====== Frequently Asked Questions ======


==== Why should I play the Demo? ====
If nothing in this guide or that you've heard on the web is intriguing enough to consider playing the Demo, I'm not sure the game is for you. I think anyone who doesn't mind doing a bit of reading and playing an older school MMO is going to be extremely interested post-demo so it is a good use of your time to see if it is worthwhile. Especially because of how wide the game and skills open up after the tutorial island.

Even though the game opens up even wider after the starter island, the Demo which introduces you to that island is going to give you something you'll remember for sure. I played this game to level 20 while it was still in Alpha and then completely abandoned that character to start anew about a year after it came to Steam. This was over two years after having initially played it. While you might think that's crazy, it is an example of how much this game stayed in the back of my mind as something to watch develop. I always wanted to give it another try, and I've been glad I did. When the demo came out I realized it was time to give a serious attempt. I've been happy ever since. I even took another year hiatus and came back twice since then. I also purchased "VIP access" which is mostly just a way to donate more to the development team. Gorgon is a fun game that you may find an itch you play every so often, especially if you have a friend or two that also like a unique challenge.

Right now the game doesn't hold your hand like other MMOs do, you are encouraged to explore and even make mistakes (often living with the consequences). I cover a few things in this guide to be prepared for, but there is nothing Demo players of 15 levels or lower really lose from starting over. I've started new accounts multiple times and it only gets easier to get those first 15 levels each time. I can do it in just a few hours at this point. That said, you *do* get to keep your character after you purchase the full game so don't worry about that.

==== What race should I play? ====
If you are asking this question, I would recommend playing Human. If you know for sure you are going to go Druid, talk to an existing Druid about possibly going Rakasha. I talk a bit more about this in the [[beginning|Beginning]] and the [[todruidornot|To Druid Or Not?]] sections of this guide.

==== Which two combat skills should I use? ====

On the newbie island, just use Sword/Unarmed till you get something else. Once you get to Serbule, you can look at expanding to more combat skills.

This question always gets asked on the [[https://www.reddit.com/r/projectgorgon/|/r/projectgorgon subreddit]] and everyone always talks about their favorite class to start with, but I would just recommend either Sword/Psychology or Mentalism/Psychology or Unarmed/Mentalism or even the ultimate in versatility -- Unarmed/Psychology -- for early combat skill progression or a "first set" of skills. At the very least, one of your combat skills should be Psych or Unarmed so you can quickly level whatever combat skill or animal form you end up actually liking later on.

So, as to the reasons why you should only pick from a few skills... Well, it is a little bit more complicated, but keep in mind I'm assuming you are asking because you intend to solo most of the game and will likely not be playing with friends and needing a dedicated tank and/or dedicated healer. If you do have a friend you are duoing with, I hope to write more on that later but you will probably still know more than I will.

Many of Project Gorgon's skills fall into varying states of Fun, Useful, and Versatile. Druid is an example of a skill that is arguably all of these, but you will not be able to get it till you have level 50 in any other combat class. Psychology is a skill that mostly ticks all of the boxes, less on Fun (though the skill "Tell Me About Your Mother" can be fun to witness for the first time!). Unarmed is similar, though not necessarily Fun. Both skills are easy (Psychology) or extremely easy (Unarmed) to get, easy to use, and very versatile. Both skills also can be used with every single other combat/animal skill in the game so far. A deeper dive on the effectiveness of these two is necessary though.

== Psychology ==
Psychology has heals, crowd control, and one of the strongest damage skills (with crits) in the game. On top of that, it also provides some very nice Sprint Speed buffs. Traveling takes forever in the game so when you get your Psych to level 18 and realize you'll be able to start running with Sprint Speed buffs while waiting for the cooldown on Positive Attitude, it's amazingly Useful for such an early accessible skill. Please do note that with horses/mounts now providing a way to travel quicker, the "speed buff" aspect of Psych is now less useful, but it *is* still useful for a new player who can get gear with the speed mods.

Asking enemies to talk about their mother is Fun, but the real power of the skill is in its Use. Psychology really lets you do it all: if you want Healing, there's three (and a half?) skills of that. If you want Damage, there's three to four damage skills. If you want to combo that Healing or Damage with Crowd Control, there's two pretty major crowd controls.

Psychology also combos with every other skill in the game making it truly the most Versatile skill. 

== Unarmed ==
Unarmed has damage mitigation, decent damage, crowd control, and is generally the best early-accessible tanking skill in the game (followed by maybe Shield, Staff, Cow, and Bunny/Pig?). While it is not an example of a super Fun skill, it can be paired with every non-melee combat skill (other primary weapon-based skills being something it doesn't necessarily pair well with) and specifically it can be paired with every animal form. It can essentially help you keep off death for forever and you can tank even into situations where you likely shouldn't have otherwise lived. 

Like Psychology, it is just so Useful and Versatile that even if it isn't Fun you feel like you are obligated to have it as a good first choice of skill. You also start off the game with it. If there's a chance you might want to play an animal at a later point in the game, I would definitely recommend unarmed.

== Animal Handling ==
So, this used to be a good skill for leveling other skills, now with the changes in March 2023, it is no longer recommended as an optional secondary. Nerfs have hit this skill very hard in the Versatility respect.

== Mentalism ==
And there is, of course, a fourth skill worth mentioning, too. I have never used Mentalism as a secondary, but it pairs pretty well with anything just like Psychology and I think most players would also recommend it as a complement to whatever primary damage combat skill you are using. Since I'm not well versed on it, though, I don't have much to say other than that it is a good side skill for those who use a lot of mana in their primary combat skill. Hammer/Mentalism is one notable combo outside of Unarmed/Mentalism as just one example of a mana-intensive skill.

== What I did ==
You shouldn't worry about how I played, but I got asked this question by someone so I thought I'd cover it here.

I did Sword/Psych all the way to max level in both with some dabbling into other things like Battle Chemistry for a traveling build. I did not go specifically a tanking or healing or DPS or AoE build initially. Instead I had a mix of mostly Damage and CC/utility. My single target CC and damage output in a very short period of time was pretty amazing at the time but it was kind of a glass cannon build when it came to group content. 

While leveling, I considered Riposte/Parry/(Many Cuts) but it just never really matched my playstyle till I hit 80/80 and started pairing Sword with Shield and other combat skills. With Psych I would often CC any extra mobs, aggro a single mob, and then take it down fast. At the time I preferred to do relatively risky single target damage and CC than try to take on multiple mobs safely and tank or heal.

Since Sword/Psych got to level 80, I have tried things like Shield, Battle Chemistry, Fire Magic, Priest, Ice Magic, Necro, etc. I've gotten to level 50-80 in a few of these, too as was easy to pair a secondary with a primary and my Sword skill was very effective at killing things almost by itself. A recent patch has made it considerably more difficult to pair higher level skills with lower level combat skills for easy leveling, however, so I might not recommend this as heartily as I used to.

I did not really experiment with animal forms as I had went Sword as a primary instead of Unarmed, but since I liked Tailoring, I've considered Spider at some point (only real problem is music buff for Gardening isn't very easy as a Spider) and Cow was an easy form to obtain and remove and everyone in game likes a tank, so that might be another one I would recommend to any new animal player.

I eventually moved into Staff/Shield as going DPS in this game as a solo player is just an invitation to death to large groups and Povus was impossible to survive in as Sword/Psych (I know changes were made to make Psych a little better late game but surviving multiple Ratkin swarms just wasn't feasible with a DPS-only cloth build and I needed metal to get into Armorcrafting. Also, I see very recently there were Sword buffs so I might try this again, I'm not sure I really want to go back to that playstyle, though.)

Would I do it again? Not really. I would go straight to Staff/Shield if I were playing as a new character today, but keep in mind this is just a personal preference. Tanking as Staff/Shield or Cow or even Deer is the way to go as a solo unless you are playing with a friend and you either have a dedicated healer or tank already. As a solo, I feel like it is better to have your first two combat skills kill very slowly but almost never die (and raise your Endurance in the process) than to kill fast and risk death. After you've played a tank class, you'll have enough Endurance you can try out the DPS builds or animal forms with a lot more survivability in place.

If you do go tank, I'd say that once you know the game or have two other friends that tank/heal, you should really focus on DPS characters. I'm sure there are reasonable people who would disagree with me saying that Staff/Shield is the "best" for solo, though. Especially people that play in active guilds or have friends that they regularly play with and only solo on occasion.

That said, keep in mind that the game is still changing and almost every combo of skills is viable in some way for solo play, so it's entirely up to you. Try Knife/Necro if you want! Go Archery/Animal Handling if you want a pet! Get Bard or Priest if you have a friend and pair it with a little damage for fun on your own when they are offline!

==== How do I craft better weapons for my skills? ====

Generally speaking, you don't. Don't get frustrated at this response, though.

Almost everyone asking this question is under level 20. You can get to level 20 in less than a day's worth of playing, though. It's not uncommon to get to level 40 in a week if you play a lot. The vast majority of the weapons that can be crafted under level 40 are not worth the materials to make unless you are leveling crafting skills. 

Once you get to level 50 it may be worth asking about better weapons, but you will find that if you play a Swordsman, you will find Swords, if you use Shield, you will find Shields, etc. Finding a Yellow or Legendary for your particular weapon type is very unlikely unless you are doing group content, but finding a Red or Purple isn't too uncommon. Still, you are going to find that the level 5 Yellow Legendary gear you found on the tutorial island immediately falls off in power compared to a lvl 25 Red weapon.

Don't let the lack of weapons you find discourage you too much, though, armor is generally more important, and inventory space in the early game is even more important. Your main problem early game isn't going to be killing things quickly but rather surviving multiple mobs and having space to store the items you loot.

If you have a guild, you can ask your guildmates if they can craft a better weapon for you or not. Clubs are in the game as well as Staves. If you go Bard someone can probably make you a Horn Off-Hand as well. That's about it for now, though. It's believed that the Statehelm or another major update will add in Weapon Making skills for many of the classes. This could be a year or more away, though.

==== Favor is a grind and items and Favor will be wiped on release. Shouldn't I just wait for release to play the game? ====

NOTE: //There isn't plans to wipe items anymore as far as I know. There might still be a favor wipe at some point down the line, but I kind of doubt it will happen as the devs have stated they need "end-game" players to see how balanced out the end game will end up being, so if there are favor wipes, they might just be targeted on certain NPCs and probably for specific reasons. They might also decide to do a favor wipe but give players who had already done the favor grind some sort of advancement in rank. There's a lot of ways this could go down, but there will not be an item wipe anymore, so don't use that as an excuse to not play. Below is what I wrote back when there was going to be an item wipe, just for posterity's sake//

The short answer to this question: "Perhaps".

One thing to consider is that the game was going to be released in "a few years" even back in 2013, 2015, 2017, 2020, etc. I don't think it will be completely finished for a while at this point, even if the target right now is "soon". Even with what seems like an increased pace of updates -- and sometimes major ones at that! -- I don't feel like rushing by any particular deadline is going to happen because the devs have a lot of skills to consider for every new update and the complexity of the game has expanded well past the original game, I'm sure.

[[https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?2023-Any-estimate-or-information-on-full-release-date&p=14727&viewfull=1#post14727|Citan has stated that mounts and all playable races are needed]] before the game could be considered finished and while we do have mounts we don't have all of the races yet (Orc and Dwarf are being worked on). I don't see all the races being done in less than a year, though it's possible many may be available "soon".

The reason I say "Perhaps" above, though, has more to do with how you approach gaming. Some people need to have a finished product before they feel comfortable playing the game.

That said, I don't understand the point of waiting if you aren't a stickler for playing only finished games. It's been said now that there isn't going to be an item wipe, so I don't know if the Favor wipe is still in or not, my guess might be that it isn't, but if there isn't going to be an item wipe, then the Favor wipe would be a minor inconvenience at best for most regular players.

Skills are used to get the items that you are going to need for Favor, too. Skills are NOT going to be wiped, meaning that if you do need to grind out Rat Tails or Shoddy Skins for Favor, you're going to be at a huge advantage as a max level Fire Magic/Battle Chemist with no gear than a level 1-10 with Unarmed/Sword. Any two-skill combo at mid-to-high range in skills is going to beat being a low level player on release.

The only justification I can think of as to why not to buy and play now or when the game is on sale is if you are the type of person that simply MUST have a finished product before you feel comfortable playing a game. But that is just my two cents on this.

Now, the flipside of this might be that we are ultimately playing a game that is primarily from the imagination of two main developers (there are now more developers, but the original idea was from two former Asheron's Call devs). When this game does eventually go into release, it'll be a unique one that was primarily made by only two people who had an idea and saw that idea to fruition. If you feel like you won't be able to enjoy experiencing such a game until it is completely finished, then please wait, I think you'll be pleased with the final result.

==== This game is too grindy if I want to do everything that it offers and it offers too much. Why is it so grindy? ====
One of the big draws to MMOs in the late 90s and early 00s was that they were like the MUDs several of us at the time were already playing, only they were much much bigger. Or at least it seemed that way. They were 3d. They had more skills. They had complexity between the skills. They had more players. They had seemingly endless content.

When making one of these more popular early MMOs, Everquest, the name implies what was going to be unique about it. Instead of players playing through the game and then moving on to some other game while waiting for new content like they did with MUDs, the plan was to make the game very very hard, so you were constantly questing. The idea would be that the "end game" would be gated by hundreds of hours worth of play, and new versions of the game would be released slowly over time giving them more content. Only if players did several of the same things over and over, would they actually get to anything resembling an end. Thus they could be like Ultima Online and charge a monthly fee on top of the game's price.

Some years after it came out, a graduate student wrote a paper about Everquest that said it used a "carrot on a stick" method to generate dopamine in the brain and keep players doing the same really hard things over and over in the game. Instead of portraying this as a good use of a player's time, to make the end result a huge accomplishment, the paper instead seemed to mock players that grinded for rare gear in the game. 

It didn't help that this all happened around the time World of Warcraft came out, which was one of the most ambitious MMOs. It had a "grind", too, but it wasn't as unforgiving as games like Ultimate Online, Everquest, or Asheron's Call.

The end result is that, over time, the word "grind" became part of the common vernacular of MMO players, and everyone hated it. Or at least, they thought they did. What they got instead became progression through the appearance of progression, with "dailies" and weekly raids, and other things that rewarded the player for "not playing" the game, but rather for sticking with a monthly subscription.

I personally, would like to see things in the game stay grindy rather than add daily and weekly progression systems that give more per event than for those willing to simply do the same thing over and over. Some of us actually like the idea of a grind, and you should too. It makes the achievement all the more rewarding, and shows that you really committed to the work instead of committing to just a subscription.

That said, there *are* dailies in this game, too, but they are simply events that help with revenue generation instead of experience or gear. They *do* help in getting certain types of Transmutation and Augmentation skills up in level, but these are going to level anyway if you do a normal grind, too. There are also "weekly events" in that there is a Poetry Jam where free buffs are usually given for the people grinding Crafting skills. So if you wanted to do everything there is to offer in the game, there's certainly plenty there for you to do as well as ways to help speed it along.

The beauty of PG is that after you get to combat level 90 or higher in skills you can determine if you really want to stick around to get your crafting skills to 90+ as well. You certainly don't have to. In fact, a lot of players essentially do a "reset" once they hit level 90+ in their first two skills and many choose to play as an animal so its an entirely new experience for them!
==== This game isn't popular. Why should I play it? ====

I'm going to guess you are either in your teens or early twenties. I know you don't think so, but you're still kind of young as a gamer. Don't think of that as an insult, but I'm going to reveal a secret to you that -- as a lifelong gamer -- I didn't learn till I was in my late twenties or so as a gamer: Popular does not necessarily equal Fun. Also, a game can still be Fun and Popular, but it might not have longevity.

If you measure a game's value to you by how many Youtube or Twitch viewers watch it, you're never going to be happy with a game like Project Gorgon, but you're also going to miss out on plenty of other games you might find very fulfilling, too.

Some of the most popular games in the world right now are pay-to-win mobile games, but I am guessing *you* (or the type of person reading this right now) find mobile games not fun, right? Why do you find them not fun if they are so popular? Think about that. One reason might be that the mobile games at the top today will be old news within a year. After all, does anyone remember Facebook games like Farmville? How about Words With Friends?

So now apply that to your own gaming habits and the argument that a game isn't popular right now.

(Please note I wrote what is below in September 2020)

Do you really see yourself playing Among Us two years from now with the same group of friends you play it with today? Did you know the basic idea of Among Us was done almost six years ago by Town of Salem and was super popular then, too? Did you know even that game was based on a meatspace game that was popular at sci fi and fantasy conventions in the 1990s? Very few gamers today even realize that several games that seem to be unique, fresh and "new" today were based on ideas that were already popularized and played (sometimes to boredom) in the past.

Even games like Fortnite and APEX won't be at the top of the popularity list on Twitch 10 years from now. They might have some staying power, sure, but there will be new hot commodities that appeal to the same younger fanbases. Fortnite is mostly popular with preteens who like Battle Royales, while APEX is supposed to be for the more mature teenagers that want a BR. Games like League of Legends and even WoW may stay around much longer than their game's genre would indicate possible, but they aren't going to be popular with everyone forever.

Right now (September 2020) on Twitch.tv the most popular game listed is Among Us. If you don't believe me that games fall off in popularity, bookmark this and put in a reminder to come back in September 2021, Project Gorgon will still be here, this wiki will still be here, and many of the same community members playing Gorgon will still be here, but Among Us won't still be at ~200k viewers or even anywhere close to half of that. (Update March 2021, it's averaging 20k viewers now and everyone is playing Valheim instead) (Update July 2021, 4.3k viewers)

Now that it's been one full year, I can confirm that in October 2021, Among Us has 3.3k live viewers on Twitch, proving my point. (Update December 2022, only 2.2k viewers. March 2023, only 1.6k viewers.)

At some point you are going to find that you play games that you want to play for yourself and not just for everyone else you know or that follows a certain streamer or even shares the same guild that usually jumps from MMO to MMO. And that's okay. Sometimes you might play a popular or flavor-of-the-month game because your friends are, and that's okay, too.

Don't let the lack of popularity of old school MMOs like Project Gorgon fool you, it's a deep game with a lot of skills to work on. The carrot-on-a-stick appeal of retro MMOs is still a very satisfying dopamine factory for your brain, just enjoy it. :D

Plenty of people are online right now playing and you'll run into them at any time of day. Overnight, only the players from the Pacific and Asian regions get on and it will drop under 100 concurrent players, but it seems like it is always easy to find a group since there is really only one server and there's always someone on during prime time. I'd recommend joining with a friend or two though, as this is a much more enjoyable game to play with friends.

Lastly, if you are an engineer, systems analyst, or someone that likes to tinker with systems regardless of how used they are, you can definitely play this game solo and appreciate it for what it is and the unique interactions of skills. Brewing, for example, has an "explore your options" system that is unique to every character and not found in any other MMO. It's very similar to how the original spellcasting in Asheron's Call felt before people provided guides to every spell in the game. 

Plus, with 100+ skills in the game and many of them having synergy levels, it's fun to level certain skills and watch how they all affect each other.
==== No, you don't understand, MMOs must be popular, it's the whole point of "Massively" in the term MMO. Why don't you get that? ====

Well, gee, okay, I guess you got me there, but I have a question in response. What is your favorite moment in your entire MMO history? Was it something a streamer did or was it a specific thing that you learned about a game on your own or something hilarious that happened with your friends online? Was a spur-of-the-moment community event? Was it a huge PvP battle where you or you and your friends clutched that win from the jaws of defeat? If you are like me, was it discovering the depth of the game mechanics in an otherwise simple-looking game?

Depending on your answer to the question, you might find that what you want isn't a hugely popular MMO, but a fun and in-depth multiplayer game you can just play online with friends, or start a guild and add people you already know. The "massively" isn't what makes it fun unless it is a game like Albion Online where the focus is large scale PvP. So if it's not the player count that matters to your favorite part of MMOs, why not give Project Gorgon a try? I put in thousands of hours, what's the likelihood you and your friends will put in at least a few hundred?

There are certain MMOs that focus on competitive multiplayer and/or having large massive battles, and I'm going to let you in on a little secret. **I still play those games, too.** I play PG in my downtime though, or when I want a fun grinding exploration and crafting game with a community I enjoy. If you want to play a more competitive or popular game, go for it, just keep PG in mind for when you are bored of that and want to play something that ticks that exploration and old school MMO itch. :D

==== The game doesn't look good. Why would I play a game that doesn't have AAA graphics? ====

There are a number of original games you can look at that focused more on gameplay over graphics. PG is one of these types of games. Minecraft looked like 90s graphics when it first came out and still looks like an old game. Valheim has a dated graphic style, but topped the Steam most played charts for over two months, more than any other modern game, even those not by independent developers. The reason why these kinds of games exist is because the graphical changes are almost always secondary to veteran gamers, and many devs target the veteran gamer over the newer gamer or the gamer who only plays perfectly polished games.

In some respects, the game actually can be very pretty. Some of the end game dungeons look very nice. Also, there's a clear difference between biomes/zones in PG unlike some other independent games. Keep in mind there are only two developers, and if they hired a team of modelers, skinners and riggers for those models, they could probably update the graphics without too much effort in the span of a year, it's just not their focus right now. As the game gets closer to being "complete", it's possible they could get an influx of cash to essentially finish it with these touches.

I don't want to discourage you from not demanding better graphics for your games, though. Some MMORPG gamers just flat out don't like games unless they meet a certain minimum criteria for graphics quality and I understand that. It's possible this game isn't for you if so.
==== Is this game worth the money ($40)? ====
As someone who bought a Horse Lord package, I've spent actually $540 on the game. But I mean, I *really* *really* like it, obviously. I am writing a guide on it, after all.

I had a longer section on this, but the short form of it is this... If you play the demo for eight hours and are still enjoying the game, you really ought to just buy it.

For other games, like innovative puzzle games that are supposed to be short, this obviously doesn't work, but for roleplaying games like Project Gorgon, it does. Even singleplayer RPGs or FPS games. I'll often find that about half of a day's worth of wages for me is like the "top end" of what I'm willing to pay for most games, even games like Hitman and such that I try to buy new but often wait till they are first on sale. The reason why is because when everything is said and done, I'll spend *maybe* a full 20 hours on these kinds of games, whereas with an MMO like Gorgon I'm definitely going to spend 20 hours or more.

Another thing to consider is that if you put the game on your Steam wishlist, you will get notified when it goes on sale. Definitely buy it on sale if it ever goes to $20 or lower again, but honestly it's still a great deal even at $30 or $35.

==== Is the VIP subscription pay to win? (P2W) ====
So, the short answer to this is "No", of course. You can't pay for levels, you can't pay for better gear, you can't pay for experience, you can't pay to get an increase in the rate of XP, etc.

The longer answer involves going into what you get with a paid VIP subscription, however, and this is where if you are certain type of person that absolutely hates that people spend money on games, you might still think the game is P2W.

Rather than redoing some Kickstarter or Indie funding option, which they used to offer, the devs decided to allow people to purchase "VIP" monthly to do ongoing donations to the dev team to keep the game updated. For a while, VIP paid for a UI (user interface) programmer who has been doing some great work with making crafting and other UI stuff work very well.

What you actually get for VIP is +15 inventory slots (including in transfer chests for transferring items between characters) and the ability to learn specific skills very slowly from your friends while offline. If you paid for a specific backer package version you get a free horse and a free house, both of which will be available in game for a small cost plus a very easy quest. This brings the VIP package in line with the old Kickstarter offer that was proposed a long time ago and was available to earlier players.

As someone who has gotten the horse lord package and prepaid for $500 worth of VIP, I can tell you the single best thing for VIP by far has been the +15 inventory slots. That said, if I didn't have that, I'd survive now that we have other storage options like the small box of space and the saddle, so inventory space is mattering less and less at the higher levels, at least, it's still a grind to get there, but that's the fun of these types of old school games. 

In my honest opinion as of 2024, None of the VIP "perks" make it anywhere even close to P2W. They provide very minuscule benefits.

So I guess it comes down to how much you think a non-competitive game like Project Gorgon can be "P2W".

I personally don't think a game where there isn't some form of PvP can be considered P2W, but I understand that some people like to compete on how well they perform in PvE, and to them, the advantages that a VIP get could be easily seen as "Winning". I also don't think the grind in this game is ridiculous, though, and most MMOs with what I would call P2W elements, nerf the XP gain so that you have to buy packages in order to get XP at a reasonable pace. That's definitely not what is happening here.

So yeah the short of it is: IMHO, it's not P2W and it can't be considered P2W because this isn't a competitive game. Even if you did ignore that it wasn't a competitive game, the advantages are very minor, especially at end game and none of the benefits directly give the players levels or XP.
==== My screen stutters when I play and I have tried everything, what can I do to fix it? ====
An animation update fixed most of the other graphics issues many players had with animations, but specific driver and OS combos can sometimes still be problematic. I would recommend getting driver updates and/or contacting a guide in the game or using the Help channel if you have specific questions. Also, if you did update your drivers, please do a restart before contacting a guide, just to make sure those new drivers are actually loaded and your client (and Steam) is updated correctly.

There's a few things you can do. You can turn off "particlespam" and you can use "spherecull" in the special graphic changes part of the special options window.
==== Why can't I trade as a Demo player? ====

In short, this is to prevent abuse. Paid players could take advantage of getting certain rare items easier if they could make free demo accounts. It also prevents [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twinking|twinking]], which is already sort of an issue for paid alts depending on how you think a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) should be played. To a certain extent, this is still allowed, obviously, as you should be able to help level and gear up a friend testing the game, but blocking certain trades is another way to encourage paying outright for the game and preventing bots.

==== Why only the tutorial island and two zones for Demo players? ====

While it may seem like two zones is small, these are actually pretty big zones and they include enough mobs and monsters that you could easily hit level 15 in many skills without entering a single Dungeon. That said, you can enter any of the dungeons in Serbule and Serbule Hills as far as I know. 

There are at least two, possibly three dungeons in Serbule alone that you can't even properly do at level 15 in combat skills without group help. Serbule is definitely one of the bigger and more fleshed-out zones. Serbule Hills is similarly large and has a lot of quests and named mobs usually having to deal with those quests. You're getting basically two of the biggest zones in the game and the whole starter island for free, basically.

In short, if you cannot make a decision on if the game is worth buying based on these two zones, I think you're probably just not interested enough to buy the game.

==== What if the gameplay and questing is too hard for me or turns me off? What if I don't like X? ====
This is what I call the "convince me" argument. Instead of it being about you liking the game, it's about existing players convincing you to graciously spend your quality time on "our" game. I don't want to sound pretentious in response to a pretentious position, but if you really do not like the game or some small aspect of it bugs you so much that you just cannot bear it, you may want to consider actually not playing the game and trying an easier one.

A key part of early MMOs was that a player had to read the text, pay attention to aggro, and learn the lore. WoW completely changed that for most players and they got lazy because of it, often *never* reading the text. In World of Warcraft, bad players can get too close to the wrong mobs (aka a "body pull") but tanks have passive abilities or items that let them hold or steal aggro, saving these bad teammates from dying or wiping in group fights. This never happened in older school MMOs. These games demanded that groups pay attention and listen to their raid leader.

I'm going to try to say this as nice as possible, because I really don't want to offend anyone who likes them, but when it comes to mainstream MMOs like Final Fantasy 14 or World of Warcraft (or even top-down MMOs like Lost Ark or Path of Exile), they are actually designed so you can be bad at the gameplay and dumb on the lore and still be a high-level player who is decked out in the best gear. They know half their playerbase clicks through the text without reading it and, thus, design the game accordingly.

Project Gorgon is a game that demands respect for the lore and gameplay. The newbie island actually has a forcefield you cannot get past if you don't read the lore and pay attention. In a way, this helps weed out the players that wouldn't be good candidates for this game. If you don't learn to body pull, you *will* lose fights in dungeons as a solo and in hard team fights, you might be the person who causes the group to wipe.

You simply **must** read the Lore to progress or learn in the game because there are parts of the game that you cannot access unless you make the right decisions, have the correct codes, or have specific items in your inventory. Some combat skill and animal class combinations will be unobtainable to you if you throw away or sell quest rewards early on that look like junk items but actually end up being super important. Most quest items have a red border on them, but some players dump them out of their inventory without knowing what they do because they didn't read the quest text.

It's not the end of the world, though, all of us have had the same struggles and troubles as a newbie and/or demo player, but we figured it out, so if someone is getting frustrated that the game isn't what they thought it would be in the demo or even just on the newbie island, it's probably best to give some other game a try. The rest of us will continue to enjoy the game with the people who read the text of the quests on newbie island and learn how to "body pull" safely. :D

==== There's not enough inventory space! Help!? ====
We've all been here. You are not unique. In fact, at this point, if inventory space was easier to get for a new player I'd be upset because I had to do more work to get it than a newbie.

I cover a bit of the [[serbule#favor_npcs_and_inventory_management|inventory management aspect of the game here]].

I will say this: It does get better. Even considerably better. Even if you are the type who likes to hoard almost every item in the game. It will take you months and months of play to get to a point where you feel like inventory isn't a high priority anymore, however. And then you will be like me and get upset that someone wants easy/cheap inventory. :D 

It's a vicious cycle, but my recommendation is not to focus on expanding inventory too much and to specialize in specific crafting skills at first so you can junk, sell, or gift away most of your other items or gear. Remember the adage of Craft → Favor → Barter → Sell and be sure to sell or give away for Favor the stuff you don't need for immediate crafting. You may want to craft with it later, but early game isn't the time when you need to build up Favor and Funding to buy or obtain more inventory space. Pick two (possibly three if one of them is Cooking) crafting and gathering skills and really focus on those. Everyone needs to know how to cook unless you are in a guild or have a friend who will cook you the best stuff.

Also, if you get in good with a guild you might find they give away inventory space gear, food, and other buffs.

==== I've heard this game has the best community ever so why does.... Blah Blah Blah Blah?? ====

So there's something you should be aware of. After years of being a hidden gem, a few players found Project Gorgon whether during a Steam sale or watching a Twitch Streamer or Youtuber covering the game. Some of these viewers or new people started playing the game and noticed that sometimes the veterans playing the game would bend over backwards to help these new players, sometimes gifting free inventory space gear, buffs, or providing advice on builds, and etc.

For some of these new players, this was unheard of for MMO gamers to do. So when they went to do their Steam review or another Youtube review of their own, they would wax poetic about how great the community was. Now, by itself, there is nothing wrong with this, but some really clever trolls realized just how proud the community was of helping genuinely new players get acclimated to the game, so in order to provoke a hostile reaction, they did the most offensive thing they could possibly do and leave bad reviews about the game complaining about the community.

I had the unfortunate experience of watching someone who was banned for verbal abuse spin up demo account after demo account complaining about the community in Demo chat one night when the game was attracting a lot of new players. In one event, someone even paid for another account just to be able to complain in Global about it.

In other instances, they will post to Reddit complaining about a mundane feature not being available for VIP. Then, if you question them about why they really even need that, they complain about how the community is so horrible. In other words, most of the reasons why you sometimes see insults to the community is because the clever trolls know it gets under the playerbase's skin. 

That's why I don't really brag about the community, even if it is the best among the other MMOs out there.

In reality, the veterans playing the game are great and enjoy the game and will help you in various ways if you ask for it. But I do kind of wish that when people reviewed the game they didn't overhype the community. We're normal humans after all with our own needs and wants, not superheroes that are going to make your every waking moment on Project Gorgon the best social experience you've ever had.

Contribute to the community, though, and I think you'll find they give back accordingly as well.


==== I have a question and no one is answering it in the Help channel! ====
If you have a question that got ignored or wasn't answered, try a search on the official wiki or this guide (or Google, even). Consider moving on to something else in game for a while and then ask again in an hour or two or the next time you hop on. Also maybe consider rewording it if you learn a little bit more about what is wrong. 

Sometimes defining the problem to its most basic form is necessary. For example, instead of asking "Why isn't First Aid working?" you could try "I want to use my First Aid kit but when I click on the button associated with it, it doesn't heal me".

==== Why isn't First Aid working? ====
For a few players, their first big question is why their First Aid skill isn't working when they've dragged the icon of their First Aid kit (or for Armor Patching, their Armor Patch kit) to a hotbar like other MMOs or games. The reason why it doesn't work that way is because you actually want to drag the SKILL from the Special Skills page and not the kit itself to the hotbar. Many skills are located under Special and are intended to be used as direct skills or abilities and are not used directly as items.

It *is* sometimes confusing though, because some items (like the Trollbane oils) are used directly on the hotbar.

==== Why isn't Armor-Patching working? ====
See above, it's possible you are trying to link directly to the item instead of the skill.
==== I'm done with questions where is the guide? ====
[[beginning|The Beginning]] is the start of the game and custom creation if you are ready to proceed and have no further questions about [[graphicsbugs|graphics settings]], otherwise if you still have questions you can [[contactauthor|contact me]]. Otherwise if you are already in game you can proceed to [[anagogeisland|Anagoge Island]] or [[serbule|Serbule]].