IV. NOTES ON ADVANCEMENT

After much research and discussion with players of multi-player fantasy role-playing games, we have developed a system of advancement that depends primarily on skills. Instead of seeking x number of points to gain a level and improve your statistics, you will train in and use various skills. The mastery of these skills will allow you to improve your abilities and statistics. This is designed to enhance your role-playing experience. For example, if you are a Cleric of the Order of the Heart, (a "healing" Cleric), it would be possible to improve your ability to heal fellow adventurers and gain stature in your temple without ever having to do battle with the various monsters which inhabit the realm. This feature can mean a great savings in on-line time. You won't have to "duplicate" effort, and spend time healing as well as bashing, when what you really want to be doing is only healing. You can still engage in combat if you wish; it is simply not required for improvement.

Training in various skills enables you to deal with the increasingly difficult challenges you face in Dragon's Gate.

In the world of Dragon’s Gate, each major skill has 41 levels (though in the near future the game will have 50 levels in each skill available) the character can progress through. The available list of skills to each characters varies upon their class, and those the character chooses to learn. When a skill is ready to be trained (has gained enough experience in a skill to go to the next level), a character can visit the trainer to gain in knowledge of the skill, furthermore characters may learn new skills from a trainer as well. Finally, characters who achieve level 36 or higher must complete a quest to be allowed to visit their classes trainer. Upon completion of training the player is allowed to visit a exclusive guild store complete with rare and unique items for the masters of each class You know when you need to train up in one of your existing skills when the 'uses remaining' drops to 0. The skill name will also have a small '*' by it when you view your skills using the SKILL command. You will receive a message that you are ready to train when your 'uses' reach 0. Then, seek out a trainer to attain your new level of expertise. Sometimes the trainers will inform you that they have detected a flaw in your skill. This simply means that you need to go back out and practice it a few more times to work out the kinks. Those individuals who teach/train others charge highly depending on the complexity of the secrets they must impart.

When your character is learning a new skill, you will be unable to use that character for a period of two hours game time (1 hour real-time.) That character will be offline during this time, so it will not cost you anything in online time, but you will have to use another character if you wish to enter Dragon's Gate. With few exceptions, advancement in existing skills entails no delay until you reach a certain level of expertise (usually fifth level), after which point advancement will include a certain amount of time-spent offline. However, the time it takes to train in existing levels is best measured in hours, rather than in days.