============================================================ Reminiscence on EverQuest in the age of Alarans (Veil of Alaris, 18th expansion) or What to Do Other Than Kill Things, spare time activities to enhance your game. by Temperance, female Wood Elf Bard of The Tribual on the Erollisi Marr server ============================================================ Complicated game, lots of overlapping stuff. Follow me and you'll see where I am going. @ ------------------------------------------------------------ Alcohol Tolerance (AT) ---------------------- Skill cap goes up 5 points ever level, for the most part. Buy booze, keep drinking until you've reached the skill cap, you're done. IF you get so drunk you can't drink any more wait about one tick (six seconds), you'll notice you will sway, that's a tick, you can take another drink. I think an ocassional swig while fighting might assist your stats, but I'm not sure. I said swig, not chug. Unless you are doing it on purpose, if you drink so much your vision changes you're doing it wrong. AT is really only useful is some higher level raids where a boss's detrimental spell has a side effect of drunkenness, so the better your AT the less it affects you and the faster it fades. This also relates to fishing, you'll see. ------------------------------------------------------------ Fishing ------- Not so good by itself, but it is good for gathering fish as food or fish as components to be used in making better food. All you need is a fishing pole, some bait, and a safe place to fish. (Not getting killed is always a good thing.) As you start fishing you might not catch anything, that improves with skill over time. Any time you catch something, fish or not, you use up a piece of bait. Bring enough. Also, accidents will happen and your fishing pole can break. Bring a few, just in case. At generic fishing places you can catch Fresh Fish. You will also scratch up whatever else might be in the water - tattered sandals, rusty daggers, fish scales. These items are useless but can be sold to recover the cost of the pole(s) and bait, important for the younger non-twinked characters. Depending on how long you intend to fish, for quantity or skill, it can get boring. Some people resort to alcohol. Fishing takes about twelve seconds, or two ticks. You cannot fish with something in your hands (on your cursor), so you have to either drop it into your inventory or on the ground. Note that you can drink once a tick and fish every two ticks. Yes, you can take a drink once every time you fish, but I would recommend less often because the cumulative effects last longer. So if you are working on your tolerance while fishing then maybe one drink for every two or three casts of your line. Especially if you are not alone since too much drinking not only ruins your vision and movement (good luck navigating to a specific location much less running in a straight line), it also affects your speech. Oh sure, you see your text cleanly, but anybody else will see gibberish. This reminds me, since fishing takes a lot of time, this would be a perfect opportunity to work on Language Skills. But that's another topic. So remember, spare fishing poles, plenty of bait and a safe place to fish. Have fun! ------------------------------------------------------------ Language Skills --------------- Page down, this stuff is boring. Not going into it right now, I'll fill in this part later. ------------------------------------------------------------ Quests and stuff. ----------------- Traveling Starting Recognition Bringing It All Together Here's where it gets good. Traveling --------- (You can skip this paragraph.) In the beginning there were feet, and they were good. Everybody used their feet to get around. Also, in the beginning, after some leveling up, there were also Druids and Wizards capable of transporting themselves and their groups to distant locations. Shamans very talented in Alchemy could make potions to send you to a few other places as well. - Then with the Shadows of Luclin came the Nexus Scions with a few extra stops. - Then the Planes of Power with the Plane of Knowledge that could drop you outside any starting city and a few other places (the Kunark outposts, Stonebrunt Mountains). - Also, the Guild Hall with a public portal where you can select a destination. - Any Magus of the Wayfarer's Brotherhood is able to send you to most of their other camps. As the known world gets larger it alo becomes more inter-connected. Although possible, people rarely travel purely by foot and ship anymore in Everquest. Once you are Level 15 and in your starting city you will get a mysterious message. If you don't know where you started or don't care, you can also visit the Rathe Moutains gypsy camp or the southeast corner of Western Karana. Find whoever is calling you, hail them and get their story about the Wayfarer's Brotherhood. You will be directed to vist one of the five wayfarer camps to speak to somebody there. Go to any of the five camps and speak with the person there. Remember the story you were told to answer the questions. The 5 camps Butcherblock, Commonlands, Everfrost, North Ro, South Ro The Answers "Adventures," "Favor Journal," "Morden Rasp," "Farstone." Once done you will be flagged to use the adventure system and the Magus teleports. Follow the spirit of the quest, you must have each chat as you will be flagged as you go, so don't run to the end and start saying "Adventures" because it won't work. There is a Magus in the Guild Lobby, she is for a one way trip out, nobody sends to her. Guild Lobby -- the 5 camps and Nedaria's Landing The 5 Camps -- the other 4 camps and Nedaria's Landing Nedaria's Landing -- the 5 camps and Natimbi and Abysmal Sea The Abysmal Sea -- Nedaria's Landing and Natimbi Natimbi, the Broken Shores -- Nedaria's Landing and Abysmal Sea IMHO, the quickest way to PoK from a camp is to go to Butcherblock and its PoK book. (Everfrost has a PoK book, too, but I get lost there. Commonlands and South Ro make you cross another zone. Unless you're KoS to dwarves (which can be avoided) Butcherblock is faster.) Starting -------- Visit a Magus and travel to Nedaria's Landing and then to the Abysmal Sea. Here you can find NPCs that want help with specific tradeskills. If you are starting out on a tradeskill this is a great way to get from 0 skill to 54 skill for free. For your help you are given a recipe book (bag it for now) and supplies to make something simple. (Until you have returned one created item you will always get the book when asking for supplies.) Use them in a nearby tradeskill container appropriate to the chore (forge, brew barrel, potters wheel, etc.) and make as many as you can. Once you have made all you are able, give all the results back to the NPC. I think you need to give back 80-100(?) items to finish the chore, just say the keywords again for more supplies. (Caveat: If you have any unused components they will notice this and not give you any more. Simply destroy the previous supply and request a new batch by saying the keywords again.) When you have given back enough for that chore you will notice you get different supplies for the next chore. There are four chores per tradeskill, the final having a trivial level of 54. Even after you have reached a skill of 54 continue the chore and see it through. When the NPC says you have done enough and does not give you any more supplies you can read and/or discard the book they gave you with the first supplies. General Tradeskills NPCs Baking Ordin Wheasly, Tylida Eraldi Blacksmithing Snokin Breaksteel, Esunta Brewing Yitimis Groglenog, Galidnus Corkpopper Fletching Imildu Woodstreak, Bansama Nysawi Jewelcraft Glirina Morningbloom, Rilwind Sitnai Pottery Malkidiv U`Ycionuz, Hiloan O`Yviania Tailoring Tonlyei Lyhin, Garald Samer Restricted Tradeskills Alchemy [SHM only] Lita Hegeway, Jorlan Hegeway Poisonmaking [ROG only] Uiyaniv Tu`Vrozix, Viliani I`Xvoyt Tinkering [GNM only] Skelontorim Orrthemech, Tialechaety Orrthemech There is an added benefit to these chores that can be useful at much higher levels, but you can skip it for now. Later you can research about Refining GoD materials. [Link] A word of warning about tradeskill mastery. All of the tradeskills have a cap of 300 (originally 250), however your first tradeskill to exceed 200 becomes your "specialization" and the others are stopped at 200. Alternate Abilites for tradeskills - "New Tanaan Crafting Mastery" - 6 ranks costing 3 points each - Level Requirement: 51 Each rank allows another general tradeskill to exceed the specialization limit of 200. The AA does not specify which tradeskill, the next one to exceed 200 will be the one. (For those with Auto-Grant AAs, you get all 6 ranks at Level 51.) - [Baking] Mastery - 3 ranks costing 3,6,9 points - Level requirements: 59,60,61 Reduce your chance of failing by 10%, 25%, and 50%. (These are not Auto-Granted if you have that feature activated, have to spend points.) - Salvage - 6 ranks costing 5 points each - Level requirements: 60,65,70,75,80,85 Gives a chance to recover items that would be lost on a failed tradeskill combine. With a small recipe and enough (or more) ranks, failed combines are possibly no loss. (Unsure about Auto-Grant, you do have to buy at least ranks 4-6.) This guide pursues a course in Baking. If you have a different tradeskill that is beyond 200 skill and have not or cannot unlock your New Tanaan Crafting Mastery then find what else I have to offer. Recognition ----------- Obviously you have to achieve something before you can be recognized. Notice that when you reached a skill level of 50 it gave you notification other than the usual text of "better at baking! (50)". Now that you have some level of proficiency you can start on making your own Trophy for that tradeskill. There are two eras with trophies, Luclin and Prophecy, we will work on the Prophecy of Ro era trophy that gets better stats as you improve your tradeskill level. Journey to the area outside of Freeport. Near the PoK marker there are some tents, go to the other tents to the north where there are only the halfling and erudite ladies. Speak with the Event Coordinator about testing for a tradeskill trophy - a minimum skill of 50 is required, but the test you receive is based on your current skill, from 50 to 300. The sooner you ask for a test the easier it is, at a skill level above 200 some of the combines are very complicated and frustrating. So in this case: the lower the better (to begin). Completing the Beginner test will give you a trophy, it evolves as you improve, it starts out as level 1 of 7. When equipped in any slot (primary, secondary, range, ammo) you gain a percentage to your tradeskill, starting from +1% all the way to +15%. With a boost less than 5% you could also get a Geerlok device for that tradeskill to add +5%. - the trophy only evolves when equipped and you succeed in making a non-trivial combine. warning, it can take 10 successes to gain 1% in evolution. However, if your skilling up crosses a boundary (100,150,200,250,300) and the trophy does not match your level, then each successful combination might actually increase it much more rapdily. - tradeskill bonuses do not stack, only the best modifier is applied. So +10% smithing belt and +5% geerlok and +4% trophy = +10%, not +19%. Nice try. - aside from the trophy's tradeskill level modifier, you'll find other benefits. [Link] ------------------------------------------------------------ Bringing It All Together ------------------------ Alright, by now you know there are thousands of things you can do, so to make it easier we can do some specific things to speed this up for you. Rather than spend all your plat for items from the Bazaar, it's best to have a high level character with some knowledge of what you need (or can find it on their own) -- high level here being relative, by that I mean a character that can go alone and get what you need without risk of dying, or that can use their own tradeskills to help you create items for your use. -- "Fisherman's Companion" - This quest starts and ends in the Plane of Knowledge. - fish for Nightmare Cichlid in the Plane of Nightmare - fish for Vallorian Discus in the Plane of Valor Since those are out of the way whoever goes should gather many (8-20) before moving on. In preparation, after fishing, you will need as many Roots (foraged) as you have fish. Also, you will need a Filleting Knife. Filleting Knife (smithing, trivial 76, stacks to 20 but are not consumed or lost) 3 metal bits (smithing, trivial 18, yield 2) 2 small piece of ore 1 water flask 1 scaler mold 1 water flask We want the fish bones, they are a byproduct of making Prepared Fish. All Prepared Fish (food) are the same, but we want the bones specific to these fish. This is the recipe. Prepared Fish (tackle box, fishing, trivial 182, yields 1 food + 1 bones) 1 Celandine Herb (alchemy merchant) 1 Filleting Knife (crafted or traded, always returned) 1 [fish of choice] (fished or traded) 1 Roots (foraged or traded) Even with a fishing skill of 200 this recipe has a ridiculous failure rate, so if you are going out of your way to fish you might as well get more to trade or sell. Prepare all the fish, save all Nightmare Cichlid Bones and Vallorian Discus Bones. Give 2 of each bones to whichever player wants to receive a Fisherman's Companion. All they have to do is give the 4 bones (2 of each) to Ramos Jerwan in PoK. Fisherman's Companion (Magic, Lore, No Trade, inventory clickable) - Summons Brell's Fishin' Pole Brell's Fishin' Pole (Temporary, No Trade, Fishing +3%, inventory clickable) - Summons Ale (Temporary) See? I told ya it was getting good! If your pole ever breaks summon another, free! Never pay for Ale again! Did you ding? Summon a pole to summon lots of Ale and get your drink on, I mean skill up your Alcohol Tolerance! (You may chug now. Chug responsibly.) -- "Anizok's Bait Dispenser" - crafted by tinkering, only gnomes can tinker, find one. Most of the components to create this can be purchased. Whatever cannot be purchased in PoK can be purchased in the Plane of Innovation. Most needed drops also come from PoI. Base Prototype (tinkering, trivial 151) 1 Grease 1 Pinion (PoI drop) 1 Steel Ball Bearing (PoI drop) 1 Steel Casing (PoI purchase) Perpetual Air Pump (tinkering, trivial 168) 1 Coiled Spring (PoI drop) 1 Cured Leather Tubing 1 Gears 1 Steel Ball Bearing (PoI drop) 1 Vial of Gases (PoI purchase) Anizok's Biat Dispenser (tinkering, 242 trivial) 1 Base Prototype (above) 2 Clockwork Gnome Gear (Corathus Creep drop) 1 Gnomish Bolts 1 Metal Twine 1 Perpetual Air Pump (above) 1 Planing Tool (fletching merchant) This is a 2-slot container that converts 1 fish at a time into, approximately, 10 bait. This is Homemade Bait, and it stacks to 250. They are not temporary and it can be traded. When you don't need the dispenser it can be stored in a normal container. If you are going fishing where the fish you catch cannot be made into bait then cut all the bait you need before you go. Unfortunately, where we are going, Fresh Fish is the least common item to catch when fishing and the fish you do catch won't work in the dispenser. PoK has two fishing supply merchants standing around a pool where many practice their swimming. Ramos Jerwan and Daeld Atand sell Fishing Bait, Daeld sells Fishing Poles, Ramos sells Fresh Fish. Now you have the Bait Dispenser you can visit Ramos and make your supply of Homemade Bait here before setting out to fish. -- "Extraplanar Trade Satchel" - crafted by tailoring, only holds items tagged for Tradeskills. Extraplanar Trade Satchel (tailoring, trivial 15 (no fail), but requires skill 300) 1 Extraplanar Silk (drop) 1 Fantastic Animal Pelt (drop) 1 Reinforced Filament 1 Tailored Pack Pattern Weight of 0.5, 100% weight reduction bag, 32-slot container, caries giant items. Whatever you need to use for tradeskills, it can go in here. Like Bait and fish. Originally, items like sewing kits and fletching kits were only cantainers used FOR trades and not used IN trades, (it's not a component in making something else,) so they did not have a Tradeskill tag. After enough griping, it was deemed that tradeskill containers shall be allowed in a Trade Satchel. Not everything used for tradeskills will go into a satchel. The Fisherman's Companion and Bait Dispenser won't go, but that's not a problem. Carry one with you, use more in your bank as needed. -- Tailoring can create bags of all sorts with a variety of capacities and weight reduction. With the House of Thule expansion (17th) there are 14-slot 100% wt reduction bags, with the release of Call of the Forsaken (20th) new bags have a capacity of 20, with 16-slot and 18-slot bags intorduced inbetween. "Tailored [Specific] [Bag]" - crafted by tailoring, created by the recipient. Unexpanded Tailored [Specific] [Bag] - used to create 1 of 2 possible bags An accomplished tailor can scribe a book to pre-learn the various bag recipes (Backpack, Bag, Belt Pouch, Haversack, Pack, Rucksack, Sack, Satchel, Toolbelt) each with a different trivial skill level but that produce the same capacity. Unexpanded Tailored Legendary [Bag] Unexpanded Tailored Transcendent [Bag] 1 Fantastic Animal Pelt (drop) 1 Befouled Animal Pelt (drop) 2 Fantastic Silk (drop) 2 Befouled Silk (drop) 3 Dream Dust (drop) 3 Ethernere Essence(drop) 1 Reinforced Filament 1 Calcified Filament 1 Tailored [Bag] Pattern 1 Tailored [Bag] Pattern A one-time scribing of "Garik's Secrets of Bag Expansion" is required to expand a Legendary container, or "Guide to Transcendent Bags" for those. Then, when placing one unexpanded item and one solution in any skewing kit you will receive a container that is an heirloom (can be traded only with other characters on the same account via the Common Bank). The solution you use determines how much the bag itself weighs. - Abu-Kar's Arcane Solution: costs 2625 PP but bag weighs 0.1. (bag for taking with you) - Inverse Arcane Solution: costs 105 PP but bag weighs 25.5. (bag for your bank) In my case I have not made any bank bags - yet. The high trivial skill and poor success rate have made me utilize any successful creation to it's best potential: I make enough to give to an alt along with enough PP for them to expand all the carry containers they need. -- "Heavy Disenchanted Pack XII" - another reason to max out one tradeskill to the point your trophy evolves from Level 6 (Master Trophy) to to Level 7 (no longer looks like a trophy and has a unique name) is that the Level 7 trophy summons all the 12-slot 100% wt reduc no trade bags you want. But there is a catch, these are what I call partially temporary. The bags are tagged as Temporary, and if they are empty when you camp for more than a few minutes they will vanish. If they are not empty when you camp they become disenchanted and no longer temporary and now they weigh 25.5, perfect for banking. Replacing whatever you were using in your bank (8-slot or 10-slot bags or boxes) with 12-slot bags - a great increase - if they sit in the bank it doesn't matter how much they weigh. This is why I only make expanded bags to be carried and try to get characters to get one trade skill to 300 and then keep pushing until the trophy evolves. Which means once you get to a skill of 300 you will need for your trophy to evolve from its Level 5 to Level 6, and then you will have to work at it to increase. Remember, while the trophy matches your level it will take 10 successful combines to advance 1%. That means ONE THOUSAND SUCCESFUL NON-TRIVIAL COMBINES with your trophy equipped and active. This is a challenge, I know, Temperance herself has 7 fully evolved trophies. Follow-up on the 1000 combines, some trades will advance the Master trophy by 1% every 4 or 5 successful combines, but I suspect that has to do with having a recipe that is within range of the trophy, ie a recipe trivial at 335 with a Master Trophy. I have seen Bowgen's Fletching and Apoth's Jewelry at an accelerated rate for the final evolution. Observe your Trophies' progress on the Inventory window's Evolution tab while skilling. -- Aside from getting Extraplanar Trade Satchels, ignore the bags for now. You can carry a Spit with you since all chores and listed recipes use fewer than 6 items. Once you have completed the Abysmal Sea chores, particularly Baking (and maybe Brewing), go to PoK to work on getting Baking up to 82, then 135, then 191. Fish Fillets (baking, trivial 82) 1 Fresh Fish (Ramos) 1 Jug of Sauces (Culkin) Fish Rolls (baking, trivial 135) 1 Bat Wing (Darius) 1 Fresh Fish (Ramos) Patty Melt (baking, trivial 191) 1 Bear Meat or Lion Meat (Melet) 1 Cheese (now available in Knowledge from Chef Denrun, Culkin) 1 Loaf of Bread Once you are this far, prepare 1000 bait (4 stacks) and go to Argath (Veil of Alaris). Bring the bait, your Fisherman's Companion, find a spot near a stream and enjoy. Collect all the Raxil Fish as you can, you will also get a fair amount of another fish, Oseka's Messenger, sometimes you get fishing junk (scales, daggers, sandals) and rarely will you get a Fresh Fish. Sell off or drop anything beyond a stack of Messensgers (kept at the top of the satchel so you don't eat the Raxil). Take all your Raxil Fish to Crescent Reach and search for Cook Kosey, he stands by an oven and sells everything you need to bake the fish! Broiled Raxil Fish (baking, trivial 415) 1 Allspice 1 Butter 1 Cup of Flour 1 Lemon 1 Raxil Fish -- What I did not discuss directly is the need for an extraordinary amount of bag space to work on advancing your baking skill. Ideally you will do one aspect of tradeskilling at a time and move on to the next stage when that chore is completed. Traveling between Argath and Crescent Reach is tedious so reduce the number of round-trips if possible. One way to maximize your carrying capacity would be to have a friend or second character join you while fishing and baking. If they do not have much free space they can visit PoK and shroud into another shape (very good friend) and buy many Mixing Bowls (Culkin) to hold the massive quantity of items you will be working with. I did mention to bring along 4 stacks of bait, if you have a helper you can bring more, however while fishing what you want to keep will only stack to 20 items... One stack of bait is 250 items, 200 fishes are 10 stacks and that's two bags full. This is where you realize a two-character expedition will make the most of your efforts since you will be able to do a great deal of fishing at one time and then make a long run at baking all at one time. Temperance and her alts have gone through this process at least 3 times, each time using a second character in a shroud with bowls carrying about 600-800 Raxil Fish per visit to Crescent Reach. It will take you at least 2 sessions to go from a baking skill of 191 to 300... and I did mention it will take 1000 successful non-trivial combines for the trophy's final evolution. At first you will need the space to simply hold the fish you need for baking. Later you will need the space to hold all your successful baking attempts. You will have Broiled Raxil fish coming out your ears. Feed all your alts, feed your guild, bury a Bazaar trader with them. * -- @ The goals for which I am stiving here are these: Fisherman's Companion (quested) unlimited summoned fishing poles with an +3% fishing modifier unlimited summoned ale Anizok's Bait Dispenser (crafted or traded) prepare good sized stacks of bait or use it on-the-go Satchels and Packs (summoned or crafted) low weight weight-reduction bags to hold almost anything you need Start Fishing if you haven't, and finish it Getting started on a tradeskill (baking) and then finishing it using a few recipes to advance so you can make anything you want Fully evolved Prophecy of Ro era trophy +12% tradeskill modifier at Level 6 (max of +36), +15% mod at Level 7 (max of +45) create a pair: permanent 100% wt reduc 12-slot bag and 24-slot satchel [Link] make any on-demand bags to carry or bank All the stat food you and your friends will ever need... * E-v-e-r. (stat drinks are up to you) ------------------------------------------------------------ Information not included: Mastering Languages, Luclin era tradeskill trophies, expanding or creating permanent Luclin and Ro trophy summoned bags; and, um, probably forgetting something else useful. Oh yes, remember to equip your weapons! Nothing as embarrassing as having a creature beat on you (or worse) while holding a fishing pole and a trophy. ------------------------------------------------------------ -- Temperance, female Wood Elf Bard of The Tribual on the Erollisi Marr server erollisi.temperance, TemperanceEM@yahoo.com ============================================================