Newbie Guide: The Guides to Leadership

INDEX
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1. Why party? Different party types and a quick explanation why to party
1.1. Experience parties
1.2. Equipment parties
2. Things to do before you start a party
3. Forming a party
3.1. Forming an experience party
3.2. Forming an equipment party
4. Leading a party
5. Maintaining a party
6. Optimizing - needed trigs and macros

1. WHY PARTY? DIFFERENT PARTY TYPES AND A QUICK EXPLANATION WHY TO PARTY
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Every player starts off soloing experience. This however gets boring very quickly, and is only a small part of the playing experience ZombieMUD offers. The answer to this boredom and preluded retirement is partying, (joining into a group of multiple players with the same goal). This form of playing is more effective in gaining your goals, and makes possible goals that you could never achieve alone, e.g. killing Lucifer. Parties also allow you to socialize, and you actually get to know other players in a whole new way.

1.2. EXPERIENCE PARTIES
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Experience parties have one purpose alone: for each party member to gain experience and guild masteries much faster than by soloing. Partying is also a very nice change to soloing, as you actually have other people playing with you.

1.3. EQUIPMENT PARTIES
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Equipment parties are formed to gain equipment by killing big npc's, or EQ-mobs. Equipment parties differ from experience parties mostly due to their duration - EQ-parties go on for hours and hours, so every member will get equipment when the party ends. Highbie EQ-parties include lots of dying, but don't be scared off due to that, as many newbie mobs can be killed without massive death to the party. And even if you do die a few times, dicing a nice piece of equipment in the end makes up for it.

2. THINGS TO DO BEFORE YOU START A PARTY
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First of all, make triggers for the main prots. You'll want to ask an abjurer to help you get the syntaxs for e.g. Iron Will being put on you and dropping.

Second, make run macros. It's a good idea to scout for the mobs worth killing by a) joining a party as a hitter and taking notes of the mobs you're killing OR b) running around areas with a bard and kya’ing mobs to see their resistances, level and stats. Once you've scouted mobs you're going to kill with a party, run macros that take you from one mob to another directly, because it saves time and you end up killing mobs in a logical order, allowing them to reset while you're killing something else. Try to avoid water when making the macros, they can be deadly to some races while running around.

Of course you can avoid making these run macros, if you plan to kill mobs in only one area, e.g. natives or corn soldiers. Then again, you should also prepare for possibility, that you can only form a certain type of party at a certain time when you want to play, so you should make numerous run macros, "circles", for different types of parties. For example, make one round for big exp mobs, 3m+. These mobs you can kill with big exp parties, 6-8 members. Then make another "circle" for 1-3m mobs, that you can kill with smaller parties.

If you plan on tanking eq, then you should also make macros for the quests needed to get to eq-mobs. Explore these quests with a small party, figure out what you have to do, and make the macros to complete these quests. It saves lots of time, and allows for your party to kill more eq-mobs during a party.

3. FORMING A PARTY
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When forming a party, you want to be polite when asking players to join. Don't spam players either, but then again don't be afraid to ask. If you're willing to tank and you have a protter and somebody with heal power, lots of people are usually willing to come and blast. It's also a good idea to have some idea on how long you're planning to play and what type of party you're forming when you start asking people to join. Once you've lead a few parties, people will actually start asking you if you're planning on playing and if they can join! Easy, isn't it?

3.1. FORMING AN EXPERIENCE PARTY
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If you plan on making experience by partying, first reinc to monk, ranger or fighter guild yourself and train dodge and parry skills. Paladin templar subguild also works, if you plan on killing only evil monsters. After that get a friend to reinc to a protter guild, abjurer for most party types, but paladin hospitalar or inquisitor for evil mobs also works. Since you'll need healing power for experience parties, it's a good idea to either force your protter friend to take healer levels, or if he can't afford it, then get somebody else to reinc into a character that has healing power.

You can also form an experience party on the fly, just check the unidle abjurers and ask them to join your party. This however can be very frustrating, as there aren't that many abjurers available usually.

Once you have healing power and a protter, then you start looking for blasters, or people who do the actually damage to the mobs you'll be killing. If you have an abjurer, then he'll be vulning the mobs you kill, and you want to find people who do the same damagetype. Choose one that is done by many guilds, for example electric damage is used often, as monks / clerics / sorcerers / fighters / rangers / samurai are all able to do electric damage well.

Optimally, if you decide to start making exp with a group of friends, make all of them reinc into guilds that make the same damagetype, so you'll get the most benefit from using vulns.

You'll want to take into account the fact that different types of parties work better with some prefs that basically suck for some party types. Scout the mobs you want to kill for experience, and get a bard to cast "know your audience" (aka kya), so you get an idea of the preferences that will work, and the ones that won't for certain party types.

Also take into note that in some cases other types of parties work, for example a two man party with a necromancer tanking and a blaster doing damage also works. Only your imagination is the limit when forming parties with the aim of gaining experience.

3.2. FORMING AN EQUIPMENT PARTY
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While experience parties can be formed “on the fly”, equipment partie s require for people to reinc into characters that suit the party. This requires planning and the commitment of the players who are going to join your eq-party. It’s a good idea to start asking in advance for the 8 (or 9 or 10) players who are willing to join your eq run, as being in an eq-reinc without parties is extremely boring and will just make people reinc into something else.

First of all, it’s a good idea to make friends reinc into crucial characters in your eq-party, such as healer and abjurer. Getting blasters is generally easier, and even if your party is lacking one blaster it can still do eq, but missing a healer for example will end all possible playing. Plan in advance the characters you want people to reinc into, tell them what secondary guild to pick, what subguilds to join etc. This is important, as you’ll want your party to be able to blast the same prefs, have enough healing power, have enough people with ress etc. It's also important to plan in advance what you're going to kill with your party. Especially if you plan on doing a long eq run, for example playing 3-4 times a week for two months, partying will actually start feeling like work, something I don't want when playing this mud. So plan in advance what you're going to kill, when you're going to explore new mobs etc. Don't go to tythus two or three days in a row for example, as massive dying starts annoying everybody.

Once you've got your eq-party running, try to keep the same party intact for multiple days, and dice the eq you've gained for example once a week. This ensures everybody getting good eq, even if they dice last. You can also dice your loot after every party, but if (when) somebody dices last the third time in a row and gets a shitty piece of eq when the person who diced first gets a tiamat ring, it usually makes them reconsider playing.

4. LEADING A PARTY
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As you've read from above, leading a party isn't something you can do without some consideration and planning in advance. It's important to lead the party in a way that suits you, don't take a role when playing, as that usually annoys players in the long run. Always remember, that you're doing this for fun, so don't take leading a party too seriously. As the party leader, you're the one who decides who joins your party and who doesn't.

Make this clear from the very beginning, as it usually only leads to shitty results if you let somebody else form a party for you. You're entitled to rather take a real life friend to drag into your party if you feel like it, but you should always remember to treat everybody in a fair way. This will lead to people joining your party more than once, as most players act like a herd of sheep, they don't want to think for themselves, but follow somebody who actually is willing to work a bit.

It's a good idea to inform your party members honestly about what you're planning to do, as it can form a bad spirit into party members if you start helping a friend kill some little eq mobs when helping a friend do a quest with your xp-party without telling them first. But then again, as it's your party, you can of course do this.

5. MAINTAINING A PARTY
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Maintaining a party isn't really all that hard, just keep in mind what's been stated above. Also remember to have breaks while you party. A good rule of thumb is to give people time to go smoke, eat or jerk off for about 10 minutes after two hours of playing. This of course applies to exp-parties more than eq-parties. With eq-parties, it's usually a good idea to let people do these things when you're doing quests to mobs, as there are usually parts that don't require your full party present in t hese quests.

Also with eq-parties, remember the importance of planning ahead, as stated above.

6. OPTIMIZING - NEEDED TRIGS AND MACROES
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For basic party leading, you don't really need that many trigs. Trigs that tell you the duration for IW and WOS/AOG, and trigs that tell you when your AC prots drop are all that are really needed. It's a good idea to make it possible for your protter to see the prots you have on with a command.

As for macroes needed, you mostly want ones that run in a circle from one mob to another without running to CS every time. See chapter 2.

Once you have these done, you can easily start your parties. Make new trigs that you feel help playing as you play, the ones listed above are all you really need.

Have fun partying!

//Aracno