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