How to develop without spending on a server that has just opened: which characters to bring to the dwarven village, which starting quests to do, where to level up to the first profession and how to start earning on D-grade soulshots.
When we start playing on a server opened long ago, problems as a rule do not arise: it all comes down to a teleport to Giran or Gludio and finding an academy; as soon as you have placed the character in an academy, everything goes like clockwork. It is quite another thing to start on a freshly opened server: nobody has money, there are no academies, and how to develop is unclear. Here I want to share my experience of starting on x1 servers, when you can count only on yourself and there is nowhere to expect help from.
Our base will be in the dwarven village, and not only because the spoiler and the crafter do their first-profession quests there, but also because there is a very convenient teleport there in the evening hours to Schuttgart for just 2,200 adena. In Schuttgart all races can learn skills and buy decent healing potions and top no-grade armor and weapons. If you think that you will start levelling a spoiler and then some day a crafter, or the other way round, I hasten to disappoint you: you will have to level everybody together, since already at level 20 the question of D shots will arise, and we are not going to buy them, are we. In general remember at once: we are dwarves, we buy nothing, we only trade.
I usually begin by gathering all the characters in the dwarven village; naturally they are all on different accounts, so that they can be loaded at the same time. The standard set is a spoiler, a crafter, a prophet, a shillien elder and a bladedancer. I try to level the whole support up to the first profession at once, so I also drag here an elven elder, a warcryer, a swordsinger and a bishop. The cat and the horse summoners are not so critical, and I leave them for later.
What every character must do first
What does each character need to do before getting to the dwarven village? It is obligatory to do the quest for the teleport to Giran and back, the quest for no-grade shots for beginners, and the initial quest for the newbie tokens for the free teleport between the starting villages. The token quests are the same for all races: in the starting location we talk to the newbie helper, who sends us to kill gremlins; as soon as a blue gemstone drops from a mob, we give it to the helper and get shots and a certain document, which we give to the NPC standing nearby; we get more shots and run to the starting village, where the newbie helper gives us still more shots, 12 teleport tokens and no-grade scrolls for removing the death penalty (if you collect all these scrolls and sell them to a shop you can get a decent sum for the start; but do not hurry, there will always be time to sell them).
The quest for the teleport to Giran exists for all races: for dark elves and humans it is taken from the gatekeepers in their villages, for dwarves in the round house opposite the teleport; for the other races the newbie helper in the village will tell you whom to take it from. The quest is quick: a bit of running, and as a reward we are given a Scroll of Escape to Giran and a traveller's mark, with which we can do the return quest in Giran to get back to our starting village. The quest is convenient not only in that we can send a character to Giran from any location to sell resources, but also in that it returns the character for free to the starting village of its race (for example, to take some quest after level 20, when the newbie teleport tokens no longer work).
The quest for no-grade shots is very needed, since fighters are given 6k no-grade shots for beginners and mages 3k, which is quite enough to level everybody up to the first profession. The quest is from level 6 and exists for every race; the names are all different, but it is done the same way: you take the quest and knock out a certain number of quest items, and at the first handing in of the items you are given a little adena and 6k (or 3k for mages) shots. I usually knock out about 10 items; the shots were always given; once I tried handing in 1 item, and no shots were given.
So we gather everybody at the dwarves, each with 1 Scroll of Escape to Giran, 11 newbie teleport tokens (one was spent on the teleport to the dwarven village) and 6k (3k) no-grade shots for beginners. Good already. How to level which character, decide yourselves; I will note that of all of them only the warcryer levels poorly without a buff, while all the mages and supports are able not only to level themselves fast up to 20 but also to drag fighters behind them; the main thing is to learn attack and defence skills for them from time to time and to level the no-grade nuke Wind Strike (at level 15 all these skills are learnt in full, and there is enough SP). What must be done without fail: starting from level 15, do the quest Gatekeeper's Favor with all the characters; it is taken from Gatekeeper Wirphy, and the items drop to the character that finishes the mob off. As a result all the characters will have 2 items each for a free teleport to Gludio; the items can be handed over and sold, so one can be kept and the second sold for less than the price of the teleport to Gludio; only sell in the daytime, when teleports are expensive.
With the dwarves we do absolutely all the quests available to dwarves in the village; only do not forget to spoil all the recipes for crafting resources. Here the tokens for the teleport between the starting villages will help us, because we will have to drop in on the humans, the orcs and the elves too. When you spoil recipes in the Neutral Zone, use the Scroll of Escape from the central part of the location: then you will be thrown straight to Gludio, and from there you teleport to Gludin to get to the Orc Barracks, where recipes are spoiled as well.
Where to level
How and where to level? I prefer the road from the dwarven village to the Abandoned Coal Mines, from the exit of the village opposite the smithy. First we gain experience on the mobs right after the little bridge; after level 6 we take the quest for the shots and kill the orcs a bit further on; when we get the shots, we move still further, into the cave of the Abandoned Coal Mines itself; we run there and back on foot and do not spend on teleports. In the coal mines, in the first and second rooms, we kill the little panthers and golems: Scrolls of Escape drop from them, and a sufficient number for all the characters has to be collected. And the main levelling will be in the room of the coal mines where Master Toma appears: we seat all the characters above, before the pit, and the damage dealer goes down into the pit and kills the mobs. In this place levelling with mages or supports is preferable: after learning the skills at level 15, with a top no-grade weapon they cut down any mob in the pit with one nuke, except the golem (golems take 2 nukes); if the mana runs out, we sit the character down to regenerate it and kill the mobs with the next support. In this location characters can be levelled up to 22-23.
About equipment. We wear the armor we knock out of the mobs; as for weapons: the dwarves will get themselves a little axe by a quest, not top no-grade of course, but it will do, while one top no-grade magic weapon will have to be bought in Schuttgart; it will pay for itself with interest, since mostly we will level everybody precisely with supports. Also, if you cannot knock out the Devotion set (which gives a bonus to casting speed), buy one in Schuttgart too (the upper and lower parts and the leather helmet).
The first money: D-grade shots
We level the dwarves separately from each other and spoil every mob; all the unneeded stuff we spoil we sell to a shop (except resources, naturally), and we do the first-profession quests with everybody. We send the spoiler girl to the Eastern Mining Zone: at the teleport there are the mobs Northern Goblin of level 21, and we spoil from them the recipe for D soulshots; as soon as the recipe is spoiled, we learn it with the crafter and... and that is where our story ends.
We move everybody to Gludio (for free, with the gatekeeper tokens) and start trading in D shots, which will be snapped up from us like hot cakes. Here I can recommend a few things: traders should be seated in Gludio, Dion and Giran; set the prices no lower than the cheapest, and you can go dearer too: at the start of a server everything is bought up anyway. We seat secondary characters like the bladedancer and the shillien elder to trade, and with the dwarves we bring them "shells" for sale. The crafter must craft constantly: near Gludio we look for mobs that drop herbs, and as soon as a mana herb is picked up, straight to crafting shots; the crafter must never have mana, and then the process of selling shots will be merry and profitable. As soon as you see that the shots have run out somewhere, fly there with the crafter, hand over what has been crafted and take the adena; all the money must lie on the crafter. The spoiler girl will have to be sent to The Ant Nest (teleport from Gludio) to spoil without fail the recipe for crafting blessed magic D shots from the Basilisk of level 28; spoil it and trade again, now in D shots for mages as well. Do not forget to drag the prophet with you everywhere; she is our main buffer. A note: we teleport from Gludio to Giran not directly but through Dion; it is cheaper that way, and you hand out shots to all the trading places at once.
When you have traded up the needed sum on the sale of D shots, the crafter can be sent to Giran, loaded with all the spoiled and knocked-out resources. To sell them or not is for you to decide; I usually keep them for craft, but you can trade too; only watch the prices: for example, bones are bought up at 1k and coarse bone powder at 12k, so clearly the bones should be re-crafted into powder and the powder sold, and the same with other resources. In Giran we buy parts of the Brigandine set, make D duals at the smithy and buy shop D jewelry. What to do next, see for yourselves: you can go on trading in shots, or gather the whole crowd again and set off levelling; in the second case I recommend the Forgotten Temple (teleport from Gludin Village): first we seat everybody in the cave, in the first room on the left, and level on the lizardmen of level 27-28; at level 30 we move to the third room on the left and spoil oriharukon ore from the Lakin Undines of level 30, and still further there is the spoil of stones of purity from the mobs of level 31, and of high grade suede and D weapon scrolls from the succubi of level 32.
That is in principle all about how to develop without spending on a freshly opened server, and by the way all this can be repeated not only at x1 but at higher rates too.