Today, I was teaching a friend of mine, who just start playing the game, a few early "tricks" to get started. Some were a bit less obvious than others, and some I guess aren't that known (maybe).
The earliest tip I can give, and I already mentioned this before, is right after the weapons tutorial quest, where we choose one weapon, but we can't pick a second one, is to get outside the quest and then get back in to grab the second weapon (you won't make the tutorial a second time). I think this is handy.
Also, as soon as you get the tutorial done, and you are out of Agartha, and into Solomon Island, Kingsmouth Town, is to check your store (shortcut key ',' - that's a comma), go to the claims tab and see what you can claim. I'm not 100% sure if anyone can claim new weapons off the bat, but if anyone can, you can ignore my first tip.
I advise to pick up a starting deck (build), and follow it up. Sure, I know many people say they aren't as great as for end game, but for a new player, who's learning the game for the first time, following it, wont make the experience much more daunting. Furthermore, as you complete these decks you will be awarded with different cosmetics sets, seen here:
Dragon
Illuminati
Templar
Personally, I also grab any quest I find (as long as I won't overwrite any quest of the same type I'm doing at the moment - you can only have a single quest of each type at a time) and do them. I never repeat any, but it's possible to repeat them averagely once a day (well most of the quests are repeatable).
I wouldn't bother much with crafting, except one thing, disassemble anything you find. I disassemble every single item (except consumables - not even sure one can deconstruct them), and stack the materials. Low grade materials aren't that great for anything, but you can always upgrade them, by stack of 5. Each stack of 5 will give one of the next higher grade. If you don't know, shortcut for crafting window is 'y'. Drag the item in and just disassemble it. My bank/inventory is full of all sorts of materials for crafting.
The '/reset' command, can be the quick travel tool for you. That command will instantly kill you, and you can resurrect in the nearest anima well, or another one, as long as you have unlocked it (aka get close enough to it, once at least). Whenever I need to travel to somewhere far in map, instead of running to it, risking being attacked by multiple creatures, I just use that command and pick the nearest anima well. Two things to be aware though, 1) be sure you know what anima well you want to go, because once dead you can't check the map and 2) when you are at the selected anima well, be sure to use and don't run to your body! There is however a small down side. When you use this command, your gear will take damage, so just assume this is the fee to pay for the "quick travel".
The first instance (since all the new players want to try it), "The Polaris", is at the first map, "Kingsmouth Town", but it's advisable to try only after your gear and weapons are of quality three average. The dungeon itself is not hard except the last boss, Ur-Draug, which requires a bit of dps and a bit of playing hide and seek. Oh, and tank keep it turn away from group. Whenever you see a fog coming up, just run around the pillars out of sight of the boss. Just be sure to kill it fast, because you will be running out of pillars. The rest of the bosses is just a matter of dps and watch over the circles on ground to avoid them. In resume, quality level of gear average three, mind the circles on ground, and on last boss, play hide and seek of fog phase. Any experienced player from other MMO's won't have much issues doing this instance.
Have always a note book, for the investigations quests, it will be handy. Unless you cheat and follow guides.
The token vendor in Kingsmouth is here:
Overall, these are some of the initial tips I can give for starting up TSW. I might have repeat some, or I might have missed others, but overall, these few tips, will help you out a bit on the initial stages of the game.
