Our little expedition into EverQuest has advanced a little further. We have faced a few barriers, such as when Grimfeather spawned right on top of us in North Karana. That was a bit of a surprised.
A song for departed... me
Actually, the biggest surprise was that two of us survived and made it to the zone.
And there was that stretch when North Karana seemed to be nothing but blue mobs and so the allure of that bridge to East Karana beckoned.
Is the linoleum greener on the other side?
That started out okay. We did camp for a bit and were able to pick off some scraps that another group, which seemed determined to kill everything in the zone, missed.
A few spiders were left for us
Then, when we were involved in a fight that was already stretching our abilities, a cyclops wandered up and we had to run for it.
Cyclops Attack! Run!
That is Broon, Froon’s little brother or cousin or some such. He is physically smaller than Froon, who I have mentioned before, being only level 23 to Froon’s 30, but that was enough to make him a hazard to us at level 10.
As you can see, my guys seem to have a head start on the fleeing process. I think I may have understated the danger. I typed in that we needed to move because a cyclops was headed our way, when I probably should have just written, “RUN!!!!”
They cyclops pounded Potshot’s guys into mush, while I had enough time to stop and take pictures.
Broon off to stomp somebody else
After Broon, we decided that maybe blues in North Karana were not such a bad deal.
And mobs come in waves. We cleared out blues and soon more lucrative targets began to show up. We hit level 11 across the board which, among other things started to open up griffawns to us as potential targets.
A Griffawn attempts to escape us
So all that was well and good. And then I went back to Qeynos to buy spells.
I had not been thinking too much about money up to this point. I had enough for my spells previously.
This time around though, I got to the spell vendor and noticed quite a discrepancy between the prices of the spells I wanted to buy and the amount of money I had.
Not much money... or equipment... on Thrall
Spells were 1-2 plat, and Thrall didn’t even have two plat coins to rub together. And he had to pick up his level 10 and 11 spells.
Fortunately my bard, Tistann, had a bit more, maybe 5 plat total, so when he bought one new song, he handed the rest to Thrall who was able to at least buy a couple of key spells.
But in general, my simply selling to the vendor anything that drops off of mobs does not seem to be bringing in enough to pay the bills. So I need a plan to bring in a bit more money.
I looked at trade skills for a bit, having seen some people hawking their wares on the auction channel in various zones. But trade skills need some money invested in them before you can start turning a profit. Not having the seed money, that does not seem to be the path for me.
I will have to look around and see if there are any mobs out that that we should be hunting that are more lucrative than beetles, lions, and wolves in North Karana.
At level 11, the game had one suggestion.
I wonder if gnolls are well off enough to support my magic habit.
Any other ideas for money out in the Qeynos region?
I have to save up at least enough for Bind Affinity at level 12 so we can travel across Norrath without having to worry about dying and ending up back in Qeynos.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 
My stay in Norrath is now limited to the length of my month’s subscription. Last night I finally decided that although fun and nostalgic, the slow solo grind was not worth my time.
My decision was based on part of playing all night with my gnome — medding, nuking, and then medding again all for a measly 40 percent. I guess the experience wasn’t the breaking straw, but the fact that I plainly remember doing this 10 years ago — suddenly the game experiences all came flooding back. The sheer fact that it wasn’t fun and knowing that I had done it so many times so long ago broke my spirit.
I hope you continue to have fun; I wish I could wipe my memories of the game and start fresh, but alas that is not to be.
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Sorry to hear about that, poster above me. Why are you playing solo anyway? Group up for fun and profit!
Anyway, I had success at level 12 in unrest pulling trash from the yard. Good exp and cash! Also, you might take a break from leveling to do the newbie armor quests.
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I’m not quite sure why you have so little cash. My necro, who dinged 9 last night, has bought all his spells and has 37 plat left. I’ve made no special attempt to earn money with him – haven’t done any trading with players or hunted anything I wouldn’t normally hunt. All I’ve really done is concentrate on things that drop weapons, which always sell for good money at low levels, and made sure I loot prety much everything from every kill, and from any corpses others leave lying around as well.
Of course, you are now hunting in one of the best low-level moneymaking areas in the original game. North Karana teems with willowisps. Willowisps drop Greater Lightstones. Greater Lightstones sell to vendors for 3-4pp each, but at the gypsy camp in North Karana is a gypsy who will give you a Concordance of Research for every GLS you give her. You can then immediately sell the Concordance back to her for 8-9pp (depending on charisma).
Full details at http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/quest.html?quest=374
The other standard tips for makign money are:
always have your Charisma as high as possible
always sell to a vendor who cons AT LEAST “Indifferent” to you (you take a huge price hit for selling to anyone who likes you less than that)
always carry a “price check” item on you that you know the standard vendor price for (basically what your spell vendor in your guild will give you for it). I like to use a basic Lightstone. When selling to a new vendor, always check what they offer for that item. Vendors have another factor as well as Charisma and Faction that dictates their buying and selling prices and it can cost you a LOT. Just try it on that merchant that stands just inside the gateway into Qeynos from Qeynos Hills or Ping Fuzzlecutter outside West Freeport and you’ll see what I mean!
A decade ago I spent days going round scores of vendors in dozens of zones with a Lightstone, noting down the prices. I can still remember the ones that tried to rip me off!
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I remember we used to hunt Wisps for the chance drop of a Greater Lightstone which sold for about 1 plat at most vendors (or 9 gold if they didn’t care for your kind much)
The only trick is you need to use spells or have some kind of magic weapon to hit them. They were also more common in the Commonlands than in North Karana, but there are a few to be found in NK, if memory serves.
Huzzah!
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@Wilhelm, stick to “sentient” mobs. Gnolls in Blackburrow, or bandits. You get much more money off of them and their drops. Also, you will do better once you get a CHA buff and use it when you sell. I’ve been doing ok for money, and I’ve been almost exclusively 1)grouping and 2)fighting in dungeons or against bandits. Animals are crap for loot. Mostly.
@Troy, You really can only solo the game effectively if you are in progression with a mage, and even then you will do better in a group. Group, group, group.
@Beleg, On the progression servers at this point, the newbie armor quests are disabled. The combines don’t work. So that’s not an option.
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Ok, trying again…
I’m not quite sure why you have so little cash. My necro, who dinged 9 last night, has bought all his spells and has 37 plat left. I’ve made no special attempt to earn money with him – haven’t done any trading with players or hunted anything I wouldn’t normally hunt. All I’ve really done is concentrate on things that drop weapons, which always sell for good money at low levels, and made sure I loot prety much everything from every kill, and from any corpses others leave lying around as well. Blackburrow is stuffed full of rusty weapons – gnolls love ’em!
Of course, in North karana you are now hunting in one of the best low-level moneymaking areas in the original game. North Karana teems with willowisps. Willowisps drop Greater Lightstones. Greater Lightstones sell to vendors for 3-4pp each, but at the gypsy camp in North Karana is a gypsy who will give you a Concordance of Research for every GLS you give her. You can then immediately sell the Concordance back to her for 8-9pp (depending on charisma).
Full details at http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/quest.html?quest=374
The other standard tips for making money are:
always have your Charisma as high as possible
always sell to a vendor who cons AT LEAST “Indifferent” to you (you take a huge price hit for selling to anyone who likes you less than that)
always carry a “price check” item on you that you know the standard vendor price for (basically what your spell vendor in your guild will give you for it). I like to use a basic Lightstone. When selling to a new vendor, always check what they offer for that item. Vendors have another factor as well as Charisma and Faction that dictates their buying and selling prices and it can cost you a LOT. Just try it on that merchant that stands just inside the gateway into Qeynos from Qeynos Hills or Ping Fuzzlecutter outside West Freeport and you’ll see what I mean!
A decade ago I spent days going round scores of vendors in dozens of zones with a Lightstone, noting down the prices. I can still remember the ones that tried to rip me off!
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I’m not quite sure why you have so little cash. My necro, who dinged 9 last night, has bought all his spells and has 37 plat left. I’ve made no special attempt to earn money with him – haven’t done any trading with players or hunted anything I wouldn’t normally hunt. All I’ve really done is concentrate on things that drop weapons, which always sell for good money at low levels, and made sure I loot prety much everything from every kill, and from any corpses others leave lying around as well.
Of course, you are now hunting in one of the best low-level moneymaking areas in the original game. North Karana teems with willowisps. Willowisps drop Greater Lightstones. Greater Lightstones sell to vendors for 3-4pp each, but at the gypsy camp in North Karana is a gypsy who will give you a Concordance of Research for every GLS you give her. You can then immediately sell the Concordance back to her for 8-9pp (depending on charisma).
The other standard tips for making money are:
always have your Charisma as high as possible
always sell to a vendor who cons AT LEAST “Indifferent” to you (you take a huge price hit for selling to anyone who likes you less than that)
always carry a “price check” item on you that you know the standard vendor price for (basically what your spell vendor in your guild will give you for it). I like to use a basic Lightstone. When selling to a new vendor, always check what they offer for that item. Vendors have another factor as well as Charisma and Faction that dictates their buying and selling prices and it can cost you a LOT. Just try it on that merchant that stands just inside the gateway into Qeynos from Qeynos Hills or Ping Fuzzlecutter outside West Freeport and you’ll see what I mean!
A decade ago I spent days going round scores of vendors in dozens of zones with a Lightstone, noting down the prices. I can still remember the ones that tried to rip me off!
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@Bhagpuss – I applaud your persistence and thank you for your suggestions.
For next time though, when a comment has a link in it, I have to manually approve it. Usually I do that pretty quickly, but I happened to be out buying a new TV.
I’ll figure out which of your comments to remove once I figure out how to get the Bose unit to pass video from the DirecTV receiver through to the TV.
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Agreed – prefer sentient mobs and vendors you’ve decent rep with. Still, I haven’t gone to any great lengths, and my level 12 necro now has about 60 plat IIRC when I logged off last night. My Wizard and Enchanter are also never short of plat for spells. I don’t remember being this rich way back when.
Also are you sure everyone you’re grouping with is splitting plat? IME people still forget to turn this, and have to be reminded. But then I’m the sort who goes through all game options when I start off. Some people go with the default until a problem arises I guess.
I’m sorry to hear Troy won’t be continuing on the TLP servers, but EQ was never very solo friendly in terms of levelling speed. Not to say soloing can’t be fun, but it is a grindfest and I can understand not wanting to repeat that ten years later when you’ve a life outside gaming :-)
Anyway – I’d love to hear Troy in some more podcasts if he’s going to have spare time from next month on ;-)
OTOH there are always the regular EQ servers if you want a fast solo experience with good items dropping like crazy, and a tough as nails merc to watch your back. Even then I died a lot on the regular servers, so it’s no cakewalk. Higher level mobs still stalk low level zones and danger abounds :-)
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@Bhagpuss – I haven’t played on the new progression servers, but we never got that much plat for Great Lightstones back in the day – I was under the impression the progression servers were sticking to the original economics as much as possible. We only ever got 1.1 plat at favorable merchants for a GLS back in 2000. Generally 9 gold or so if they were dubious. I remember having the same problem as Wilhelm back then, as did all of my group mates. It wasn’t until our late teens early twenties where things started evening out cash-wise.
I did play a bit on the regular servers during free time last month and noticed that the mobs were dropping waaaay more plat than they used to 10 years ago in North Ro and Commonlands. And the vendors were giving out a lot more cash for the simple items I looted as well, leading me to believe there was a definite shift in economics during my 7+ year hiatus.
So, maybe you are thinking of the regular server economics? Just a thought.
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I was making a lot of money in N.Ro in groups, looting everything I could. Some items have the giant bugs stack and sell for 2gp a piece, and other items can go for 8gp each. That adds up real quick, and helped provide a seed for crafting. I think last I logged on I had around 55 plat and a bit over 100 smithing. But when my power-gamer guild hit 50 and disbanded, I lost a lot of desire to keep looking for groups.
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