General gameplay tips
Inventory and items basics
Save everything!
Nearly everything that drops off enemies and harvestables are either useful in crafting or will earn you favor. As a new player make sure to use the "Small Talk" option with every new NPC you discover to learn about their likes and dislikes. Experiment by giving them appropriate gifts. This will give you over time an idea of what's worth holding onto.
If you still are not sure or want to hold onto stacks of items to gift later, store it with Hulon and start buying additional vault slots. You will be happy to have those stacks of items many levels later when you realize what they are for.
Storage basics
Hulon in Serbule Keep is the vaultmaster. You can store items in the main "council storage", and you can also use the nearby chest which is meant to transfer items between your characters on the same account.
Empty bottles
To fill an empty bottle with water you can either activate a water well (eg. in Serbule) or similar object, but you can also simply stand in a body of water outdoors and right click an empty bottle.
You can also milk cows if you have an empty bottle (you can even milk player cows for better milk! *cough*).
Quests and favor
Get every NPC on your side!
Most NPCs in Project: Gorgon have services and special rewards when you gain enough favor with them. They also offer additional quests. So for the player who is used to have a guiding "main quest line", this is where you can find the brunch of your goals as you try to complete errands and earn favor from NPCs, which will send you to explore the world and the dungeons.
It is common that after completing a quest you'll find you still need to get a bit of favor to reach the next relationship level (for example you are 60% into "Comfortable" after doing an errand for the NPC, you still need 40% favor to move to "Friends" level). So if no more quests are available, check Small Talk and learn about their likes and dislikes and collect gifts for them.
Getting Comfortable or higher with most NPCs can earn you significant benefits, such as the ability to Shop, additional Storage (ie. permanent storage for your items), more quests, special recipes, etc.
Merchants
All NPC merchants share one common mechanic: the better your relationship with them (through Favor), the bigger their money pool and the more they will pay for your items (so eventually you can sell loot at full value).
The 'Buy Used' tab shows items sold by other players! If you can afford it, you can often buy items required by a quest rather than craft/hunt/harvest everything on your own.
Hanging out
Remember most NPCs give the option to "hang out" with them. Project: Gorgon also rewards you while you're offline, whether it is for 30 minutes or 8 hours! A good tip here is that you don't need to do that just before logging off. Chose the option at any time while you play, the last one you chose will always be active when you log out. You also don't have to worry about logging back in sooner. It won't cancel, it will just continue next time you log out.
Extra Tips for NPC Favor
Befriending the NPC Joeh, located in the central area of Serbule. He is one of the most helpful NPC's as he buys most gear you'll find within dungeons. Getting his Favor up is very easy, though a bit costly. One of his favorite and easiest things to acquire is Bacon, you can get this recipe from Fainor, located in the large Inn/Tavern style building. The fire near him is also where you can do a majority of cooking. The recipe only requires 2x Salt and 1x Pork Shoulder and gains +3 Favor per Bacon with Joeh.
Combat and experience
Looting corpses
Various looting options become available once you have the required tool in your inventory. Burying a corpse (to reduce the respawn time of the creature), skinning, butchering, and so on. Most of these items are available from the townsfolk of Serbule Keep.
See the following (mild) spoiler for a list of such items, or see the relevant skill pages.
- Autopsy Kit
- Allows figuring out "how someone or something died" with the pathology skill. A simple Autopsy Kit is first obtained in the tutorial cave. Examining corpses will also raise related Anatomy skills such as "Rodent Anatomy" and "Undead Anatomy". As these skills increase you will be able to see more details about the enemies before engaging them, such as what abilities they use, and what type of weaknesses they have.
- Butcher Knife
- Allows butchering of corpses for organs and meat. Can be bought from Fainor.
- Handsaw
- Allows harvesting wood. A Handsaw can be bought from Therese in Serbule.
- Shovel
- Gives the option of burying the corpses of deceased monsters, which makes replacement monsters appear more quickly.
- Simple Skinning Knife
- Allows removing fur or skin of an animal with the skinning skill.
Skills
First time's the charm
Most events in the game reward bonus XP the first time you complete them. This applies to using recipes in various Trade Skills, to eating all types of foods (Gourmand), slaying foes (both common and bosses), and even Binding yourself to a Teleportation Circle!
Seek objective
Make sure to pick up all harvestables like mushrooms even if they don't seem useful yet. Leveling Foraging will unlock Seek Objective at level 5 which is an ability that will orient your character to face in the direction where your currently active quest objective is! (think "tracking" in good ol' EverQuest).
Extras
Picking mushrooms does in fact NOT raise the Foraging skill, only the Mycology skill.
When exiting the Tutorial Cave you may notice a circle patch of low level mushrooms to the left of you, they respawn often and usually contain enough mushrooms to get a stack of 16-18.
If you desire to raise your Fishing skill the best place to start is the moat around Serbule. Start with Crabs until you reach the level required for Clown Fish, from there it is mostly collecting a mixture of Crab, Clown Fish and Grapefish. Perch and Eel are very rare to find and are not optimal for leveling.
The road from the Tutorial Cave to Serbule is where most Pigs spawn. They are easy to kill and always drop Pork Shoulder, Pork Shoulder is extremely important for raising Joeh's Favor fast.
