EverQuest II Extended Tips Mega Compilation

EverQuest II Extended Tips Mega Compilation by Lodrelhai

1. The EQII Button

* Alternate Advancement (press L) – Select Racial Traditions, Character Traits, and Specialized Training here, as well as spend AA points from Kingdom of Sky or later expansions.
* Battlegrounds – Players can register for cross-server PVP matches here.  Zone Lockout and Persistent Zone timers can also be found in this window.
* Calendar – game-wide special events can be seen here, such as Frostfell or Brell’s Brew Days.  Guilds can also make entries for their members to see, like birthdays or raid times.

* Character (Press C) – Opens your Character Window, which has your equipment, coin, inventory bags, stats, skills, factions, detail settings, and personal options.
* Claim Rewards (type /claim) – Lists in-game rewards you may have earned.

* Community (press Y) – Friends and Ignored lists can be found and maintained here. Also the ability to search for players by various criteria.

* Guild (press U) – Opens the guild window if you are in a guild.  If you are not in a guild, the window will show up to 15 guilds with a recruiter currently in game, including some brief info about each guild.

* Journal (press J) – Open your quest journal, to see what quests you have, what to do, and where to go to progress them.

* Knowledge (press K) – Utility abilities, Spells, Combat Arts, and Tradeskill abilities can be found and sorted here. I find it helpful to sort them by type, going vertically, so I can verify quickly that I have the highest level ability of each type in my combat hotkeys.

* Legends of Norrath (type /lon or /tcg) – takes you to the interface for the Legends of Norrath virtual card game.  Prizes can be won which are usable in EQ2.
* Looking for Group (type /lfg) – list yourself as available to group and what role you can fill, or look for additional players to fill out the group you have.

* Map (press M) – Opens a map of your current zone. If no map is available for the zone, it will open to the city or world map instead. City zones have “map fog” which greys any areas you have not been in and can be turned off. Adventuring zones have a black “fog of war” which can only be cleared by exploring the area.
* Marketplace – The Station Cash marketplace – all items here cost REAL MONEY, not gold or status.

* Options (press Alt-O) – Game settings for display, key controls, sound levels, models, user interface, etc.

* Recipes (press N) – Opens your recipe book.

* Socials (press O) – Game emotes and customizable macros are found here.

* Welcome to EQII – Opens the welcome screen, which shows specials in the Marketplace, game information and update links, and friends list information.

* Help (type /help or /petiton) – In-game reference area. Includes searchable knowledge base and the ability to file petitions if the knowledge base search provided no answers.

* Report a Bug (type /bug) – Report bugs with in-game mechanics, graphics, broken quests, etc. here.

* Camp (Logout) (see camp/quit commands for more) – gives options to camp to character select or desktop, or to quit EQ without camping.

2. Groups

* /invite [name], the command that invites someone to a group works across zones. Note that if the person you want to invite is currently zoning they may not get the invite request. In this case you’d just have to invite them again.

* You can group with someone who is a maximum of 6 levels or 33% higher in level than you, whichever is greater, and still get experience. (For example, a level 32 character could group with a character of up to level 42, since 32 x 1.33 = 42.56, which is rounded down to 42.) If you group with someone of too high a level, you will get neither exp nor quest credit for any kills made.

* Mentoring allows you to group with people more than 33% higher level. The high-level player can right-click on the lower-level person’s name in the group window while in the same zone and selecting “Mentor”.  The mentor’s level, combat arts, spells, and gear will be scaled down to the same level.  The mentor will only get a percentage of their normal xp, but the mentee will receive an xp boost.  Also, any named mobs will give achievement xp to the mentor, even if those mobs are normally grey.

* You can select yourself by pressing F1 or by clicking on your Player window. Press F1 twice or Shift+F1 to target your pet, if you have one. You can select your groupmates by pressing F2-F6 or by clicking on their names in the Group window. Press the appropriate key twice or pressing Shift+(Fx) to target the groupmate’s pet, if any.
* You can target a group member and you will usually see their name highlighted in the world, no matter how far away they are in the zone.
* Press Alt+W to bring up the waypoint window, which will have a list of your groupmates. You can then click on them and get a waypoint to their location.

* Using an offensive spell on a group member will cause it to land on whatever mob they have targeted. Using a beneficial spell on a mob will cause it to land on whichever group member they have targeted.  This is called implied targeting.

* To have a clearer indication of your groupmate’s target and which groupmate your target has targetted, enable ‘Target Arrow’ and ‘Implied Target Arrow’ in Options > User Interface > Target Arrow

* Unless you are healer or crowd control in a group, it is usually better to use the /assist command on the main tank rather than implied targeting.  /assist will switch your main target from the tank to the mob.  Tanks often have to switch targets rapidly to keep aggro on themselves, so this way you keep damaging the primary target rather than swapping between mobs as well.  Also, if you have the mob targeted, you can tell if they’ve decided to attack you instead of the MT, and use any abilities you have that might lower your hate.  You can set an /assist hotkey in Options > Controls > Command Keys.

* When grouped, your Quest Journal will have an additional tab marked “Group.” Your groupmates will be listed by name with their quests in expandable trees, as well as an extra tree which shows quests held by more than one group member.

* The Share buttons in your Quest Journal sections allow you to share your quests with any party members who do not have it and have completed the prerequisites for it – even if you’ve already finished the quest.  If someone can’t receive a quest, a message will advise why.  The person receiving the quest will start on the first step, and receive any quest items given by the original NPC.  Hallmark, Heritage, Signature, Betrayal, and the first Quest in each Deity line are not shareable

* When joining a raid, the raid window can obscure a lot of your view. There are two things you can do about this. The first is put your mouse cursor over the bottom edge or right side of the window, and change the size of the window so it exactly matches your raid size. The second is you can toggle display of the raid window with a hotkey, so you can show or hide it at your leisure. Set this in Options > Controls > Windows Keys. Set a hotkey for “Raid Window” (Default Alt+R).
* Set the default loot option for all groups you lead in Options > Group Options.  Choices are Round Robin, Lotto, Need Before Greed, Open, and Leader Only.  You can set these to only apply for certain quality levels, and all items below that level will be distributed by Round Robin.
* In Options > Group Options there is a default auto-lock option. Checking this box will make it so no on outside your group can attack a mob you are attacking. The benefit of this is that once you have engaged a mob, no one can “help” you by killing something you were intending to make a pet or holding for some other reason. The downside is that if you are in over your head, no one outside the group can help kill the mob or heal your party unless you break the encounter (by typing /yell or clicking Call for Help), thereby losing all xp and quest credits for the mob. Note that no one can steal a mob you have engaged whether this is checked or not. As long as someone in your party hit the mob first, your party will get credit for the kill, even if someone outside the group helps.

* Group leaders can change options for the current group at any time. Right-click on the name of any group member in the same zone and select “Group Options” – a window will pop up which allows you to change auto-lock, looting, and yell options.
* If you and your group are in different instance of the same area, you can be teleported instantly to their instance by right-clicking on their name in the group window and picking “Go to [name and version # of zone they are in]”. This only works in static areas that have split instances due to overpopulation. It does not work in instanced dungeons.

* Know what you’re buffs do, and use them on the person in your group who can best utilize them.  Generally damage increase buffs are good for scouts and fighters, aggro gain and damage shields are good for the main tank, and aggro decrease/avoidance is for anyone who’s stealing the aggro (usually mages, but a high-powered healer or a backstabbing scout can really tick off a mob at the wrong moment).  Wisdom is the primary stat for healers, intelligence for mages, agility for scouts, and strength for fighters. Stamina boosts max health for everyone.  If you’ve got more than one buff to choose from and aren’t sure which would be best, ask your group what they’d like.  Choices may vary widely based on play style, group composition, and mobs being hunted.

* Some single-target buffs can be placed on more than one person.  If you have one, and you have concentration points you aren’t using, pass it around!

* If you have an overlap of character classes in a group, such as two Dirges, then have them make sure they are using different buffs.  Many same-class buffs will not stack, so there’s no point in having them both use the same ones.  Some buffs affect your entire raid, not just your group, and the same stacking restriction applies.

3. Commands

* /load_uisettings will bring up a list of all characters you have ever created for EQ2. Selecting one will set your current user interface (window placement and settings) identical to the character you selected. You can use this if you decide to overhaul your UI layout on one character and want your other characters set identically. When you first create a new character, the load_uisettings window will pop up automatically.

* Use “/mood [mood]” to set your mood to happy, sad, angry, afraid, or tired. “/mood none” resets it. /cutemode isn’t exactly a mood, but does make for interesting character model changes.

* The ‘F’ key performs a “double click” on whatever your mouse is pointing at.

* The Esc key will clear your target, cancel spell casts, and close your top window – ie, the last game window you were working in. This is a quick way out of npc conversations, banking, combat, and closing inventory.

* F7 will target the nearest PC in line of sight. F8 will target the nearest NPC or targettable item in line of sight. Tab will switch between NPC targets, starting at the closest and moving through every NPC, harvest node, and targetable object in line of sight. Note that this will not target mobs or items which are obscured by terrain or structures.

* You can set yourself to go AFK automatically in Options > Controls > Keyboard Settings. This will place you AFK after 5 minutes idle time (no keyboard or mouse activity), and take you out of AFK automatically when you are no longer idle.

* Type /browser to open an in-game web browser window. /browser [web url] will open the browser directly to that website. Sorry, no bookmarking, but a homepage can be specified under Options > Web Browser.  This command will automatically fill in the www. and .com portions, so you can just type the name portion of the URL, such as /browser google,  /browser amazon, or /browser eq2players.  This will not work for sites that have other suffixes, like .org, .net, or .gov

* Chat text size can be changed under Options > User Interface > Chat Window.

* You can use %t to place whatever you have targetted in an emote. For example, “/gsay Here comes %t!” would display “Here comes a skeleton!” to your group if you had a skeleton targetted. Other commands are:

%t – name of current target
%r – race of current target
%s – gender pronoun of current target – he, she, it
%g – gender of current target – male, female, neuter
%o – gender object of current target – him, her, it
%p – possessive pronoun of current target – his, her, its
%m – displays the name or your current target’s pet. If there is no pet then the word “pet” will be displayed.

Using a capital letter in the command (%S, %P, etc) will capitalize the word (He, She, etc).

* Use /e or ; to design your own emote. These are text-only, no action. When you use it, remember to stay in third-person present text. For example:

“/e pours himself another drink.” would say in the emote channel, “EbanAcka pours himself another drink.”

* You can use /hide_illusion to hide any shapechange spell effects. I.e. if you are a fury and don’t want to look like a lion any more, or don’t want to turn into a wolf by using a Spirit of the Wolf totem, but you still want the benefits of the spell itself, then use /hide_illusion. This can also be set in Persona > Options. Riding a mount will automatically hide most illusion while you are on board.

* Once you hit level 20, you can use /lastname to set your last name, or set it in Character > Details. Last names can be changed once a week.

* Use “/friend [name] to put a friend on your friends list. Use /friend [servername].[name] to friend someone on another server. Use “/who all friend” to see which of your friends on your server is online. You can also send in-game tells and email to people on other servers (by using the [servername].[name] format), and even on other SOE games (using the [gameabbreviation].[servername].[name] format). In-game email to other servers or games is text-only, no coin or items.

* To stop automatically consuming food or drink, open your Character window (press C), right click on the food and drink slots, and select “Turn Auto-Consume Off”. This is useful when doing things that do not require health and power regeneration for extended times, like harvesting in grey zones or turning in quests/getting new ones in the city. Auto-consume of food and drink must be turned off individually.

* You may have special items or titles waiting for you in-game as a reward for playing a certain amount of time or for purchasing an expansion or adventure pack. To claim these items, type /claim. Keep in mind that you can only /claim some things on one character, and most claimed items are no-trade! So make sure to do so on a character you enjoy playing and do not intend to delete.

* The /showhelm command will toggle the visibility of the helm or hat in your inventory “Head” slot. /showhood will toggle whether the hood on a robe (such as those worn by casters) is up or down. This can also be set in Character > Options. This affects how everybody sees you, not just how you see yourself!

* You can see all languages you know by typing /language or checking in Character > Skills > General. You can change the language you speak in /say and /shout by typing /set_language [language] or right-clicking on the chat window, picking Select Language, and selecting from a list. “/set_language Common” is what you use to speak “human”. Note that capitalization is important.

* You can hit F9 to toggle between 1st and 3rd person. If you scroll wheel into 3rd person and then hit F9, it wil remember how far you were scrolled if you F9 again.

* For most commands, you only need to type in as much of the command as is needed to make it distinct from any other command. For example “/stopc” works the same as “/stopcreation” (to cancel crafting an item). If you do not type enough of the command to make it unique the game will pick one as default – and it may not be the one you want. For example, a variety of commands and emotes begin with /w, but typing just /w will default to /who, a list of all PCs in your current zone.

* You can use tab completion to complete unique commands, or display all the commands that start with the prefix you have typed. For example, typing “/stopf” and then hitting tab will autocomplete the command into “/stopfollow” for you. Typing “/stop” and hitting tab will list the commands /stopcreation and /stopfollow. You can use this to figure out what certain command actually are when they don’t behave as expected — for example, I thought /list would list all chat channels I was in, but it is actually short for the /listen emote.

* Type /weapon to get a quick list, including stats, of your equipped weapons. Non-weapon items like symbols or tomes will not be listed.

* You can get your numerical location in the world by typing /loc, or hovering your mouse cursor over the compass. Some players find it helpful to create a /loc macro to assist in retracing their steps after fleeing.

* Going from smaller to larger, the loc numbers refer to: east-west, down-up, south-north. So to get from 1028.06, -21.50, -600.47 to 1043.67, -19.07, -797.32 you would need to go west, up, and north.

* You can create a trail to an arbitrary location by typing in “/waypoint X, Y, Z”, where X, Y, and Z are the coordinates of that location.

* Camping takes 20 seconds and is interruptible. /camp takes you to the character selection screen. /camp [character name] logs out of your current character and onto the named one (on the same account). /camp login takes you to an account login screen, if you wish to switch to another account without reloading the game from scratch. /camp desktop closes the game entirely.

* Quitting is immediate and not interruptible; however, your character will remain in game for up to two minutes  so if you use these make sure you are in a safe place. /quit takes you immediately to character selection. You may not be able to get back into the game for 20-30 seconds, and the character you quit on may still be in-game when you get back in.  /quit desktop closes the game entirely.

4. User Interface (UI) and Chatting

* Press ‘R’ to respond to the most recent tell you’ve received. Press ‘G’ to say something in groupsay. Press ‘ to say something in say (heard by all in immediate vicinity). Press ‘Enter’ to enter a command or type something in your default chat channel (set by pressing the chat bubble icon at the bottom left corner of the chat window). After presssing ‘R’, you can press the up-arrow to scroll through a list of people who have recently sent you tells. This comes in handy when talking with multiple people simultaneously. If you press enter, you can press the up-arrow to see the things you have recently said. Hitting enter again will repeat them as if you retyped it. This is useful when auctioning something, or looking for a group in /ooc (zone-wide, non-rp chat).
* You can create macros for common things like pulling a mob with an incoming message to the group, assisting the main tank, changing equipment, etc  Go to Socials > Macro, then click on a macro name or “click to edit”.  Up to 24 actions/commands can be put in each macro, and you can set the icon to one of the defaults available or drag a spell or item icon to the macro’s icon box to use it.  You can also right-click on any hotkey in your hotbar and select “Create Macro” to make a Macro with default to that name and icon.
*  Voice Chat channels are automatically created for any group, guild, or raid you are part of (including guild officer channel if you are one).  You can pick a pre-made channel to join from the voice chat bar, or create/join custom channels by typing /voice join [channel name] [password (if there is one)].  Invite others to join your custom channel with /voice invite [character name].
* You can set your volume for voice chat and push-to-talk button in Options > Voice Chat, as well as test that your mic is working correctly.  You can set the volume for each individual in your voice chat channel by double-clicking on their name in the voice chat member window (click on the head icon in the voice chat bar).  Channel moderators (group, guild, or raid leaders, or the creator of custom channels) can mute any or all people in the channel.

* You can have multiple hotbars for your hotkeys. To do so, right click on your main hotkey bar and choose Open New Hotbar. You keyboard shortcuts are only preset for the first three hotbars. By default these are # for primary, Alt+# for secondary, and Control+# for tertiary hotbars. You can change these, as well as set hotkeys for the remaining hotbars, in the Options window.

* You have ten hotbar banks (1-0), each with 12 hotkeys.  To change which bank is displayed in your primary hotbar, press Shift+[#] – ie, if you press Shift+4, the hotkeys in bank 4 will display in your primary hotbar.  Shift+alt+[#] changes the hotkeys in your secondary hotbar, and Shift+Ctrl+[#] changes the tertiary hotbar.

* You can place links to items in text such as /ooc, /auction, or /g. To do so, open your inventory and find the actual item. Either click and drag the item to the line of text you are writing or hold Shfit and click on the item, and the item name will insert itself.  If it is an item you don’t have yet, but can examine (like a quest reward), you can also Shift-click on the icon in the examine window to put a link in the chat line. Other people can then click on the name to get a description of the item as if they had examined it.

* Many things in the game (from UI windows to mobs) have right click contextual menus. If you are not sure what something is, or want more information/options, try right clicking on it. Note that some things may not be activatable via a double click — in this case, right click and use them through the menus.

* If you place your cursor over something (like a piece of furniture, or a barrel) and it glows, you should right click and examine it. There are MANY quests started this way, particularly in dungeons and outside of the cities, so make sure you cursor over everything you see at least once to see if it glows. Also note that some things will only glow after you have finished the prerequisites for it, such as reaching an appropriate level for the quest, having completed a different quest, or having a certain item on you.

* When you see a person’s name in your chat box, you can click on their name to select options such as send them a tell. This can save having to spell complicated names if you want to respond to someone.  This can also be used to report someone (like plat sellers) – click their name and select “Tell” to get /tell [name] in your chat line.  Backspace out the word “tell,” type “report,” and hit enter – report sent without having to work out what the heck that name is!

* For those of you who are keyboard averse, you can run forward by holding down both mouse buttons at the same time, and auto-run by clicking the 3rd mouse button/scroll wheel if you have one.

* Be careful who or what you double left click on. By default, double-clicking on an item in a merchant window will buy, sell, or repair it as appropriate to the window (you can turn this off under Options > User Interface > Game Windows). Also, the default double click action for many NPCs is attack, not talk. When you mouse cursor over these NPCs, the cursor will change to crossed swords instead of the usual chat caption. If you wish to talk to them, right click and choose hail from the menu, or target them and press “H” to hail. If you double click on them, you will attack them and they will probably serve you up your butt on a platter.

* Consider creating multiple chat windows or tabs and filtering the content of each. You can do this by right clicking on your primary chat window and selecting “new chat window” or “add new tab”. You can right click on each of the windows created, select “Chat Options” and filter the content that the window will display. This is an excellent way to ensure that important communications, like the group leader yelling “EVAC!”, don’t get lost in battle text.

* Server-side chat filters automatically block most spam-type tells; instead of getting the message, you will get a one-line notice that [name of person] is sending you a tell, with a link to click if you want to receive the message after all.  If you do not want to see even this notice, right-click your chat window, pick Chat Options, and uncheck the box under Chat Text > Private Chat > Spam

* Type /channellist to see a list of all server-wide chat channels you are in. Next to each channel name will be a number in parenthesis; use this number to talk in that channel. For example, if one of your channels is Level_10-19 (2), you can chat in that channel by typing /2 [text]. This command will not work if abbreviated (/chann will cause an unknown command error message), but can be tab-completed.

* Which chat channel you are most active in usually changes as you level.  Use /setchannelnumber [oldnumber] [newnumber] to change the channel number, so your most active channel is always at the same number

* You can use Alt+Enter to switch between full screen and windowed mode.

* You can lock UI windows to prevent them from being inadvertently moved or closed. To do this, right click on the window, select “Window Settings”, and check the “locked” box. If you need to move them around later, you can always unlock them temporarily.

* You can set windows so you can click through them to something they may be covering (a mob, treasure chest, party member, etc.). To do this, right-click on the window, select “Window Settings”, and check the “Click through enabled” box. This can also be done with windows that only show up temporarily, such as Heroic Opportunity window or the casting timer, so long as you right-click the window while it is showing.

* The Heroic Opportunity (HO) window can be unlocked and moved while a HO chain is progressing. Just start it up, right-click on it and unlock the window. I recommend moving it to a prominent place on your screen. This way, it is very clear when a HO is occurring.

* By default, many of your game windows are not hideable. If you wish to hide things like your active quest window, maintained spell effects, or Player window, go to Options > User Interface > Game Windows, and uncheck “Keep Main HUD Windows Visible.” You can then toggle these windows on and off using the key settings found in Options > Controls > Window Keys.

* If the game is too dark for you, you can turn up the gamma on your video card, or buy a torch. You can actually carry two torches, and the light they produce stacks! Torches are not consumed. To change your gamma settings, go to Options > Display > Color Correction and adjust the overall gamma slider.

* There are specialized chat channels that you can join. Right click on the chat window, go to “Chat Options”, and you will see pre-set channels for your home city and for your level range. The traders channel is particularily useful if you are looking to exchange crafted goods or find new commissions from other players. You will automatically join the channel for your level range as you go up in levels, either tradeskilling or adventuring.

* It is sometimes difficult to tell the difference between a white (even) con and a grey (trivial) con because the colors are so close, and this can be a deadly mistake. Fortunately, you can change them! Go to Options > User Interface > Game Colors, and you should see a list of the various con colors (towards the bottom of the list). Consider changing either the white or gray to brown, purple, pink, light blue, or tan.

* If your play server is down, the game will try to make a best-guess at what your characters look like to show you at the login screen. Sometimes this guess does not include your latest updates, or even all your characters, so don’t panic if someone’s missing or the level or clothes are wrong.

* The game’s user interface is highly customizable. While it is not trivial to hand-modify your own interface, it is quite easy to utilize modifications that other people have made publicly available. Some of the mods I have found to be the most useful: an in-game browser with multiple tabs and bookmarks, a compass with indicators for loc position increases/decreases, an exp bar that shows both your adventure and tradeskill exp at the same time, and various windows that have been trimmed in size. See the end of this guide under “Other Great Resources” to find more information about modding your UI.

* You can copy and paste text into your chat window from outside EQ2 by using the conventional Ctrl-C (to copy) and Ctrl-V (to paste) key combinations. Just make sure you click on the chat window text entry area or hit Enter first to activate the cursor there. This is useful for say, copying a URL out of your browser and pasting it into your chat box to tell someone in the game about a cool website. This works in a limited way in reverse – you can copy text from the chat line of your chat window and paste it into a window outside of the game.

* If you try to send a simple emoticon msg like “:)” or are trying to start your msg with a slash but you don’t actually want it to be treated as a “slash command”, use the / chat command, such as /s for say or /gu for guild. The game then treats everything on the line as just text. Just putting a space before the text will keep the game from assuming it’s a command, but the : or / symbol will be automatically removed along with the extra space when the chat is sent. If you start every chat msg with /t or /gsay or some other /-specifier this may not be relevant. But if you are like me and constantly change the default chat mode button in the bottom left corner this may be helpful.

* Options customizations can be saved and loaded in the Options window  This allows for quick changes to most settings, particularly good when going from taking screenshots (with high graphics resolution that can bog performance) to casual grouping (when moderate visuals usually won’t affect gameplay) to raiding (when maximum performance requires low graphics due to the sheer number of people and effects in a small area).  NOTE: the Options > Controls customizations often revert to default when you enter the Options window, and these settings DO NOT SAVE.  If you’ve changed any of these, verify those changes are still in place before applying/exiting the Options window.

5. Spells, Skills, and Combat Arts

* AoE skills or spells with green backgrounds on their icons will only hit mobs that are part of the same group. AoE skills or spells with blue backgrounds will hit everything around you, regardless of whether or not it is engaged. Be wary with these, as you can quickly engage a lot of otherwise non-aggro mobs when they are caught in the AoE effect.

* You can upgrade your spells and combat arts. They start at Apprentice, commonly abbreviated as “App”. Journeyman levels spells are made by crafters out of common materials, Adepts are dropped by mobs, and Experts are made by crafters out of rare materials.  Masters are extremely rare mob drops, and are the highest-level upgrades for most spells. Look on the brokers to see what’s for sale..

* At level 20, you can purchase a “fun” spell that is based on your class. These spells are generally insignificant things that do not affect your efficiency in-game, but are meant to provide humor or an “ooh aah” factor. These are sold by Class Trainers, and more become available at later levels.  Most Class Trainers can be found in the same are as their archetype’s writ-givers for each city.  If yours isn’t there, ask the nearest guard for [name of class].  You may need to try a couple zones in Qeynos or Freeport.  In Haven, there is one Class Trainer for each archetype rather than each class.

* Some spells or combat arts can only be found through certain Adventure Packs or Expansions.

* If you are looking on the broker for spells and combat art upgrades, try using Advanced Search. Set the item type to Spell Scroll, Class to your class, the minimum level to either 1 or slightly below your current level, and the maximum level to your current level or slightly above. This will bring up only the skill and spell upgrades relevant to your class and level.

* The concentration bar is the 5 little bubbles which appear directly underneath your name in the Player window. As you use abilities that require concentration, these will light up. If you hold your mouse over an active bubble, you will see the name of the spell/effect it is linked to. Right clicking on it will allow you to cancel it. You can also cancel these effects from your maintained effects window.

* If you are a melee based character, concentrate on upgrading your armor and weapons before your skills. Upgrading melee skills adds little effectiveness to your character. If you are a casting based character, concentrate on upgrading your skills — going from Apprentice to Adept will make a huge difference in your effectiveness.

* At varying levels, you will be able to customize your character with racial traditions (special skills available only to your race), character traits (modifies stats), and specialized training (allows you to upgrade one of your 4 most recently acquired abilities to Grandmaster level).  All of these abilities and modifications are listed in your Achievement window (Press L), as well as the level at which you get them.

6. Harvesting

* If you can’t harvest something, your skill is not high enough. Right-click and examine the harvest node to find out the minimum skill level required to harvest it and your current skill level.

* Harvesting hotbuttons can be found in your Knowledge book. Press K and look under Utilities, you’ll see icons for gathering, fishing, mining, foresting, and trapping. You can drag any of these to a hotbar and use them to harvest a node you have targeted. This allows you to queue harvest attempts, and leaves your mouse free to look around and make sure you aren’t about to be attacked.
* Harvesting tools can be used starting at level 20 (either crafting or adventuring). These are made by Woodworkers of common woods, and take a little time off the harvesting time. While this may not seem like much, it can make the difference between getting the harvest before the approaching mob gets in range or getting chomped.  Tinkerer-made harvest tools both reduce the time and increase harvesting skill, but can only be used by crafters of the appropriate level.

* If you find a ? or a ! on the ground, left click on it and pick it up. These items are generally for collection quests and can have some pretty nice rewards if you can collect an entire set. Look on the brokers for the pieces you are missing.

* Rare harvested items are REALLY rare. If you harvest something with an unusual name with a “Treasured” flag, and get an alert that “You have harvested a rare item!” you can get special items crafted with them, or sell to other players for a good price. Note: Imbuing materials, while also flagged Treasured, are not considered rare and will not give a rare-item harvested alert.  They are used to upgrade some crafted items and for a couple of Heritage Quests.

* It’s generally a good idea to harvest all nodes in an area, not just the one type you need.  Harvest nodes in the same area are often on the same spawn table, though “the same area” may be anything from other nodes in line of sight to all nodes in the same zone.  Exceptions are fish nodes, which are not connected to any other node spawns, and T9 harvests, where each node type has its own spawn table.

7. Tradeskilling

* Do the Tradeskill Tutorial quest line in your city’s nearest crafting area, whether you intend to be a tradeskiller or not. The quest gives you all of basic tradeskill books through level 7, as well as some coin and useful items. Most of all, it advances you to level 9 artisan in about 20 minutes. This is important because several quests, including some Heritage Quests, require a minimum crafting level 9.  The harvesting and collecting instructor in the new-character starting area will start you on the quest line with a harvesting quest.  NOTE: If you Betray before you do this quest, you will have to wait for citizenship or sneak to a city to do it (I recommend Gorowyn, they welcome all visitors).
* Visit New Halas at lvl 10, where the Coalition of Tradesfolk and the Irontoe Exchange are trying to make an aliance with the Ravens of the North crafting society.  One or the other will ask for your help, depending on your faction, and will offer you rare T2 harvests as rewards.  After you complete the quest line, they will also carry the T2 Advanced crafting books for you to buy.  Similar quests are available at the Butcherblock docks for T3, and Gnomeland Security for T4.

* If you are stuck at level 1 Artisan, speak to any Crafting Trainer or the Wholesaler Merchant in the crafting instance. They will automatically advance you to level 2 and give you your first recipes.

* Crafting an item for the first time no longer gives a first-time-pristine xp bonus.  Instead, xp from crafting quests have been given a significant boost.

* If a particular crafting attempt is going badly and the first progress bar has not been filled, you can cancel the attempt without losing any components except fuel.

* You must specialize in a tradeskill at level 9, and specialize further at level 19 – you will not be able to level again until you do. To do so, speak to a Crafting Trainer NPC, and they will automatically advance you to lvl 10/20. Note that any tradeskill xp you have above the minimum required to reach level 9/10 will be lost!

* Wholesalers sell fuels and some basic components for crafting. In Qeynos crafting instances he is downstairs near the base of the stairs, in Freeport he is at the top of the stairs.  Other cities have no crafting instances, so ask a guard for the nearest Wholesaler!

* Crafting stations can be found inside many shops besides the city’s main crafting areas. Vendors close to these stations will sell the appropriate fuels – though close may be the next building over. Work Order clipboards for crafting writs hang on the wall near these crafting stations.  NOTE: Fuel sold from these Vendors may be priced higher than from Wholesalers!

* Tradeskill recipes can be made into hot keys by dragging the icon to your hotkey bar. This may save you lots of time if there are recipes that you find yourself doing repeatedly, like totems for Woodworkers or certain high-stat foods for Provisioners.

* If you want to know which tradeskill recipe books you have already scribed, type N to open your recipes. Press the edit button at the top. Use the big scroll bar on the far right to view the last window. This window contains the titles of all the recipe books you have scribed alphabetically.

* You can check the stats on an item before you actually craft it. To do so, examine the recipe, then right-click the icon of the end result in the recipe window and select Examine.

* In crafting a recipe that can use multiple components for an ingredient, the game will default to using the smaller stack of components you have in your inventory. If you do not want a specific item used, it might be worth your time to split a large stack into two smaller stacks so it will default to using the component you want.  For example, some Provisioner recipes can use a variety of merchant-bought liquids for the “Liquid” component, while others specifically require milk or cream.  As milk is more expensive than aerated mineral water (the cheapest crafting liquid), it’s best to use the water for recipes that need a generic liquid, and save the higher-priced components for recipes that require them specifically.

* You can change which components are being used in a recipe by clicking the “change” button, removing the currently selected items, and adding the ones you want. The game will remember your change when creating multiple items from the same recipe so long as you do not close the recipe. (Another way to ensure that milk for your Creamed Antonican Coffee doesn’t get used in your Crab Bisque by mistake.)

* You can right click on your exp bar to swap between showing adventuring exp and tradeskilling exp. Alternatively, you can download a UI modification to show both simultaneously.

* You can start crafting by double clicking on the icon of the recipe instead of clicking “Create”. You still need to click on “Begin” to actually start the crafting.

* Tradeskill writs become available at level 15 and have both timed (Rush Orders) and untimed (Work Orders) versions. Once you obtain the quest, check the work bench in the crafting zone or a work order clipboard in the city zones to get the specific requirements and start the timer on Rush Orders. Make sure you have at least one stack of every component you use for the tier before starting a Rush Order, as well as the appropriate fuel. You will have about 8 minutes to make 6 pristine combines, which does not give time to run to the bank for something you forgot.

*  The grandmaster crafter in the tradeskill society HQs offers quests for level 20+ crafters which reward things like cloaks, coin, and advanced recipe books.  Provisioner advanced recipe books are only available from these quests.

* Crafting stations can be purchased to place in your home for a combination of coin and status, from tradeskill faction merchants if you have warmly (30,000) or better faction with the tradeskill society, or from City Merchants in most city zones if your guild is of appropriate level. There are two different versions of each crafting station; the Simple version is basically for show and cannot successfully create most items, while the Elaborate version can be used to craft products.

* Work Order clipboards for in-home use can be purchased from tradeskill faction merchants in your home city’s tradeskill society HQ. You must have amiable (10,000) faction with them to purchase these.

* Use tradeskill event counters proactively! You have 6 event counters for each type of crafting, 3 which increase progress and 3 which increase durability.  The correct ones will show up in your crafting window when you start to create an item, and automatically hotkey to numbers 1-6.  You can also find them in your Knowledge window, under Trade, and place them on a hotbar if you prefer – just remember to click the hotbar once crafting starts so the number keys will activate those rather than the ones in your crafting window.  While crafting, use these abilities to speed progress or to recover durability, thereby keeping the end product pristine. Also, if you have successfully countered an event, that particular tick is guaranteed to be successful, so it’s a good time to toss on a couple extra counters for maximum effect

* Some event counters cost a percentage of your power to use, so it’s a good idea to use the best drink you can get and power-regen abilities or totems. If you are still having problems with running out of power while crafting, try stripping off any gear that increases your power pool. While the percentage of power used by an ability will remain the same, the number will be much smaller, and so will regenerate faster.

* Rare Metal: Buy CLUSTERS, not ingots. Clusters are used to make armor and weapons; ingots were a byproduct of the refining process pre-LU24, used to create arrows. Though they are no longer created as by-products and can no longer be used in recipes, there are still some out there on the brokers. Buyer beware!

* Crafting recipe books: DO NOT BUY any recipe books off the broker until you check your closest Crafting Trainer. Secondary skill books (weaving, geomancy, timbercraft, and apothecary) no longer have any use or recipes – they are easily recognized because their level to scribe is 200. Also, tier 1 advanced books are available on the Crafting Trainers! Other than that, most advanced tomes are looted items. Be careful before you buy one you DO need from the broker; be absolutely sure it says ADVANCED in front of the name of the item you have highlighted before you click. (Some of the pre-20 books have some weird names other than advanced; just doublecheck your merchant first.)

* If you are buying raw materials off the broker, make sure they are flagged no-value. Some mob-dropped pelts and meat have the same names as the harvested/craftable versions, but only the harvested, no-value versions can be used for crafting. The mob drop versions are vendor trash.  The exceptions are T8 and T9 meats for Provisioners, which are mob-drop ONLY (they are still no-value though).

* Secondary tradeskills of Tinkering and Adorning can be learned in Kelethin or at the Butcherblock docks (Echoes of Faydwer expansion required).  The reaction arts for these must be PURCHASED, they are not granted automatically! Tinkerers can create special items like clockwork menders that can repair your gear wherever you happen to be or portable crafting stations. Adorners make add-ons to equipment (adornments) which allow stat customization, using materials gained by transmuting gear.  Tinkering and Adorning advance by skill points only, not level, and the cap is determined by your Adventure or Tradeskill level, whichever is higher.

* Crafters can make things to order using the secure commissions system.  Stand near the proper crafting station and target the person requesting the commission.  Select the item they want and click “Create”.  The person requesting the item places payment and any materials they are supplying (rares, usually) in the commissions window.  Once all materials are available, the crafter can begin work.  Both parties will see the progress, and when finished the item will go automatically to the person requesting the commission and the payment to the crafter.

* Is your current tradeskill not all you hoped it’d be?  Wishing you’d taken something else?  Switch classes!  Tradeskill Career Counselors are available in the main tradeskill centers for each city, ready and willing to help you on your way to a new crafting career.   At your request, they will revert your crafting class to lvl 9 Artisan, and you can make fresh choices for your class..  Note that you will lose ALL recipes above lvl 9 that you have scribed, and will have to work your way up in your new crafting class from scratch.

8. Attributes, Experience, and Death

* Drink replenishes your power, food replenishes your health. Generally speaking, the more expensive the food and drink, the faster you will regenerate. Some foods also boost stats. Player-made food and drink generally have better regeneration rates than store-bought, and last longer as well. Summoned food is even worse than store bought.

* There is a cap on how much you can regenerate — no matter how high level the food/drink is, you will only get benefits equivalent to one tier above you. For example, if you are lvl 42 and are consuming lvl 60 food/drink, it will only be as effective as lvl 50 food/drink.

* Sitting does NOT replenish your health or power any faster. If someone says otherwise, ask them what server they’re on in EQ1.

* Your exp debt will go away with time when you are logged off. The longer you stay logged off, the more debt will dissipate. Reports are that debt disappears at approximately 1/2 percent per hour.

* When priest classes hit level 11, they can make an essence which allows other players to revive the priest if the priest dies. If the party priest does not summon these for everyone when the group forms, ask for it. You never know who might survive the fight that kills the priest.

* Death damages your armor and weapons! Generally the item’s durability drops by 10%, though HQ rewards will only drop by 5%. If an item’s durability reaches 20%, it will have an orange background in your Inventory screen.  If an items durability reaches 0%, it will have a red background and give no benefits. Menders are available in starting hamlets, some city zones, and many overland adventure zones. If there’s a large number of quest or merchant NPCs in the area, odds are there’s a mender there too.

9. Combat and Creatures

* When sprinting away from a battle you are losing, press the “Call for Help” icon (it looks like an exclaimation point) or use the /yell command. This will do three things. First, it will unlock locked encounters so people nearby can pull the mob off you if they are feeling nice. Second, it will remove you from combat mode so you can run at normal speed (and reactivate any speed buffs like Spirit of the Wolf) and not auto-face the mob. Third, it will cause you to start regenerating at the rate you normally do when not engaged in combat, and thus increase your chances of survival.

* When you have engaged more than one group of mobs, make sure you target yourself (F1) before yelling. That way you yell all the mobs you have engaged, otherwise you only yell the group of mobs which has your current target in it, making you still be “in combat” and thus have a lower health- and power regeneration and a reduced runspeed.

* Mobs that are naturally aggressive but grey to you will generally not aggro you (they know you can kick their butts). However, if the mob would normally be green or higher con to you, but is grey due to average level of your group being high, it will still come after you. Conversely, if a mob is normally grey to you, but is green because the average level of the group is lower than your level, the mobs will not attack you.

* If you are stealthed or invisible, most aggressive creatures will become non-aggro (lose the red border around their name). If a creature still has a red border, it can see through your stealth/invisibility and will attack if you come within range. Most named mobs, some scout types, and some caster types can see through stealth and/or invisibility.

* You can turn off combat experience by right clicking on your exp bar and selecting “disable combat experience”. You can turn it back on by doing the same thing. This can be useful when you want an item from a chest and the green-con mobs you are killing will grey out if you level again, or if you want the bonus AAxp from a named mob.. Note: you will still gain experience – and therefore level – from exploration discoveries and quest completion; these must be turned off separately.
* As an alternative to turning off combat and quest xp, you can convert it to Alternate Advancement xp.  Open the AA window (press L) and move the slider at the top.
* If you’ve already leveled past item drops or named mobs you want, you can also visit a Chronomage in any city.  For a small fee in gold and status, they will reduce your level to increments of 5 (lvl 5, 10, 15, etc).  You will essencially be self-mentored, with the associated xp reduction and AAxp increase.  You can return to your own level at any time by right-clicking your player window and selecting “unmentor.”  Starting at lvl 80, Chronomagi will also offer quests to defeat dungeon bosses while chrono’d to an appropriate level.

* When you have killed a certain number of a particular type of mob, you will receive a title. Note that these titles are NOT the suffixes you can attach to your character! After going through several intermediary titles, though, you will receive the “Hunter of X” suffix at 500 kills. At 5,000 kills, you will receive the “Slayer of X” suffix; at 10,000, you will receive the “Destroyer of X” suffix. To add a suffix to your characters name, press “P” to go to your profile and select the suffix you want from the dropdown list. Creatures that give these titles, as well as how many you have killed, are recorded in your Quest Journal, under Achievements > General > Slayer.

25 kills — title: “Killer of X”

100 kills — title: “Initiate Hunter of X”
250 kills — title: “Accomplished Hunter of X”
500 kills — title: “Master Hunter of X” — SUFFIX: “Hunter of X”

1,000 kills — title: “Initiate Slayer of X”
2,500 kills — title: “Accomplished Slayer of X”
5,000 kills — title: “Master Slayer of X” — SUFFIX: “Slayer of X”

??? kills — title: “Initiate Destroyer of X”
??? kills — title: “Accomplished Destroyer of X”
10,000 kills — title: “Master Destroyer of X” — SUFFIX: “Destroyer of X”

* Learn how to use Heroic Opportunities (HOs), especially when soloing. They will make your life a lot easier. There is a link to more information in the ‘Miscellany’ section of this guide. If a HO is stuck in a starter chain (asking for progress from a class not in the party) another party member can reset it by triggering their own HO.

* If you are not the main tank in a group, try to attack your enemy from behind. This will prevent the mob from parrying and riposting your blows since they can only do this from the front/side, and also protect you from directional AoE attacks.

* To see if a creature you are running away from is following you, find a nice straight area with no mobs nearby, hit autorun (numlock), make sure you are in 3rd person camera (if you’re in first person, mousewheel backwards), hold down the left mouse button (or use the / and * keys), then swing the camera around using the mouse. Your character will keep running forward but you will be able to see behind you. If you are looking in a different direction than you are running, you can change to running in that direction by pressing the forward key (w, arrow up, or 8 on the numpad). Also note, if you have them targeted when running away, as soon as they stop chasing you, you automatically untarget them.

* Creatures get a boost in strength every 10 levels. Whereas a level 19 creature is only a little more powerful than a level 18, a level 20 creature is much more powerful than a level 19.

10. Inventory and Banking

* Elm strongboxes and rawhide bags can be fairly easily made by any tradeskiller, and will give you an 8 slot container you can put in your bank or inventory.  Larger boxes and bags can be made by carpenters and tailors respectively.  Since both have the same number of slots for the same tier and there is no longer a weight limit, make or buy whichever are cheapest for you.
* The eight bank slots at the bottom of the bank window are shared bank slots, and accessible to every character from the same account and on the same server.  (PVP players are also restricted to same alignment).  Shared coin slots are also available.  Exiled characters are the only ones who have no shared-bank access.  (Bug Rothgar about this arbitrary and unfair exemption!)

* Coin will automatically convert up to the next denomination as you get it.  Ie, if you have 78 silver, and get 34 silver as a quest reward, your coin will show 1g 12s.

* At times it can be useful to open all your bags/bank boxes at once. To set this up, go to Options > Controls > Window Keys. Choose a hotkey for “open/close inventory bags” (default is B) and “open/close bank bags” (default Shift+B). Pressing that hotkey will open all your bags, and pressing it again will close them all. Alternatively, you can use the /togglebags command. You can create a hotbar button to togglebags by creating a macro (Socials > Macros), then dragging the macro to your hotbar.

* You can pick up a single item from a stack of items by holding down the control key and click-dragging on the stack of items. You can pick up a specific quantity by holding down shift and click-dragging, which will bring up a quantity-select window.

* You can downconvert coins in your bank by using the /bank_withdraw command. Go to your banker and open your bank. Then type /bank_withdraw ### (where ### is the amount of coins in copper you want to withdraw), and it will make change for you.

11. Items, Equipment, and Loot

* If you find an item that seemingly has no use, it’s generally one of three things: 1) a tradeskill component, 2) vendor trash (sell for cash), or 3) an item involved in a quest (particularily if it’s marked as LORE). Make sure you examine any strange items you find (especially if they dropped from chests or are found from a ? on the ground), as the examine window should tell you what quest, if any, it is for.

* The game has a trivial loot code. Look at the text in the targeting box. This will say either just the creature’s level (solo), or level plus a heroic, epic x 2, epic x 3, or epic x 4 tag. This does two things. First, as part of considering a mob you can look at how difficult they are. Second, it tells you at what number of allies at which this mob will become trivial and give no chest loot or quest items. 7 for solo or heroic, 13 for epic x2, and 19 for epic x3. You will notice a little chest icon with a red circle and line through it (no smoking symbol) when a mob will not drop loot for your group/raid.

* Attunable items can only be equipped if they are attuned. Once attuned, the item becomes no-trade.

* Equipment which is greyed out will not give the mitigation and resists listed, but will give the listed stat adjustments. Red armor is not usable by you because of either level or class restrictions.

* Mobs that are grey to you will not give you exp or drop most chests. However, they will still drop quest or body-loot items, and you can still use them for any kill quests you may have in your journal.

* If you are rolling for an item in a group, make sure you have at least one inventory spot open. Lotto items you win will NOT go into overflow. If you have no room for them, they will have to be rolled on again!

* Once a chest’s timer expires, the chest becomes open for anyone to loot. Note that unlike EQ1, opening the chest does NOT lock the chest to the character who has opened it. It is possible for another player come along, open the same chest, and grab the loot before you do. Therefore, if you are opening a chest with an expired timer, do not hesitate when putting the loot into your inventory.

* Equipment removed a short time before death (about 2 minutes) will still be damaged when you die. If you have changed equipment within that timeframe, the more expensive-to-repair of the two items will take the damage. If you plan to do something with a high risk of death and do not intend combat (harvesting in areas where mobs are red to you, practicing safe fall, testing content for a TIWIKE guide, etc), it’s a good idea to unequip everything before you go.

* Equipment grade flags are generally (but not always) the quickest indicator of how powerful or desireable a piece is.  From lowest to highest, the grade flags are:

Common
Uncommon
Handcrafted (player-made)
Treasured
Mastercrafted (player-made)
Legendary
Fabled
Mythical

* Weapons marked as one-handed can be used for one-handed fighting or dual-wielding if your class can dual-wield.  Dual-wielding increases the delay time of both weapons by 33%.  Weapons or items marked Primary or Secondary can ONLY go in those slots, but can still be used as part of a dual-wield combo.

* Items flagged as Ornate can not have adornments added to them.  This includes all HQ rewards and many high-end quest rewards/mob drops.

* The Dressing Room display lets you see what equipment and mounts will look like when equipped.  Ctrl+Click on them to see what you’re getting into.  If you don’t have the item in your inventory yet (such as quest rewards or items linked in chat), you can also Ctrl+Click on the item’s icon in the reward or examine window, or the chat link.

* Armor in Appearance slots overwrite the appearance of armor in Equipment slots, but give no stats or mitigation.  Any equipment your character can currently wear can be placed in Appearance.

12. Inn Rooms and Housing

* When you reach your starting city, speak to the Innkeeper. He or she will give you a quest to rent an inn room. Once you step into the room, you will receive a couple pieces of furniture and a merchant board. You can also buy a merchant board from some general goods vendor and place it in your inn room. This will allow you to manage your broker store from your home.

* The highest default access to your house is visitor, which will basically allow anyone to come in and buy things from your vendor boxes without paying broker fees. You can choose to set specific people to friend or trustee. Be careful with this! Trustees can help pay your rent if they like, but they can also remove and/or destroy your furniture, pets, and other household items.
* You can rotate furniture when placing it in your inn room by using the mouse wheel when moving it. You can use this function to line up books, place chairs the correct way under your tables, etc. If you do not have a mousewheel, you can use the + and – keys on your numberpad to rotate your furniture.  Holding Control while scrolling will allow you to move floor-placed items up off the ground, holding Shift will let you make items larger or smaller, and holding Alt while using any of these will make the changes in smaller incriments.

* You can take a tour of houses in the cities by right clicking the door and selecting tour. You can also visit other people’s furnished houses by right-clicking on the door, selecting “visit”, then picking a person from the list. Some of the expensive houses are really cool (and a lot of players take great pride in how they furnish them).

* If your rent is past due you cannot enter your house, but none of the items inside will be lost. Also, once past-due, rent will not continue to accrue. So whether your inn-room rent was due 3 days ago or 3 weeks ago, it’s still 5 silver to get back in.

* If you are paying for part of your house rent with personal status, you can reduce the status cost by outfitting your room with player-crafted furniture, store-bought pets, and some quest rewards. It is possible to reduce the status cost to 0 status points per week. Coin costs can only be reduced by the Treasure Hoard vetran reward, and the Hoard used must belong to the owner of the house.

* Furniture appearance can also be previewed in the Dressing Room window.  Again, Ctrl+Click will let you see exactly what you’re getting.

* Your basic inn room can hold 200 items, though most books do not count towards this total.  Bigger houses can hold more, and each character can have up to 20 different houses.  Capacity can also be increased by house expanders which can be crafted by carpenters or purchased from the Marketplace.  Only one Marketplace expander and one player-made expander can be used on each house.
* Each house can also have a Moving Crate, which stores items not in use.  Moving Crates hold as many items as the house, and do not count against the house item count.  To place an item in a Moving Crate, right-click on it while it is placed in the house and select “Pack in moving crate.”
* To access your house vault, enter your house, right click on the door or market board, and choose Access House Vault. You can put boxes in these slots to increase your storage.  This also works from other people’s houses if you are a trustee.

* House vaults are particularly useful for temporarily storing items that you are trying to sell that you do not have room for in your store, and moving furniture from one house to another without crowding your inventory bags.  If you have crafting stations in your home, they’re also good for storing crafting fuel and supplies.

13. NPCs, Brokers, and Merchants

* Brokers and Black Market Fences take a commission based on where they are vs where the item you purchase comes from.  If the seller is in a city with the same faction as the Broker, the fee is 20%, if on opposite faction the fee is 40%.  Vetran Display Boxes cut the broker fee of anything sold from them in half.

* If you want to sell things on the broker, open the store, click on the sell tab, and put a box or bag in the vendor container slot. You can then put things in the container to sell. The default price listed is the most you could expect to get from an NPC merchant for the item – generally you want to sell for higher than this. Use the “Search the Broker” button to see what the going market value is for the item, then you can set your price accordingly.

* You can have as many characters as you like selling on the Broker at one time, but you must log in with at least one character at least once a week, or they will all have their stores removed until you do log on.

* Specialty vendor boxes can be made by Carpenters out of rare woods (except bone or alder). These have MANY more slots than regular boxes. Once in a vendor slot, these boxes can also be placed in your home, allowing people to buy directly from your house without paying a broker fee.

* Some merchants are greedier than others and will pay you less for things that you sell to them. Check with a few merchants and you will generally be able to tell which ones are greedy and which ones aren’t. Merchants in “convenient” locations (such as out in the middle of popular hunting areas) are generally more greedy – except for a “Gratified Merchant,” who will give you the best price possible every time. These are spawned from a “Distressed Merchant.” See the “Out and About In the World” section for more information.

* You can mark items in your inventory as not for sale to merchants by highlighting them and clicking the check box at the bottom of the merchant window.  Also, bags can be flagged so none of their contents will be listed for sale to a merchant by right-clicking, selecting Bag Options, and marking the check box.

* If you should accidentally sell your brand new Fabled weapon to an NPC merchant, you do have a chance to get it back!  The Buy Back tab will list the last 10 items you sold at the same price as you sold it at.  Only your ten most recent sales will be available, but they will remain available indefinitely (or until you sell more stuff to the merchant).

* If you try to access your bank or a merchant and get the message “you are too busy”, there are generally three possible reasons why. Either you have your attack mode on, you have a trade window up, or you are currently interacting with an NPC. Hit escape a bunch of times, make sure you are not in combat mode, and then try again.

* If an NPC speaks to you, or waves at you as you get near, they may have a quest that they want you to do. Note that they may continue to wave at you even if you already have their quest. Also, some NPCs will try to hail you for quests that are no longer in the game, particularly in the starting hamlets.

* If you need help finding a particular NPC (perhaps to finish off a quest) but have forgotten where they are, click on a guard, type in the name of the NPC and you will be given a waypoint path to that NPC. Note: you often do not have to type in the full name. This is particularily helpful when you want to find and NPC with a crazy unpronounceable name. Job titles, such as mender or broker will also work. If there is more than one NPC in the area who matches the partial-name or title you type, the waypoint path will guide you to the closest one.

* If an NPC speaks to you in gibberish (with a symbolic font), you do not understand the language this NPC is trying to speak. In the various starting hamlets of Freeport and Qeynos, scribes sell language primers for the races in that hamlet for 12s each.  Linguists in other cities sell the language primers for all PC languages.  As soon as you purchase the primer, you automatically learn the language, and you can only buy primers for languages you do not already know. In the hamlets, most of the NPCs who require you to know their native tongue give quests. There are quests to learn languages for some mob races (like Gnoll).

14. Questing

* You can only have 75 quests active at any time. Yes, that sounds like a lot when you start – it isn’t. Collections do not count towards this total.

* You can find lots of purchasable quests from the Sages in the cities. These cost anywhere from 1s t  12s, with the more expensive ones generally being higher level quests. Many of these quests require you to find “missing pages” by killing mobs, and want you to read the book after each set of mobs you kill, so you might want to bring the books adventuring with you rather than leave them in the bank.

* If you do a quest that starts from a book, do not delete the book until you have finished the quest. Some quests have you read the book many times throughout the quest, or as the last step. If you’ve deleted the book, the quest will be uncompletable. Once you’ve finished the quest, it is generally safe to delete the original book. Many quests that start from books give a copy of the book as a quest reward. This copy is meant to be either sold or placed in your in room on a piece of furniture.

* Books can be found in various locations about specific types of creatures.  When read/examined, the book will offer a Lore and Legend quest (for example, The Precious Fairy Book found in Nektropolos Castle gives the quest Lore and Legend: Fairy); examining some body parts dropped by these mobs will also give the same quest.  Completing these quests gives you a Mastery attack which does large amounts of damage to that creature.  The more L&L; quests you complete, the more creatures the attack will work on.  EQ2wikia and Allakhazam both maintain lists of what L&L; mastery are available, as well as where to find them.

* You can double-click on a quest in the active quest window (in the upper left corner) to open the quest journal to tha  quest (if you forgot the location or some other detail). Also, when you get a quest update for something not on your active quest list that quest will blink in the active quest window for a few seconds.  You can then pin the quest to the window (if you have space) or double-click it to open the journal to that quest.

* Some quests are repeatable. When you complete a quest, you can find it in your completed quests journal, and it will say “repeatable” if it is.
* Some NPCs have level requirements on their quests. Other NPCs require that you have completed particular quest before they will give you a quest, or advance a quest rather than giving one. If you have completed an NPC’s prerequesits for their quest are within 10 levels either way of the quest level, a glowing quill will show over the NPC’s head, and at their location on your map if you are fairly close by.  You can chose to have all NPCs with available quests flagged in this way, regardless of level difference between you and their quest, in Options > User Interface > Name and Chat Bubbles.

* NPCs that will advance or finish a quest currently in your journal will have a glowing red book floating over their heads, no matter what the level of the quest. The glowing red book will also show up on your map at their location if you are close to them.

* If you can, it is better to complete the last step of a quest after you have been logged out for a while and your exp debt has had time to dissipate. That way all the exp you get from the quest will be applied to your exp total, not shared with your exp debt.

15. Guilds

* Guilds do not have their guildnames displayed above their members’ heads until the guild reaches level 5. You can get your guild to level 5 by doing city writs, heritage quests, or turning in status loot to accumulating guild status points.

* Completing heritage quests gives a sizable amount of personal status points, as well as guild status points if you are guilded.

* Guild status points contributed by a player become permanent to the guild after one week. If a character leaves the guild, any GSP they have contributed which is less than a week old will be deducted from the guild total.

* The amount of GSP a person contributes to the guild from a writ, HQ, or status loot item is 10% of the personal status gained.  This is NOT deducted from the personal status awarded, it is in addition to the personal status and is essencially guild xp.

* Status housing and most items from the City Merchants can only be purchased when a guild reaches a certain level. If you are not in a guild, you will not have access to these items.

* Writs also increase your faction with whatever group gave you the writ. Each city faction group has items they will sell to people with high enough faction, regardless of guild level.

* If you are an officer in a guild, you can send mail to the entire guild at once. Open a Norathian mailbox, click the “Send” tab, and where you would normally place the name of the person you are writing to, put “Guild”. This costs 5s, no matter how many members the guild has.

* Guilds can design Heraldry cloaks for their members. At level 15 the leader can customize the background color and the heraldry icon for 5 plat. Available customizations increase at lvl 30 and 60, with the price to change the cloak increasing to 20 and 50 plat respectively.
* Guild Halls can be purchased by the Guild Leader starting at guild level 30.  Like player housing, Guild Halls cost both coin and status weekly, and have escrow accounts which anyone with Friend or Trustee access can contribute to.  They also have a variety of amenities which can be purchased and placed in the Hall for the guild to use.  Note that furniture does NOT lower the status cost of Guild Halls, and amenities increase the weekly rent.  Access levels can be set by rank in the guild window (press U), as well as for individuals on the Access tab of the Housing window (type /house or click on the Guild Hall door).

16. Out and About in the World

* If the zone you are in is overcrowded, try zoning out and back into another instance. If there are 3 or more instances, choose one that is not the first or last instance, as these often tend to be less crowded.

* If you see a “lair” object in the world such as a rats nest, snakes den, gnoll tent, etc… with the appropriate type of mob around it, this is probably a dynamic adventure camp. If you kill everything in the camp, the next time it spawns it may spawn harder creatures, named monsters, etc…

* Distressed merchants are NPCs who are sometimes found at a dynamic adventure camp. If you kill all the creatures around them, they will turn into gratified merchants, and you can then buy/sell with them. They offer good prices, and sometimes carry items you can’t find elsewhere. Also note that gratified merchants are usable by all players in the area for a short time before they disappear, not only the players who freed them. If you see someone freeing a distressed merchant, hang around until it becomes gratified and then use it.

* The “Call to Home” ability will teleport you back to your bind point, and can be used once per hour. If you are out in the wilderness, you can save yourself a long run back to town this way. The “Set Recall Point” ability lets you set your bind point in any city on the same faction as your home.
* If you duo often with someone (friend, spouse, etc) make sure you both have a follow macro:
/follow [name] but be careful if the person you are following is a scout that likes to practice safe-fall

* It is possible to sneak into some hostile cities! For a good or exiled character sneaking into Freeport, I suggest Commonlands > Graveyard > Longshadow Alley > Thieves Way > Freeport zone of choice. For an evil or exiled character sneaking into Qeynos, try Antonica > Peat Bog > Vermin’s Snye > Down Below > Qeynos. If you are high enough level to grey out the guards in the starting hamlets, you can walk through those areas without concern. When you are in the opposition city, most NPCs and merchants will not speak to you, however, a few will (typically Black Market Fences and merchants in the sewers). Guards WILL attack you unless they are grey. Most guards can be snuck past if they are not red. Kelethin, New Halas, and Gorowyn do not restrict visitors to most areas based on city alignment, though the merchants reserve the right to refuse service to anyone. As for Neriak… well, good luck with that.
* The globes on the docks are the primary means of travel between most Norrath-based zones and cities. Dock bells in Freeport, Qeynos, and the newbie areas surrounding them take you to other city zones and newbie areas connected by the bell network.
* Like taking the scenic route?  There are boats that transport players from the Nektulos or Thundering Steppes docks to Butcherblock Mountains (Echoes of Faydwer or later expansion required). These are actual boats that pull up to the end of the dock!  Similar boats travel between Kylong Plains and the Antonica or Commonlands docks, and an airship travels between Sinking Sands and the Moors of Ykesha.  You can also fly gryphons between Butcherblock and Timorous Deep, New Halas, or Darklight Woods, which gives a great arial view of the harbor.
* The Ulterian Spire network can teleport you to any other spire active in the world; click on the glowing circle floating in the center to open a map of travel locations.  This is the only way to reach the Overrealm, and one of only two routes to Odus.

* Blessed Shrubbery in the middle of druid rings can be used to teleport to any other druid ring active in the world.  This is the other route to Odus, though not as safe – the druid rings are in the middle of mob-spawn areas, while the spires are in protected areas.

* If you are entering a zone with in-zone mounts, you can ride those between stations to reveal large patches of fogged territory on the map. As long as you do not wander too far from the mount stations, you should be relatively safe from mobs.  In-zone mounts include flying carpets in Desert of Flames zones,  horses in several EoF zones, and gryphons all over the place.  The Overrealm zones have cloud mount stations, but these teleport you directly rather than flying you where you want to go, and so don’t clear very much of the map.
* The flying carpet at the Sinking Sands dock is the only way to get to Maj’Dul without doing extensive questing for one of the Courts to unlock a quest for the Call of Ro ability.

* You can dismount from most zone specific mounts at any time by jumping (default: space bar).  Falling damage does apply, so be careful if you don’t have safe fall or glide abilities. Horses are safe enough since it’s not a long drop, but jumping off hoverpad mount in Sundered Frontier is often fatal!  The Sarnak, being more safety-conscious than most, have installed seatbelts on gryphons in Timorous Deep so you cannot leap to your death.
* Sokokar mounts can be earned in Kylong Plains; these are personal pets that follow you around and carry you between mounting posts in Kunark.  You must have done the sokokar quest (adventure or tradeskill version) to use the mounting posts.

* Druids (furies and wardens) can create portals through which characters can travel to druid rings in zones around the world.  Sorcerers (warlocks and wizards) can create similar portals to Ulterian spires. Click on the circle cast by the druid or sorcerer and pick where you want to go!

* Some walls are climbable!  In cities (Maj’Dul, specifically) look for wall areas that are textured or have a latticework rather than plain stone.  Forest areas (read – Gfay) have small trees that looks like the top was cut off and one side was planed flat.  In rocky areas, look for narrow bands of cliff-face that are a clean 90-degree angle to the ground, and have a darkened or smudged-looking streak going down the middle.  Often these also have torches or metal fixtures intermittently to either side of the climbing area.  Kunark climbable walls are often marked by rope ladders.  NOTE: If you jump off the wall or move too far to the side while climbing, you will fall and falling damage does apply. However, this can work to your advantage getting down.  Climb off the top onto the wall, turn your view so you are facing the wall, jump and *immediately* move forward – you will catch the wall again partway down rather than falling to your death.  Rappel to the bottom!

17. Miscellany

* If you discover a bug in game, use the /bug command and report it. This will help it get fixed faster.

* Your opinion on game mechanics is not a bug.  Use /feedback to give opinions and suggestions.

* If you have a question, utilize the search option on the message boards, found at the top of the screen. You can select to search all forums and categories, or limit your search to specific areas.

* If you want to keep easy track of a particular thread on the forums, press “watch this topic” at the bottom of any page in that thread.  Any time there is a response to that topic, you will receive notification.

* Most PC races have two graphic models, default (or SOGA) and alternate (or original) models. To pick which you’d rather see when playing, go to Options > Alternate Models. You can select for each race which model you’d prefer (except the race of whatever character you are currently on). NOTE THAT THIS ONLY AFFECTS HOW YOU SEE YOUR OWN AND OTHER CHARACTERS. How other players will see your characters — whether they’ll see the default models or the SOGA models — will depend on their settings, not yours. So you’ll probably want to define your characters’ appearance in both models. Conveniently, after creating a character, you have one opportunity, at no cost, to define the character’s appearance in whichever model *wasn’t* used in the original creation process.  It is also possible to set your own character to the model you are not using for everyone else – when you alter your character’s appearance from the Character Select screen, that character’s appearance will remain as whatever version you most recently set.