Experience

Experience points are earned primarily through combat and by killing NPCs, although there are also non-combat sources. They are used to improve your character in several ways. All classes use experience points to advance levels and stats. Mages earn study hours as they earn experience; they can then use these study hours to learn spells. Rogues earn training hours as they earn experience; they use these to advance various rogue-specific abilities such as stealth and ambushing. Shapeshifters must meet unspecified experience requirements in order to advance the forms they can change into.

Combat Experience

Damage

You earn experience for hitting things; the harder the hit, the more the reward.

Kill

When an NPC is killed, experience is awarded to the players who helped kill it. The amount of experience an NPC is worth can increase if the NPC manages to survive over a longer period of time. This is referred to as experience/NPC "stacking" (not to be confused with command stacking, which is illegal on AA).

Information on kill-experience from Anguish Anguish's help file:

  If you did 75% of the damage to a monster, you'll get 75% of the
  experience at the time of its death, no matter who actually kills the
  monster.

  You must be logged in at the time of death to gain the experience.  You
  can be linkdead, or halfway across the mud, or linkdead halfway across
  the mud.  You just have to have your character somewhere in the game.
  You can even log out and back in between the time you did the damage and
  the time it dies.
  
  Kill stealing is no longer very profitable experience-wise.

  Players who use creatures to help them fight will be awarded most of
  their pet's experience.  The amount awarded depends on the involvement of
  the master in the combat.  If a master and a creature fight together, the
  master will receive almost all of the experience the creature earns.
  However, if the master hangs back and the creature does all of the
  combat, the master receives somewhat less experience.

Non-Combat Experience

Commodities Exchange

Also called CX, this is usually the first place new players are directed to. You can earn coins and experience (and learn your way around!) by delivering packages to specific places. Unfortunately, it closes overnight (game time).

Miniquests

You may be rewarded with experience points for completing tasks for NPCs, especially in newbie areas.

• Morin Farm has a few tasks that can all be completed using items found in the area.

• Iceforge Clan Forge has two NPCs, Uena and Godun, who will reward you for helping them by fetching various things from around the realm.

• There are others. Talk to NPCs in various areas. Getting started is often as simple as asking them if they need help or have a job for you.

Mining

Mining is pretty dull but can be an excellent source of non-combat experience. It is generally safe, but has two main hazards: aggressive wandering NPCs, and cave-ins. As long as you are paying attention to the game, you will notice these problems in time to defend yourself or flee as needed.

Quests

In some circumstances, you may be awarded experience points in the process of or after completing a quest. In accordance with Ancient Anguish's prohibition against providing quest information, no specific details are available. Happy exploring!

Class-Specific

• Artificers earn experience for using many of their class-specific commands.
• Rangers earn experience for using many of their class-specific commands, including skin, pluck, gut, carve, and make.
• Rogues ?? Been a while since I've played one, need to check on this, but I vaguely recall they can get experience for stealing?