Welcome to the official Project Terra Handbook! This document is crafted for player and reader purposes, to give you a full understanding of the world in which players will soon become immersed. This will serve as a guide of sorts, but only offers basic information about the world. To truly know the secrets of the world, you have no choice but to explore!
Some simple information before we get into the nitty-gritty details, shall we? To start, I’m sure many of you are wondering… What is Project Terra? Well, I could call it a game, but that would only be scratching the surface. It’s more of a full-world simulation. We’re inviting new players in batches, and making constant changes, all with one goal: to provide a new life for our players, to give them a break from the drudgery of real life!
As such, we’re trying to focus on realism whenever possible. You won’t know everything when you first log in, but as you go about and explore this detail-rich world, you’ll learn. Before you know it, you’ll be an honorary Terrian! Of course, the rules that govern you players are a little different. You get to respawn, so we have to put some consequences in place.
What are the consequences of death?
Lose 5% EXP from all skills
This will erase all passive bonuses acquired if the EXP loss causes a skill to downrank.
You do not lose any active skills or learned recipes, however.
Furthermore, getting revenge on the creature that killed you will regain half of the lost EXP.
Any of the items on your body can be looted. Some exceptions apply.
Mythic and Legendary items cannot be looted. Because we know people will try.
Magically bound items cannot be looted. They’re yours forever, or until you sell them.
You will lose 10% of the money in your inventory.
You will respawn at the nearest safe zone in 30 minutes.
If you cannot safely get to your body, you can summon your leftover items for a fee by visiting the nearest Terrian
Now that seems like a pretty fair system, doesn’t it? Well, I like to think so. If it turns out I’m wrong, then I can always introduce a patch. Speaking of patches, I should mention the schedule that the server will follow. It’s a little complex, but I’m sure you will all get used to it quickly enough.
0000 - 1200: This will be the longest period of peaceful time that the world experiences. During this time, your property cannot be raided, and everywhere outside of the wilderness is a safe zone. Take advantage of the time to get some farming and hunting done!
1200 - 2000: Raid Time! Well, not for everyone. These eight hours are the window in which Terrians, Players, and even wild animals can choose to raid! Raids will strike properties, and have their own special rules. For full details, see Contracts & Events. That document will explain raids in more detail.
2000 - 2359: More peaceful time. All daily activities and cooldowns will reset at the end of the day.
Furthermore, it is important that you keep track of the days, weeks, months, and seasons. Certain local or world events may only take place at specific regular times, so it’s generally a good idea to be familiar. Thankfully, the calendar of Project Terra perfectly matches that of the real world, so it’ll be easy to keep track of!
Skills!
Everything you do in Project Terra, be it fighting monsters, fighting players, or even just making money, involves skills. Sure, it’s like a game. But even in the real world, you have skills, right? There are things you have to work on to get better, and some things you really suck at until you get enough practice. It’ll be the same here.
Each skill you use is ranked from E to S, with S obviously being the highest rank. Very Anime-esque, am I right? For the most part, skills are divided into two categories: Combat and Life. To view these in more detail, see the Weapons & Equipment and Life Skills documents.
As with any other skill system that uses ranks, the only way to level up your skill is to gain EXP by performing that skill.
E Rank: The beginning. 0 experience required.
D Rank: 100 experience required
C Rank: 300 experience required
B Rank: 800 experience required
A Rank: 1,600 experience required
S Rank: 2,500 experience required
Every skill has a maximum experience limit of 2,800. This is to protect against death consequences. I don’t want to hear complaints about people losing S Rank skills due to one fluke death. If you put in the work and don’t make dumb choices, you get to keep what you earn.
That’s pretty much it! Well, of course, there’s a lot more to be discovered. But as far as the basic information is concerned, you’ve got it right there. The rest of this document will concern things not closely related to your personal survival.
Combat Skills
Well, of course, this game is going to have combat. The goal is realism, after all! I’ve kept it relatively simple, but with a whole wealth of information just waiting to be discovered. In the main, combat is divided into two larger categories: weapons and magic.
No matter which option you choose, combat is all about being creative. If you hold a sword, you can swing it, but you’re far from an expert. Unlike in MMOs, you’re going to have to put in some effort to get good at swinging that sword. Now swap out sword with literally any weapon, even your own fists! And there you have it. Nice and simple, right? Just like real life, and you love it, right? Well, I hope your answer was yes, otherwise, you’ll find the combat system in Project Terra quite troubling.
To see all of the possible weapons within Project Terra, check out the Weapons & Equipment document.
Magic is just like weapons in the sense that you’ve gotta put in the work. I’ve pulled inspiration for the magic of Project Terra from all kinds of different sources, so you’ve quite literally nothing holding you back. As long as you dedicate time to practice and put some thought into it, you can accomplish a lot of amazing things with magic!
Magic is divided into 8 elements for simplicity’s sake. But that’s all the information I’m going to give you! If you want to learn more, you’ll have to experiment. Each character (at the start) will be equipped with one spell: Mana Bolt. It uses the Base Element and does about as much damage as a sword or an arrow.
Magic Elements:
Base
Fire
Water
Earth
Air
Spirit
Light
Shadow
For more details of spell descriptions and a full list of all discovered spells within Project Terra, check out the Spell Glossary!
Life Skills
There are a lot of resources available in Project Terra. Big surprise, right? Well, the thing you need to keep in mind is that I’ve created an entire system just to address the resources. I decide how quickly they respawn, where they respawn, and how you can go about crafting them. For the most part, resources are treated as infinite, but they have unique acquisition and respawn rates. They also have individual rarities. When you acquire a material, the rarity is decided by the following table:
Resource Rarity Table:
Common - 40%
Uncommon - 30%
Rare - 25%
Mythic - 4%
Legendary - 1%
There are many ways to gather resources in the game, but they’re all added under the umbrellas of Animal/Monster Loot or Gathering Activities. For animal/monster loot, consult the tables found in Animals (Wild & Otherwise). As for the other resources, they are acquired via gathering. The details of this complex Life Skills system can be found in the Life Skills document.
Land Ownership! That’s right, you can own land in Project Terra. For more details, check out the Homesteading and Land Ownership Rules page.
The Contracts & Events page will tell you all you need to know about… well, contracts and events. Check it out. It’s a good read, I swear.
I may get a little sarcastic in my writing of Inventory and Storage Management. I can’t help it. But it’s all very helpful and useful information. Give it a skim!
The World of Project Terra. Wow. What an original idea for a document title. Good job, me. This document will teach you all about the flora and fauna of the world. That’s the plants and animals for those of you who didn’t grow up with a liking of complex words and feeling superior.
Character Sheet. Honestly, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to make one of these. But it’s kinda essential now that I decided to make a system for inventory and skills. Every player will have one, and you’ll get so used to seeing them that it’ll become second nature.