#starter zone

I am 95% certain this isn't how I am supposed to use this LOL!

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Which racial faction was placed next to which seems to be awfully deliberate and clever when you think about it.

Think about the kinds of people who would choose each faction, and why.

Basically, if you wanted to pretend to be a fairy warrior, you rolled Salamander. Fairy rogues, laborers, hunters, commoners; those were the other races.

But if you wanted to play fairy nobility, you rolled Sylph. Because more than anyone else besides the actual Maeve "Light Elves", the closest thing ALO had to "High Elves" were the Sylph.

It's no coincidence that the Sylph had figures like Sakuya and Sigurd, or that the Sylph zone was located next to the Salamander zone so that the two most popular factions could duke it out directly.

By contrast, it doesn't seem like a coincidence that the two most fun-loving, humorous races – the Puca and Cait Sith – were situated next to each other. Likewise with the trade-minded Gnomes and Leprechauns. If you were more interested in social play, LARPing, PVE, or crafting, that's the side of the Alfheim continent for you.

The Undines were placed smack in-between the two sneak-attack factions, the Imps and Spriggans – possibly because the Undines had the easiest time attaining resurrection spells.

The sell-sword Spriggans were set between the sell-heal Undines and the merchantile Leprechauns. Undines and Leprechauns could trade heals or equipment in return for Spriggan combat assets, and Spriggans had easy access to clients who had some trouble going places and killing monsters.

The Imps made for "good" neighbors to the Salamanders, considering their different but shared appeal to PVPers, gankers and griefers. The Imp population would be lower because of the smaller “underground vampire goth” appeal, but their racial capital made up for that weakness. Only Imps had the natural ability to fly underground, which would put attacking Salamanders at a big disadvantage.