"I quit, and so should you"

I was thinking about quitting realm for some time.

Honestly, I already did quit a few days ago but... then I returned. To the forum only. Just to see last posts or maybe some private messages. Then I started reading. Reading the forum made me want to play and I entered the game - just for a few minutes. Then minutes became hours... As always. That's something sick, an addiction. At least it's better than pills or drugs or alcohol.

I realized that it's eating too much of my time. Too much of my energy that could be directed to my own creative projects. From being just a casual game it become sort of a monster that eats a big part of my life. Because not only I'm playing a few hours a day but also thinking about realm during the day. It's interfering with my real life. Is it worth it?

In realm we are busy with solving artificial problems - defeating enemies that don't really exist, gathering artificial wealth based on artificial scarcity of items. Also, there is nothing new there. I completed hundreds of tombs, trenches and undead lairs. And not so many cemeteries or candy lands but they aren't worth it. How many times can one person do these things again and again and again and again?

The content can be completed in a week and perfected maybe in three months (especially tombs). So this game is not about content. The point of this game is social interaction. But it's still artificial and shallow, it's based on solving all these artificial problems together.

You can develop friendships when times are hard, when people are struggling, overpowered by some crushing forces. That force can be a permadeath - when noobs are struggling and give away noobish items to help their brethren to rebuild.

I no longer have economic problems in the game. I'm wealthy. And even if I lose everything, I can rebuild.

Yes, there is still a room for improvement. I can still get better at running tombs. And maybe beat Krayzie in a speedrun one day? That could be a worthy goal. Speedruns give a lot of replayability to any game. Or maybe farm fame for all-time legend? That's too time consuming and there's no real challenge. And it's only a game. All things achieved here are really worthless.

And there is a problem that many parts of the game that were fun for me are no longer fun. I kill these poor gods one by one or rush a tomb and I think: what am I doing here? With a feeling that it's no longer a right place for me. It's no longer playful.

One of my most enjoyable moments in the realm was joining a midland train as a noob. I leveled to 20 by making one circle around the map and the train was crushing everything in it's path. All those scary monsters, hard to take out alone, were vanishing under the train's firepower! That was fun. Or visiting dungeons for the first time...

My best IRL friend didn't want to play Realm. He started, leveled to 20 following the quest marker and said the game is no challenge to him. And he would be a boss there because he beats me in all games.

I was also thinking about improving the game - it's interface and mechanics. I have lot of ideas. I keep them to myself because the developers don't give a shit about player's ideas. Or worse - they may implement it and charge gold for things I'd like to be free for everyone. I should probably make my own game and channel my energy and time into that.

The conclusion is - if you want to quit, don't visit forums, don't enter IRC or mumble.

Now I'd like to say "thank you" to all people who I know and care about, you know who you are. Or you don't. I'm not really a social person. And my oldest realm friends (if I can call them that) don't play the game anyway. There won't be wine cellars, tombs and drop parties. No mass suicide of all characters. I won't even return to the game to say good bye. I'm not even sure if I will really quit. My quitting will be probably instant.

Now the character's death is a good opportunity to leave because I want to fool the all-seeing Sauron's eye of realmeye into thinking it's still alive. Also, according to my religious beliefs, I will treat this highly improbable death as a "sign" (from universe or gods or whatever spiritual forces) that my previous decision about quitting was right. My cruel gods say: stay true to your word and do as you stated. Or we will do it for you.

See you in another life, brothers.

The Legendary Archer

I "achieved" a weekly legend. And I'm not proud or happy about it. 

I was clearing some part of Mad Lab, then I realized that other people are already at the boss. So I clicked teleport and... landed in a death screen. I didn't even see the place I teleported to - instant death. So it's not related to skill. Maybe except that skilled (experienced) person should already know that one does not simply teleport to the boss in Mad Lab.

That archer was one of my oldest characters. I was always careful with that character and broke only one ammy on him ever (well, Geb did that for me). But shit happens and teleport death can happen also in the godlands - you teleport on top of a Ghost God and it's game over. And we teleport a lot.

Did I feel angry? No. Sad? No. I was completely indifferent.

Maybe that's because now I perceive my characters as tools, not as living personalities. So there will be no death videos and no wine cellars in memory of my dead archer (that's silly isn't it?).

Death is not a big problem - I have some spare doom bows and ton of life pots, I can easily rebuild. I can have another archer with similar capabilities in a few hours. Or maybe a huntress. Death of high fame character is even liberating - because you can stop caring about all that fame and play the game more happily because there is much less to lose.

But I guess I won't rebuild because... I'm quitting.

Realm Video Recorder

If you have a 5-year old computer with integrated video card - you'll run all flash games without problems. But recording videos will be a problem.

I tried Fraps, Bandicam, Camstudio, Debut, Expression Encoder and some other recorders. None of them is perfect. The lag increases noticably and it makes the gameplay much worse. Fraps performs best among them but it's not free and it records the whole screen.

Reducing video size by half (to 400x300) and framerate to 15 fps helps to get better performance but the quality of video is very bad and the lag is still there anyway.

The main problem is that computer's processor is used to encode the video in real time. And encoding is expensive. What if the raw screenshots are saved during gameplay and encoded later?

That's why I think about writing my own recording software. It seems easy to achieve. Just capture the game rectangle 24 or 30 times per second and save them as raw BMP files. No processing, no compression. Those screenshots can be imported later into some encoding software to make a movie.

How much space is required?
one frame = 800 x 600 x 3 RGB components = 1 440 000 bytes
one second at 30 fps = 41.2 MB
1 minute = 2.41 GB
10 minutes = 24.1 GB
30 minutes = 72.4 GB
one hour = 144.8 GB
Those amounts seem affordable.
The FPS could be reduced to 24 or 15 to reduce disk usage.

The recorder dedicated to RotMG could take advantage of knowledge of game's interface. The 200 x 600 part on the left side rarely changes. Sometimes the HP/MP change, sometimes the item gets dragged in or out but most of the time it doesn't change. Saving only the differences between frames there practically eliminates that area. The frames would be reconstructed after recording is done. That leaves us with 600 x 600 main gaming area.

Let's calculate again for 600 x 600 and 24 fps.
1 second = 24.7 MB
1 minute = 1.45 GB
10 minutes = 14.5 GB
30 minutes = 43.4 GB
one hour = 86.9 GB

Now the disk should be good enough to cope with writes. How good should it be? I'll just copy some large file from one physical disk to another and see how long it takes...
Copying 4.2 GB file took 108 seconds.
That's 2.33 GB per minute. While only about 1.5 GB is needed.
So yes, my disk should perform well enough.

Things that should additionally improve performance:
    - saving to physical disk other than system disk
    - disabling compression and encryption for that disk
    - disabling antivirus software, at least for that disk
    - defragmenting the disk before recording
   
Some cheap compression schemes like run-length encoding, or looking for differences between frames, could be used to reduce disk usage. But they probably won't work well when they are needed most: during the intensive action sequences, when the screen is rotated. They would work well during loading screens or when the character stays still.

Another idea would be to monitor processor and disk usage and encode the movie in the background when the system is idle. The encoding progresses at its own slower pace, without interfering with game or with recording of raw frames.

Capturing audio that is in sync with video would be another question.

A completely different approach would be to record only user's input and network packets and use a modified game client to render the video later, perhaps at slower pace. This would be very cheap to record but things would probably get out of sync when replaying.

Another idea is to record the state of flash objects visible in the frame (tiles, their rotation, monsters, projectiles, text, etc.) and render the frames later. This would require a detailed knowledge of the game client.

I'm not going to write such software right now. Probably because the cheaper solution is to buy a better computer dedicated to gaming. I just wanted to get this idea out of my mind.

Ideas for Muledump

Muledump is a very useful tool made by atomizer. (that's NOT me)
Here are some ideas how it could be expanded / improved.

• arrange items
• enable dragging and dropping items within the vault, then execute a script that will move a character around and swap stuff
• enable dragging and dropping between mules, then execute a script that will log them in and trade automatically
• delete items to have the character drop them
• history
• store data for dead characters
• enable database queries for dead characters (if it's possible)
• keep snapshots of wealth in database
• display graphs for number of items and total wealth through time
• calculate def worth of visible wealth
• add a price setup screen for worth calculations
• add export / import of price sheets
• sum the stats for all characters
• total dungeons completed by all characters - tombs, trenches, all, etc.
• Oryx kills
• other stats
• list stat pots and incs in the first line
• add DPS calculator
• for current equips
• DPS calculator for damage received with this armor
• with buffs (armored, damaging, etc.)
• configuration presets that can be switched quickly
• grouping of mules in config file, quick hiding these groups within main window, separate options for these groups

Qwertyfour vault check

This script checks which items in Qwertyfour's giveaway have been taken
Forum thread: https://forums.wildshadow.com/node/162158

Copy and paste the text from forum thread here and click 'OK'. (You can paste every page separately.)

White star

What nice things happened today
- got my white star
- maxed warrior to 8/8
- got 2000 base fame on knight, rogue and warrior
- got cosmic from wine cellar
- found my own beer god
- saw geb in another room
- some tombs and wcs, as usual

and here are my folks, 8 slots atm

Tomb Runaways - my RotMG comic

https://forums.wildshadow.com/node/144198

2 x 8/8

Nightly noob rogue farming

I'm a noob rogue now.
3 days ago I had one star and 37 best fame on a rogue and never really played this class.
Today is my third day playing a rogue.
I just move from server to server and farm cubes and skulls.

I potted him to 6/8 and a little mana.
Equips: agate, twi, csilk, exa hp; inv: plane, bone.
Probably not the typical setup of a noob who experiments with a class, lol.

I had an impression it's a profitable class so I decided to note the drops.

[eu east]
1:30
sphinx vit
embarassing tomb fail (nexus)
1:40
cube spd
1:43
skull att
1:46
penta def
1:47
hermit dex
mini rush
thessal 0 (other dude got inc)
[server change... eu west]
2:06
hermit 0
failed rush (nexus)
2:08
sphinx vit, no tomb
to 2:12 realm search
2:15
skull - troll bag (sup dex)
realm closed, waiting for castle
2:20
guardians def
oryx1 0
2:23
no wc
[server change... eu west 2]
2:27
sphinx 0, no tomb
2:29
skull fail (bumped into gods, nexus)
2:31
skull 0 (other people participated)
2:33
cube fail (others were first)
2:37
cube wis
2:39
cube fail (unexpected shotgun, nexus)
2:40
taking a break
2:56
entered some random realm and it closed
2:59
castle start
3:03
guradians: 0
oryx1: astral
also picked up rage someone dropped lol
3:04
wc rush fail, got drunk and shit
3:07
[eu east]
3:09
sprite dex
3:11
realm closed, waiting...
3:14
castle fail
3:18
penta def (drank it accidentally)
3:19
cube wis
3:22
penta 0
3:27
hermit vit
3:33
thessal fail (out of hp, nexus)
no drop sound, probably got 0
3:40 ?
2 x phoenix lord, 0
3:45
sprite dex (other guy entered and got dex too)
3:46
skull 0 (others...)
3:51
sprite dex
forgot I have plane equipped and teleported into limon
4:24
wc with rules and turns
I failed somehow
uncloaked before o2, and nexused before incoming shotgun (panic button)
donated vit anyway to these kind people
[us west 2]
4:29
cube fail (a knight stole it)
a short break...
4:35
penta 0
4:37
cube def rage
break
4:43
phoenix 0
[eu south] no connection
[eu north 2] red demons
[eu west 2] red demons
4:49
[eu north]
4:55
killed 2 red demons to provoke events
5:00
still trying, nothing good, giving up
5:02
lotll 0
5:04
sprite 0 (crowded)
5:06
jungle 0

Oryx castle drops

EDIT: I have no patience to collect data consistently and update this. The current sample is too small to draw any conclusions (I often got 0 afterwards).

July 04, 2012
build 123.3.2
6/8 mystic (astral, orb of conflict, elder, exa dex)
high population (4 or 3 groups) unless noted

1. guardians: 0, O1: magus, shadow wand, att    (EUEast)
2. guardians: 0, O1: hippo, def
3. guardians: 0, O1: elder, shadow wand
4. guardians: 0, O1: shadow wand
5. guardians: 0, O1: ancient wand, veng     (4 groups, EUWest)
6. guardians: 0, O1: hippo, def, att       (4 groups, EUNorth2)
7. nexed due to unbearable lag
8. guardians: 0, O1: 0                     (4 groups, EuWest, low damage to O1)
9. guardians: 0, O1: 0                     (2 groups, EUNorth2, heavy lag, low damage)
10. guardians: T3 scepter, O1: att          (2 groups, EUWest)
11. kicked me out (account in use / timeout)
12. guardians: 0, O1: necrotic staff        (2 groups / low population, EUWest)

I changed servers to do possibly many castles. That's why there is usually high population / no guardian drops.


July 06, 2012
0/8 archer (gbow, magesteel, dhide, para dex)

1. guardians: 0, O1: 0 (lot of pros, Oryx died in first phase), O2: 0
2. guradians: 0, O1: att (low population)

How to get healed by the necromancer

Many people ask for healing but don't cooperate to receive it.

1. Necromancer's area of effect is smaller than priest's. People should follow him and keep close. Otherwise it's pointless trying to heal them.
2. Necromancer's healing is more expensive than priest's so he usually heals when he needs healing himself. They should check his health bar and follow him when he's low on health (below 2/3), because it's very likely that he will heal soon.
3. Necromancer with cheap skull needs 3 or more monsters packed together for the healing to be cost-effective (and effective at all). Good choices are: sprite god with children, constructs, stacked gods, Septavius minions, swarm of bats. He won't heal without such group nearby.
4. Monsters to leech hp from must be healthy. It's pointless to cast heal on a nearly-dead monster and receive 1 hp or nothing.  The necromancer could find a group of constructs for easy heal but people don't follow, see point 1.
5. Sometimes people spam "hp" when there are no monsters nearby. Sorry, but but he can't help. See point 3.

What to do:

1.     Check if the necromancer needs healing too.
2.     If yes - keep very close.

That's it. You don't even need to say "hp".

Founderless Guild

What will happen when the Founder renounces his guild?

Will the guild disappear? Will someone else become a founder?
What will happen when the founder returns?

I performed an experiment to test this.

1. Created a guild.

2. Leveled a mule to 1 star and invited him. Made him a leader.

3. Renounced the guild. The guild still exists and operates without founder. The Leader can buy upgrades. The mule is highlighted in orange colors like Founders.
4. Invited myself by the mule. There is no record that I founded this guild. I started as an Initiate.
5. The mule promoted me to a Leader. Now he cannot kick me out of the guild. It seems that we won't be able to kick anyone promoted to Leader in the future. Also, I cannot be demoted by anyone, including myself.

It seems that it's a good way to create a democratic guild where leaders are equal and there is no founder to kick them out.

RotMG Survival Guide

How to survive in RotMG. I wrote core of this text after 1 month of playing, still being a noob. So yes, it's for noobs but experienced players may also find some tips useful.

Health

• Keep an eye on your HP bar all the time. Never ever lose a track of your health, no matter where you are, no matter what you do. Make it a habit.
• Play at full health. Or near full health. When your health drops below 70% be extra careful and make returning to full health your priority. Heal, drink a HP potion, escape to nexus or wait to regenerate. (For melee classes and experienced players this percentage may be lower).
• Less experienced players should play a healing class. Necromancer is the best one to start.
• Make sure you always have HP/MP potions. The easiest place to get them is Tutorial (type /nexustutorial or /tutorial to go there). Other places to get HP/MP pots easily: beach, Sumo Master, treasure chests, Undead Lair, Oryx Castle. Swap potions with some worthless item to carry more than 6.

Watch the enemies

• Use the mini map. Set the mini map zoom to one above the smallest and look for the red dots. You can see the enemies on the map before they appear in the game.

Escape to nexus

• Don't hesitate to escape to nexus. It's almost always better to lose loot than lose your precious character.
• When health drops below 40% - nexus. Don't wait until you start blinking (20%). There are exceptions - in a dungeon you may wait in a safe place to regenerate.
• When paralyzed by swarm of monsters (trench ponies, tomb scarabs, raging Nut) - nexus immediately, don't wait for your HP to drop because it may be too late.

Setup the controls

• Make the nexus key easily available. I use spacebar for nexus. Other popular choices are F, R, Tab, Caps Lock, Ctrl.
• Enable off-centered view and camera rotation. A must for ranged classes.
• Remap frequently used commands to keys around WASD.
• Move chat commands (Tab, G) away from WASD. You probably don't want to enter chat mode accidentally when playing. I mapped "begin tell" to \ and "guild chat" to ] (keys above Enter). 
• You may use ESDF or RDFG for movement instead of WASD. Then you can use A or Z for nexus.

Start slowly

• Check controls after the game starts, press the nexus key to make sure it works. Sometimes the controls get reset on their own (flash or browser update, new build, switching to steam client, etc.) and people die because their nexus key doesn't work. Make it a habit.
• After you started the game: move around midlands or godlands for 2 minutes, get into the realm mood first, concentrate. Don't do risky things right after you launched the game. That Skull Shrine can wait.
• Start playing with a less valuable character. Then switch to the main character.

Don't play when tired

• Don't play at 5 a.m. when you're half sleeping. You may die not even knowing how it happened. I killed some maxed characters this way.
• Never play after a sleepless night. It will be a disaster.
• Don't play when drunk or high. 
• Don't watch movies when playing.
• Take a 24 hour break after death. It's a bad day and more bad things can happen.
• If you feel you really must play - don't play your main character, start a new character or play a less valuable one (no fame, unpotted, no expensive items, etc).

Teleporting

• When teleporting be ready to nexus immediately. You may teleport into a swarm of bullets or monsters. Only a quick tap of nexus key will save you.
• Use voice communication (mumble, teamspeak) and ask a friend if it's safe to teleport.
• Don't teleport with very low health. Nexus instead.
• Don't teleport to rushers in a dungeon unless they reached the boss or they stay for a while in one place. You will land not on the player but in a place that player was a second ago. Most likely on top of monsters chasing him.
• Avoid teleporting to melees (knights, warriors, paladins) or be extra careful. They may sit on the Cube God or Skull Shrine right now. 
• Prefer teleporting to robe classes (wizard, sorc, priest), they most probably stay away from danger.
• Sometimes teleporting ends in instant death and there's nothing you can do. Such thing is very rare but it happens.
• Avoid teleporting in Mad Lab. There are too many things that can kill you instantly if you land on top of them.
• Beware of strangers that ask to teleport to them. Some people want put others to death and announce crystal in a bullet hell or close to monsters so you land on top of them.
• Avoid teleporting to low level players in godlands. They may stand on top of crystal, or wander deep into godlands on a suicidal mission. They have nothing to lose.
• Lock friends and good players and teleport to them, preferably to ranged classes. They should be in safe place. Also you can see their health and MP when hovering over their name. If a priest has protection tome and just used it - rather don't teleport.
• Be careful when teleporting to the boss so you don't land on top of him (or other deadly things like green potion). Teleport earlier when there is a small distance between boss and the person you teleport to.

Anchor

• Nexusing out of dungeon will make you lose chances to get loot. That's why sometimes instead of nexusing out it's better to teleport to another player. That player is called an anchor.
• To set up an anchor type /teleport PlayerName in the chat, then click somewhere else. Now pressing Enter key twice will teleport you to that player. First enter will activate the chat and second one will send the teleport command. Dont press other keys (like movement keys) between Enters.
• You may set up the begin chat key to something else than Enter to reach it quickly. Tab key may be a good choice.
• Teleport command will fail if your anchor is paused, cloaked or left the dungeon. 
• There is a 10 second cooldown between teleports. Trying to teleport earlier will fail. 
• Don't count on it to be 100% reliable like nexus key.
• Try teleporting to anchor a bit earlier than you would nexus. Be ready to nexus out immediately if teleporting failed.
• Sometimes there is a delay and you don't teleport immediately. Sometimes it makes a gravestone spawn on the teleport target instead of the place that someone died.
• Lock your anchor and click his name sometimes to check if Teleport option is still there, that means the player is not paused.
• If you pause in a tomb - announce it to warn players who might have chosen you as their anchor.
• It's best when the anchoring player is aware of anchoring and is your friend.

Away

• Use /pause command when away from computer. You're invulnerable when paused. Some evil people love to drag monsters to players who are away to kill them.
• To unpause type /pause again.
• A phone rings? Tap your nexus key first. Don't leave your precious character in unsafe place.
• Don't expect a cleared place to be always safe. Gods respawn and abyss demons sometimes appear in previously cleared areas.
• Don't expect other people to protect you when you're away. They may get disconnected. Pause is always safer.

Chatting

• Use voice chat (mumble, teamspeak, skype) if possible. Typing in the realm is somehow dangerous.
  
• Don't type in the godlands. Pause or teleport to the map edge first and then respond to tells.
• Don't type in the Abyss.
• Don't type at Sphinx. Horrid Reaper may jump on you and kill you instantly.
• Don't announce your loot if you're not 100% safe. You don't have to announce it at all. I saw many people dying in Wine Cellar or at events, killed by leftover minions because they started typing.

Misc tips

• Learn to move while confused. Practice in the Manor: leave a single bat alive and let it confuse you. "A" moves back (that's the most important one), "D" forward, "W" left, "S" right, camera rotation is reversed. You can bend your hand 90 degrees to use DWAS instead of WASD (that's the easy way to remember).
• Disable trade requests (and join guild requests) in options. Sometimes you want to reach the dugneon entrance surrounded by gods. Just when you want to click the "Enter" button a trade requests pops up. There were cases of people getting distracted by that and dying. 
• Be careful when exiting a hallway. The monsters may be there behind a corner but you don't see them partially. They will "appear" suddenly.

Prevent client-side lag

• Change the flash quality to low.
• Use stand-alone Flash Projector instead of browser. 
• Close other programs that may use up the network and processor.
• Don't download heavy files while playing.
• Turn the shadows off in game options.
• Restart your client (browser, projector) periodically.
• Reboot the operating system sometimes.
• Change your internet provider if the network fails.
• In game options assign a key to Performance Stats and use it sometimes. The memory usage grows steadily and when it exceeds 600 MB (or whatever value you start lagging at) - it's time to restart the client.
• Allow Unlimited storage for flash player.

Lags

• Don't open dungeons in a crowded nexus (or in a guild hall that belongs to the crowded nexus) because you will have a heavy lag. Find a nearly empty nexus.
• If the realm is lagging - exit and change the server. 
• If all servers are lagging - try rolling new characters or take a break instead of playing your main character. 
• Screen freezes may be caused by flash player's garbage collector - it stops the game for a moment to reclaim used memory. Restart the client regularly to avoid it. If it happens - nexus key doesn't work, so close the window - or better - disconnect your internet physically by pulling out the network cable.

"Oryx lag"

• When the realm closes and people go to the Oryx Castle - all people within the dungeons opened in that realm experience the lag. This lag may be deadly. 
• Probable cause is that server is busy generating the new realm in place of the old one. The castle itself is also affected by that lag.
• Oryx lag affects also dungeons opened with keys.
• If you have friends in that realm - ask them to tell you when the realm closes.
• When it starts, move quickly to a safe place and stay there. If there is no safe place and the character is precious - close the client or disconnect the internet.

Lost focus

• Disable right clicking if possible. Use a script, like autohotkey, or some software shipped with your mouse driver. Accidental right clicking pops up the flash player menu and makes you lose control over a character.
• Disable Windows key.
• If your browser or flash projector window is not fullscreen - don't keep another window behind the game window. Otherwise - if you accidentally click outside - another window will obscure the game.
• Don't play when Windows Update is active. It may cause lags or display popups.

Godlands

• Unless you're farming fame or leveling a new character - avoid big crowd in the godlands (so called "trains"). When you cannot see the enemy bullets and people lure the gods from all directions - perhaps it's time to play somewhere safer. Also, too big crowd rather reduces your chance to get potion drops.
• When caught in a crossfire in the godlands - nexus immediately. Stacked Medusa bombs and Ghost God's shotgun can kill even maxed character in a second.
• Gods respawn and previously cleared area may be full of enemies again. Move sideways (left-right) to dodge shots and circle around gods instead of retreating large distances. 
• Be very careful not to retreat into a Ghost God, when playing with uncentered view. Watch the mini map when playing uncentered and moving backwards.
• Ent God bullets pierce through other players, you must dodge them even in the crowd.
• This applies to players with unmaxed defense: When leftover cube minions, skulls and pentaract eyes roam through the godlands - exit and change the realm. They reduce your health and create additional danger but don't drop anything in return.

Mysterious Crystal

• Don't stand on top of the crystal. Don't walk through the crystal. It fires a "shotugn" of bullets periodically. Standing on top of crystal and taking the full shotgun will kill any character immediately.
• You may use EP to break the crystal but only right after the shotgun. Wait for shotgun and don't stay on the crystal for too long. Use EP only after you saw the shotgun yourself. Quieted people around might have been quieted by a sprite god, not by the crystal. Other people EP'ing crystal are no guarantee that shotgun won't happen, I saw some of them dying. If you decided to go and switch the class to bring EP after you saw the shotgun - wait for another shotgun when you return.

Buffing: Ghost King, Ent Ancient and Lich

• Why the Ghost King is sometimes so easy to defeat and sometimes it takes so long? Why the battle with Lich is sometimes long and dangerous and sometimes it's fast and easy?
• Lich, Ent Ancient and Ghost King have a buff phase in the beginning. The damage dealt during that buff phase will determine their strength in next phases.
• The buff phase lasts while the monster is flashing blue. If no damage is dealt - the monster will be very easy to kill. That's why people say "don't buff" or say "idiot" and "noob" when someone buffed the monster.
• Sometimes the mystic tries to prevent buffing by stasising the monster. It often makes things worse because the buff phase continues after stasis is gone but the monster no longer flashes. That makes players buff without knowing about that.
• Sometimes it's reasonable to buff. Buffing Ent Ancient makes him spawn green sprites and gives a chance to get Quiver of Thunder. 
• People often buff liches to give their friends more time to enter the realm, usually when the realm is full and Wine Cellar is planned to be hosted there.
• Ghost King becomes vulnerable after the "ghost master" has been killed.

Oryx Castle

• Keep a safe distance from breakable walls. There are monsters behind that may kill you after the wall disappears.
• Stay away from brutes, they sometimes "charge" - move very rapidly towards the player.
• Beware of lag, it often appears in the castle. Usually before third room.
• Never stand in the middle of Stone Guardian chamber. That's where the last guardian drops his sword. The sword almost always instantly kills the player.
• Before entering the Oryx Chamber check for sword. Sometimes the sword remains after the guardians died. Sometimes the last guardian throws the sword just before death.
• Red stone guardian heals less than blue one. Kill the blue first.
• Sometimes someone opens a Pirate Cave in the middle of the chamber just before the Stone Guardian's sword lands. Make sure the guardians are dead and there is no sword.

Oryx Chamber ("Oryx 1")

• Don't be a hero in the castle. Overdamaging Oryx is not rewarded with better item drops so do your soulbound damage in safe phases like artifacts or shotgun and then just back off.
• Skip "silent" and "dancing" phases at Oryx ("be silent!", "time for more dancing hahaha"). Bomb damage is calculated server-side, so you may die at full health if you're lagging.
• Don't approach Oryx shotgun (huge white bolts) with low health. A single shot may kill you when you're low on health so keep away until healed.

Wine Cellar ("Oryx 2")

• Watch for colorful stars ("shotgun") that Oryx is constantly shooting. They do heavy damage and it's easy to miss them in the crowd.
• If you get confused, press "A" (moves backwards when confused)
• Circle Oryx clockwise, that way you will start moving back if confused.
• A robe class (wizard, mystic, necromancer, priest, sorc) or assassin are a safe choice for the Wine Cellar.

Sprite World

• Robe classes (wizards, priests, etc.) may shoot the boss from safe distance during the turret phase - when the boss spawns turrets and sits in the middle. Then leave the boss area during "chase" phase and wait for the next turret phase. That way an unpotted (0/8) character can safely kill the boss.
• Keep constantly moving during the chase phase.
• Don't grab loot or move to exit if turrets are still alive. Bullet streams that cross over the loot/exit may hurt you.

Undead Lair ("UDL")

• Floor traps may instantly kill you. Destroy them from the distance or activate by moving close and dodge the shots. There are two types of traps - square (one direction) and circle (all directions).
• Respect the Brown Slimes.
• Respect the Vampire Kings. Nexus if both quieted and slowed by them.
• Septavius first phase (small armor piercing bullets): circle around Septavius in close distance and stay in the gap between bullets. Some people do it wrong and eat all the bullets while circling.

Manor

• Skip the bat phase by moving out of Ruthven's chamber. Watch the minimap to know when the bat phase is over.
• Standing on top of Ruthven, when he changes from bats to his normal state, is fatal.

Davy Jones Locker

• Davy becomes vulnerable for a very short period after all "lamps" surrounding him got lit.
• When soloing (on a low DPS class) you may weaken the lamps first. Move around and shoot them a bit. Then lit them all quickly on the second pass.
• Keep distance from the lamps so they don't paralyze you.
• If you got paralyzed by the lamps and Davy is approaching you - nexus out. Davy sitting on you is instant death.
• Kill big skulls for more ghost rum, they drop it sometimes.

Ocean Trench

• If you solo or all players are weak - clear the last room before boss. It will allow you to retreat and regenerate.
• Watch out for "ponies". Be careful not to move into a pony that may sit behind a corner.
• Nexus out if paralyzed by ponies, before you started taking damage. Otherwise it may be too late. Tricksters may teleport away.
• The correct riddle answer is: He lives and reigns and conquers the world. Copy that words to clipboard before starting a trench.
  

Mad Lab

• Avoid teleporting in this dungeon. Many things can kill instantly if landed on top of them.
• Proceed carefully. Surprisingly too many weekly legends died here when I last checked the legend list.
• Avoid this dungeon if it's your only maxed character. Getting wisdom potion in Undead Lair will be faster and safer.
• Keep a safe distance when breaking the walls. The monsters may swarm right behind the wall.
• Destroy all white towers to open the door to second boss. 
• Second boss must be lured into a green pool to be vulnerable. All people should stay behind the green pools.

Tomb of the Ancients

• Unexperienced players may die here. But there is no other way to get experience than playing. Be very careful, enemies are fast and do heavy damage.
• You may watch some youtube videos to prepare (I chose not to).
• Quicksand slows you. You will not fully drown or die by the quicksand itself. However being slowed makes you an easy target for monsters. Best way to exit the quicksand is teleporting to another player (or using a prism / planewalker).
• Bosses start unactivated. Hitting a boss activates him. Activating more than one boss will make the fight very difficult.
• Fight only one boss at a time. Be very careful not to hit other bosses before the current boss is dead.
• The usual order for bosses is: Bes (yellow fat guy), Nut (blue), Geb (green).
• Don't use offensive abilities (spells, scepters, traps, poisons, quivers) until Geb. Knights may use shields any time.
• Experienced players don't like "noobs" (especially archers) because they often "ruin tombs" (activate all bosses). If you have low level and poor equipment - there is a possibility that someone will want to get you killed. Be prepared for scarabs being dragged to you.
• Bes fires many orange armor breaking boomerangs. Keep away from the point where the boomerangs meet because it's a deadly shotgun.
• Be careful when moving from behind the pillar. You don't see monsters partially in this game, even when you should see the part of a monster from behind the 3D element (pillar, wall corner). If you're unaware of that, you may step on top of boss or artifact and get shotgunned.
• Bosses enter the "rage" phase just before they die. Use cloak or ghost rum to approach them safely and kill them. Keep two bottles of ghost rum just in case the tomb appears.
• Nut rage is especially dangerous because she chases players. Watch for Nut shooting two small black armor breaking arrows at once - that means the rage is near. Rage starts when Nut says: "This cannot be! You shall not succeed".
• Don't stay too close to Geb before rage. The sudden burst of artifacts and bullets may kill you.

Prepare to die

Expect to die. Don't get too attached to your characters when you are a newbie. And later too. Store another gear set in the vault (or mules), store potions for another character (or feed another one already) to be ready to quickly start again. Because... YOU WILL DIE!!!

You gain the best knowledge about the game from dying. People can give you a lot of tips but you really learn from your own stupid mistakes. When the Brown Slime appears in Undead Lair and people start being cautious - I know that they had at least once ran carelessly into it and died. I died there too.

Learn the patterns

• Every realm god can be destroyed easily. For example, single Medusas (and stacked ones too) can be safely circled around, Ent Gods can be tricked by moving repeatedly left-right. More enemies can be circled around with maxed speed.
• Every dungeon boss has its phases. There are phases when you are safer and can attack more efficiently. And there are phases which you may want to skip because the boss is invulnerable or especially dangerous.
• Lot of rich players (those with fancy dyes, pets and top equipment) waiting on the beach means that the Wine Cellar will probably be open. Switch your character to a class that can damage Oryx 2 safely (wizard, assassin) and stay in that realm.

Don't over-equip

Don't equip too good items on unpotted character. Usually the items that cost 1 spd (T8/T4) are enough. Staff of horror or gbow, illusionist/master or dhide, dsphere or magesteel, sup def ring. When all your gear is worth 4 spd or less, there is no regret after you die. This gear is enough until 4/8. Stash the better items or sell them and drink the stat potions instead.

Your main power comes from drinking att and dex pots, not from items. Especially T12/T6 items give no real advantage over previous tier except making you look cool and rich. There are exceptions however - some expensive items like Doom Bow or Helm of the Juggernaut work differently and are worth buying.

Skill is more important. Good aiming and dodging skills are worth more than expensive gear.

Don't drink (yet)

For newbies: don't drink pots too early. Store them safely and die at least 30 times first, be sure to visit all dungeons and participate in events (and die there). Explore the game with cheap equipment and unpotted. No big waste when you die.

Drink!

Don't hesitate to drink. Speed potions are cheap and maxing speed makes you much better at dodging and retreating. Maxing def is also a top priority. Drink spd, def and att you found in the godlands. You'll find the dungeons a lot easier and you'll quickly harvest dex and wis yourself.

Pot the second character first

Potted characters are more efficient farmers than fresh ones. If you have only one potted character, don't risk his life yet. Stay away from tombs, skulls, cubes, mad labs, castles and wine cellars for a while. Farm only godlands, pentaracts and easy dungeons for pots. First farm enough pots to pot another character to 4/8. That way you have always at least one potted farmer and recover faster.

Fame farming

EDIT: This article is partially outdated. There are no Amulets of Resurrection. However, people still farm fame to acquire higher rank (more stars) or to place themselves on the Legends list. I updated some parts.

------

 

 Goal

The main goal of fame farming is to acquire 11500 fame and buy the Amulet of Resurrection. This item can be used on one's own characters or sold for profit. to achieve higher rank (more stars), preferably a White Star (rank 70).

Fame bonuses

The best way to gain huge amounts of fame is to exploit the fame bonuses. This requires a special gameplay style like not using potions, not using abilities, not using autofire and killing only gods.

Killing one's main characters for fame is unprofitable - they most often lack these bonuses and they cost much more time and wealth to create and upgrade than they gain fame. Fame farmers create special characters for that purpose. Those characters live one hour at most.

Using the fame calculator can help prepare a strategy for achieving the bonuses.

The optimal set of bonuses

(in my opinion)

• Thirsty - don't drink potions, or drink them off ground only. It's good to unset item hotkeys so you don't drink a potion accidentally (also the new contextual click is dangerous and should be turned off). Drinking stat pots destroys this bonus too but you can drink them from vault chests or from the ground - that's how people from Legends list had 6/8 characters and still got thirsty bonus. Using a pollen powder or snake oil by someone else does not affect this bonus. Gumballs from candyland count as potions, Rock Candy does not.
• Mundane - don't use the ability. Either unequip the ability item or unset the hotkey in options.
• Enemy of the Gods, Slayer of the Gods - gods are at least 50% of kills. Kill only gods, avoid killing minions.
• Accurate, Sharpshooter, Sniper - 75% accuracy
• Friend of the Cubes - no cube kills. You can accidentally damage a cube without killing it and still get this bonus. Also you can be near people who kill cubes and still get this bonus. Beware of small cubes on the beach.
• Well Equipped - equip fame items before dying. Wearing those items doesn't speed up the fame gain so you don't have to wear them during farming. Only having them equipped in the moment of death counts.

And if farming takes place on the new account (which is recommended):

• Ancestor - First dead character. It doesn't need to be a wizard if you delete characters instead of killing them.
  
• Legacy Builder - I'm still not sure how this bonus works. I think it must be the first wizard to get both Ancestor and Legacy Builder (see legends list - Itani got both bonuses, RotmgJAPAN got only Ancestor). Update: I got Legacy Builder on first dead ninja. I think it's supposed to be the first dead character of a class but it's somehow faulty and cannot be counted on.
• First Born - more fame than any previous character

Bonuses worth considering

• Explorer (1.000.000 tiles) and Cartographer (4.000.000 tiles) - I think these are too time consuming for amulet farmer and give 5% bonus only. You can easily get Explorer when going for 5 stars on a class (usually it happens by itself). One round of running around the map using outermost road uncovers about 250.000 tiles.
• Tunnel Rat - too time consuming for 231-base fame amulet farmer because it adds only ~60 total fame. Worth considering by 600-base fame character going for 5 stars because it saves ~80 base fame. More about this bonus.
• Oryx Slayer - probably not worth the effort. However, if the realm closes and the character is ready to die - you can go to the castle and give it a shot. Either you die, which is fine, or get some good loot from Oryx which is fine too. And maybe you'll manage to land that last bullet on Oryx and get some more fame from this achievement.
• Boots on the Ground - Finding best trains without teleporting is probably too time consuming. The trains could be found using other account and then reached by foot. This would give like 160-180 extra fame. But good trains sometimes disappear - a realm gets closed, people enter the dungeon or attend an event, or they start shooting the crystal or the supply of gods ends. This may require additional trips.
• Team Player - in my experience it cannot be achieved with a short-lived 231 base fame character. A 600 base fame character going for 5 stars on a class may try to get this bonus.

Other bonuses

• Leader of Men, Doer of Deeds - these are achievable by long-lived characters only.
• Pacifist - no damage dealt. This excludes bonuses that require dealing damage (that means 150 fame less if choosing this path).

When to stop?

After reaching 100,000 experience the rapid fame gain suddenly stops. If you're interested in fame only, and not the stars - it's the right place to cash the fame (that means killing the character) and start over.

The optimal moment to kill the character is 100,000 exp which corresponds to about 231 base fame. However, there are other factors than exp that contribute to fame, so 100,000 exp can be reached somewhere between 218-240 base fame. Use muledump to know the exact amount of exp.

218 base fame gives 642 total fame  (using my preferred set of bonuses and 7% fame items)
272 base fame gives 802 total fame but requires twice as much experience (that means time).
A goal of achieving 800 total fame takes twice as much time than achieving 642. But it may be necessary if we want to farm stars.

Fame items

In my opinion 7% is the optimal amount. 1% weapon, 2% ability, 1% armor, 3% ring. A person who plays the game normally should have no problems in acquiring these. Serious players throw that items away or don't even pick them up.

Sometimes, when wanting to acquire higher amounts of fame (like 2000 fame for 5 stars) it's it good to acquire better yet still cheap items to save time, for example:

• Exalted rings, Coral ring - 4%, worth 1 att
• Robe of the Tlatoani - 2%, worth 1 spd
• Coral Trap - 4%, worth 1 def 
• T5 trap, prism and orb - 3%, worth 1 att

Monitoring the progress

Using muledump helps greatly because we are aware of current accuracy, number of tiles uncovered and gods/monsters ratio so there will be no surprises. We can always kill some additional gods, shoot tutorial turrets for accuracy or uncover some terrain to reach the desired bonus.

Leveling to 20

Achieving level 20 in RotMG is very easy and should take about 7-15 minutes. In older versions of the game lowland "trains" were popular - people circled the map in huge group to gain experience from low level monsters. In current build those trains almost went extinct and everbody teleports straight to the godlands at level 1. That's because now there are more gods and they spawn much faster. Equipping a Health ring (Sup or Para) is recommended to survive the early levels. Huge godland "trains" are full of priests and paladins that constantly heal and surviving is easy if you avoid Medusa bombs and piercing bullets of the Ent God.

Note that during farming sessions you may unintentionally acquire an exceptionally good roll, like +30 or +40 HP over average. Such character should be saved if possible and played later as a main character.

Noob's Guide to ammy farming - step by step (outdated)

1. Create a new account, create a wizard
2. Download muledump, enter the new account data (mail and password)
3. Enable the "Additional stats" option within muledump
4. Equip the wizard with Robe of the Illusionist, Staff of Destruction and Ring of Superior Health, throw the spell away
5. Enter the realm and find a good godland train. That means A LOT of stacked gods being exterminated by huge amount of players. You should see at least two coral bows firing, five priests, and a horde of noobs like you.
6. Take cover behind other players and dodge Medusa bombs and Ent God shots.
7. If the train disappears, find another one - change the realm or server if necessary. If the train enters the dungeon like Undead Lair - that's fine. Dungeons are good for exp. Just keep don't shoot the monsters.
8. Once level 20 is achieved, kill the gods to get the stat potion drops. You'll probably get from 2 spd to 2 def, not much but it will be enough to buy a funeral suit for this character. With a bit of luck you may get several def.
9. Don't use autofire and shoot only if you're sure to hit.
10. Don't shoot if the cubes are nearby.
11. Keep doing that until base fame reaches 231.
12. Equip any ring of dexterity, go to /tutorial and improve accuracy by shooting towers. Keep shooting until the Sniper is achieved. Use muledump to know when.
13. Equip fame items and die.
14. Repeat above steps for a Priest
15. Repeat for archer. Equip the archer with gbow for good godland rape and accuracy farming. You can keep the magesteel quiver for dexterity bonus but don't use it.
16. Keep repeating above steps with archers until 11500 total fame is achieved. Archers are good for killing stacked gods and they can improve accuracy quickly.
17. Buy Amulet of Resurrection and trade it to your main account. 
18. Sell it in game for incantations, then incantations for life, then life for def, then def for att, wis, spd, dex, vit and mana. Use the price guide to know the prices. Don't trade for pure def or you might get scammed.
19. Drink the potions and enjoy having a maxed character.

Improving the accuracy

While farming fame it's good to kill as many gods as possible to acquire additional stat potions. However, the accuracy will inevitably drop. To improve it we can shoot repeatedly some target that doesn't die like the crystal, constructs or tutorial turrets. Turrets are the best choice.

Equip items that improve dexterity and a piercing weapon if you have one and type "/tutorial" in the console. Go to the 4 towers and shoot them until you have the Sniper achievement. Monitor results in muledump.

Best weapons to improve accuracy:

• bow classes - any 3-shot bow like Golden Bow (3 shots = 11 hits)
• dagger classes - Bone Dagger (1 shot = 4 hits)
• wand classes - Crystal Wand (1 shot = 4 hits)
• melee classes - Demon Blade (2 shots = 2 hits)
• staff classes - Staff of Extreme Prejudice (10 shots = 10 hits)

Improving accuracy is slow on melee and staff classes due to lack of piercing weapons.

Tunnel Rat

Dungeon is completed when your character exits dungeon through Realm Portal (not a Portal of Cowardice). Realm Portal appears when dungeon boss is dead. You don't have to fight the boss or be present at his death. Strategy: wait at the spawn while others rush or clear, teleport to the boss and exit when it's over.

• Undead Lair, Sprite World, Abyss of Demons - those dungeons appear very often when a big train runs through the godlands. Just enter, wait for others to rush/clear, teleport to the boss and exit when he is dead
• Ocean Trench - as above - just teleport to hermit and wait
• Tomb - use either a tomb dropped by sphinx or check the forums for public tombs. Immediately pause in the corner after entering (type "/pause") and don't unpause until bosses are dead. To unpause type "/pause" again. Then just exit through the Realm Portal. Be careful, there may be still some Nile Artifacts around.
• Pirate Cave - create a mule, buy a discounted key for 93 realm gold and open
• Spider Den, Snake Pit, Manor - these are sometimes hard to find (and time is money) and bad to solo (too many killed minions may destroy your Slayer of the Gods bonus) but you can offer 2 def pots for someone to open them in the nexus or ask friends to find and clear these dungeons for you.
• Mad Lab, Davy Jones Locker, Candy Land, Cemetery - you don't need those for Tunnel Rat. However things may change in a new build so be aware
• Beachzone, Wine Cellar - you don't need those for Tunnel Rat

Some people host "Tunnel Rat Events" and they open all dungeons in the nexus. Check forums for these as this is the fastest way to get the Tunnel Rat achievement.

Star farming

Getting 4 stars on a class is easy and requires 800 fame. A disciplined farmer can achieve 56 stars in one day (14x4). A little less disciplined one will surely get them in a week. That's why the stars tell nothing about the real skill or wealth of the player. But still they are nice to have. People set their own goals in this game and higher rank may be one of those goals.

5 stars require 2000 fame.

I decided to farm 5 stars on a huntress because it's too similar to an archer and I don't want to waste a character slot for it. Also I think quiver is a better special than trap. I already have an archer with 4000 base fame and I'd rather play that archer. 

An example: 5-star huntress:

Final words

Farming is boring when compared to normal game. And doing events, dungeons and wine cellars is much more profitable. That's why the "pro" players buy amulets and don't farm fame themselves.
Yet for a starting player without a maxed character fame farming may be the good way to gain in-game wealth and pot the characters without too much grinding.

I wish you good luck in your farming efforts.

Useful links

Fame calclulator
Muledump
Fame bonuses in the wiki