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Earth the RPG Player's Guide

By Terry Echoes

Abstract

Earth the RPG is a cute pixel-art massive multiplayer free-to-play online video game that runs entirely in your Firefox browser. It is renowned as the first-ever MMO and browser game to make use of the Google street view. The creator was quoted as saying, "I really wish we didn't have to use Google street view, but there really aren't any alternatives. Google is creepy." Nevertheless, the game takes full advantage of its premise, drawing from regional data to create an immersive experience. Weather patterns, shop inventories, the time of day, and the mythological creatures you'll encounter are but a few of the details which vary from region to region across the Earth.

Character Generation

The first thing you must take note of is that your screen name is separate from your characters' names. You can't change your screen name, but you may rename your characters and have up to four--not that you're likely to need more than that as we'll see in the following section.

Character creation is daunting at first for its wide array of customization. Those options aren't just for show, either! Traits like Antlers and Wings factor into your character's growth rate and base statistics. Your start out as an indeterminate biped. From the get go, you pick traits which diversify your character and imbue them with inherent abilities. After that, you can touch up your character with many a cosmetic option. Don't worry--devices known as Metamorphosis Mirrors littered throughout the game will allow you to change your character's base appearance and correct any mistakes. Bottom line and our first tip: Don't stress out too much over character creation! You'll be allowed to get a feel for the game and make revisions later. For now, balance out your character with positive and negative traits. If you're new to the game, you'll likely want to make a less complex character--you'll be able to gain more traits later, and the more you have, as we'll soon see, the slower your character takes to grow. Keep in mind that traits with different effects on a specific statistic will be averaged together.

New players are typically glad to learn that you can circumvent all of these trait choices by picking ready builds which create your character based on a slew of traits that are chosen for you. The game explicitly states this for you on the character generation screen. For example, picking the Cervine build will give you the Fur, Herbivorous, Hooves, and Antler traits, among others. Here's a run-down of the choices of species:

Species

Canine (Large): Dogs, wolves. Large canines are built more for power than their small counterparts.

Canine (Small): Coyotes, jackals, foxes. Small canines are built with craftiness in mind.

Chameleon: Reptiles which can change their coloration either for expression or stealth.

Lagomorpha: Rabbits, hares, bunnies.

Lizard: Your basic crawling reptiles.

Rodentia: Mice, rats, hamsters, etc.

Serpents: Snakes, boas, cobras, etc. You still have legs and arms by default, however.

Traits

The following is a list of the character creation traits which are available to you at the outset.

Blood Temperature

The temperature of your blood may seem like a trifle, but it's crucial to how you're affected by your environment's temperature. The blood temperature traits are mutually exclusive.

Ectothermic: You are cold-blooded. You move faster in warm regions and slower in cold regions. You are more affected by the temperature than other species. You cannot combine this with Endothermic or Mesothermic.

Endothermic: You are warm-blooded, and less affected by the weather than your ectothermic brethren. You cannot combine this with Ectothermic or Mesothermic.

Mesothermic: The middle road between ectothermic and endothermic. You cannot combine this with Ectothermic or Endothermic.

Diet

Traits which determine what you gain the most nourishment from eating. Note that you're still not strictly bound by any of these traits, you'll just gain less nourishment from another category. You usually cannot combine diet traits with each other, as they normally cancel each other out.

Carnivorous: You gain more nourishment from meat than from plants. Note that you're not _strictly_carnivorous--it just gives you a sharp lean on your diet. You cannot combine this with other traits that affect diet.

Fruitarian: You gain even more nourishment from fruit than from meat. Note that you're not _strictly_fruitarian--it just gives you a sharp lean on your diet. You cannot combine this with other traits that affect diet.

Herbivorous: You gain more nourishment from plants than from meat. Note that you're not _strictly_herbivorous--it just gives you a sharp lean on your diet. You cannot combine this with other traits that affect diet.

Skin

What your skin's covered in. Another feature that guides how you'll adapt to different environments. These can be combined, although hybrids will receive less benefit from multiple skin types.

Carapace: Your body is covered in a tough chitinous layer. It's like wearing natural chitin armor wherever you go, which is tough, but lowers maneuverability.

Feathers: Your body is covered in insulating feathers, which make you more wind-resistant.

Furry: Your body is covered in insulating fur, which reduces a small amount of temperature-based damage (heat and cold).

Scales: Your body is covered in leathery-tough scales. It's like wearing natural leather armor wherever you go.

Skin: Your body is covered in bare skin, without the benefits that other adaptations might afford you.

Statistics

Statistics in Earth the RPG place a numerical value on your character's capabilities. There are six basic statistics: Strength, Fortitude, Intellect, Wisdom, Dexterity, and Charisma. Most of your other statistics will be averages of two or more basic statistics.

There are three key numerical values to keep in mind. Hit points determine how much damage you can take before you are incapacitated. Mind points determine your reserves for using abilities with supernatural elements, such as magic or psionics. The tech meter is a range from 0-100% that builds from using basic abilities and can be spent to use certain abilities, predominantly non-supernatural ones.

Strength

Determines how much damage you deal with melee weapons.

Fortitude

Determines how much physical damage you can resist and your ability to stave off illnesses.

Intellect

Determines how much damage you deal with supernatural abilities.

Wisdom

Determines how much damage you can resist from supernatural abilities.

Dexterity

Determines your speed and position in battle initiative, as well as factors into the number of hits you deliver in an attack.

Charisma

Determines your ability to communicate and perform, whether in commerce or via intimidating your enemies.

Vitality

An average of Strength and Fortitude which determines your hit points.

Accuracy

An average of Strength and Dexterity which determines your ability to land hits and competes against evasion.

Resistance

An average of Fortitude and Wisdom which determines your ability to stave off curses.

Evasion

An average of Fortitude and Dexterity which determines your ability to evade taking damage altogether.

Luck

An average of Fortitude and Charisma which determines your ability to avoid receiving critical hits and to inflict curses and illnesses. Slightly shifts the range of random values in your favor.

Mind

An average of Intellect and Wisdom which determines your mind points.

Affinity

Affinities for certain classes of damage, both for causing said damage, and for resisting said damage. Such classes include things such as heat, cold, acid, electricity, piecring, slashing, blunt, etc.

Skills

Skills are trees of tiered abilities you have, whether it's proficiency with a weapon, the ability to use magic or psychic powers, or some other set of actions useful for exploration. There's a limit to how many you can start with, but not how many you can eventually learn. Keep in mind, however, that the more skills you take on, the slower your character's growth will be. If you want to start with more skills anyway, the key is taking on more Flaws--negative traits--during character generation. Remember that Flaws cannot be removed at the Metamorphosis Mirrors, as they must be removed through the pursuit of quests.

Swordplay

Abilities and traits related to using all sword-type weapons. Naturally, you must have a sword equipped to use these. Predominantly uses your Strength stat.

Fencer: Deal extra damage when using the rapier sub-class of swords.

Katana Proficiency: Deal extra damage when using the katana sub-class of swords.

Slash: The basic free attack with a sword-type weapon.

Parry: On occasion, deflect attacks using your sword.

Pyromancy

The ability to manifest and control fire using your Intellect stat.

Fireball: The basic free attack dealing ranged heat-type damage.

Firebrand: Conjure a weapon out of fire (you won't get burned), and deal hybrid damage with your skill of that weapon. Thrown weapons are spent on use; if you wanna sling fire, throw a fireball.

Summer Bliss (Passive): The hotter the average temperature of your region, the more heat-type damage you can deal.

Burning: Deal heat-type damage over time.

Aquamancy

The ability to manifest and control liquids using your Intellect stat.

Rainy Day (Passive): Increases your water-based damage whenever it rains, or even as the humidity rises.

Thievery

The ability to pilfer things which do not belong to you.

Pandhandle: Use the tenacity of guilt to bilk people out of their hard-earned cash.

Conditions

Combat is not solely about dealing damage, but also tactical advantage. Ailments are broken into two varieties: Illnesses or supernatural curses. As such, illnesses and curses are not simply "on or off". Every condition comes in various levels of severity. There is also a wealth of beneficial conditions.

Starting the Game

Now that character generation is out of the way, it's time to play the game! You begin in Satellite View, an overview of the Earth itself based on satellite photographs. Yes, the paranoia of government cults and affluent sickos has now been co-opted for the use of fun! You have multiple options from where to start: You can either pick a residential street anywhere in the world that's enough with the times to not black out their satellite images, or you can have the game pick one at random for you, either completely randomly, or based on your starting traits. You can't go back on this choice, however. Once you enter street view and confirm your decision with a residential address, the game begins and you're locked out of Satellite View.

Speaking of your character, although you can rearrange the screen elements at will, by default your character will be standing in the lower left of the screen, alongside your health, magic points, and skill percentage. When you've partied up with friends or your own alternate characters, they'll be shown above your character, alongside their own stats. On the right will be information about where you are, and a context-sensitive set of commands, usually exploration skills you know, or, when encountering a monster, your battle commands.

Traveling

Travel in _Earth the RPG_is as simple as navigating through Street View on Google Maps. Every point is a new location, a new chance for an encounter. You can do anything from finding loose change, harvesting local resources to craft with, fighting the local mythological spooks, to meeting other players.

Vehicles are an option to speed your travel to another point. You'll predominantly be able to hire cabs from any public phone or at the addresses of the cab companies themselves, for a cost. Hiring a vehicle allows you to enter a certain mile radius in Satellite View to zoom to another location. The radius can expand with how much you're willing to pay, or, if you're renting a car, the radius can expand with your driving skill. Public transportation such as buses and trains stop along specific stations, but are a cheap and efficient way to travel to points of interest in a hurry.

If you want to travel great distances in a hurry, or even to other countries, you may be required to secure air or boat travel. Boat travel is cheaper and takes you to any available port, but air travel can be rather expensive, although it takes you anywhere there's an airport available. These are the few times you can navigate through Satellite View to pick a new location, all for the sake of an immersive experience.

Combat & Monsters

As an RPG, there's bound to be dangerous encounters with monsters seeking to deplete your HP and leave you helpless. There's no dearth of mythical creatures in the local lore, so you should be prepared for combat in all sorts of locations. When hovering your mouse over a direction to move in, you'll be warned about the likelihood of entering battle while you're there, or if there's already a battle ensuing in the location. Monsters are chosen from the local mythology, so you'll encounter everything from yokai in Tokyo to B-movie aliens in Hollywood, from evil witches roaming the streets of Massachusetts to yeti surrounding the Himalayas. Lucky for you, the battles you're likely to encounter will be geared toward your level with some variety thrown in. Even luckier, if a battle is already taking place on a location you visit, you'll be able to join in the fight and aid other players!

Or, if you're unlucky, you'll be defeated. But don't despair; this isn't the end for you! Upon defeat, you'll lose a portion of your money, and be sent to the nearest hospital or clinic to recuperate. You'll retain all items and experience, so don't fret too much. When you visit a medical facility, you can also set that hospital to be your respawn point.

Battles can sometimes be fast-paced for people, or your friends might be impatient. You can program your character's battle tactics to respond in certain ways in certain situations. For example, you can perform an action "At the Start of Battle", such as applying buffs or debuffs. Each action is listed in priority order in your tactics menu.

Paradigms

Paradigms are a set of conditional commands you "program" your character with, primarily for battle. For example, you can set a slew of techniques to use cyclically in battle, or while your MP or TP are at a certain threshold. Let's say you want your rogue character to steal from an enemy. You can set a paradigm to cyclically attempt to steal an item from an enemy in combat, with a set cool-down. In combat, you'll automatically be dealing damage with basic attacks.

The building blocks of paradigms are the technique you wish to use, the condition under which you wish to use it, the target you wish to use it on, and the cooldown period (which takes priority under the technique's own cooldown). Conditions can vary from your own MP or TP reserves, queued once at the start of combat, when you have a certain status effect, etc. The target can range from not changing your manually targeted enemy, to the enemy with the lowest HP, or the ally with the lowest HP, and so on and so forth. Cooldowns are self-imposed wait periods before the technique can be triggered again.

Basic Amenities

The addresses of shops, malls, and markets of all kinds are where you go to procure the basic tools used on your journey. You can buy medicine from pharmacies, food from supermarkets, and just about anything else you could want. The key here is to think what sort of store might have something you'd like to buy. A pro tip is to check military surplus stores for gear and equipment.

Resting up is the straightforward way to recover from your injuries. Check into any hotel or motel for a better night's rest than you might get in those places in real life.

As mentioned above, the nearest hospital or clinic is where you'll go if you're defeated in battle. You'll be automatically charged money based on a percentage of what you have on hand.

Learning new skills is done at appropriate learning centers. Most intellectual skills are learned at public schools, but there is a wide variety of skills you must learn elsewhere. Martial skills can be learned at martial arts schools, as an obvious example. Occult shops such as fortune tellers and psychic readers will enable you to build your supernatural skills.