When you first enter Serbule from the newbie island or Serbule Hills, there will be a “ghost NPC” that you will see that is apparently someone who was very close to you or knows you. While the plot for the game is still being worked on, this NPC does introduce you to the “Things to Do” tab (under the crown icon on the interface bar). It's a small and handy reference to a few basic tasks that can be completed early on if you need direction and what to watch out for to advance both the main quest and to take advantage of things in Serbule itself that are different from the island.

While on the island, you were probably killing skeletons and wolves, looting, and doing tasks that you would be familiar with as a new player in any MMO. It is when you get to Serbule that you realize what the real underlying purpose of this game is: to familiarize yourself with each new environment and the people of the area and to make friends with the ones that will help you. Instead of an experience grind you are going to be going through a favor grind and learning skills that specifically help you, mostly in that particular zone. You can think of it as a sort of “community pride experience”, except there is actually a Community attribute and a Civic Pride skill in the game and these are actually related to other things which I will get to later on in the Serbule Hills section.

Project: Gorgon is a 3D fantasy MMORPG (massively-multiplayer online role-playing game) that features an immersive experience that allows the player to forge their own path through exploration and discovery. We won't be guiding you through a world on rails, and as a result there are many hidden secrets awaiting discovery. Getting combat skills to 40 opens up Casino dailies if you like to group. Almost all the side skills are meaningful, it's not a waste of time to develop them. The process of doing so will get you combat levels, so on a personal level I never pursued leveling once I hit 40 or so. R/projectgorgon: Discuss the indie MMO 'Project: Gorgon', ask questions of the devs, share screenshots, etc. Press J to jump to the feed. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts.

In other MMOs, they simulate introducing a character to a new area by having scripted sequences or events that quickly guide you to an “on rails” solution to fabricated problems that sit in a quest log that you MUST do in order to move on to the next quest and the next quest and so on. The NPCs refer to you in the exact same way they do every other player that comes their way. They give you your first quest which sounds more epic or important than it really is. They ultimately tell you that you need to collect 10 Rat Tails to get experience for Necromancy or so that you can do the next quest to move to the next NPC or area.

Project Gorgon (PG) does some of these things and doesn't do others. It certainly doesn't hold your hand like other MMOs and – in many, many ways – expects you to go “off script”. Sure, there might be a Favor quest for those Rat Tails, but that NPC wants them specifically for an Alchemy recipe and after you collect them you don't suddenly and magically learn Necromancy. Instead, you collect the Rat Tails and get some money or a talisman made from what you collected for your troubles that might increase your Necromancy. But collecting the Rat Tails may have also unlocked an option to “Hang Out” with that same NPC (which will happen when you log out of the game, mind you) and try out some Rat Tail Alchemy recipes, which will both increase your favor as well as get you some Alchemy experience AND possibly teach you the NPC's old Rat Necromancy talisman recipe so you can create one yourself.

Many NPCs even talk to you differently if you are different. Some won't talk to you at all if you are an Animal, an obvious Necromancer, or a Werewolf. The gameplay for a Spider Necromancer is going to be completely different to the gameplay of a Pig Priest or a run-of-the-mill character like an Unarmed Mentalist. If you are a Rakasha, you might get frowned upon in some areas and be welcomed in others, if you are also a Werewolf Rakasha, you might be downright hated by some NPCs. Some Elves won't talk to player characters at all (regardless of race, animal, or otherwise) if they aren't clean: meaning you will need to find some water to rinse off in.

Later on in the game, you might run into an NPC who is an expert in Cheesemaking that needs a few specific Blacksmithing items in order to finish his research. An actual example of this is the Quarter Hoops quest for Braigon in Eltibule. He needs them to make Barrels which are used to make and age cheese. In PG, many things you will do chain off to the next ability, or area, or person, but not as an “on rails” questing experience for a traditional main storyline. While I used Rat Tails as an example above, they are actually quite worthless unless you are going to get into a skill called Shamanistic Infusion. This is part of the game as well, finding out what items are mostly trophy items like Rat Tails that you can sell for junk or give to Velkort for Favor (Remember 'More Info' is your friend).

More on Favor is below, but I still want to address just how off-script you can go.

In PG, you can effectively swear off the humanoid NPCs, save up 200 councils, go to the “Buy Used” tab on Marna or Mushroom Jack, buy a Pig potion, drink it and turn into a Pig, set your secondary skill to Unarmed, and then go run off killing whatever you come up against. You're going to have a bit of a hard time surviving as a Pig as a newbie, but it will be a drastically different experience compared to most newbies and is still feasibly just one route you may go. Some of the regular NPCs that a normal newbie will talk to will want to eat you instead of Training or Bartering with you, but you'll get to talk to other animal NPCs (especially in Animal Town in Sun Vale) that those same humanoid newbies wouldn't otherwise meet. Oh, and if you ask for help in chat, you'll find you “Squeal” and “Oink” instead of communicate effectively (and you will level your “Beast Speech” skill in the process).

Project Gorgon Builds

Please note here that playing as an animal intentionally isn't necessarily recommended, however, for your first character from the author of this guide. You will sometimes make choices that can drastically change the way you play this game and some of them are irreversible or nearly irreversible. It may be best to make these irreversible choices (namely, becoming a Werewolf or Druid) on a secondary character or to take seriously what the NPCs are saying about what will happen when you make these decisions. If you do make this decision on your first character, I would recommend making a second character immediately and getting them to Serbule to use as an “inventory mule” and do traditional Favor questing alongside your first character. Additionally, if you can make it to Sun Vale and Animal Town early on as an animal, that might also be a good idea to work on Favor questing there.