Welcome to the second part of Surviving your First MMORPG, the first part was The Basics. If you haven't chosen your MMORPG yet, please read How to Choose a MMORPG.

Careers

Every game has their own career selection, they can be called careers or classes, maybe even jobs. This is a quick generalized guide and it doesn’t apply to every game out there. Here are some of the most common types:

Archer(Ranged)

It can use a bow or not, usually their defense is not very high, but they rely on high damage level to kill their mob before they mob reaches them. They work really well at dealing quick damage when they have as warrior to tank for them.

Mage/Enchanter

This type of character might use a book or a staff and like the archer has low defense but has very high damaging attacks. If you fight a mage, they are going to use several powers to stun you and even turn your character into an animal (It happened to me, and it was not cool -_- )

I think Elementalists would also fall in the mage category, they are called that because they use Fire, Ice, Water, and/or Earth based attacks.

Summoner

This players are similar to the mage class, they can cast spells as well; but, as their name describes, they summon some kind of spirits to help them in the attack and even take damage for them. Like Aion or other games, the demons or spirits summoned are element related. Like a Fire Demon, or a Earth Spirit.

Warrior/Knight

This is the class with the highest defense, hence they are called tanks. Usually the wield the slowest weapons in the game, but they do the highest damage. They are the guys at the front lines taking the first hit on the mobs.

As a warrior you have to be careful about keeping the monsters focused on you, because if they go after the support character healing you, you will be in major trouble.

Priest/Healer

Priests are the games support characters, they are harder to level up because they don't wear high defense gear like the Warriors, but later in the game, this class becomes vital for winning battles against game bosses or castle wars. Priests do have attack skills and they have powerful buffs.

A "buff" is a temporary spell that you cast on a player and it raises some skill they have for a determined time. For example you can cast an Attack Buff on a warrior and his attack level will increase by 20% for 2 minutes.

Rogue

Rogues are the class with the highest attack per second in a game or "damage per second" (DPS). They can't wear armor as heavy as the warriors, but they have abilities to make very high damage really quick. The trade off for the high damage is having short HP (Health Power) and not very high defense.

Hunter

This characters have skills related to hunting down monsters and have a very forest feel to them. They are very crafty and they can tame monsters. By taming them, they can use them like pets and employ them in attack like the summoners.

Stat Points

Every game has some option where you can see a window that shows the attributes for your character. Most likely they would be abbreviated, so again refer to the game guides corresponding to the game you are playing or visit the MMOSite forums. This is a usual effect of stat points I took it directly from 2Moons, but it applies to most of the games. Again, some attributes listed might not apply in your game, but this is a good example of what you are going to find.

Stat Effects

Strength Usually abbreviated STR

Physical Melee Attack: Increases melee attack power.

Dexterity/Agility Usually abbreviated DEX or AGI

Physical Range Attack: Increases the power of physical range attacks

Attack Rate: Affects the rate of successful attacks

Block Rate: Affects the rate of successfully blocking an attack.

(Blocks all damage; attacker momentarily stops attacking)

Guard Rate: Affects the rate of successfully guarding against an attack.

(Blocks partial damage; attacker keeps attacking.)

Increases accuracy

Health/Constitution Usually abbreviated HP or CON

Physical Defense: Reduces physical damage.

HP: Affects maximum HP

Spirit/Intelligence Usually abbreviated SPR or INT

Magic Attack: Affects power of magical attacks.

MP: Affects maximum MP

Reputation

Some games have record the score of your reputation in the towns or villages, it increases if you do the local quests and help the NPCs (Non-Player Characters). If you try to kill the NPCs or attack the city maybe you will get some negative reputation there.

From my point of view there is also a social reputation as well. The actions that you take do have an impact on other players' gaming, just like in real life you can affect other people's life. I can't provide you a guide for your social interaction, that depends entirely on you, you want players to hate you? maybe you want to be respected? or perhaps you just don't want the attention and rather do quests by yourself for the moment.. Who are you? or better yet... Who do you want to be?

On the next part: Crafting, Clans/Guilds, Player Versus Player Combat (PVP).

Sources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flyff

http://www.blizzard.com/wow/townhall/classes.shtml

http://2moons.wikia.com/wiki/Experience,_Levels_&_Stats