Tip your Porter

[tristantio]

Kautin, you can buy vendor gems and the porter can sell them for almost the same amount you paid.

Keep a stack of 20 peridots (worth 10pp each, will cost you about 11pp each) and you can give the druid 2 or 3 peridots for the port.

[tristantio]

Kautin, will you go and farm me 100pp?

Knowing you just helped me get from point a (my plat) to point b (my plat + 100 more) should be a reward in itself.

[Rilen]

The idea that porting and buffing are entirely different is ridiculous.

Your time is worth nothing, you are playing Everquest. If you're giving a port, your time is being spent porting. Apparently in your case for plat. Therefore your time has gained value. Prior to that it had none.

You choose an action and engage in it. If someone attempts to interrupt said action you must personally weigh the pros and cons of given choice and make the proper forward motion. If you're camping something and someone asks you to port, obviously the decision as to which is more beneficial must play into factor.

What I'm getting at is that NO ONE drops their shit to port other people, for any reason. Giving up your camp or assuming that anyone would ask you to is insane. You port during your idle time so the argument that it somehow affects you otherwise is entirely invalid.

[Faisca]

Originally Posted by Nordenwatch [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Luckily druids and wizards are never in groups after 40 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Exactly!

Apparently, in P99, porters are supposed to be playing by themselves in a corner of the world and stop what they are doing to provide taxi services for a few coins, and when the service is finished they are supposed to get back to that same corner until taxi services are required again, cause people don’t want them in their groups.

Well, to me that’s not fair nor fun.

If people want to have their perfect group set, fine. But if you’re never going to invite porters for groups, you shouldn’t be bothering them for ports either.

[Grozmok]

I almost always do.

What's the tip rate for Kunark? Someone said 300pp? That's extreme, I'll just take the boat.

[tristantio]

Rilen, a porter making themselves available during "idle time" is giving up time they could be grinding solo, in most cases trading off the xp and plat from grinding for plat via porting (at less risk).

However, what you are stating is equivalent to saying someone should go and power level for free if they have idle time, as their time is worth nothing right?

If a druid has an option of grinding 500pp an hour, or porting for 300pp an hour, I'd hope he is porting, as that means it is easier for the community to travel.

[Fultun]

I had a couple people pay VERY well for a quick port somewhere, and a few weeks later I was wandering around Qeynos helping a friend with quest turns and saw one of them /oocing for a CR port.

Remembering how generous they were I sent them a tell that I'd take them, and they're first response was "It's for a CR so I can't pay you til later if that is ok", and my response was "This ones on me, meet me at the gate"

I've had another where I saw a player asking in EC for a bind in FP, and I said I'd do it and meet me in WFP. on my I saw his corspe near the inn, and sent him a tell. He said he had gotten killed by the guard (he was an lvl 3 Iksar), and was bound in Cabalis. Felling bad for the guy (been there done that), I ported to DL, ran to LoIO and picked him up, brought him to WC, and ran him to WFP for the bind.

A few weeks later I got stomped by a giant in Rathe, but was still bound in FV at my kiting spot, and suddenly got a tell from the Iksar who came across my corpse and had a high level cleric with him, so he dragged my corpse to his party and they rezzed me, which saved me a little running.

Even in EQ, what goes around comes around.

[aerah]

I had a post half-written, but I think Kautin put it best:

Originally Posted by Kautin

If you only port for plat say so and no ones feelings get hurt.

I do feel like I should add:

Asking for a donation is asinine, it's no longer a donation. The reason you do that, instead of charging a <flat/variable> fee, is generally because you're betting the person will give you more plat for your services than what you think they're worth. Example: If you're offering a port for 20p, but someone would have paid 100p, you aren't losing if you get the "sale." You've valued your service at a rate, and got that compensation. To make an EC analogy of what that example is about, if I put any item in a trade window with someone and said "just give me what you think is fair," it's my own fault if someone gives me 100p for a 1kp item.

If tipping is such a problem, and you don't want to charge a "flat" fee because you don't want to scare off the lowbies, offer a variable rate based on level and/or gear. You know, negotiate for the services you're about to provide. I'm sure it won't take more than 30seconds for you to list a price and the person to accept.

Left to my own devices, I'll give anywhere from 30-50p for a port, and 50p more for each boat I'll miss.

[tristantio]

Disclaimer: While I'm in favor of tipping porters/buffers, I have rarely ever gotten a tip when doing buffs (and in most cases I am giving out plat to lower levels).

I think what the OP was indicating is that if you have it and are stingy, you are being rude.

If you do not have it, he doesn't expect anything from you.

Using, "well, you said donation so that means I can give you nothing even though I have hundreds on me" is just a rude move.

[Kika Maslyaka]

port fee = level*2 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
I had druid as main on live, and while I have never auctioned porting/buffing for donation, I still remember being VERY upset when a long time ago, my level 10 shaman was asked for SOW by some lev 50 dude, and didn't got as much as "thx" in return. At level 10 40 mana was a LOT for me. If he would given me as much as 5 gold, even then i would have been eternally grateful.

PS. personally I believe that this was a bad mechanic design by verant. No class should have gotten spells that can generate cash from other players. Wizard/Druid porting model works in 1 group DnD setting, but in MMo it gives unfair money generating advantage to these classes, while being balanced off by having penalized combat skills. Ports should have been self-only, or group port should cost a reagent that would cost like 500plat from a merchant.
Same applies to enchanter being the only one who can enchant bars.