FAQ Part 2:
How do I make food or other things?Characters below the age of 1 can't work on any other projects than foraging yet. Foraging means you simply gather some resources of the available biomes, but of course this only works if you are not inside a building or city. To forage when your character is outside, click on the "Look around" link in the "Nature" section and then on the icon that looks like a blue shopping cart next to one of the available biomes. Every biome has a different range of resources that it can produce and not all of them have anything that food can be made of. You can see what you and others in your location have foraged by going to your portal screen and then clicking on the "Show Event Messages" link.
Resources can never be eaten, even if they are food like berries that can normally be eaten without much preparation IRL. They still have to be prepared first, which will turn them from a resource into an object. Characters who are old enough to start projects can use edible resources that have been foraged to start a project to prepare berries, for example. Alternatively, raw meat can be gained from hunting and then it can be roasted in an oven or over a fire. But of course all of that is nothing that a newborn like your character can or would do.
How old does my character have to be to help someone with their project?1.
How old does my character have to be to start their own projects?3.
How old does my character have to be to hunt or to attack another character?5. That does not mean you should go and try it out right away, though, or your character could die. Several animals are really tough and can kill children easily, especially if you go attack them without a weapon and without armor. Also, some colonies value animal life and would hate to see you attack one of the animals without thought. Animal races also might go extinct in certain places if the last ones are killed, so doing so might piss some people off. And many players frown upon it if young children even try to hunt on their own without being motivated for it by others. It's not like the first thing an average 5-year-old would like to do is go to engage a bear in combat (
which would likely lead to your character's death in FTO - I have seen more than one character die after attacking a bear). Instead, please wait until adults show your character how to hunt. That might also be an important step in your character's culture and might be done as a ritual at a certain age, so it's important to follow the guidance of other players there. If you don't want to wait or if you're not sure if it's allowed to hunt in your character's culture or not, you could have your character ask about it in an innocent, childish way, so that an adult will explain things to your character.
If you ever mechanically attack another character, do so at your own risk. Even while still being a child, it might result in your character getting killed by an adult. If you just want to roleplay a harmless fight between children, do so without using the mechanical attack function and especially without using any kind of weapon. Simply describe in an emote how your character boxes the other child onto their arm or whatever.
How old does my character have to be to travel?5. However, if there is not a really good reason for your character to run away from home, they shouldn't do so at such a young age where they are still dependent on their parents.
How old does my character have to be to produce offspring?10. However, you should as always pay attention to the culture of your character's race and learn what an appropriate age for having babies would be there.
Can animals attack and kill my character without provocation?Yes and no. Animals in outside locations won't ever attack without being attacked first. However, mines and cities are an exception to this. Whenever your character enters a new street or tunnel inside a city or mine, there is a chance that one of the creatures present there will attack your character. I have seen players get really sad over losing their character this way, so it's best to stay away from mines and cities unless adult characters tell your character it's safe to go in there (which is only the case if adults have killed all the creatures inside - new creatures might spawn, though). Especially young children still have very low hitpoints, even though hitpoints are a hidden value, so be careful where you go with your character.
There are "Unknown Creatures" in the creature list of my location. What are they?They are simply animals that are either extremely strong or special in some other way and they are part of the dynamic naming system. If there is a certain name for them in your character's culture, you can fill that name in there, so that they won't be shown as "Unknown Creature" any longer. You can of course always have your character ask childishly what they are called to find out if there is any special name for them.
Do not attack them unless told to do so by an adult. Some of them could kill an unarmed child with one blow.Are multiple births possible?Yes, one of my characters once had 7 babies at once and I have heard of births up to 12 babies at once. However, there are also a lot of births with just a single baby.
How long does a pregnancy last?24 RL hours, regardless of the race.
Can I have more than one character per account?Yes, you can have up to three living characters on your account (or even more through account merging, but you can't join the birth queue any longer once you have 3 characters on an account). Once your first character is born, you can click on the "Enter Birth Queue" button on your portal screen to join the birth queue with a second character. But please, do so only after you have played for some time and are sure that you still want to keep playing and that you have the time and dedication for more than one character. Otherwise, you would unnecessarily lengthen the already long birth queue for other players still waiting to get into the game and you would also make parents sad who would get an inactive baby. If you decide you don't want to play Faery Tale Online any longer, please consider giving your account away to someone still waiting to play over the facebook group or here in the BattleMaster forums.
Is more than one account per player allowed?There was a time when no more than one account per player was allowed, though it seems this rule has been lifted now.
Instead of going down further in the birth queue, I just went up a spot! What's going on?When a player in the birth queue doesn't log into their account for a week, the account gets marked as inactive, so that the character will not be born until the player logs in again. The inactive account will still continue to advance through the queue invisibly, so that it will definitely end up at spot 0 given enough time, but the birth will be blocked from happening for the account. As soon as the player reactivates the account by logging in, the birth gets "unlocked" and players behind them in the queue will get pushed back a spot.
Is there more than one continent?Yes, there are several continents completely separate from each other. I have not played for some time and I'm not sure if boats have been implemented yet, but if they haven't, the only characters able to travel between different continents are those that have special racial qualities that enable them to either swim or fly very long distances. That means that certain races will never meet each other, unless boats get implemented.
Is clanning allowed?Yes and no. It's completely fine if you join the birth queue together with some friends, hoping that you will all get born to the same mother, so that your characters would be able to grow up together and become friends ingame. However, if you plan to form a huge interracial BM clan before even being born, it might not be the best of ideas. First, like I mentioned, it's mechanically impossible for some races to meet because they are on different continents and don't have boats. Second, and more importantly, please have your character do things out of in-character motivations only, not because you OOCly would like an interracial clan with all BM players. Develop your character with the experiences he or she makes while growing up instead of planning their life now while you're still in the birth queue. It's best to play this game without any advance plans and to just see what happens to your character.
What causes of death exist in Faery Tale Online?Your character could get killed by another character or by an NPC animal, they could starve, they could die of heat or cold damage when wearing the wrong clothes for their surroundings (though this takes a long time and can easily be changed at any given time - this is mostly a death only inactive characters die). Eating something that is not meant to be eaten, like feces or already rotting food, will also result in some damage, though I think the damage from one piece of bad food is relatively small and would only be enough to kill a character who is already damaged from something else. And finally, characters can die of old age. When exactly that happens depends on the race your character belongs to. There was also a one-time event that characters older than 50 died of a strange disease that the game creator used to kill them off, but this did not happen ever again, so there's no reason to worry about your character turning 50 now.
Can old characters still produce offspring?No. There is a certain age limit after which characters won't be able to produce offspring. I'm not entirely sure where this limit lies exactly and in how far it varies for different races, but it definitely exists.
Is it okay if my character kills another character?Well, there isn't a rule against killing other characters or the game mechanics for that wouldn't exist. However, please bear in mind the long waiting time in the queue and what an annoyance it would be for a player to have to go through that again. Some disputes could easily be settled without outright killing of another character, by just emoting how they fight and how one of them loses and gets knocked out without actually dying of their wounds. You don't -have- to use the attack button in such cases. At least give it a second and even a third thought before actually attempting to murder another character.
What if somebody attacks my character while I'm offline?Your character will automatically defend themselves, even when you're offline. However, if your character has no armor or weapon and the attacker is heavily armed, that wouldn't change much. But there is a guard function for your rescue. Characters can guard other characters by clicking on "Show Guard Options" on the portal screen and then checkmarking any character that your own character would defend with their life. It is very likely that your character's parents would guard him or her this way, at least if you have proven to be an active roleplayer and not one of the many inactive babies. This protection only works while your character is exactly in the same location as the person protecting them, though. As soon as your character enters a building, mine or city that their protectors are not in, you lose the protection until they follow you there or you go back to where they are.
How do I open containers?You have to allow popups for the Faery Tale Online site for containers to work because their contents will pop up in a new, small window.
How can I switch the gender for my character?While you are still in the birth queue, you can switch the gender of your character by clicking on the "Account" link in the upper right corner of your portal screen. As soon as you are born, you can no longer switch the gender (that would be a pretty disturbing sight for all the other characters
).
Does magic exist in Faery Tale Online?Yes. Some characters randomly get born with a magic talent. The offensive magic talents would only manifest when the character reaches the age of a teenager while other types of magic can be used right from the moment of your character's birth. Magic characters are very rare, though there is a certain race whose females always have a certain magic talent. I don't want to give away too much here because this is one of the really exciting things to discover in Faery Tale Online. Don't get your hopes up too high to be born with a magic talent, though, since most characters aren't. If a parent has a magic talent, there's a higher chance for their offspring being magic as well, though that doesn't necessarily have to mean they'd get the same kind of magic talent, just -any- type of magic that exists in the game.
Enchanting: -If- your character is born with a magic talent, I should give you a warning here, though, before you do something out of ignorance that you'll regret later. Once, and only once in their lifetime, a magic character can enchant an item with their magic ability that will enable a second person to use that ability if they hold the item in their inventory or have it equipped (just carrying it in the inventory, but not inside a container, is enough to use it, it doesn't have to be equipped). Your character will not lose his own ability when doing this, he will simply create a duplicate of it, so to say. For that, a new "enchant" icon will appear next to -every- item a magic character carries in their inventory. Do by no means use this button light-heartedly because it is, like I mentioned, a once-in-a-lifetime thing. If you enchant a piece of roasted meat or whatever, the magic will be gone as soon as the meat rots away - and food rots fast. There will not even be a confirmation message asking you if you really want to enchant this item, so it's easy to accidentally click the button when not meaning to. A good item to enchant would be something that doesn't rot away fast when being left on the ground, like something made of silver, gold or steel or maybe a piece of parchment. Don't enchant a tool that is meant to be used, though, because tools take damage every time they're used until they vanish eventually.
Is there a way to repair damaged items?No.
Do items rot in my character's inventory or inside containers or only on the ground?Items don't rot when they're inside containers or inside your character's inventory, only when they are laying on the ground - no matter if it's inside a building or not, though a building might slow down the rate of decay a bit. However, items that are being used, like tools your character has equipped while working on a project that needs exactly this tool, will take damage while they are being used until they eventually break.
What is the Faery Tale?The Faery Tale is a compilation of stories written by players of Faery Tale Online for certain events in their characters' lives. Some might just be short snippets of thoughts, others might be relatively long. You can access these stories only while you are -not- logged in. Simply go to the homepage
http://www.faerytaleonline.com/ and click on the link "Story" next to the fields for the login. The oldest stories are on page 1 while the newest stories will be on the last page. The oldest stories stem from the ingame year 25, meaning they have been submitted in 2008 or so (the game was offline for several months in between during which the ingame time stopped running), back in the first beta period of Faery Tale Online when only a single race existed - humans calling themselves the Kindred. It's always a good entertainment to read stories in the Faery Tale while still waiting in the birth queue.
How can I submit my own stories to the Faery Tale?To do that, you have to be logged into the game and then click on the "Story" link at the bottom of the page. While you are still waiting in the birth queue, there will not be much to do there, but once your character has been born, select the character in the upper right corner where "View:" is standing and then click on "Go". Then you will see a list of mechanical events of their life, the first always being the birth. You can click on the blue plus sign for any of these events and write your story into the white text field that opens. If you want to write about something that is not a mechanical event, you can simply choose the mechanical event that has the date closest to whenever the thing that you want to write about happened.
However, the submitted stories don't appear right away after sending them. They used to be looked at individually by the game developer before he permitted them manually, probably to make sure no scam or nonsense will end up in the Faery Tale. I'm not sure if it's still done that way, and if so, if the game creator still wants to invest the time to do it. So... it's possible that no new stories can be submitted any longer, but I can't tell for sure.
