Advice for new players - from experience

I wanted to post this soon, whilst it is fresh in my memory. This post will document how I played the early game. That does not mean this is the perfect guide nor is it a document to follow to the letter. More it is some advice that can be taken and adapted to each new player's play style. I'll post this now but expect edits as I improve or correct it.

Any advice from other players is welcomed and may be included (and credited).


Section 1: Starting up

Download the client program from the goonzu website and register on that site too. If you have trouble registering then the chances are because that site really wants you to use Internet Explorer, so don't give up try IE.

The game takes a long while to download, I reccomend using a program called DLExpert, it reduced my download time a lot!

Whilst the game is downloading start reading around the web for any advice you can find to help you get started (like this topic). Perhaps some of the information will make no sense right now but there should be some things that you want to research before you go headlong into the game.

Here are some sites that I can reccomend:
globalgoonzu.notlong.com (Read in Vlad's help corner section of forums.)
Official goonzu free boards (Perhaps info here is hard to find but sometimes it is good.)
Goonzu strategy wiki (Some real good information that will hopefully expand.)
A player made database. (Perhaps more use later on.)
Unclouded's Goonzu Guides (A nice collection of guides, sadly no longer updated.)

I reccomend certainly researching weapon choice. Perhaps you already know in your mind what weapon you like to use but it may not be the most effective. From what I read Axe is the best close combat weapon, Gun is best for range, Cane is very powerful but expensive and Spear is good for player killing due to its skills.

The next thing I reccomend getting prepared on are stats. I am no expert here but there can be some general advice found on the web. In brief the end goal you are aiming for is enough strength (unmodified) should be high enough to wear later armour, 120 is reccomended value. Then you need enough agi so you dont miss and enough vit so you don't die. Simple, but perhaps not =s There are lots of guides around to help with this and I think the most common error (like my own) is to add too much strength early on.

Also do not add any wisdom unless you will be a cane user.

As a final note on stats understand that vit is a very strong stat. I say this because it adds 4 hp for every point and 10% of your hp is added to other stats. Strength is a weak stat because you need 5 str for just 2 attack.

Oh gosh well I hope you aren't bored by all that reading now and still want to play but hopefully it gave you something to do whilst waiting on that download.


Section 2: Playing the game up to level 10

Once everything is downloaded and installed it is the joyous time of beginning goonzu.

The first thing I noticed when starting is that I began in a very busy area and my screen was flooded with windows. Do not worry if you close any window there is always a way to get it back.

One of these windows that is open is very important. It is the mentor window. A mentor is a fairly experienced player who will give you advice on the game as your progress up to L50, you may become friendly with your mentor and perhaps the advice will exceed L50. Not only this but both you and your mentor will recieve items as you level up.

I reccomend getting a mentor as soon as possible. Do not be shy, these people have chosen to be a mentor because they want to help new people like you! Do not be afraid to ask your mentor anything(game related) as they should always be happy to give advice. If you think your mentor is not giving you advice like you need then change mentor. Mentor is very important to early success, a good mentor will speed the early game up no end.

Now is the time to get on with the game and have some fun!

You will notice that someone called Sarah is talking to you, read what she has to say carefully as she will explain some fundamental parts of the game to you. She will also assign you tasks to complete, these are called quests. Completing quests is an excellent way to progress especially in the early game.

Before you reach L10 the game is very nice to you, you will not have to lose money or exp when you die and when you reach level 10 you may reset your skills and stats. This means that this is an excellent time to experiment with stats and skills different weapons etc.

This should also be an excellent time to explore the user interface and get familiar with it. In particular i would like to point out the info button. Here you can get information on all monsters and items. Essential for planning. Rather than explain that here you should go and look at it for yourself.


Section 3: Early money efficiency

I believe during your time with Sarah you will be asked to open a bank account and start selling in the market. For now I will mention that you should open a bank account in a town close to Hanyang for now as this will be your base. Remember withdrawing money from the bank where you made your account is free anywhere else and you will have to pay a % fixed by the head of the bank in that town. Also it is reccomended that you make your bank account in a town that has a market with just 1% commision rate. Sarah should teach you about this but this advice here will help you maximise your money early on.

Now when selling things in the market there are 2 strategies that I employ. The first is to maximise profit. This is where you look for the bulk of items with lowest price and beat that price by just 100[M]. For example if you are selling oak and it shows on the listing the bottom three prices:

2500[M] 3 pieces
2600[M] 1 piece
3000[M] 100 pieces

Then set your price to 2900[M] as the 4 pieces cheaper than yours will sell quickly and you can maximise profit.

Now the second method is for maximising speed of sale. I reccomend this for when you are tight on space in your inventory. Simply beat the lowest price so in my previous example sell for 2400[M].

In the early game I also found it to be worthwhile checking all the prices for the things I could sell and selling the things that would make me the most money at that time.

Also if it looks like your item may take a long long time to sell then do not fear withdrawing the item from the market and posting it at a better price.

Typically you will struggle for space in your inventory and on the market as you can only sell 4 things at once. To overcome this create the two other characters on your account and post excess items to them and have them sell those. Also look for shops buying items around Hanyang and sell to those to remove items from your inventory quickly.

A final note on early money making is to take advantage of any event that might be happening and sell what you can from that. When I started it was giant raccoons and I would sell all the loot for good money, at the time of writing this it is valentines cards you could sell those and in the future who knows but there may be easy money in it.


Section 4: Equipment

As you progress you will need better armour and weapons. Up until you need moonlight armour I would not bother making any of the equipment simply buy it from the market. But be sensible about this, look at the stat gains you will get from buying new armour, ask yourself 'Is it worth the money' Also my advice is if you are not struggling to kill the monsters you need to then don't upgrade save your marble it is precious.

Now when it is time for Moonlight armour I suggest you make this as it may be expensive to buy, it will also get you in good practice for getting your later armours as collecting the materials and finding an artisan to make is the cheapest way to upgrade. The reason I say make moonlight rather than any other armour is because it is one of the ingredients for your next armour, Taebaek. Taebaek will be an ingredient for the next and so on until Flame armour, if you make another armour besides moonlight you will be on a chain to make a different end armour not as good as flame. You should look at the highest weapon of your choice also and see what weapon it needs to make and work down the chain until you find the one you need to make now. I hope that makes sense.

When collecting materials for your equipment remember that hunting grounds in towns will yield about 60% more drops than those in normal areas. Check the info window for what each town's hunting ground contains and use them if you can.

You should be taught in game how to use the artisan window and manufacture request. This is an entirely risk free process but always talk to the artisan first before you set up a request right next to them, perhaps their skill is not great enough to make the item now.

A finaly note on buying equipment from the market, always check the stats. Perhaps it is cheaper to buy a lower level item that is High Grade that will have better stats than the one for your level. This is great for low levels but remember High grade items have an expiry date, think will you need the item longer than the expiry date or will you upgrade before that.


Section 5: A few notes on speed

This is a small sections with just a few hints on speeding up the levelling process.

Teleport to Hanyang when you need to, don't worry about the cost it will save a lot of time if it saves you walking half way across the map.

Buy items from the market for item collection quests. This works most of the time and often in low level you will be given a reward worth more than the items you purchased. Do this if you have the money to and the item you need is not too expensive (eq Don't buy straw for quests go and hunt it, it costs too much!)

Stay busy. One of the best pieces of advice I got from anyone whilst playing MMO's is always rush. Ofcourse enjoy the game but the longer you spend standing around doing nothing the longer it will take to level up.

Plan ahead. If you have a plan then you can work more efficiently than if you play randomly.

Maximise efficiency on quests by doing quests that require you to hunt the same monster at the same time.


Section 6: Advice for if you wish to stay in Goonzu and want to take it a bit more seriously

The biggest piece of advice in this section is: Get a horse! A horse, even the basic brown horse, will add tremendously to your stats once it is fully levelled and will double your inventory space.

Unfortunately horses are expensive to buy, so really I reccomend spending a bit of your hard earned real life money on some GCoin and buying a small medal from the website. You can ride a horse from L15 so if you know you want to stay at this point buy one early!

Whilst talking about GCoin I also reccomend buying 2 forever bags, these last for a year in real time and for the cost they will repay you over and over the course of the year.

At level 25 you can use a summon or pet (pokemon anyone?). Start training one early as it will repay you in the later game. The reason for this is because as you add stats monsters will drop less items and you will gain less experience. So when it comes to hunting for materials for later equipment it could take a very long time indeed! However with a pet they will get the full drops and speed this process up a lot.

Apply for a guild, a guild can help you by giving advice, hunting together and possibly even sharing items. Also a guild will add to your stats depending on the level of the guild.

Apply for a town. Becoming a resident in a good town means that you will have a wealth of knowledge at your fingertips. So many times the best advice I have recieved is from townsfolk. Also towns will have events which are great for items and experience.

Above all get to know people and have fun. This game may become very dull if you try and play it alone, the people from towns and guilds will make it come to life.


This is all from me for now (as I have run out of steam and need some dinner), but I should update this topic when I think of more things to add or get suggestions. Any question or comment then please post here or contact me in game.

~Q

OMG Quantra remember me dont call u Noob anymore