New To Server, Have Community Based Questions

[Ignight]

Hello everyone!

My wife and I just started playing P99 and it is everything I remember, minus a couple things I had forgotten. We absolutely love it. I do have a couple of questions for the community though.

1: Average spell cost at Level 8 is four plat per. (I know they go up fast.) NPC cash drops around this level seem a bit weak compared to the costs of gearing a caster and affording spells. Other than farming bone chips or engaging in the endless search for HQ pelts, how did other players breach this massive price gap?

2: My wife and I are crafters. While she's settling into the idea of Jewelcrafting and Tailoring, and I settling into Blacksmithing, we have found there is a massive start up cost to crafting. Just to make metal bits is pricey. When should new players start crafting?

3: How do we deal with bards who swarm kite entire leveling areas? I asked my guild, and they told me it only gets worse later on. I know we all are under "play nice" rules and they are technically not doing anything wrong, but this has happened to us a couple of times now and it literally shuts down our exp grind. Sending tells is met with silence. Now I am not here to bash any one class and I'm sure it's not all bards, but I would like to know in general how is this dealt with.

Thank you all for your time. I look forward to meeting everyone I can. "The community" is what drove my wife and I away from every other MMO and ultimately made us fall in love with EverQuest. Everyone I have met so far, minus a couple (can't win them all), is a testiment to that. Thank you.

Respectfully,
Gondien

[iruinedyourday]

Consider red becuse its basically like IRL so you can craft and craft and craft and there i splenty to farm and PLENTY of people to buy stuff cus its not rechargeable and rare to have crafters on the server.

on red you can feel free to snare one of the bards mobs, or charm/sow it, agro it then zone so it just runs up on him while hes kidding or just root em... nobody cares... skin is a lot thicker over there ;)

[Spenny121]

1: Average spell cost at Level 8 is four plat per. (I know they go up fast.) NPC cash drops around this level seem a bit weak compared to the costs of gearing a caster and affording spells. Other than farming bone chips or engaging in the endless search for HQ pelts, how did other players breach this massive price gap?

Depends where you are leveling. CB - sell belts and pads. Belts for 2-4pp each, pads for a little more. They drop common enough you should both have more than enough. There are plenty of ways to make money early on, and there are some pretty good cash camps early as well such as sisters in Lfay.

2: My wife and I are crafters. While she's settling into the idea of Jewelcrafting and Tailoring, and I settling into Blacksmithing, we have found there is a massive start up cost to crafting. Just to make metal bits is pricey. When should new players start crafting?

Anytime you can farm the mats to level then. Tailoring will be easier as you can farm the silks while you level. There are plenty of places into the mid 20's to get all the silk you could ever want and still get good xp.

3: How do we deal with bards who swarm kite entire leveling areas? I asked my guild, and they told me it only gets worse later on. I know we all are under "play nice" rules and they are technically not doing anything wrong, but this has happened to us a couple of times now and it literally shuts down our exp grind. Sending tells is met with silence. Now I am not here to bash any one class and I'm sure it's not all bards, but I would like to know in general how is this dealt with.

I've never met a bard swarm kiting who will not respond if you don't start off sending messages calling him any number of names for doing it. Be nice and ask him to not pull the area you're xping on. If he does anyways or just wants to be a dick, you can always steal any mobs off his pull you want in excess of 4.

Thank you all for your time. I look forward to meeting everyone I can. "The community" is what drove my wife and I away from every other MMO and ultimately made us fall in love with EverQuest. Everyone I have met so far, minus a couple (can't win them all), is a testiment to that. Thank you.

Respectfully,
Gondien

[Sorn]

1: Bandit sashes from bandits/raiders in the Karanas yield bronze weapons, which can sell for quite a bit. Otherwise you have to scrimp and save. Classic!

2: 20+ for anything past skill 21. JC and Tailoring are the most expensive to max, followed by smithing. Don't expect to master any of it in the next few months.

3: If the bards are pulling from your areas (key words: your areas) and disrupting the zone, and they won't stop when asked politely, then you should petition them. It's allowed to take mobs from their swarm if they have more than 4, though you should be careful if the mobs are social.

[Swish]

It sounds grindy and "anti-fun" almost but cash drops go up as you level. Some say to do the Nybright sister camp in Lesser Faydark as theres bronze weapon drops there but you can make more cash later on per session.

As for crafting, jewelcrafting is the most expensive of them all arguably...she might have to hold off on that one for the moment :p

[evilkorn]

1. Orc belts (crushbone or ec orcs) sell pretty easily. Bonechips sell as well. Only buy spells you need, then go back to fill in gaps later. Vendor off weapons for easy money.

2. The returns on crafting were never really there to make it a viable way to make money until the highest end like cultural smithing and hp/mana and resist jewelcrafting. But wait until you can farm vendor items like fine steel weapons or similar with ease and spend points at your class GM to get up to 20 skill to skip the low end. So 30-40 at the earliest.

3. Talk to the bard. Chances are he'll play nice and leave mobs for you in your area. Or you might want to rethink your exp spots. Most of the places bards kite aren't good exp for single kills, try dungeons instead.

[fadetree]

1: Bandit sashes from bandits/raiders in the Karanas yield bronze weapons, which can sell for quite a bit. Otherwise you have to scrimp and save. Classic!

2: 20+ for anything past skill 21. JC and Tailoring are the most expensive to max, followed by smithing. Don't expect to master any of it in the next few months.

3: If the bards are pulling from your areas (key words: your areas) and disrupting the zone, and they won't stop when asked politely, then you should petition them. It's allowed to take mobs from their swarm if they have more than 4, though you should be careful if the mobs are social.

This is one of THE best cash drops for young players. Note : the sashes also yield exp, not a lot, but some. At appropriate level, you'll need FD/Harmony/Lull to pull singles, or have a strong group.

Note : this is WEST Karanas.

[maskedmelon]

Consider red becuse its basically like IRL so you can craft and craft and craft and there i splenty to farm and PLENTY of people to buy stuff cus its not rechargeable and rare to have crafters on the server.

on red you can feel free to snare one of the bards mobs, or charm/sow it, agro it then zone so it just runs up on him while hes kidding or just root em... nobody cares... skin is a lot thicker over there ;)

Good suggestions right here. Blue has quite a few people who randomly patrol zones to help newbies, which is awesome. Many people can be pretty anti-social though and detest role play. You just have to work at it to get them to open up though ^^

Red is much more open and accepting. There's the random griefer here and there, but it is not the norm. PVP becomes much more common 50+ though. If you look at pvp as an act of aggression, probably best not to play there, you will be disappointed. If you recognize it as good fun laugh it off and strike up a convo with whoever smoked you, chances are you'll make another friend and will have a much better time on red.


3. If bards (or anyone else for that matter) is monopolizing a zone or mosey of it, they are breaking the rules. Feel free to peel mobs off, fear or charm/buff mobs in their kite. Speak with them first though and of course if the hard was there before you got there, allow the to finish their kite ^^

[thufir]

Hello everyone!

My wife and I just started playing P99 and it is everything I remember, minus a couple things I had forgotten. We absolutely love it. I do have a couple of questions for the community though.

1: Average spell cost at Level 8 is four plat per. (I know they go up fast.) NPC cash drops around this level seem a bit weak compared to the costs of gearing a caster and affording spells. Other than farming bone chips or engaging in the endless search for HQ pelts, how did other players breach this massive price gap?

There are a lot of good places for newbie cash right now, actually. The Warrens can be explored below level 8 and the kobolds drop great little bronze items worth 1-2p a pop. Crushbone belts and pads have been mentioned and only require some time in gfay/cb. Bone chips sell very well, as you pointed out. Deathfist belts also sell for reasonable prices in ec. Mobs in Befallen also drop bronze.

2: My wife and I are crafters. While she's settling into the idea of Jewelcrafting and Tailoring, and I settling into Blacksmithing, we have found there is a massive start up cost to crafting. Just to make metal bits is pricey. When should new players start crafting?

This is a tougher question to answer. I don't favor crafting in eq at lower levels because of the high cost of entry. That having been said, getting in on the ground floor for things like Tailoring and Blacksmithing can provide benefits early and help you later on if you decide to go forward with it. I wouldn't try any other tradeskills right now, and would consider holding off until you had a fair amount of cash on hand (several hundred plat).

3: How do we deal with bards who swarm kite entire leveling areas? I asked my guild, and they told me it only gets worse later on. I know we all are under "play nice" rules and they are technically not doing anything wrong, but this has happened to us a couple of times now and it literally shuts down our exp grind. Sending tells is met with silence. Now I am not here to bash any one class and I'm sure it's not all bards, but I would like to know in general how is this dealt with.

Surprisingly, I don't see this happen very often. You can just pull off their train, though; the GMs will back up anyone pulling mobs off a train that's more than 4 mobs large. I think if I was in a zone where the bard was swarm kiting that's how I'd handle it. (Ignore their veiled threats about how they'll drop the whole zone on you if you do that, etc. They'll get banned if they do.)

[RTukka]

1: Bandit sashes from bandits/raiders in the Karanas yield bronze weapons, which can sell for quite a bit. Otherwise you have to scrimp and save. Classic!
In addition, there are rabid wolves (http://wiki.project1999.com/Rabid_Wolves) and rabid grizzlies (http://wiki.project1999.com/Rabid_Grizzlies) in WK that always drop pelts that can be turned in for 2p and 4p worth of rewards respectively, and good XP. Most people seem to do those quests while leveling in QH, but they're still a very good supplement to bandit camps a few levels later.

[Ignight]

Thank you for the response everyone.

I probably should have mentioned that we were trying to stay closer to EC and the constant market running there. Thank you for all the suggestions on where to exp.

Travel becomes the only issue. Travel time vs. Lost exp.

Perhaps we will focus on only one of us crafting for now. Due to initial costs.

Thank you all.

[rikustrength]

Consider having one of you roll a druid or a wizard. Druids especially are great first characters, and as you gain group ports you gain a way to reliably make money at no cost to you. If you do wind up pursuing tailoring they're also great for that since they can track animal targets.

[Sadre Spinegnawer]

1. Time. AKA: Time-sink. This may be one of the aspects of eq you forgot ;)

2. Doing tradeskills as you level up your first char is always going to make that time-sink bigger. But this server is not going anywhere! So there is no rush! Take your time!

3. Oy. Bards. Nerf bards. But it's classic eq, there are a hundred ways players used to be "annoying," and frankly p99 is tame compared to the shenanigans that used to go on, and the basic rule of thumb for a good time in eq is, "avoid hassles." There are places bards can't bother you -- dungeons.

[rollin5k]

Take whatever mobs you want off of bards. Take as many as you like, think of it as a monster delivery

Qeynos area do rabid pelt quests.

Freeport you can farm some bone chips to sell.

Faydwer you can sell crushbone belts and bone chips.

[Ignight]

Love all the ideas, thanks everyone!

[Swish]

Good luck OP, may your adventures be epic

[Uuruk]

It's nice to see new players here. If you are planning on playing here seriously and raiding I would recommend another game. If you are just playing to relive the leveling part and casual part I think you may enjoy it. But don't play this server for the raiding. It is the worst raiding experience you can possibly have from any mmo out there.