to be a replacement for the official wiki, but you will notice a decent amount of overlap. In some respects, this guide is very ambitious as I will walk you through almost everything that you would otherwise need to look up in the wiki early game. I will even be referencing the wiki from within the guide frequently or giving you the exact names of things that you can look up yourself in the official wiki if you need to.

It is also intended to be a reference as you play or something you can come back to and read again when you forget what you were doing or are wanting to know if you should be going into that new dungeon you found. I’m going to try to be as comprehensive as I can on some early things because everything here is primarily going to cover what I wished I knew when I first started the game. If you get to a point in the game where you think, “Didn’t the guide talk about this?” and come back to it, I’ll take that as having done my job well.

The narrowing focus of this guide is going to be on demo-accessible skills, areas, quests, and mobs (mobile enemies), however I will reference directly some later skills or areas that will only become available to you in the paid product. I’ll also have a few bits about Kur Mountains, Ilmari Desert, and other mid-to-late-game things that are really good to know prior to venturing to the areas. No, these are not all demo-accessible things, but they are important quality-of-life aspects that may need covered in a guide in some form and I want to provide them here so you don’t have to look elsewhere. Project Gorgon is actually an extremely deep game with lots of skill crossovers, so it is important to know what is coming and when, so that you know how to progress early on and what to progress towards.

Throughout this guide, I will often mention a skill and what it is used for and move on without getting into minute details about it, as that is what playing the game is for, these skills are still evolving, and covering every aspect of a skill would be time-consuming. Additionally, it would be very ambitious to write a guide that attempted to cover absolutely everything you will do in Eltibule, Kur, Ilmari, Gazluk, Rahu, Sun Vale, Povus, the Fae Realm, the Casino and its dailies and other dungeons, and it would take a ridiculous amount of time to cover them all like I am doing here for the intro and the two biggest demo-accessible zones. I’m already doing what some players would call "too much" as a bit of the discovery magic and learning process is being whittled down to a single guide.

In the process of explaining the game, I’m hoping to hit on some of the main selling points of it since it is such a different fantasy roleplaying experience compared to similar games of this style. I think a lot of players that otherwise do not like RPGs, or even massively multiplayer online (MMO) games in general, might like Project Gorgon for its ambition and quirkiness.

=== How Project Gorgon is Different ===
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To give you a glimpse of just how different the game can be, let’s imagine two similar scenarios where you are talking about a high level character. In some MMORPG games you will see a character that looks high level, decked out in awesome looking gear, and you will think “Man, that guy must have spent months grinding dailies and hours farming skeletons!” or something similar. In Project Gorgon, you may see someone link to their high level gear and food in chat and you’ll think, “Man, that guy maxed out his Pig skill and is probably Soulmates with the Suspicious Cow in Eltibule and the Mantises at the Casino!”

In that sense, Project Gorgon (sometimes referred to in this guide as PG) is not your traditional game. While combat is a huge part of the game, so too are what I (and others in-game) like to call “Inventory Management” and "Favor Grinding". Unlike other MMORPGs, you will need to make decisions about what is worth holding onto and what is not and this will change depending on what type of character you play, and what your combat and crafting skills are that you are currently focusing on. You will also have to manage your Favor with the locals who are willing to give you limited space to store certain items. Crazier still, most NPCs in PG have multiple purposes other than just one fetch quest, too. There are more NPCs in Project Gorgon that you will be using even 4000 hours into the game than in any other MMO you've ever played.

This is an interesting twist on games of this type and gives a real regional awareness to the game. You will feel more at home with the NPCs in a zone that like you compared to an environment where they do not. Some environments (deserts, mountains) themselves aren’t just hostile due to the NPCs either. The elements are what make them hostile and unique compared to any other MMO.

These differences in environment, NPCs, and Favor were the primary reason why I started this guide. As a new player, I didn’t know which NPCs I should gain Favor with first. This guide intends to answer those sorts of questions, something the wiki does not directly do. While the wiki is a good **reference**, this guide will try to be a good **story** for how to build and improve on your character and expand into new areas.

Similar to the game itself, this will not be a traditional guide either. While I’ve tried to make parts of this guide flow chronologically, it’s hard to organize all the most important information when there are so many important items to talk about that I wish I knew when I first started. This guide is written with the idea that any new or inspiring player can read it start-to-finish and at least be at an advantage over a player who has not read it.

-- UnhandledException (often shortened to just "UE")

If you are ready to learn about the demo, proceed to [[overview|General Overview]]. If you already have the game or demo and just want to start with the tutorial island you can head to [[anagogeisland|Anagoge]]. If you have passed the tutorial island, you can head straight to the [[serbule|Serbule]] section, which pretty much covers everything a new player should know.