dragon starts as a flightless hatchling, but over the course of the game they grow up to an adult dragon who is able to fly. In another series of quests, dragons become older, reaching the point of ancient dragon, which adds more abilities. During the quest to adulthood, dragons need to decide between two different factions, called the Helian and the Lunus. Helians prefer to use magic in combat, and are more friendly to bipeds. The Lunus prefer to use melee attacks during fights and are less friendly to bipeds. Only dragons are able to fly in Istaria. Trading and Crafting The tradeskill system is of a very high grade of complexity. The three dragon trade schools are used to build lairs, scales, spells and crystals. The biped trade school splits up in schools to produce usable items, like clothes, armor, weapons, jewelry, scrolls, potions, food, tools, and spells. The biped trade schools build structures like houses, guild houses, walls, workshops, silos, and consignors. There are about 150 different resources that can be gathered from ore, wood, plants and animals. At higher levels, higher tiered resources are able to be gathered. For example, Copper and Tin are available at tier I, Iron is available at tier II, Steel is available at tier III, Cobalt at tier IV, Mithril at tier V and Adamantium at tier VI. The resources are refined using tools and machines, and are then crafted into final products. During assembly of the final products, players can change the color and improve various qualities and attributes. These production techniques and formulas need to be collected and bought over time. The craft-able equipment is very important to the player, and is unlike other MMORPGs, where trade skills often play a much smaller role. There are over 2000 formulas and techniques that can be collected and stored. Development The core concepts behind Istaria before release were to create a zone-less, constantly changing environment in which players would work together to hold back a seemingly unstoppable enemy: the Withered Aegis. This enemy would consist of a few individuals from the Living Races (races that the players belong to), in an unholy alliance with groups of Devils and Demons from another race called the Realm of Blight. The Blight magic would include necromancy, the ability to create zombies from corpses. Due to the co-op nature of the game the Aegis would be