Nascence Training Grounds
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The Nascence Training Grounds are one of two places that players can start the game in, the other being the ICC Shuttleport on Rubi-Ka. The Training Grounds are located in the Shadowlands in Jobe's Nascence Research area. Only those people who have the Shadowlands expansion can choose to start in this area, and if you choose Shade or Keeper as your profession you are required to start here. The area contains many quests and missions to help new players get used to the game as well as get some unique low level equipment that will help them on their way. Since the area is level locked to players level 50 or below, many people who started on Rubi-Ka on 'newbie island' come here to do the additional quests.
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[edit] Getting to Jobe
Of course, to start having adventures in the Shadowlands you need to actually get there first, so we have constructed some maps to help you get from various starting cities to Jobe Research so you can take part in the Quests there as well. All these maps assume though that you go directly from the place where you leave the ICC Shuttleport to Jobe. In each section there are maps to help you along, you can follow these maps with your own by hitting Crtl + 5 to open the minimap, and if you teleported to a faction's city you should have been given the starting maps for that faction. If you haven't uploaded them, look for the item in your inventory and right click on it, which will give you all the maps you need to follow these maps
[edit] Borealis
| Borealis is by far the easiest trip to Jobe you can make because the Whompah is actually located in the same city, so there is no zoning involved. When you zone in from the teleporter from the Island, you will want to enter the gates and hang a right, heading north. You will be following the main 'drag' through Borealis, so it might get a little laggy, but you keep following the road down a hill, past some shops, till you hit a dead end. At this point you turn right again and go down another hill, at which point the Whompah should be in sight! If you have the Shadowlands expansion you can just enter it to get to Jobe! |  |
[edit] Rome
| The trip through Rome is probably the hardest, simply because it is so long and involves zoning three times. When you leave the island as a Omni-Tek employee you start off here, you will be on a road that leads to Rome proper, you should follow it towards the big black walls, but veer a little north/right off the road and look for an archway with a big swirling, bubbling energy field in it. That is a zone boundary and you need to go through it, so just walk right into it. Now you should have zoned into Rome Blue district, there should be large dark buildings and soldiers in black armor around. Once here you should head slightly north west and look for a path that goes under a walk way, you will head under that and one the road opens back up again you will take a right and head north. Once the road opens up more and there are no more buildings you will turn left and head towards another archway with a zone barrier, walk into it. Here you will zone into Rome Red district, but you will just head straight west across it into another zone barrier. The last zone takes you to Rome Green district, which is where our whompah is! When you zone in you will head west a little bit and take the first left you can and follow it south. you will go under a couple of walkways and the road will open up into an area with two planters with trees and the whompah! To get to Jobe, just walk into the door! |  |
[edit] West Athens
| Clans members start off in West Athens after leaving the Island, and their trip is not as harrowing as their OT counterparts but not as breezy as the Neutrals. From your starting point you should be slightly outside a set of brick walls, you will turn and head to the east towards a river type thing. When you get to the river head north enough to find the walk way continuing east towards a set of huge black walls and a ramp up into a sparkling, bubbling zone field and step into it. You are now in Old Athens on another bridge, follow this one to its end near a white brick wall and follow the wall south till you find a set of arches going through the wall. Head through the arches and follow the wall on the other side till you come to a plaza in the south of Old Athens, near the south wall which has a strange blue obelisk in it on a platform. When you head into the plaza you should see the Jobe whompah opposite the obelisk to the north, and to get to Jobe you just step into the door! |  |
[edit] Once in Jobe...
| Click on the Images to see a larger version. After you step through the Whompah from your faction's city, you find yourself in Jobe the amazing flying city! You are currently on Jobe platform, where all travelers from the surface of Rubi-Ka wind up, and the junction point for all the other areas of Jobe. Right now, you want to head down the ramp to the far 'door' looking thing and step under the ring near it, this will teleport you to Jobe Harbor. The teleporter will leave you on a small ledge in Jobe Harbor. Jobe Harbor serves the lowest level characters, has the equivalent of Basic Shops, and a portal to Nascence. Currently though, we want to find the entrance to Jobe Research, so head around the ledge to the left. After you go around the corner you will head down the ramp and past a couple of shops on your right to a large, tall door on your right. This door will be labeled with a big orange sign saying 'Jobe Research', enter this door to head to the research outpost in Nascence. Now you have landed in the lowest area of the Shadowlands, but we need to get checked out first so we are going to head to the big set of steps going through the middle of the outpost and head up them. This door will take you back to Jobe proper when you need to go back, and you can retrace your steps to Rubi-Ka from there. At the top of the steps you will see another tall door that is unmarked. This door will take you to the Training Ground. First though, you may wish to stock up on some new Shadowlands medical supplies, since your normal Rubi-Ka ones will not work here. A vendor in white will sell those for reasonable prices in an area to the left of the stairs. Once you enter the door, jump off the ledge and follow the laser bridge to find Drake. |      |
[edit] Walkthrough
| After leaving the ICC Shuttleport we wandered about with Dravet for a while, looking for fun and profit, while some of that was vaigely successful after running around half of the world we got offered a strange job. This guy suggested that we go to this place called "Jobe" (whatever that is) and look for "Drake" (whoever that is...) and help him out. After Dravet stood there slack jawed for more than thirty seconds, the weird guy did... something and we blacked out. After waking up on this platform we saw some pretty weird stuff! Strange swirling vortices of light in the air, tall white buildings... Clans and Omnis working together... we could only come to one conclusion for the unreal sights we were seeing: we were drugged. Dravet mentioned something about mushroom pizza but I was certain that there was some XXX-Plumbo Beer involved. Keep in mind that we will be going through the quests as if you had started in the ICC Shuttleport since most professions have a choice to start there instead, and generally do so since you can pick up these quests a little latter. If you are a Keeper or a Shade, you must start in the Shadowlands, but the quests will be essentially the same but may require a little more leveling before you start them. | 
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[edit] Drake Rodriguez
| Drake is a major scientific mind in Jobe and has made significant advances in understanding how the weird environment of the shadowlands effects human DNA. When we approach him to ask him about how the heck we got here, he immediately turns to us and asks us if we are ready to participate in his experiments. Experiments!? We just get pulled through space and time in some sort of hallucinogenic adventure and now he wants to mess with us more!? After a little bit of explanation, Drake says that there are significant rewards for participating in the tests, and that he has never had anybody refuse to participate. Well, with the thought of an ambiguously, undisclosed reward on the line I happily singed up Dravet, maybe the good doctor can find out what is wrong with him.
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[edit] Mission: Test of Strength
 Kill Mission | Objective: For Drake's first test you need to kill three monsters in order: a Deceitful Weaver, a Shining Coiler, and a Beit Gras. The extremely easy way to find these mobs is to simply jump off the platform that drake is standing on and you should find the mobs around the base of the tower pretty easily. Otherwise, you can find a whole group of weavers and coilers back across the laser bridge near the guards. If you are a new character, this might be pretty tough for you, so you might want to spend a little time fighting the weavers and coilers before you take on the beits, but do not take two long though since you have a half an hour to finish the mission. Reward: 360 Credits, 195 XP,  Bracer of Strength.
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[edit] Healing in the Shadowlands
    | It happens in life: people get hurt. Dravet is no exception, especially like the time he held his gun the wrong way, or tried to jump on a ... well never you mind that! Getting hurt in the Shadowlands is a little different than being back on good, old, Rubi-Ka since the same old heal kits and first aid stims wont work! So instead of poking ourselves with needles and shooting ourselves up like junkies we have to use these interesting Spiritech devices to merge ourselves with the source of all life momentarily. Sounds very Zen doesn't it? We found out from the handy vendor just outside the training area (don't worry, if you leave you can get back in till you are level 50)that there are two kinds of magical recovery spirit tech. The first are called Coils and they work similar to health labs on RK by giving you a big health boost, but requiring you to sit down to do it. Coils have a very weird property though, which we found out when Dravet had been beaten senseless by a Beit. After I arranged him in a sitting lotus position and hit him with the health coil, the coil slowly healed him in pulses till he got completely better. This is different than RK health kits that give you one big shot of health, but it might take multiple hits to fully heal you. With Coils, one hit will fully recover your Health or Nano Energy if you stay sitting through the process. Higher levels of coils heal or restore more with each pulse. The second type of Spiritech recovery device is a Spindle, which function like first aid stims or nano stims. Similar to the coils, the spindles work in pulses, but each only gives 2 pulses of Health or Nano recovery, but it doesn't require you to sit down to use it. |  |
[edit] Mission: Test of Agility and Stamina
 Find Mission | Objective: This mission can get a bit hairy, you need to extremely quickly find three monsters and tag them with the biomarker sensor that Drake hands to you. To do this you need to target the creature and than right click the sensor on them. The main problem with this mission is that some of the creatures are very far apart. The Hungry Predators are located to the East of Drake on the plains, the Chimeras can be found to the South in the canyon, and the Dryads can be found to the North of Drake in the swamp. Once that is finished, the quickest way back to Drake is using the teleporting ability of the jobe bracer he gave you, and from there you will give him the biomarker sensor back. Reward: 360 credits, 195 XP,  Protective Shirt of Exploration.  Trader's Utility Belt (Only given to Traders in addition to the shirt) The shirt you are given isn't the best shirt in the entire world, and it looks horrible, but the extra Run Speed it gives you will really help you get around in the lower levels, but if you find anything with significantly better AC (such as Sundance Armor) replace it. |   
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[edit] Mission: Test of Sense
Find Mission | Objective: Drake wants to test Dravet's senses. While we know that Dravet lacks any sense at all, we decide to humor the old guy head out and find a Shadowleet near the area that Sundance Smith is standing. You can do this by using the search command in your actions menu, which should reveal the invisible Shadowleet. Sometimes though, you will find the Shadowleet Boss: the Shadowleet of Powah, as we did, which will attack you (or Dravet) if you see it; it is stronger than a normal Shadowleet but shouldn't give any character around level 5+ any problems. When you have found the leet, target it and return to Drake for your reward. Reward: 350 Credits, 175 XP,  Nano Crystal (Overview of Nascence).In the Shadowlands, you don't get normal maps to upload to your map system because the geography 'changes' so much, in that case you let nano bots do the work for you. The first two maps of the areas can be used and uploaded by anybody, but the maps of the latter areas are only available to adventurers who will need to cast the nano on you. When you cast the nano on yourself, you will be able to look at the minimap of the area. |  
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[edit] Mission: Test of Psychic
| Objective: Drake wants to see how we react to testing our mind to the unknown, so we need to go talk to one of two representatives of the major Shadowlands factions and help them out with a problem they have. Clan should go help out the Redeemed, labeled as El Domo on the map. Omni should go help the Unredeemed, labeled as Celeth-El on the map. Neutrals can help anybody at their whim. Realistically though, you can help both of the factions if you want, and there are good reasons to at least help the Unredeemed. Doing this does not effect your standing with either faction latter in the game. Which was great news for Dravet, since he always like double dipping on the people he's supposed to be helping... err. Something tells me that this will ultimately come to no good in the end... |
[edit] The Redeemed
[edit] The Unredeemed
[edit] Mission: Test of Intellegence
 Bring Mission | Objective: |
[edit] Mission: The Brink
[edit] Sundance Smith
| While Jobe is thought to be a primarily scientific community, they need to get the money to keep their city flying from some where; and that money comes from JAME. JAME stands for the Jobe Association of Metaphysical Explorers and they do a lot more than explore, they also are a prolific manufacturer of arms, armor, and other equipment. Sundance Smith is a representative of JAME and can help you get some what outfitted for your challenges in the Training Grounds by offering NCU, Belts, Ammunition, some food, and the ever popular Sundance Armor. Like her counter part at the ICC Shuttleport, Sundance Smith can also help you liquidate your ill gotten earnings that you have pillaged from the bodies of your dead foes. Brilliant! The major thing of interest that Sundance Smith offers adventurers that come to her is her Sundance Armor, which is some of the best armor that a newbie can get at the level (beyond the sided newcomers armor) by giving excellent AC and lots of NCU to boot! It is also amazingly cheap (we think they make it out of the skin of failed newbies) and worth looking into. | 
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[edit] Bosses
The Leaders in the Training Grounds are very similar to ones we saw in the ICC Shuttleport but in the Shadowlands they represent a special type of monster called a Dynamic Boss, or as they are commonly known: Dyna Bosses. A Dyna Boss usually spawns in a camp of similar typed monsters with a unique name and often a unique look for a monster of its type. This tell us that they have better loot than their more 'plain jane' cousins... and well, maybe they are also a little tougher. Maybe.
[edit] Symbiants
See the expanded article: Symbiants
  
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Bosses in the Training grounds will commonly drop strange items called 'Symbiants'. Symbiants are wonderful, magical items that are a lot like Implants, just much. more. powerful. These items were apparently manufactured by the ancient inhabitants of the Shadowlands to make themselves completely unstoppable, because symbiants give HUGE arrays of skills that are generally far beyond the normal three that implants give, as well as buffing aspects of the character that most implants do not buff like add XP%, damage bonuses, or Nano Range.
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[edit] Maps
--Berael 12:00, 18 July 2007 (PDT)
--Cirte 11:44, 13 April 2006 (CEST)
