So you’re thinking of jumping on the proverbial band wagon and joining the ranks of Hercules and Xena: Alliance of Heroes, eh?  Very good!  There’s lots of interest in the TV shows bearing those names, and why not?  They are great entertainment and have super story lines.  Being a hero is a lot of fun and can be very fufilling, but the hero business isn’t all rewards and accolades, just look at Herc and Xena and the trouble they get into.  It takes some forward thinking and a lot of hard, dedicated work to pull it off.  It’s the same idea in the game, too.  Anyone can throw a hero together, but will it stand the test of time, and will it keep your interest?  This guide will hopefully point you in the right direction, but it’s up to you to see that your hero doesn’t fall short of YOUR expectations.

   First, let’s go over exactly what this game is.  Chances are you’re a fan of one or both of the shows, but don’t know a great deal about this online game. HX: AOH is a text-based game created by Simutronics, the leader in text-based online roleplaying games.  Text-based means just that: Text.  There are no graphics, no sound effects; nothing but words.  For those of you familiar with the game ZORK, you know what I mean. That might sound boring to some of you, but you’d be surprised how colorful and how vibrant MY vision of Greece is to ME!   Don’t sell your imagination short, it can out-create every graphics artist ever born!  “Online” in this context means “online and in real-time”, meaning that it isn’t a game with “turns” like chess; if you’re not careful you can end up dead, so you have to pay constant attention.  We’ll get into the “role-playing” part in a bit, but suffice it to say that if you want to “be”a hero you need to “act” like one.
 

   I’m going to assume that you know how to find the game’s website, if you don’t just follow the link that’s on this site’s home page.  You’ll need to sign up to get started.  You have 30 days to decide if you like the game before you’re billed for it, so try and use that time to your best advantage and experiment right away.  When all the red tape is out of the way, you’ll finally get to enter into the game itself.  Now the work begins...
 

   Let’s pretend that someone named Joe Newbie is about to roll up a charactar for the first time ( and no, I’m not saying that the vast majority of heroes are male; matter of fact I’d venture to guess that there are actually more female heroes than male heroes right now! ). He’s a big fan of the shows, and a friend told him about this great game on the internet.  Being a fan of roleplaying games in the past, he figures it might be fun to try it out.  He signs up and enters the game.
 

   To enter the game, he is given a choice of two different front-ends to use to play.

                     Front-end?  What in Hades is a front-end?

A front end is a program, somewhat similar to a web browser, that allows you to play the game.  The two choices are a java-based front end, which is the default choice, and something called the wizard front end, which requires a download to use.   Now I personally have used both, but far and away the best front end to use is the wizard; I strongly urge you to download it and use it for a variety of reasons.  Biggest reason is the helpful utilities it contains to help you play the game to your maximum potential.  It’s also much more asthetically pleasing.
 

   So Joe takes the extra time and downloads the wizard front end.  He finds it very user friendly and feels at home with the controls.  Good.  Now to the game.  As he enters, he meets none other than Prometheus himself!  Prometheus asks Joe a few questions to flesh out his hero personna.  How Joe answers these questions will be the entire basis for Joe’s  hero, so they are VERY important.  VERY.  They seem like easy questions, some are.  But your choices here will effect your hero for it’s entire exsistence, which could be real life years!  Did I mention how important these questions are?
 

   The first question Joe is asked is whether his hero is a male or a female.  He figures it might be less confusing to stick with his own gender the first time out and picks male.
 

   Then he is asked for a name for his hero.  Now since this is a game about the TV shows, he figures he’ll name himself after a charactar on the shows, Autolycus.  He submits it and is summarily rejected.  You have to remember that most if not all of the names that have appeared on the shows have been taken out of contention even before the game had opened up to the public.  You never know when some charactar from the shows could come sauntering in and stir up interest in something or other!  To keep the flavor of the period and to promote the roleplaying experience, other names have been either blocked out or, if one slips by, will be taken away from you, at the discretion of those who work for the game itself.  Remember if you are whisked away somewhere and asked to change your name, it’s not a personal attack on you.  I know I personally wouldn’t want to discuss the finer aspects of Greek literature with someone named Klingonboy, it would ruin the mood for everyone...please pick a suitable name.  So Joe picks the name Zed ( hey, when YOU write a guide you can use YOUR own name :P).
 

   Now Prometheus asks Joe what race Zed is to become...
 

   Before we go any further, we need to start getting into the meat of what makes your hero tick...his numbers.  Statistics if you will.  Some players don’t like to get all bogged down in the numbers; there are a lot of arguements supporting it, some of which are very valid. It takes away from the roleplaying aspect, it’s boring, it can be confusing, it doesn’t make a difference as long as you have fun, etc.  If you are one of these pure roleplaying types, pick a race that you will be comfortable playing in your personna.  If you intend to be a big dumb warrior type, try the giant race.  If you always wanted to swish your tail around and gallop and nicker and such, a centaurs seems to be your future. But if you really want to give yourself the most potential to advance and to be combat proficient, it pays to know the numbers and the consequences of your choices at this point in the game, all of the three minutes into it!
 

  Since the game is fairly new, and due to the fact that things have been in a constant state of flux since the game went live, the numbers and formulas and such are still being researched by players ( and no, Simu ain’t talkin! ).  So in that frame of mind, and to keep the pace of this guide flowing, I will refer you to any number of technical guides out there pertaining to race choices.
 

   Joe wants Zed to be the stealthy quick type, since he’s a fan of Autolycus, so he picks Zed to be a human.  It will fufill both his statistical needs as well as his roleplaying needs.
 

   The most important question comes up next; what profession will Zed be?  There are five professions in HX: warrior, rogue, alchemist, priest and storyteller.  All have their proficiencies, some of them have exclusive skills as well.  Briefly, a warrior is a master of combat arts, especially brawling, a rogue is excellent in acrobatic skills as well as with a lockpick, an alchemist makes potions that aid him and others in combat, a priest draws on divine magic to defend himself as well as to boost his offensive skills, and a storyteller is well-suited to perform stories, songs and plays.  Again for a deeper understanding of each profession I refer you to some excellent guides either on this website or on various others you can find on the Links page.  Zed was destined to be a rogue from the beginning, so that’s what Joe picks.
 

  The next few questions deal with personal features; how Zed will look.  Joe picks out Zed’s hair type, color, length, his eye color, things like that.  These choices don’t affect the “numbers”, so feel free to give your hero whatever features you like.
 

   The final question deals with what god Zed will follow.  Look at that list!  How will you ever pick?  Again, if you are a purist you will pick the god you feel most at home roleplaying; perhaps you want to play a narcissist...your roleplaying choice could likely be Aphrodite.  A hunchbacked warrior might follow Hephaestus.  Personal choice again.

   As far as statistics for the gods ( this gets complex ): Each god will either favor, disfavor or be neutral on every skill that you have.  You have 32 potential skills.  Some of them are exclusive to profession, though, and you won’t be able to train in those skills.  But there are a LOT or permutations involving race, profession and god choice!  Again I urge you to read a guide pertaining to what skills each god favors and disfavors.  Be careful when reading the docs that Simutronics provides about the gods; the gods are fickle and have changed their favors and disfavors very recently and the documents may not have been updated.  When reading a player’s website guide, be sure that it has been updated as well.
 

   Well Joe feels very strongly about following the patron god of thieves, Hermes.  He checks out a guide that has been updated since the reallocation and finds that Hermes will fit the bill reasonably well, and chooses him.
 

   Now Joe is given a final overview of Zed; everything from his race down to the type of hair.  Joe is given the option of keeping his choices or trashing it and starting from scratch.  He’s confident in his choices so he chooses to lock it in.  Prometheus gives Zed his blessings and punts him out of the surrealistic atmosphere into the wide world.
 

  Zed is now on his own, but how does he do anything?  How does he walk?  Talk?  Thankfully he is given the option of a tutorial!  There are three choices; in-depth, brief, and none.  If you are completely new to computer text games, take the extra time and go for the in-depth tutorial.  It will tell you everything you need to know about getting along in Greece in a very simplistic, straight-forward manner.  If you have played non-Simutronics text-based games before, and are fairly familiar with such things, go for the brief tutorial.  If you have played Simu games in the past, or are playing one now, skip the tutorial and go straight in.   If you’re like me and you “don’t need to have your hand held” even if you’re completly in the dark ( and won’t admit it, of course ), at least know this so someone can converse with you: to talk, you need to type either a ‘ or a “ before your words...so if you want to say “ Help! I ignored Zed’s guide!”, this is what you need to type:

                     ‘Help! I ignored Zed’s guide!

   Now at least my conscience is clear!

  When you do finally find your way out and into Athens, you still have lots of help to fall back on. Using the word HELP in front of a topic will hopefully give you some direction. ( ie. HELP WEAPONS ) If not, there are some wonderful folks out there called mentors that are willing to give of their time to help you.  All you need to do is ring the bell that you find in the Shaded Garden when you enter Athens, or ask for one at the popular gathering spots such as the Peiraic Gate in Western Athens.  If all else fails you can type ASSIST.  When you do that you will be asking to talk to the fine people who actually run the game: GameHosts and GameMasters, commonly known as Gms. If you are familiar with paper roleplaying games, a GM is equivalent to a DM.  They are pleasant folks, but busy ones, too.  They are responsible for all that you see in the game, they are the creators and the repairers. Unless there’s something very wrong that can’t wait, try not to ASSIST too often, as we want them to continue to make Greece a bigger and less buggy place to play for us all.
 

    Now that you have the basics of being a hero, the business of heroing is in your hands.  All we, the residents of Athens, ask is that you try and stay in charactar while in the public eye.  If you want to discuss the Super Bowl with a friend in the game, fine.  Just don’t discuss it in the middle of a crowd of others. And of course have fun...The game is what you make it, so make it a good one!
 

Look for other “So, you wanna....” guides in the near future!

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