As of right now, the game isn't easy to get around at first, so I will try to give you basic knowledge to get started.

That said, this game seem to mainly focus on exploration so discovering the basics can be a part of the experience. I will try my best to write information in an order I find important to know, so if you want some hints but still discover a lot by yourself, feel free to only read one chapter at a time. I will also not include everything as this is a starting guide and not a full "how to play" guide nor wiki.

Also, see this game more as a Breath of the Wild where you don't get the key items right away and have to search for them than a classic RPG with levels and the such, the progression is more gear based like a Monster Hunter than level based like a Dark Souls or other well known level based RPG.

After starting the Game you get to create your very first character! So click on START GAME and let's get on with it already!

TIP: you can move the camera by holding left click and dragging the screen around. This can be useful if the camera is stuck 2cm away from the character.

You get to chose the look of your character, including the Race. As far as I'm aware this does not influence the game much although by design, the "small" races have a bit smaller hitboxes allowing you to get around small places (I don't know if this will affect combat but maybe, although the AI has a pretty good aim anyway so would expect much of a change).
But anyway, here is a list for you:

• HUMAN: Your basic human race, as boring as it gets.
  
• ELF: It's... Human... With pointy ears and different faces and haircut.
  
• DWARF: Our beauty contest winner!
  
• ORC: About as dumb as it gets, with muscle.
  
• GOBLIN: the Dwarf version of the orc?
  
• LIZARD: -10 points, just because it's not a cat.
  
• UNDEAD: Do you think it was human or elfish before it was... you know... dead?
  
• FROGMAN: Or Frogwoman, up to you.

After choosing your race and gender, you will get to pick your class. As said before, the race doesn't influence the game so they all have the same classes. Each class has 2 specialization which will change your special ability (default R button) as well as your special stamina ability (middle mouse button) and others. They also each have 3 weapons (counting the shield as one as it allows for a different set of attacks).

• Warrior: your basic heavy armor CQC class. It is the only class with iron based armor which is also the strongest. As well as the only class with a basic blocking ability (assuming the shield is equipped).
  
• Ranger: Your basic ranged class. Its armor really isn't that good as you'd assume for a ranged class.
  
• Mage: Also a ranged class, it has the worse basic armor in the game but water damage attack can be used as healing, making it the only "support" class.
  
• Rogue: Your DPS? I haven't tried it much yet, it's armor is slightly lower than the warrior but still pretty good, even more compared to ranged classes.

You can find more informations on classes in this guide, it goes into controls and weapons but if this is too much, I have a basic control chapter just below.
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1871763690
Once you've finalized your character and created it, the game will start right away where you created it, so off to the next step!

This is gonna be a dumb list of the basic controls, feel free to open the settings to check on them if need be.

• F1: Show some basic controls on the bottom left.
  
• F2 and F3: UI scale down/up.
  
• F4: Hides UI.
  
• F5 and F6: Scale minimap down/up.
  
• Escape: Show menu controls.
  
• C: Crafting menu.
  
• B: Inventory.
  
• M: Map.
  
• O: Open the game's menu.
  
• J: Friends list.
  
• Left Click: Basic attack.
  
• Right Click: MP attack.
  
• Middle Click: While movie: dodge; While still: Specialization stamina ability; On the map to add an icon.
  
• Left Shift: Specialization ability.
  
• R: Ultimate specialization ability.
  
• Tab: Item wheel open/close, then A/D to switch items.
  
• Q: Use selected item.
  
• E: Interact/Talk/Pick.
  
• T: Call pet or ride it if next to you.
  
• Ctrl: Walk.
  
• Mouse wheel: Zoom map and minimap in/out.
  
• Ctrl + Mouse Wheel: Zoom camera in/out.
  
• Enter: Opens the text chat.

Aside from Mages, you will need to build up MP by attacking with your basic attack. Mage automatically regain MP over time. Note that each weapon has a variation in attacks and each class has it's own set of abilities (although they may share some). The specialization can change some of them too.

TIPS:
• Some attack require to use your Left Shift ability at the same time.
  
• You can equip items on your left or right hand for some by using the right or left click instead of the other. Useful to equipe dual swords or rings and the such.
  
• You can also drop items by Middle Mouse clicking on them, useful to give them to friends.
  
• If you want more informations on each class controls, I would recommend reading the Basic Specialization Info guide linked above in the previous Chapter.

Your goal is to find the region artifacts to level up and move on to the next region. To do so you will need better gear.

As I said before, the game doesn't have a level system like your traditional RPG but there is gear level and each artifact with give you bonuses that you get to keep anwhere you go, each artifact augmenting your level by one.
You start off with 1 star gear, then go up to 5 stars with gold. You can have a quick idea of the gear's level by looking at its color, in order: white, green, blue, purple, gold.
You will always start off with one of each weapon your class can equip so feel free to change it now and try them out.

TIP: You can find your own level in the top left corner of your screen when your inventory [B] is open.

You will quickly notice that enemies' name and places on the map also have similar color, this indicates their level. I would highly recommend following this indication as you can quickly get overwhelmed, the damage calculation seem to be exponential on both side so not enough attack vs defense and you will do no damage to the enemies while they will most likely one-shot you.

TIP: You can add stars to the color coding in the settings. This will help you differentiate locations that don't have level rating as it is also white like level one locations.

But before we get more gear, let's go to town!
You can try finding one by zooming on the map, houses are usually easy to spot, sometimes you have farm lands around as well.
Patch made it so new characters should automatically spawn near town. This should make the game a bit easier to get started rather than be lost who knows where with higher level mobs all around.

Once there feel free to explore it a bit, if the map is zoomed on it, you can see icons above some houses, this include the Guild Receptionist (crown) where you can change your specialization, item shop (flask) where I would recommend to buy glass flasks, useful to make potions which you can drink while moving, food doesn't allow for that, armor and weapon shop and many more that allows access to crafting stations you might need later. Feel free to come back in town to try them out.

TIP: Potions can be drank while moving, useful to heal or buff during a fight. Food on the other hand requires you to sit down and take time to heal. Use them when you have no threat around you and save on your potions for when you'll really need them.

Try to find any shrine you can, this is where you will respawn if you die as well as allow you to teleport freely to them from anywhere. Just click on one of the blue dot on the map to initiate teleportation. This will also allow you to quickly come back to town whenever need be. Try to also pick up as many items as possible as well, useful for crafting later on.

TIP: There is plenty of shrines everywhere, if you don't want to travel a long way every time you die, try to find a shrine in new places you travel to before taking on a strong group of monster.

I would also highly recommend talking to every NPCs, you don't have to read it nor stand near them so it's pretty fast to do but do it. They will often give you "quests" to do, as in locations on the map with interesting stuff, usually key items you might need to progress.
And try to stay in the region at first as gear and key items are bound to them, only pets, consumables, crafting items and artifacts can be carried to other regions but nothing is lost if you decide to come back later, it will be there.

TIPS
• If you travel to other regions, you can find arrows in your inventory to show each regions' locked item. You can still equip those gears but they provide close to no bonuses.
  
• Some weapon appearing with a + next to the name and location origin can be carried in nearby region and only receive a small nerf to them. Although the farther away the worse it gets, this can useful to move on elsewhere but not necessary.

If you found quests, go on experiment with that, see if you can find new stuff without needing more info as further down might ruin the exploration aspect of the game. Again, just remember about the colors!

But anyway!
Now, how do you get more gear? the "easy" and long way is to hunt every monster and hope they give you something. Another option is to craft new ones or go to a town to buy some, but you will quickly notice that they only offer you the basic level one weapons.
The most efficient way I found was to go to landmarks with the color/level of your choosing and kill mobs there. Many usually have a small quest for you to do that will give you plenty of money, new gear of higher level and occasionally key items.

TIP: Remember the colors! no need to hunt every monster, just the ones with a color that interests you.

Sometimes you will get left overs, do NOT sell them. If you go to town, the magnifying glass house will allow you to identify them and give you items of the same color as the left over you scanned. This is also a good way to get new gear.

This should be about all the ways to get items on your own. You can also get them from friends. That said I will not detail all the quests but I do have a bit more information on that later down this guide.

TIP: Some landmarks are easy to spot when slightly zoomed on the map, shrines includes, usually light grey boxes for them. You can place a marker with the middle mouse button when on the map to keep track of places you think might have something interesting.

While this isn't really a gear, you can get a pet to help you out throughout your adventure.
As you kill mobs, you will sometimes get items and wonder where they ended up in your inventory. They are most likely pet items, item needed to tame a pet, there is a pet tab for that in your inventory.
They have no informations as to which animal you can tame with them so you will have to try them out! To do so, click on one of the item in your inventory to equip it. Your character will hold it in front of them and any tamable animal liking this item will rush toward you if close enough. The item will disappear and you will be left with a box containing the pet. You can see which pet you have equipped in your equipment part of your inventory (bottom right) and you can switch out pet at any time by selecting a different box in the pet tab.

For more informations on pets as well as which items allow for which animal, I would highly recommend this guide:
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1865509515
TIP: You can rename your current pet using the command /NAMEPET [petname] in the chat.

I will not go into full detail of moves available to classes and redirect you to the Basic Specialization Info guide again. My aim here is to help you out take down strong foes. I will also detail a bit of what you might want to do against each class as well as mobs have the same set of abilities as players for similar class.

As I said before, I do NOT recommend going against higher gear level foes as this can end up in a quite unfair fight but I would like to develop on that a bit more.
You gear level, as shown on the top left corner of your screen when the inventory is open, is but a rough guide as to how strong you are. Not only do gear of the same level not all have the same overall power, but you can get into legendary (5 stars) while still wearing a few epic (4 stars) gear, or even lower! Needless to say you might not have as much health and defense as you could have and while you can still take down some level 5 mobs, it might not be that easy against all, so try to have as many gear of high(er) level before taking on a boss.

If you still struggle or want to still have a go at it, don't be afraid to use some buff potions. While getting them can be a bit of a pain, don't fall into the trap of having them and not using them. Further more, as they last 10min, go ahead and drink them before getting into the fight, don't wait to be so close to get the aggro as you can only use them by opening your inventory.
Remember to have potions equipped as they are the only healing item that can be consumed while moving.

And last, try to use your Right Click ability as much as possible, the more MP you can spend using it, the better. While they often do more damage, this might not always feel like a lot more than just regular attacks BUT they have a possibility to stun enemies, leaving them wide open for you to either heal or attack.
Be careful not to get stunned yourself, back away when you see the enemy charging up an attack, they will always be slower so you can outrun them, and also try to drink potions when you are either far away, they are stunned or charging an attack, so you don't end up using a potion while being attacks, making it pretty useless and just a lose of time and resources.

As I said before, this is your basic CQC class, and as the specialization names would imply, the Berserker is all about damage while still be a tank and Guardian is more about blocking with any weapon, not just shield, the latter getting a buff to blocking on top of the basic block.
This class is played rather aggressively, not only do you have passive that can give you life steal, but if you can block, every time you do so will increase your MP while being unvulnerable as long as you have blocking charge left. Great to avoid damage and dish out a lot yourself in return as a counter-attack. In the case of Berserker without shield, your Shift attack gives you blocking with regenerative blocking gauge so use it as much as you can! Stay on your enemy, do what tanks do the best in RPGs! The mastering of this class lies in when to block and counter attack if you have blocking, else it's about harassing them to stun them when you can and steal their life force.

That said, against a warrior, be wary of when your attacks are blocked for that reason. Not only will you be useless, but you might give your enemy a good chance at taking you down in return.

The Ranger plays a lot more differently than the Warrior when it comes to the two specialization. While generally speaking you want to stay away from enemies, you can get up close a lot more with the Scout over the Sniper.
The main reason is that Sniper plays on stealth, It will help charge up your MP to spam your Right Click as much as possible but you will lose it every time you take damage, that said it is fairly easy to regain by using your Middle Click and as long as you are far away enough to build it up before the enemy gets to you.
While Scout has a quicksand that will almost stop enemies in their track while getting a buff allowing you to instantly use your Right Click every now and then, making you a lot more aggressive.
In the case of having many mobs around you, you want them as packed up as possible to make them fall in the quicksand, forcing you to get up close at times but without much defense, not over doing it really becomes important. You also get a kick instead of a back-flip, allowing you for easy stun when your quicksand is recharging.
Overall Ranger plays a lot on managing distance, knowing when to stick to your ground and when to move away or have the enemy move away.

Against one, I did not find much difficulty. As long as you are moving, the shots can be dodged more or less easily, the closer you get, the harder it is. So the biggest point is to avoid their heavy attacks as the stun would leave you wide open and their ranged attacks means no need for them to get close first before attacking, which also leaves you quite vulnerable while healing. But as for when you play a Ranger, the closer to them, the more they will struggle.

Mages can either be played as a high DPS ranged or a support class, having the ability to heal with Water damage.
Aside from he Bracelets that have projectile bassed attacks, the Mages have the advantage of high accuracy attacks even at great distances. Compared to Rangers that need to lead their projectiles to where the enemy will be. The Bracelets being projectils require closer range but with water attacks they are faster to use for healing and with fire attacks you have a spell to repulse enemies away when needed.
I do not have a great deal of experience with mages so far so I will probably come back to them at a later date.

As enemies, Mages are probably one of the worse enemies, they can deal a great amount of damage from far away while having a deadly aim. The best you can do against them is stun them, they can spam magic attacks so fast that aside from the Fire Missiles which you really need to dodge or your are pretty much dead, it is quite pointless to even try to dodge, just try to stun them and take them out as fast as possible. I usually regard them as my number one target when fighting a group of mobs, baiting them around trees and corners to have them get close to me first.

Rogue is quite similar to Ranger in the sense that one of its specialization, Assassin, relies on stealth, while the other, Ninja, relies on dodging (although Scout was more about incapacitating, both have passives allowing for quick use of the heavy attacks).
Overall there isn't much to be said, Play with your passive as for Ranger. The difficult point will mostly be to manage stamina, even more in the case of the Ninja that relies on it a lot.
Feel free to play with distance too although still focusing on CQC over ranged with the Assassin. as it can quickly come back in the fight with a poisonous attack. And be as aggressive as you can handle with the Ninja to unleash a rain of heavy attacks on your enemies. As for Mage, I do not have much experience against them so I will come back on them at a later date.

I did not find a huge difficulty in fighting Rogues. As for Rangers, aside for looking out for heavy attacks as they can more or less spam them. The difficulty is gonna lie in how much they can harass you when you try to heal so make sure to stun them before you do so or they will hunt you down.

Feel free to correct me on anything I said as most my experience lies in Rangers and a bit of Warriro or from fighting other mobs. So any tip or correction is highly appreciated!

I'm really unsure about giving more info about key items, again, I really find a strong point about exploring in this game as it is now so what's the point if I tell you everything?
If you talked with NPCs and read their dialogues, you should have an idea of what you might find already, so feel free to skip that spoiler box if you want to discover for yourself.

So I will only say that: some landmarks quests unlocks new crafts for higher level gear as well as better shops, usually with higher level gear. You will also find traveling items but best is always to teleport between shrines so find as many as possible.
There is more for you to find but I'll keep that a secret on this guide!

TIP: Remember that Key items are bounded to the region, so all crafts and better shops apply to the region you found the key item in.

Once again, this will delve into a bit more details you might want to discover yourself but that can be useful. Although as this is a bit longer, for the sake of keeping it clear to read I will not have it as a spoiler.

I will not list all map icons you can find but here are some that can be pretty useful:
• Hammer: Unlocks a new set of gear crafting, the level above the location's color (hammer is itself color with the level it unlocks).
  
• Sword: These are simple quests that reset every in-game day at midnight. They give money and usually 1 gear for the next level (again based on the location level). Quite useful to get new gear if you're not too sure what to do next. As far as I can tell you have one per level up to purple (since that would give gold gear).
  
• Dwarf: Unlocks more gear in town's shop. It's an easy way to finish a set although shops don't always have what you want regardless. There is one dwarf per level up to purple (again as this unlocks gold).
  
• Skull: World Boss, they every in-game day too. One of the way to get better gear.

As of now, I only have 2 skulls on my map so I'm not entirely sure how many you might have on your side. The ones I have is a green level and a gold level in the arena. I'm not even 100% sure they respawn every in-game day but I think they do? I'll update here when I have more info on that.

There are more icons I did not list here as they include key items and others I will let you discover for yourself yet again.

There are plenty of locations that give you key items, gear, artifacts, region wide bonuses and more.
They aren't always easy to spot but zoomed enough, with a bit of practice, you will find many places to explore without mindlessly roaming around hoping to find something.
For example, I mentioned towns before, but you can also find many Shrines by searching for white cubes, small white house when fully zoomed on the map.
Generally speaking, anything that does not look like a tree is most likely a point of interest.

Most area's have a level to them, this does not show up (remember that level one is white as is area's with no level, I would recommend changing the options to have level shown as stars to make the difference) it usually means you did not unlock the quest for this place yet. You can either unlock it by finding an NPC nearby that will give you the quest (usually you need to help them), just be next to the quest will unlock it for some, or straight up finish the quest to have it shown as completed with the level (usually the case with many dungeons).

TIPS
• Remember that you can set star icons on your map using the middle mouse button. Remove them at anytime by clicking on them the same way.
  
• You can easily focus on visited region by selecting one on the bottom left corner of the map (arrows around region name).

That's it for now!
Hope you get to enjoy the game and find the artifact!

I haven't played much more myself for now so again, really more of a starting guide of what I would have liked to know to not spend hours hunting sheeps. I'm not even sure what to do afterward once you get the artifact and I supposed move to a new region?

Anyway, this is my first guide at that too so feel free to correct me or give any tips I might add in this guide. Just keep in mind that this is not a full guide nor a wiki, no point in adding all the traveling gear and different items you might find, again, wanted to give enough info for people not to spend 2 hours trying to figure out what to do to progress like I did.

I also did not add anything much about crafting, not too sure if that's necessary past the fact you have all you need in towns.

TIP: If you're stuck trying to find artifacts,go around looking for lore, this will unlock locations on the map where artifacts might be. This will often unlock them in other region so feel free to travel beyond your starting area and maybe find some to show lore in previously visited region where you already have full gold gear!

I just updated this guide, added more information and cleaned up the presentation a bit. Should I add more information about key items? Should I keep the spoiler box? maybe have other's information as spoilers and change around some of the current ones?
Feel free to tell me about those and I will consider maybe adding them. I am also tempted to change up the name as this is slowly getting quite full on information.