Testing
ffxi_ Stratics Front Page
A Newcomers Guide to the World of Norrath

Introduction - Character Creation - Making Friends - Basic Commands

First Steps - Death - Speech - Player Economy - Conclusion


A Newcomers Guide to the World of Norrath Part One: Introduction

So, you’ve decided to come and join us in this world of mystical fantasy? If you have made that first step and purchased your copy of EverQuest you are about to embark on a journey of a lifetime that will forever change the way you think about gaming. If you are new to the world of Massive Multi-Player Online Games, or even if you aren’t, EverQuest is sure to astound you to new expectations of what a game can offer.

As a warrior you have the ability to stand toe to toe with the tremendous race of beasts known as dragons, although help from your magical wielding friends is always a must when taking on such a feat. However, you also have the ability to run as fast as you can away from such ferocious creatures, as their abilities are not to be taken lightly, as can be quite clearly seen by this picture. The choice is fully up to you.

Stand back and absorb the beautiful landscape into your consciousness. While you rest up after a particularly ferocious battle take a moment to turn around and take in your surroundings. The clouds rolling across the sky, the sun setting in a distant horizon, or the etchings on the wall of the dungeon you’re in. Take a moment, and you will be rewarded.   

Now sit back, get comfortable, grab a snack as you will be here for a while and get ready for a gaming experience that will stay with you forever.  If you have any comments or questions throughout this guide feel free to email me at lord_of_dreams@stratics.com and I will answer you to the best of my ability. 


Welcome to EverQuest


A Newcomers Guide to the World of Norrath Part Two: Character Creation

 

Character creation in EverQuest can be a daunting task to a newcomer at first, but don’t let it scare you. Once you have an idea set into your head of the type of character you want to play, the creation process should move swiftly and painlessly. The first question you need to ask yourself is whether you would like to play a magical based character or a more melee fighting based class. Here is a breakdown of the different classes and what their primary objective is, whether it is melee based, magical based or a hybrid of the two.

Primary Caster Classes Hybrid Classes Primary Melee Classes
Magician Paladin Warrior
Wizard Ranger Rogue
Necromancer Shadowknight Monk
Cleric Beastlord  
Shaman Bard  
Druid    
Enchanter    
After choosing what category you are most interested in, it is time to take a look at each of the classes in that category a bit more carefully. To accomplish this I would suggest checking out the class portals located elsewhere in this site. There you should find a wealth of information having to deal with each specific class in much greater depth than any single guide could provide.

Next, you will have to choose a race. This is mostly a matter of personal preference, but there are certain restrictions with certain races that you need to take into account when making your decision. There are good and evil races out there. Evil races will generally be accepted in only evil towns, and good races will generally be accepted only in good towns.
Good Races Neutral Races Evil Races
Barbarian Vah Shir Dark Elf
Dwarf   Troll
Erudite*   Ogre
Gnome*   Iksar
Half-Elf*    
Halfling    
High Elf    
Human*    
Wood Elf    

*Unless Playing a Necromancer or are of an evil religion, but generally a good race.

Now these are kinds of things that you need to take into account. Obviously, by playing a good aligned character you will have access to a larger portion of the world than an evilly aligned character. Some races only have a very small and select group of classes available to them while others are more open and allow many classes to be available. Take a look at the class portals section of EverQuest Stratics to find what races are available to your chosen class. Then, all you need to do is pick a race that you believe you will enjoy playing. You can figure stats into your decision, which can also be found in the same place you found what races were available to you, but make sure to pick a race that you will enjoy playing regardless of the stats. Enjoying the game is the most important aspect to consider when creating a character.

Things to look for are not only what kind of character you would really like to play in terms of class and race, but to also look towards what kind of stats you want to start out with as they help to define who your character is. Reading the guides provided in the EverQuest Stratics Class portals will tell you what the best combination of stats is for your race/class, but don’t feel pressured to adopt these exact changes. Feel free to create a character all on your own, and to design him/the way you want to play that character. If you aren’t happy with your character then you will not be happy with the game.

These are only the very basics of character creation. The only way to really fully understand the concepts of the different races and classes is to play the game. Through experience you will gain knowledge. I do hope this portion of the guide helped you in finding what type of character you might enjoy playing by providing the most basic of information. For more detailed information feel free to look around the site, especially at the class portals sections to gain a much more in depth view of a particular class.


A Newcomers Guide to the World of Norrath Part Three: Making Friends

 
A game such as EverQuest, if you’ve never played a Massively Multi-Player Game before, can be a very daunting task. Friends however are the most important part of the game. They will determine whether you enjoy the game or not. There are exceptions obviously as there are to any rule, but 90% of people will find a MMOG type game much more enjoyable if they have friends to play it with. The best times that I ever had in game were late at night when I was trying to hunt something with a group of friends. We’d sit and talk during the downtime and just have a general good time with each other. It made no difference whether what we killed gave us the best experience or loot, what mattered was the time spent with friends. However, the experience and loot was always nice. :) I can’t stress this enough, a MMOG will be much more enjoyable, for most people, if you have a group of good friends to enjoy it with.

Now, here are a few basic pointers and advice on how to go out and start making friends in a virtual setting. The first thing to note however that is it is very similar to real life. If you are nice to people, they will generally be nice to you. However, and this is a big however. There will always be the bad eggs out there that are just out to ruin other people’s game play experience. Which is just another similarity to the real world; gaming isn’t a complete escape from those types of people. Although, you will find that the majority of people will be more than willing to help you out by way of giving advice and by sending a smile your way.

One common way that people make friends, just as in the real world, is to go out to social events and participate in them. Guilds often host events that people of all levels of playing ability are welcome to attend. If you take the time to go to some of these events and meet the people there you will almost be guaranteed a spot in that particular guild when you meet the other requirements that the particular guild may have set forth for their members. A guild is often the best way to meet people and make friends, but is obviously not the only way.

One thing to be wary of is being obnoxious towards other players as it will not help you in the way of making friends at all. Using what is known as “dewd speak” in a MMOG is widely looked down upon and will generally turn mature players off from you. "Dewd" speak is using words such as l3wt for the word “loot” and other such combinations that involve alternating caps and numbers in a word. There is also many other words that can fall into this category, but it is generally easy to use common sense to avoid bother others. Another thing that is highly looked down upon is the simple art of begging. People don’t like random strangers coming up to them and begging for either a buff spell or item of some sort. It’s considered rude, and is one very quick way to turn people off from you.

Often while playing the game, especially at lower levels, you will come across what is known as a ‘pick up group.’ Basically, all this means is a group of people who meet each other for the first time and decide to go on a hunt or camp a spawn together. You can often meet some wonderful people playing this way, and often they will share the same feelings about you. If you do happen to enjoy that particular persons company you should always ask if you could add them to your friends list, done by typing in /friend (name of the person you are trying to add) without the parenthesis. After this you will be able to type in anytime /who all friends to see if any of the people you have added to your list are on at any particular time. You will eventually form friendships just by general association with people who enjoy the same type of play style that you do.

Basically as a general rule, if you want to make friends just be active in server events. You can find out about them right here on Stratics under our news section. It will take some time, just as making friends in the real world does, but the first few months you’ll be so absorbed in the game that it won’t matter. When the newness of the game wears off though you’ll be glad to have friends, as that is what makes the true content of the game enjoyable.

A Newcomers Guide to the World of Norrath Part Four: Basic Commands

 

I’m going to provide some of the most basic commands that I feel a new player should be well familiar with before they start their first journey into EverQuest. This game is huge and very confusing, especially to someone who hasn’t played a MMOG type game before. These are the simplest of commands and not in anyway a complete listing of them. However, I do feel that these are the most important ones that you will need initially in the game to do basic functions. Check out the main site for a more complete list if you are interested.

/assist [on/off] - (combat - must be targeting another player) Switches target from current to target's target, and begin auto-attacking. Use: in a group, target person attacking monster, then type /assist, and your target will automatically switch to their target. Useful in mass melees. Use "on" or "off" to toggle whether the auto-attack turns on automatically when assisting. When you know that you won’t be using this feature it can be wise to turn it off to avoid accidentally attacking a monster that you shouldn’t be taking on.

/attack [on/off] - Toggles the state of "Auto-attack". You may also add a parameter of "on" or "off" to explicitly set the state. This command is also defaulted to the ‘a’ key which can be very dangerous for a new member of Norrathian society. One moment you’re talking to an NPC and the next you wind up on the ground dead. To avoid this go into options and re-map your keyboard to take this off of the ‘a’ key onto something that you won’t hit by accident as often.

/auction - Communications channel for buying and selling. Usage is /auction [message]

/camp [desktop/server] - Safely logs your character out of the game world, after a 30 second delay. You must be sitting to use /camp. Adding the desktop flag will cause the program to automatically exit to the desktop after camping, while the server flag sends you back to the server-select screen.

/consider - This returns "comparative" message about the target, suggesting how difficult target might be, based on actual level differences rather than difficulty. Green is "no challenge" and will yield no experience at all, Light Blue is "easy", Blue is "not-so-easy", Black (White in full screen mode) is "equal-to-you", Yellow is "pretty tough", and Red is (as they say) "What would you like your tombstone to say?" Abbreviated as /con, or by right-clicking on a mob. This command is also defaulted to the ‘c’ key for a quick con of a target.

/consent - Gives another player online permission to drag your corpse - it will no longer allow them to loot it. Usage is /consent [player name] USE WITH CAUTION! Never ever consent someone you don't know! This command has also been further limited in that it can only be used once every two seconds. /consent by itself will remove the consent from any players, preventing them from dragging your corpse.

/decline - Declines a duel.

/disband - Removes you from your current group, or turns down an invitation to join another group.

/duel – This will offer your target, must be another player character, an opportunity to duel you in a player vs. player encounter. This is suggested to not be accepted by any means until you have a firm grasp on the game and know who you’re dealing with. Unfortunately there are those out there who will like to prey on new players in ‘grief’ tactics. However, this can be a fun tool when you know more about the game and can be used to provide a new level to the game.

/exit
- quick way to leave the game, however, not as safe as camping (leaves you idle for 30 seconds, just like camping - plenty of time for monsters to eat you for breakfast when no one is watching) This is also reached by using /quit and abbreviated by /q.

/fastdrop [ON/OFF] – Toggles whether the player can drop things on the ground without being prompted first. (Recommended setting is OFF)

/friend - With this command, players can list certain players, as a sort of "buddylist". Usage is either /friend (returns complete list of friends on friends list), or /friend [player name] which sets a player on or off of the friends list. The /who command can utilize the friends list to see who from the friends list is online. That command is /who all friend.

/gems – This starts a game of Gems, an internal "Tetris"-type game.

/gsay - abbreviated /g, sends [message] to all in group.

/guildsay - sends [message] to all in guild who are online at the time. Now abbreviated to /gu.

/hail - Sends local message "Hail [target]" Often an important way (or the only way) to activate certain NPCs. This can also be activated by pressing the ‘h’ button.

/invite - Will invite the target into a group, or accept an invitation if one is pending.

/location - debugging tool, gives exact coordinates on the map of your current location. Also abbreviated /loc. This comes in handy also when traveling and when given a set of coordinates in a zone you can consistently use /loc to find out where you are in relation to those other coordinates.

/ooc - Communications channel for out of character conversation, such as stock prices, best video card or equipment statistics.

/pet - allows player to control pet* via several different commands:

  /pet guard me – Now this works the same as /pet follow me.
/pet guard here – This command is no longer in use.
/pet attack or /pet kill - causes pet to immediately attack targeted opponent. Must be someone/something player would be able to attack.
/pet back off - Causes pet to cease attacking and return to player.
/pet sit - causes pet to stay in place, sit down or "change position" (as in the case of skeletons).
/pet follow me - Causes pet to follow the player.
/pet as you were - wipes all commands and returns to neutral. Doesn’t restore pet to previous commands.
/pet report health - pet tells player percentage of its health left.
/pet target - automatically targets the pet. /pet who leader - pet says who commands it (useful for enchanters to quickly notify their party that said creature is now a pet).
/pet get lost - makes a summoned pet kill itself. (Does NOT work on charmed pets, even if they were originally summoned.)
/pet stand up – This is used to take your pet out of the sitting position.
/pet taunt on/off - tells the pet to begin or cease taunting opponents.
 

* note that Enchanter animations do not respond to /pet commands.
**This only applies to characters that can control pets such as mages and necromancers

/petition - sends [message] to petition queue where a GM/Guide will hopefully see it and respond in a timely manner. Only one petition may be made at a time per character until you camp. Petitions will also last for 3 hours whether you are in game or not.

/reply - sends [message] directly back to the last person to talk to you. (This can also be done by pressing the ‘r’ button)

/say - Sends [message] to all in "general vicinity". Of course, any plain text entered into the text window will also be broadcast the same way. Using the enter button is also a shortcut for this.

/shout - Communications channel broadcast to entire zone, intended for in-character use. This is abbreviated by /s.

/tell - sends private message only to [player name]. Usage is /tell [player name] This is abbreviated by /t.

/who - Shows all players in current zone. A shortcut for /who is /w or even just a /. Other /who options include:

  /who all - shows all players in all zones (not recommended)
/who all [type] [## ##] - shows all players with specified word [type] in their name - be it a race, class, guild, GM or a specific name. Also accepts a level or level range [## ##]
/who all friends - shows all players on friends list wherever they are.
/who all GUILD - shows all your fellow guild members who are not set to /anon or /roleplaying if you are in a guild. GUILD must be in all caps.
/who ## - Where ## represents levels, this will show all players of that level in the current zone. Adding 'all' to the command will show all players of that level across all the zones.
/who ## ## - Where ## represents levels, this will show all players between the first level, and the second level in the current zone. Adding 'all' to the command will show all players in all zones meeting those qualifications.
I.E., /who all “Legion of Cabilis” will return only that guild. Especially if there are several guilds beginning with “Legion”
 

/yell - Sends local area "shout for help" and general direction of player in need.

There are quite a few commands here, but they are all commands that most players will use on a general basis or are commands that one should know in case of an emergency or other unexpected event. Many of these commands have default hotkeys with them which may be changed by selecting the options menu in the normal mode of play.

Also in addition to this there are ways to play EverQuest with different views. These include normal, windowed and full screen mode which may be achieved by pressing the F10 key by default.


A Newcomers Guide to the World of Norrath Part Five: First Steps

 
So now you’re all set to finally take those first steps in the world of EverQuest? Or perhaps you already have. Either way, there are some things that you should know to do right away or as soon as possible if you have already entered the world of Norrath. One of the first things that you will want to do is go look for your guild master. There are a few things that you will need to do with him/her. The first thing will be to give him your letter of ‘reference’ to the guild. You will gain a small amount of Experience for this and be officially admitted into the guild of your class. The letter itself will display the name of the NPC* that you need to go see. Don’t be discouraged if he is difficult to find, ask another player who you stumble across for help in finding your guild master. One thing you will find in EverQuest is that people are often very friendly and will be more than willing to lend a new player some advice.

The other book that you started with is called the Tome of Discord. If you are playing on a ‘blue’ or normal server you should probably ignore this and just destroy it when you get it. This is also known as your ‘PK’ book and will allow you to attack other players who have turned in their book. Your name will appear red above your avatar instead of the normal blue color to signify this change. However, those who enjoy PvP (Player versus player) combat have generally stuck to the servers whose names end in ‘Zek’ which signify that they are a PvP server. By going into this red status you will not be allowed to have any beneficial spells cast on you by non-red players, and on a regular server 99.99% of players are not Player Killers (PK’s). Also you will never see any high level red characters as no one has taken the time to build one in such a solitary state without the assistance of others, and without others to attack. Occasionally you will see a new young red player, but they normally do not last long as they discover that there are no others like them around. If PvP is your thing, stick to the Zek servers where you will find many others like you who are after the same kind of entertainment.

The next thing that you will need to do with your guild master is to train a few of your starting skills. Some skills just will not raise at all until you put at least a single point into them, so it would be very wise to put that initial point in as soon as possible so you don’t miss out on any skill gain. I would suggest taking a look at the class portal sections here on Stratics for more detailed information regarding training for your specific class.

The first thing I always do is set up my hotkeys. Before setting up your personal hot keys however, you should fix one very important hotkey to prevent some costly errors down the road. The game comes with the auto-attack key set as a default on the “A” button. In this situation it can be very easy to be targeting a merchant or other NPC that you have no intention of trying to kill and pressing the “A” key. By doing this you will often lose your life very quickly. To reset this go into the options menu and look for keyboard options. Look for the auto-attack key set up in there and change the key to something that is out of the way yet you are still able to find it in times of need.

However, I personally use a normal mouse hot key for it and do not bother with many keyboard shortcuts. I find it too easy to make bad mistakes when using the keyboard method. The hotkeys are located in the lower left of the screen and number 1-6. However, if you go into F10 mode, which you can access by pressing F10,  You will now have access to a full set of 10 Hotkeys per page. You can ascribe actions, skills, sayings, and personal buttons to these hot keys, creating shortcuts that make life in EverQuest much easier. There are 10 banks of hot keys, each of which will hold 10 hot keys each. Assigning hot keys is a simple matter of patience. Every button that you have for your character can be assigned to a hot key. To assign a hot key, left click and hold the button you want to make into the hot key. After about a second the button will come off and actually take place of your mouse pointer. (The upper left hand of the floating button will act as the tip of the arrow for purposes of clicking on things if you need to move around to get back to your hot button bank.) Take your floating button and left click in the hot key box you want it to go into. This should drop the button into the hot key box and can now be accessed through the hotkeys 1-10. Most of the action keys that you can make into hot keys are found in previous set boxes normally on the right hand side of the screen. You will find them in categories named things such as “Combat” and “Abilities.”

Now for an example, let’s say you have the Bash skill. Drop the Bash skill button in hot button box # 4, and every time you press the 4 key, if you have an NPC targeted, your character will bash. You can access the different banks but holding the shift key and pressing 1-10. Shift+2 will take you to the second bank of hotkeys. An alternate method of reaching the different banks is provided for those less dexterous; simply click the left/right arrow buttons above the hotkey buttons and you can scroll through the hotkey banks. A good hotkey that I personally like is the "Personal" button, it essentially opens up your inventory and allows you to take a look at all that gold you have, or all those nifty items you have collected, I suggest making that one a hotkey. However, for those who don’t mind using your regular keys you can always press the “I” button on your keyboard. I personally like having all my keys accessible by my mouse however and in one place so I use a hot key instead.

**Important to note, the game does not differentiate between a monster NPC and a merchant NPC…..bashing or attacking will work on both without discrimination**

After these initial activities you are ready to go out and face the world of Norrath. One thing I would have to suggest would be staying in the newbie areas for the first few levels. Before going out and taking on the dangers of the world, make sure to equip your starting weapon. Do this by clicking on your ‘personal’ button and then right clicking on the picture of your character. You should see an inventory of slots where you can place weapons/armor/clothes and jewelry. Place your weapon in the first hand slot in the inventory. The other thing you will have to learn, and you will learn hard especially while you are first learning the game at the lower levels, is that you will die… a lot. Don’t be discouraged by it at all as it has happened to everyone who started the game. If you die don’t feel bad, you’re just doing what everyone else has done many times in the past. I will explain the aspect of dying in a lot more detail in the next section of the guide, so if you have any questions about it I would suggest taking a look there now to clear up any confusion.

*NPC= Non-Player Character, otherwise known as a character run by the computer.

A Newcomers Guide to the World of Norrath Part Six: Death

 

Probably the best thing I could do to describe death is to not be all too afraid of it until level 10. After that it’s time to worry a bit, but death isn’t an end all either and will always happen to the best of us on occasion. Depending on your level death is going to have a different meaning for you, but no matter your level it is something that you can always get over. It is not a permanent instance in the lands of Norrath and your character is never permanently dead. Upon death you will return to either your starting city or your last bind point. A bind is something that all of the caster classes can do at either level 12 or 14 depending on which type of caster they are. Wizards, Enchanters, Necromancers and Magicians will learn the spell at level 12 while Druids, Clerics and Shamans will learn the spell at level 14. Always make sure to be bound as close as you can be to anyplace where you think you might run the risk of dying, IE., You plan on a fight or are going to be going through a zone where the monsters are well above your current level. One of the worst things that can happen to you is to travel for 2 hours across the world and to die, returning you back to where you started, with your corpse where you died.

Up until level 10 you will re-spawn with all of your belongings and have no experience penalty. Also during these early levels your death will leave no corpse to be found. You start not only with all of your newbie gear, such as 20 bread and milk, but all of the items you obtained through adventuring as well. Also, upon death you will fully re-gain your Health and Mana and will receive a new set of food and drink.

When you reach level 10 your corpse will finally stay around for 24 hours of playing time, or 7 days of non-playing time. However, these are not two separate counters. If you play for 12 hours without retrieving your body you will only have three and a half more out-of game days to come in and get it. At this level you will also start to lose Experience when you die. The one thing not to worry about however is at the very early levels you will lose very little experience. As you gain in levels however the amount you lose will increase. If you die early on when reaching a level you can lose a level, but you should be close to achieving that level again. Any skills that you had gained before you lost the level will not be lost, but only temporarily brought back down to the appropriate level until you re-gain the level that you had lost.

One of the best ways to prevent dying is to consider everything before you go ahead and attack it. Now, not all races are the same and some are able to take on harder monsters than others at the same level, but they have other weaknesses that the other classes make up for. To consider a monster you can type in /consider or /con for short while targeting something. You can also right click on the target to get the actual con as well. This returns "comparative" message about the target, suggesting how difficult target might be, based on actual level differences rather than difficulty. Green is "no challenge" and will yield no experience at all, Light Blue is "easy", Blue is "not-so-easy", Black (White in full screen mode) is "equal-to-you", Yellow is "pretty tough", and Red is (as they say) "What would you like your tombstone to say?" By doing this you should have a good idea of how tough the monster will be for you, and will know whether it is a good idea to rush full head into a battle or to steer clear from it. The other message that this will give to you is how the monster feels about you. If a monster/NPC looks at your either threateningly or ready-to-attack then you are what is known as Kill-on-site to them, which is abbreviated KOS by many people. Anything else will mean that the particular target will not attack you, but it does not mean that they still like you. Indifferent is the neutral glance that you will get meaning that the target has no opinion of you either way. If it is worse than neutral, then there is a possibility that the target, if a merchant, will not sell or buy goods with you.


A Newcomers Guide to the World of Norrath Part Seven: Speech

 
There are many ways to communicate with people in EverQuest, and they all have a distinct purpose. People do tend to get upset when you use the wrong mode of speech, so take a moment and familiarize yourself with the different ways so you won’t have to make this most common error.

Talking to those in the immediate area: Hit Enter, type the message, hit enter to "send" it. This will show up as white in your text box.

To send a private message to an individual: Type /tell or /t or hit the "t" key. Then type the name of the person, hit space, and type the message, then hit enter. It should look like this: /tell Andy Where are you? Andy will receive a message: Jomar tells you: Where are you? Then to reply to a tell message you can just hit the “r” and it will automatically set it up to reply privately to that person. This text will show up in your chat box as purple.

To say something to everyone in the same zone as you there are three methods:
/shout is the most general forum of communication for in-game related speech.
/ooc is used for the discussion of off-topic discussions in the zone.
/auction is used when you are buying or selling goods from one player to another.
/shout will appear in red text while /ooc and /auction will appear in green text. Misuse of these channels is a very bad idea and will only get others in the zone upset at you for spamming their text box. If you wish to carry out a conversation with a single person it is wise to use the /tell system so only you two have to see it.

To speak to the group you are in: Use /g with the text following. This will show up as a light blue color in your text box.

To speak to your entire guild that is online at the time: Use /guild and a message will go out to your entire list of on-line guild members.

Again, as I mentioned earlier in the guide try to keep away from using any ‘dewd’ speak at all as it helps to ruin the atmosphere of a good play experience. You will go much farther with people if you can refrain from using it at all.

Here is also a list of common phrases that you will see along your travels in the world of Norrath, knowing these will help you understand some of the basic jargon of the game.
 
  Mana = caster power.
KOS = Kill on sight.
HP = Hit points.
Mob = monster.
Inc = Incoming.
LOM/FOM = Low on Mana/Full on Mana.
Aggro = aggression.
Add = new monster joining in the fight.
Pop = monster spawning in vicinity.
GG = Group Gate (on some servers) used to ask for a teleport.
SoW = Spirit of Wolf, a speed enhancing spell.
Buff = Spell used to enhance or “buff” a stat.
 

This is pretty much all you will need to know to fulfill all your speech needs in the game. People will be very appreciative however, if you use them correctly.


A Newcomers Guide to the World of Norrath Part Eight: Player Economy

 
The player run economy of a game belonging to the MMOG genre is as unique as any real world economy. Some player run economies have currency that happens to be worth more than some actual worldly currencies on the open market. However, for this discussion we are going to stick to the game at hand which happens to be EverQuest.

The basics of the economy in EverQuest are very simple. People buy, sell and trade as in any other economic situation. The currency is simple to understand, and should not confuse anyone. There are four types of currency; platinum, gold, silver and copper where platinum is the most valuable and copper is the least. Each step that you take up the ladder is equal to ten of the currency directly below it. For example, 1 silver is equal to 10 copper. Also 1 gold would equal 10 silver or 100 copper. All NPC vendors will accept any type of coin as long as it is the equal of what they are asking.

Players have a lot of influence over the economy in EverQuest. Oftentimes a rumor will go around about a certain high level item and its price may suddenly quadruple or half in only a single day. Because of this prices are always changing, especially as changes are made to certain items and new items are introduced into the pool of trade.

The one thing that you will find out about the NPC vendors is that they sell high and buy low. This is to promote trade between players as you can often find a player selling an item for less than a merchant would or buying an item for more. You will find a strong player economy in EverQuest with a demand for goods from all levels of play.

If you are interesting in buying or selling your goods there are two places you should check. However, one will include the expansion Shadows of Luclin. The first of these that anyone will be able to get to is the tunnel in the East Commonlands. You can easily get to this area from either Freeport or Neriak. Also, many other cities are close enough that it is not a cumbersome journey to make. The other zone is the Bazaar which you can find on the moon of Luclin. In both of these zones you can find players buying and selling a variety of goods and services. If you are ever in need of something specific, these are the places to go visit. However, there are some changes on different servers throughout the world of Norrath which sometimes promote one of these locations over another, and sometimes even a different location. You can often find people selling in any zone with a bank, North Freeport especially. So generally this is often server specific and this is only meant to be a general guide to figure out some of the very basics of what to do.

You will always find buying and selling going on in any semi-populated zone, especially those zones that happen to contain a bank. But for the most variety, and sometimes the highest sell prices, you will need to visit one of these two zones.

A Newcomers Guide to the World of Norrath Part Nine: Conclusion

 
EverQuest is a game filled with wonders that cannot be explained, only found. The time is now for you to journey out into the wilderness, go kill some of those fiendish monsters that you’ve been so anxious to get at, and to start enjoying the community of the Massively Multi-Player Game known as EverQuest. I hope that this guide has helped you start your character off on the right foot, or help to find the right footing if you had