Tipping for Ports: Apparently I've Been Doing It Wrong

[bwe]

Porters should advertise prices instead of this vague tipping thing

[Baler]

1 plat per character level
level 50 = 50p

Special ports: 100p+
Pick ups from none ring/spire locations.
Multiple people pickups (this covers the group)
long distance item transfers

Kunark Era: 1-2p per level
Evac from a kunark dungeon
I bet a lot of people have forgotten about this one [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
DL-> KC -> EJ / SF

Velious Era: 1-2p per level
Evac scross SG

[Teflondon75]

Meanwhile on my shammy @Mangler TLP I had literally hundreds of people begging for SoW's or discounts on SoW pots, full body buffs and even full buffs + their pet and not a single tip not once ever. Hilarious lol. I do tip :P Just think it's funny AF I could hit 20 buttons for zero and another can hit 1 for tons. Yes, I was jealous lol.

[Brut]

We're not at blue amount of plat yet, so I wouldn't go by those standards. 50p is a lot of money at this point when most of server can't kill a hill giant yet.

[M.J.]

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

We're not at blue amount of plat yet, so I wouldn't go by those standards. 50p is a lot of money at this point when most of server can't kill a hill giant yet.

I'd say there are two things that make me still tip in the 20-40 range for just about any porters time:

first, there are no Clarity spells besides bard songs. When I'm in a rush or the druid went OOM porting in, I have had to let druids click my manastone to get on the way in under 5 mins (the lower level they are the more time it takes them to med), and I wouldn't offer to a wizard unless I had time to bandaid them up some, as they have no regen / health back to help them top off.

second, there are more than a few camps and quests that put out decent plat from 9-15. and there are plenty of desirable items from zones like black burrow and crushbone that you can offer in trade for ports as druids have alts too - including things like cb belts / df belts / cb pads / cuttthroat rings.

Things that don't have much value on blue, have value here and are in demand. I'd also say that early on there were plenty of exp focused druids that weren't making money hand over fist and plenty of slower levelers like myself that prioritized platinum / research word camps had plat to throw around that people hunting animals / cheapskate mobs didn't. So it was a trade off. Which still doesn't help the poor that need ports, but shopping around for a druid in the mood to help, while not being a terrible human being, will resolve that. As will running while soliciting tells everytime you approach a druid / wizzy port in.

[arh555]

Speaking as a porter on Green:

There are too many people taking advantage of old fashioned EQ community goodwill and its pushing me to be more transactional about the service. I'm talking about the elite guild member, 10+ levels above you, wearing JBoots and Guise, who pull "all I got is 11 gold on me, we good bro?" after the port.

I really want to keep the EQ magic alive especially for lower level players but this is pretty rampant.

[AgentEpilot]

Green at level 19ish I tipped 10 plat, but if I needed more of them that would be pricey, blue it is usually 50 plat at this point with a 58 chanter piggy bank

[zodium]

i usually tip 15-20-25pp depending on what level port spell I need

[Natewest1987]

I think the tipping culture here is a little weird. I tend to approach it like, “hey, would you do xyz for x plat?”. I don’t like it being open ended and I don’t think it’s fair to either party. Obviously some people are ok with it and cool with them, but I don’t want anyone to feel stiffed, or to feel weird about however much I tipped, so I just lay it out up front. Then, if by some chance they do something extra for me, then I’ll throw them something extra afterwards. But I always, always, always, pay above market rate for things like that, and in the event that I couldn’t, I’d be cool with walking.

Another tip actually, ask people how much would it cost for xyz? They’ll let you know their expectations right then, usually.

[Invalid_Bard]

It's a tip, that's it. Tip what you think is fair. If people want 50pp for porting, they should advertise that.