Somtimes it's hard to know what to do with your character to progress along at a good rate. You might get yourself somewhere really nasty, where you leave corpse after corpse just trying to get somewhere simple. In other places, you might be surrounded by so many low level monsters that you spend all your time hacking at them without gaining any levels.

This should help you find places well suited to your current level, so you can have fun and progress along in the game.

Levels 1-5

The starting levels are handled very nicely in Asheron's Call. Whereever you begin, there is a nice training area right there. Go through the training area and give the trainer your Calling Stone for some easy XP.

Now, right in whatever outpost you're in there will be a quest guy. You can see the individual town write-ups for more information on whichever town you started in, but in essence just talk to him and he'll tell you what to do. This usually gets you 2 potions of healing (great to sell for cash), 200 pyreals and 500xp. Go to both outposts at whichever town you're in and do both of these quests.

Starting towns are also usually surrounded by easy to kill monsters. No, not the rabbits! I mean drudges and rats and so on. Go around killing these to gain XP, and bring back the tails or wings or such to the nearest collector. This should get you up to level 5 or 6 within a week, if you play an hour or two a day.

Levels 6-10

By this point you're pretty good at what you do, know the basic moves and spells and such, and have some decent armor. Also, around here you start to get blocked from the most basic of dungeons because you're too high a level. It's time to move along to the next level of monster area.

Two towns that characters in this range hang out in are Hebian-To in the southern area, and Eastham up in the northern area. Both have excellent weapon and armor shops, and have a wide range of mid-level monsters to tackle. Both are up against water and usually you can just walk along the water, killing things, and then head back into town to do the purchasing.

You're also now at the point that you can run between towns without much fear of death. If you do the Hebian-To to Nanto run, for example, you'll get lots of experience points just killing the monsters that lurk on the side of the road.

Don't forget the stamps. You can get some pretty great special weapons by moving gold letters from one end of the map to the other. Figure out which items would help you out, and do some portal-hopping to get the job done.

Levels 11-15

When you start getting past the near-town monster level, it's time to get out a bit more into the wilderness to find those monsters that the game tries to keep away from new characters. These are nastier but also give much greater rewards. Try heading down to Mayoi and try the nearby mountains, or maybe Baishi and the wilds near there.

Most of the regular towns will now be too easy for you, because monsters near towns are aimed towards the newer characters. Stick to the outreach towns, and plow into the wilderness near them.

Asheron's Call walkthrough