Newbie Guide - startup

Right. First off, welcome to Neveron, the game that never stops and never lets you live a normal life again. I've written this guide to help you through those first days on Nev, when you realise the entire help system is hopelessly out of date and notice that every empire near you is level 15 or something. Well, never fear, this will help you through it.

 

OK, I'm going to start as if you're reading this before starting an empire, looking at the login page, just so we know we're looking at the same thing. To create an empire, click the "New players click HERE" button. Fill in login details and click "continue to empire creation". Here, you must choose an empire name (for this article, I'll assume you chose "Platonian Empire", with the emperor name "mattbuck"). In the Promotional Code box, input dulce et decorum - any correct promotional code will start you off with extra cash, and this one gets you a diplomatic relations treaty with me, which means you can send me questions about Neveron. Click the continue button.

Note that at this point you may be required to install an ActiveX control. This control is digitally secured by Verisign, and there is no need to worry about it. It is a requirement for running the game.

Welcome to your new empire. You should get two popups about Neveron. The first explains the adjustments you may need to make to your system to ensure compatibility with the game, and can be accessed via the Technical link on the Neveron front page. Follow its instructions, then close it. The second is the Neveron Help Window - this can be accessed at any point by clicking the Help tab, top right. For now, close this. It doesn't contain any useful (and up-to-date) startup info that isn't in this guide.

If you didn't get these popups, don't worry. Change your popup-blocker settings to exclude Neveron - there is no advertising on the site, any popups you receive are important in-game messages. As explained above, you can get these specific popup windows anytime you want.

Anyway, you're at what is known as your empire page. If you ever need to return to this, click the Empire tab at the top left. Along the top of your screen are what may as well be called game tabs - they don't really control your empire, just take you to various info pages. Below that on the right you'll see your empire name, commander in chief, cash and current zone. In our example, this would read: Platonian Empire, Commander in Chief: mattbuck, Current Funds: $15,000,000, Current Zone: (-123, 456).

Note I'm assuming zone is -123, 456 - you get deposited at a random location on Newbie Island when you create a new empire.

Below this very basic empire info are the empire tabs - these let you control all functions of your empire. We'll have a more detailed look at these later.

Below and to the left is the empire data pane - this tells you some useful statistics about your empire, and below that gives stats of your active person. This will normally be your emperor. To the right is the main pane, so called because it's where most of the pain comes from. This is where you do most of your empire management. Oh, and that marquee is the Nevcrawl.

So, now you know what stuff is called, we can get going better.

Let's first look at your empire page, the bit in the main pane that is. It's mainly a summary of your claimed personnel - by claiming someone you actively control them. This is generally only useful if they are your emperor or you are actively fighting using that character. Do not ever unclaim your emperor - it leads to all sorts of problems. Along the top of the empire page are several links. The People link takes you to the My Claimed People page, which is essentially what you're at already. Settings takes you to the preferences page. Here, along with various things like changing password and empire name, you can choose to use popups (I find them useful) and to alter the features of (or totally deactivate) your Nevcrawl. The next button, Stats, gives you links to various bits of information about your empire. Have a look around - the Evaluate Military option allows you to compare yourself to other empires. Next on the list is Logins - you don't need to worry about this until you reach level three, ditto for Promo. Updates is where the admins post the changes made - you should read this regularly to stay apprised of recent changes. Neveron is in a perpetual Beta version, and when you read this, some things mentioned may well have changed. Finally, Help is some very basic info on the various buttons in no particular order.

There is no best way to build an empire - it all depends on what you want. Some people play Neveron to kill stuff, some people play to build stuff. Others like a mixture, and some others just play to have some fun in the community. What you do with your empire, and how you choose to do it is your own choice, and I will cover various topics associated with empire growth in another FAQ. This is just your very basic orientation exercise.

 

Before I finish, there are two more things I want to cover. First - quests. These are admin-designed learning tools, complete with very thorough instructions. Playing the first quest will help you get a basic grasp of battles in Neveron. Quests are located under the Comms tab.

Also located in Comms is a chat link. Neveron uses the AfterNET IRC server irc.afternet.org for communications. The main channel is #neveron, while the newbie channel is #neveron_newbies, where people such as myself are always willing to give new players a hand. If you are unable to access chat, you may need to reconfigure your firewall. View the IRC FAQ for more help.

Oh, and remember - you can have five empires, and one may die. Don't be discouraged.