>==== STARTING / INSTALLING ====< I just downloaded the game, what do I do now? After you have installed Nightmist, you will be required to make an account, and log in. To do this you start Nightmist up, type in the username and password you want, then click create account. If the account name/pass are ok, then you can click login and you will appear in the account manager. From here you can roll new characters from the bottom right button, and they will appear in the middle ready to be played. When playing a character, you start in Boar's Tusk Inn, if you press n then enter, you will go into the tutorial sector. To see a list of commands type help commands. I have been playing the game for a while, but I keep dying! This is to be expected, we don't want to make the game too easy. The best thing to do is find other people, and join their clan. This makes it easier to work together as a team, which makes playing the game easier and more enjoyable. Every time I step outside the city, someone kills me! Oh dear! In this game we believe in 'pk' - player killing. Players can kill other players, but only outside of cities. Sometimes you just have to accept that you will get killed occasionally, or you can use arenas in cities to train safely. When I try to log in, it says I have been banned from the game! If you have broken some of the rules of the game, you will find that your characters or even your whole computer have been banned. This is because blocking access to the game is the easiest way to solve problems. If you do not know why you have been banned, then send an e-mail to a member of staff, and we will either reply with a reason, or if there has been a mistake, rectify the problem. If you have been banned, do not ask why on the forum, or argue you did nothing wrong. Nightmist won't let me log in to the account manager! Tried alternate port/dns on the options menu? (when alternate port is unticked, nightmist connects to the server on port 20000, when ticked, 110) There are numerous reasons which could cause this to happen: 1) The server is down. If the server encounters a fatal error, which happens rarely, or is being upgraded then you will be unable to connect until JLH fixes it, and restarts it. An even worse case is complete server failure, whereby the website will vanish aswell. 2) The ISP is doing work in the area and the server's internet connection is down, this happens rarely, but when it does it is at around 1-5am GMT and lasts for about 5-10 minutes. 3) You have a firewall or go through a router which blocks various ports. To maintain high compatibility with firewalls and other port-blocking devices, nightmist can optionally run on the e-mail port, 110, this does not interfere with any sending/recieving of emails, although caution is advised if you do run an e-mail server of your own, in this case, nightmist may not be able to use alternate port. (Nortan Anti-Virus monitors port 110, so nightmist on alternate port won't work with nortan installed - use normal port) 4) No network connection is present. Check you are connected to the internet, and try again. 5) If you always get a connection dropped by remote host error every time you attempt to connect and can't get to the account manager, check your regional settings, we have found that Hebrew stops nightmist working properly (this is due to the ascii character set being mapped differently, so the system can't link properly). Narrowing down the fault: 1) If the nightmist site/forum is working, then your connection to the server itself is working. 2) Click the Start button - click Run - type in command, click ok, type telnet nm.nightmist-online.co.uk 20000, press enter (can also try port 110 instead of 20000). a) You get a box appear that says KEYCODE at the beginning: good, you've connected to the nightmist server itself. Check firewall if present to make sure that nightmist is allowed to access the net. When nightmist has a client update the firewall may treat this as a new program and may need to be told to 're-allow' it to access the web. b) You get a blank box appear: this means telnet connected to something, but if KEYCODE is not at the top, then either the server is having a connection problem (rare), more likely though, you have connected to something else, nortan anti virus will do this if you attempt a connect on port 110 (use 20000) c) You get "Connection failed" (or equivalent): see if any of your friends are playing nightmist or post on the forum to see if the server is down (rare), more likely though it could be a firewall issue blocking telnet too and check as above. When clicking the PLAY button in the account manager, it changes to WAIT, but never loads the game screen. Click the Start button - click Run - type in regsvr32 richtx32.ocx, click ok. It should say succeeded and the game will work, if it says the file is not found, reinstall the game as something has deleted that file. I need a map! Nightmist Online does not provide maps for you, however there are various fan sites with have achives containing maps. Most also contain various info on weapons, armors, and other equipment including who can wear what at what level. >==== STAFF ====< How do I join the staff team? When we want to hire more staff and we don't have particular people in mind for the job(s), we post about it in the announcements forum. Can I help without joining staff? Yes, there is a large forum with various boards that you can comment on, some people also work with staff on area development. To do that, you have to have presented a good area in the Nightmist developement forum, and a staff member has to be free to be able to work with you on it. Why are there no staff online? Generally there is always at least 1 staff online, staff can cloak however and therefore may not show on /? If you need staff, you can /yell for them, and if they are not very busy they may be able to help you. We try to automate as much as possible, so type help for more information, or if that doesn't help, post in the help forum (or technical if appropriate). >==== CHARACTERS ====< Can I move XP from one character to another? This is not allowed as people will just roll characters continuously until they get 5/6 stat perfect then move all their xp earned on other characters to the newly rolled one. This means it can level up at a faster rate than intended. How do I change my stats? Some items can give you stat boosts or even decrease them while the item is equipped. There are also various spells/abilities that can alter yours (and possibly other peoples) stats. Can I change my name/sex/class? Yes, the website has a character edit menu you can use to do this. Where do I find out what different items do? If you type /library then the item in question, you will get various bits of information that should help you. How many alts can I log on? Windows 9x/ME has a limit of about 4-5 crits before your machine runs out of resources and starts to crash or go a bit wrong. You can achieve this with 64Mb of RAM. Windows NT/2k/XP has no resource limit, as I write this, I believe someone has logged on 78 characters, the more RAM the better, for 2k/xp you want at least 128mb really. My character/account is missing! If a character is not played for 2-3 months, then it is moved into the inactive database to preserve the speed of the game and allow people to re-use popular names. You can restore your character on the website on the character menu into an account of your choice if you know the original password it had when it was deleted. >==== CLANS ====< How do I make a clan? '/clan create name', this costs 20,000 gold. How do I get a clan house? The chairman of the clan can visit the estate agent on west Raven street to purchase a clan house. The house will appear in Tribal street and will be 1 square large. Additional squares can be bought from the estate agent along with various rooms for it. Can I have an NPC in my clan house? Yes, type '/clan monster list' for information on it, NPCs cost 50,000 gold each. Can I move my clan house? If your clan house is of 25 squares or more, then you may relocate to another area of the map, staff will be able to tell you where you can move to. Can I keep items on the floor of my clan house? Items on the floor will remain there until the server has an update/restart, that is why the vaults exist for safe keeping of your items. (You can also use your global account vault). How do I remove the default items from the kitchen? Add more of your own. >==== OTHER ====< Someone is being very abusive towards me. Unfortunately, there are always some people who insist on spoiling the game for others. If the person is annoying you via pages, you can use the /ignore command to block them. However, this does not work in general chatting, so either walk away, or report it to either an online member of staff, or via e-mail. If it is extreme, then please include at least one exact quote, so that the log (which has details of every action in the game) can be checked more easily. Please do not post about other users on the forum. I have a problem, and the answer is not in the FAQ! Simply send an e-mail to support@Nightmist-Online.co.uk and we'll try to help you! >==== TROUBLESHOOTING ====< I get an "error 75, permission denied" when editing my macros i) Usual case - Your macro file is read-only, this can happen if you have copied the file off a cd. To fix this, with the character logged on, delete the macro_character file from your nightmist folder. Or right click the macro_character file and uncheck read only. ii) You do not have write access to the location where nightmist is stored (ie a network share or ntfs security) or the file itself. To fix this (in the case of ntfs), get the properties of the file (or nightmist folder itself) and give yourself write access and set it to apply the security permissions to subfolders and files. If nightmist is running from a network share, then you will have to edit the share on the server machine itself to allow you to write to the file. I get an "error 5, invalid procedure call" when trying to logon some characters You have not ran the autoupdater like it asked you too :) Do "help-update the autoupdater" (takes a few seconds) to get the latest one. Nightmist keeps trying to auto-update itself every I try to login Check your shortcut to Nightmist. It is likely that the working directory or start in directory is not the same as the target directory (or just make a new shortcut). I get "Missing File: Libbz2.dll, please reinstall Nightmist" when starting Nightmist If you are sure you have downloaded the full 3mb setup kit and not just the exe, then it is highly likely your shortcut is wrong. It is likely that the working directory or start in directory is not the same as the target directory (or just make a new shortcut). When clicking the PLAY button in the account manager, it changes to WAIT, but never loads the game screen. Click the Start button - click Run - type in regsvr32 richtx32.ocx, click ok. It should say succeeded and the game will work, if it says the file is not found, reinstall the game as something has deleted that file.