New to EQ? Bored with EQ?

That said, is there any interest here in starting up a "no twink" guild
with all new characters, preferrably on a server that is new to everyone?
I know, I know, people have different ideas of what constitutes twinking,
so that would be up for discussion, but some of the few core rules might
include:

- No purchasing of weapons or armor
- No extravagant gifting of weapons, armor or items
- No farming beyond supporting your own tradeskills, faction or questing
- No inappropriate-level buffs

Wouldn't it be nice for many more of the mobs you kill to have the chance
to drop actual gear upgrades for you rather than what you now consider
vendor trash? This would be a great opportunity for like-minded people to
get together and maybe once again experience the satisfaction of obtaining
that Shiny Brass Shield or maybe a Forest Loop. It would also be a
fantastic environment for new players, providing them a more even playing
field. It would give us an opportunity to get out of the rut and re-visit
some old world content that some of us may never have even seen the first
time(s) around.

Naturally, it would be expected that most people would continue playing
their mains on other servers, so this would be considered an "alt"
endeavor, at least initially.

Anyone interested? Obviously this won't appeal at all to some people, so
it'd be cool if we could just forego any criticisms in favor of positive
dialog.

--
Rumble
"Write something worth reading, or do something worth writing."
-- Benjamin Franklin

I must say that this sounds like a great idea - I would be in this
guild in a shot if I hadn't quit EQ. (I even, briefly, thought about
coming back :-) )

steve.kaye

Basically I'm going to do all of that in Vanguard when it comes out.
(because vanguard wont have a bazaar or the stupid EQ economy and
mudflation)

I enjoyed EQ the most when I didn't have any expansions and no bazaar
gear. The first time I ever felt that EQ was "fucked up" was when I
spent ages trying to get a few pieces of my sol ro armour and then a
bard I knew bought me another piece in the bazaar, for 50pp.

If it wasn't for the fact that my playtime would be limited, I would jump
at this in a heartbeat. If you don't mind someone that would only get
played a couple of hours a week, count me in. My current character is only
level 5 or 6, so it would not be a chore or a problem to start over.

--
Marcel
http://mudbunny.blogspot.com/

The more the merrier. There's no reason everyone will need to level
together or anything. The point is to have a guild that tries to be self-
sufficient, helping each other and doing for themselves, rather than paying
plat to have someone else do for them.

Email me if interested (remove the "spamsux" from the address, of course).

I'd love to do this. Although I am a relative newbie, it sounds like fun.

~Deborah~

Bristlebane Server:
Kentigern Fyrebear - Level 38 / Barbarian / Shaman
Vaerity Trueheart - Level 29 / Gnome / Paladin

Aww, come on. You wouldn't even need to get current with the expansions
yet, necessarily. You already have the software. What have you got to lose
beyond the $15/mo.? This guild could really benefit from some experienced
players.

--

That's precisely the point. We can "un-fuck it up" where our own little
corner of Norrath is concerned. Personally, I feel that if we can get
enough people together who aren't so concerned with power-levelling and
getting all the cool gear asap, we can eliminate the majority of what
detracts from the game.

Come on, James. Give it a shot. The worst that can happen is you just
decide it's not for you. As I mentioned, this would be conducted, at
least initially, as a guild for alts and new players, so infrequent
playtime wouldn't be a problem. If the new players decide they want to
level faster, that will be ok. If they decide they want to level faster
and buy better gear, that will be ok too. We will wish them luck and
send them off to find a guild more suited to their preferences.

Oh, and for the record, I also plan to give Vanguard a serious look when
it is released, but that's still going to be a while yet.

Fantastic. You seem like just the kind of player that would help make
this work. I would hope we would attract many new players in addition to
longtime veterans.

Drop me an email (you'll need to un-munge it, of course). I'll be
compiling a list of those interested. Hopefully we'll very soon wind up
with more than enough to get this started. At that point, I'll make
arrangements for us all to get together and discuss some of the finer
points.

Email sent.

--
Marcel
http://mudbunny.blogspot.com/

>purchased gear where I can begin the fun part...

Actually, I'd like a Server with no Bazaar and PoK Stones, just to go
back to what it was like when I started :)

Palindrome

This is how I rolled up my last few alts. Its a lot of fun. They're 56
with 70+ AAs now (lots of AAs because there is no point in power
leveling past the gear they are wearing... and the AAs really help
compensate for the weaker gear allowing them to survive harder content.

They still run temp and c2 (i run a cleric 2nd, and i have like minded
friend who runs an enc). I've had KEI maybe 5 times total (I'm not going
to go out of my way to avoid an MGB...) Gearing up has been a blast ...I
had completed the SolRo armour for the SK minus one bracer (and had most
of the cleric peices too) My SK recently got a soulscream belt from
Veksar upgrading from the haste belt he got in The Deep... Picked up a
bunch of upgrades from the 5th anniversary 1-groupable fabled (did
Nurgan named, Drelzna, the Drake in Skyfire, Eldak, and many more).

Anyhow...at this point I'm not really interested in starting up all over
on a new server to do what I'm already doing. But if you happen to pick
the server I'm on I'd be happy group and/or guild with more like minded
people once you've caught up a bit in levels.

No rush though... that's the whole point :)

I'm in the middle ground where I haven't been playing long enough to
have burned out on original characters, so I don't really want to take
time away from them to try your idea, but it does sound interesting.
(My characters are "self-twinked" in that they've earned money to pay
for bazaar gear, but except for my more recent alts I've mostly not
gotten hand-me-downs from higher levels.)

Some fine points that you'll need to think about:

It's fine to say you won't pay for level-inappropriate buffs, but what
about free buffs? If someone passes through your newbie zone and gives
you SOW or a high-level DS, will you click it off? What if you had a
level-appropriate buff from a groupmate who's since camped, and a
passing stranger overwrites it with a higher level buff?

If you decide to work on, say, tailoring, and need some smithing or
brewing done to make some of the ingredients, do you have to do the
smithing/brewing yourself? That sort of defeats the point of it being
a multi-player game, so I assume you could at least have someone else
in the guild do those parts. But can you go out and hire someone to
do the combines if you provide the ingredients?

You don't need to write a legal contract covering these things, nor do
you even need to enforce them, or even be consistent about them, but
you should at least have some idea where you intend to draw the line
at interacting with the rest of the "massively multiplayer" part of
the game.

Good luck, and I hope you have fun! (That's the important part, after
all!)

-- Don.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
-- See the a.g.e/EQ1 FAQ at http://www.iCynic.com/~don/EQ/age.faq.htm
--
-- Sukrasisx, Monk 56 on E. Marr Note: If you reply by mail,
-- Terrwini, Druid 52 on E. Marr I'll get to it sooner if you
-- Wizbeau, Wizard 36 on E. Marr remove the "hyphen n s"
-- Teviron, Knight 21 on E. Marr

My thoughts exactly. At your level, I would consider those buffs quite
appropriate.

Our guild has initiated an "Old World Wednesday" event. On Wednesdays, you
play a character specially made for the event. No tutorial, travel by foot,
boat, or port, no twinking, no added charatcer races (Vah Shir, Iksar,
Froglok), Old World zones only.

Having said that, it might be nice to do that separate from my own guild and
server.

Count me in (for the initial conversation at least).

Crash

I certainly know what you mean. That *was*, however, the beginning of
the downward trend for me - when I started concentrating on amassing
wealth with which to buy gear that was far above my level.

Nah, no sense in being too strict about it. Drive-by buffs are a
wonderful thing. They're part of what's right about EQ, and I wouldn't
want to prevent that from occurring. I would be more concerned with
people making a point of seeking it out.

That also sounds reasonable. Naturally one would look to their
guildmates for assistance first. In the absence of that, however, I
would think one would try to avoid farming for plat with which to afford
purchasing of those services from others. Farm your own components,
sure, but avoiding taking the easy route to gaining plat (farming
anything purely for sale) would be one of the fundamental concepts.

Interacting with the rest of the populace would certainly be encouraged.
It's just the taking advantage of means by which one might accellerate
the development of their character beyond its level that would be
frowned upon. At level 20, I could group with anyone of similar level,
even those who are equipped with gear it would take a level 50+ raid
force to acquire. I just don't have to give in to the temptation of
chasing that high-level gear anytime too soon in doing so.

Few things would need to be necessarily written in stone. I don't
foresee specific stipulations being included in some sort of complex
guild charter and ruleset. I imagine it will be a simple set of
fundamental ideas that the initial leadership will agree upon and
regularly evaluate against the tendencies of the guild members. Any
perceived inconsistencies in this regard would certainly be discussed,
including the member in question. I would hope that anyone who may turn
out to be a bit too "progressive" (for lack of a better term) in their
approach to the game could part ways amicably manner and remain a friend
of the guild.

The fact of the matter is that I would hope that those interested in
joining the guild would be sufficiently informed in in complete
agreement with these core concepts before they ever make the commitment.

I'm looking forward to getting this started.

> Rumbledor <Rumb...@hotspamsuxmail.com> writes:

I don't think self-twinking should be allowed, dependng on how the plat is
gotten. Farming for money would not be allowed. However, should a higher
character drop a nice piece of equipment on you and you sell it, that
should be allowed. In City of Heroes, I quite freqently do drive-by gifting
to lower level heroes.

Receiving drive-bys are part of what makes a MMORPG great. Begging for
buffs would be, IMO, out of the question. Using one that happens to be
dropped on you out of the goodness of someone's heart is always allowed.
Hell, you ceould even pay someone to buff your team for you, as long as you
get the plat by "legit" means.

--
Marcel
http://mudbunny.blogspot.com/

http://www.eqemulator.net/main.php

Of course it's all pending further discussion, but that situation, I would
prefer the item be re-gifted to a guildmate or random passer-by who could
use it, rather than using it to generate an unusual amount of plat.

I agree, but would take it a step further and avoid seeking out buffs that
require a much higher level character than yourself to cast.

This would be the only way I would start EQ again.
I won't play during the summer but in September it sounds like fun
Email sent

.

As I feel somewhat responsible for this line of thought, I'll jump in.

My rules to begin with were basically that you could only buy items off
NPC vendors that were part of their regular stock. No extravagant gifting
from friends, alts, etc. That was pretty much it. So, lockpicks, bandages,
cloth armor, food, spells, HQ ore, shuriken, etc. For what it's worth,
I don't consider Tribute buffs to be twinking.

I did a bunch of quests, I camped mobs that dropped gear I wanted, it was
a blast. It helped quite a bit that I had a steady duoing partner who was
always willing to put up with whatever annoyingly rare camp I needed. I
suspect it also helped somewhat that I'm a lizard monk, and level-appropriate
monk gear is actually pretty lame until the end game :) Gear I really
enjoyed picking up along the way: Forest Loop, Fist of Bone, Iksar Berserker
Club, the Ykesha haste item (my first *ever* non-purchased haste item in
EQ!), Polished Steel Ulaks, and lastly, the amazingly uber Goblin Foreman's
Tunic!

The one place where this philosophy didn't work for me was tradeskilling.
I love tradeskilling. I don't sell much, or make much money, but I just
like making stuff. I know, however, from past experience, that getting to
high (or even medium!) levels of skill takes *ages* unless your INT or WIS
is minimally 150+. I had no intention of waiting until I was a level 50+
monk to get level-appropriate gear that would give me so much wisdom before
I even considered tradeskilling. So fairly early on, I bought a WIS suit
in the bazaar, eventually getting up to ~175 WIS by my mid 40's, which
made tailoring (and other skills) improve in a time frame that was acceptable.
Many of my WIS suit items were significantly better than my "regular" gear:
I just didn't worry about how much AC/HP/status I lost when I was done
tradeskilling.

As I did more tradeskilling, I also relaxed somewhat my strict vendor
policy. I figured I'd killed enough spiders that it really wasn't that
unreasonable to buy spider/spiderling silk off vendors when I found them.
Same for various pelts. My exception here was that if I could hunt the
critters that dropped the items, it wasn't that unreasonable to buy them
either. It wasn't an issue for me as a monk, but I'd hate to have had to
farm all the zillions of spell pages myself if I was an INT caster. Bleagh!

Another hole in the concept of "level-appropriate gear" has to do with
tradeskilled gear. For gear made from critter drops (black panther armor)
it seemed reasonable that if you can kill the critter, the gear must be
reasonable. For stuff made from vendor parts, it's a much tougher call.
I don't know what level velium diamond rings and robes of abrogation
are appropriate for, but I think 1 isn't it.

Anyway, my lizard monk is now my highest character ever (46), and I hope
to someday pick him back up when I return to the EQ1 world.

Food for thought!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Roger Bonzer | There's this guy. And he falls in a vat of
mino...@hurloon.net | radioactive chemicals and instead of getting
| superpowers like you'd expect, he just dies.
| -- Ronnie, Zot #31

The whole passing stranger thing happens infrequently enough to not
matter. This is especially true if you step off the beaten PL-track and
venture into zones etc where few people tread at all.

Getting the odd sow or temp or ds isn't going to somehow pervert the
experience. Its simply a non-issue.

I'm failing to see the issue here too. Ideally you do things yourself or
with like minded individuals (ie within the guild). If no one can do it
you go without... that's the point. Hiring some 70th level necro to do
your spell combines defeats the purpose. :)

Its true that everyone will approach these questions differently... even
like-minded people are rarely perfectly parallel. But there is a
distinction between ironman (accept no help from anybody) and simply
adopting a D-I-Y "philosophy".

Ineed.

Email sent.

I recently did basically this, restarted on a new server, knowing nobody and
armed only with half a decade worth of knowledge of the game.
It was really fun, and we stayed poor through the entire journey (no
excessive farming), so most of the items we found as drops are still
upgrades now at level 63.

I say "we" when I mean "I", that's the schizophrenia from multiboxing on the
roleplay server =)

Of course I didn't purposefully turn down outside help when offered, I
received many fine gifts and buffs from strangers and new friends, and was
always looking for good deals for my pennies in the bazaar.

Honestly, I don't think anyone has the will to do the "no twink" the way you
define it above in the long run. No buffs? No purchasing anything? How about
disallowing members to enter PoK, the bazaar or any newer zone too?

oh, well, I ramble and digress =)
/NZ

/raises hand.

56th and 70AAs and going strong. 100% of my gear was looted from the
mobs corpse after I helped killed it. 90% of my gear is no-drop.

So far in the bazaar the character has purchased: an essence emerald for
the VT key quest, some imbued/enchanted items (e.g. imbued black
pearls), and some foraged items. Oh and I hired a high level necro to
convert meat to bone chips because I needed some 8000 of them for
Greenmist faction.

While I've been hit by a few mgbs and a the very occasional random buff
I've never solicited them.

/shrug That might be fun for someone to try. But if that's your plan you
can forget about playing with *anybody* else. I don't care for that
idea.

I was afraid some may have read too much into that. I said no "level-
inappropriate" buffs, not no buffs at all. Even still, I'm sure it will
wind up a situation where drive-by Temp from a kindly passing player
will be just fine as well. It will be the venturing into PoK to actively
seek it out/solicit it that will be prohibited.

Since that post, I've also put more thought into the no purchasing of
weapons and armor idea as well. People are going to amass some amount of
coin from their adventuring. They will need something to spend it on.
The most important point is that we don't want people to adopt a
playstyle that is all about building wealth for gear upgrades.

Personally, I figure any coin I make during the normal course of
adventuring will be spent on spells, food and other provisions
(backpacks, tradeskill kits, bandages, etc.), tradeskill components and
the needs of my guildmates.

The purpose of this ruleset isn't to take us back to the old school way
of playing EQ pre-Kunark. It's to eliminate the factors that tend to
cause people to leapfrog content, to artificially develop their
characters through simple purchase.

Yup. I can remember not having 2pp to rub together. I would get the
occasional random buff, and the even less occasional gift from a higher
level player, but a) that gift was never anything as good as what a player
at that level can now readily afford in the Bazaar, and b) it was a way of
life for me. I didn't develop my playstyle around having extraordinary
gear, and therefore was very interested in all the placed I could go for my
attainable modest upgrades. I saw a lot more of Norrath then.

Me either. PoK and even the Bazaar can still have their purpose. They don't
have to be abused to be useful. Again, this isn't about taking away
conveniences so much as it is about staying off the fast track and enjoying
what you can achive on your own.

It basically boils down to whether or not you could buy into the philosophy
of looting/questing your gear as opposed to buying what someone else
looted/quested. That style of play isn't for everyone.

Part of why it's so easy to fall into the "buy upgrades" trap is that
it's actually hard to find level-appropriate things to spend money on
after a while. Those bandages, food, and so forth don't get any more
expensive as you level up, but you're making much more plat (including
selling vendor trash) from the mobs you kill. Tradeskill components
can of course consume an infinite amount of plat, and if you're a
caster the spells do get more expensive as you level, but I expect
you'll find you're accumulating plat and, as you say, it's reasonable
to expect you should spend it on something.

One thing you might consider allowing, with care, is purchasing level-
neutral gear, provided you can earn the money for it. E.g., it's
unlikely anyone in your guild will be making Leatherfoot Haversacks
for a while, given the tailoring skill needed. But if your accumulated
plat is enough to buy one in the Bazaar, you might allow that. I.e.,
for stuff that drops off mobs, or requires travel to certain zones, it's
easy to see what level you need to be for it to be level-appropriate,
but for things that really ARE obtained by paying another player to do
the work, you might define the appropriate level as being whatever level
you're at when you decide you've got the plat to spare. (I agree that
farming just to raise the plat is best avoided.)

Right now, I have a brand new troll shadowknight on Stromm (my only
character on the server). The whole point of this character is to
check out the new tutorial and lowbie armor quests. It has been great
fun starting literally from nothing and building the character from
scratch. Buying bazaar gear would run counter to the whole point of
this experiment, so I am mostly not doing it. What I cannot avoid is
"twinking" the character with my accumulated knowledge of the game,
including tradeskills.

So far, I have done a few things that are grey and probably some that
would be forbidden, under Rumbledor's rules. Perhaps they will serve
as starting points for discussion. :) Most of my gear is from the
tutorial. (By the way, the No Drop tutorial gear is *quite* nice, if
you are starting untwinked!) I exited the tutorial twice to hunt some
mobs with decent vendorable drops, while they were still blue (so far,
I have drawn a line at farming greens purely for cash). Again, I
decided to avoid using any bazaar-buyable gear, at least until I see
how the gear from the new quests turns out. I gave in to four moments
of weakness. I bought an Opal Encrusted Stein in the bazaar, because
not even troll vendors will give a troll good prices. This is a
tradeskill product, not a monster drop, and does not require any
monster drops to make. On the other hand, someone at my current level
would simply not have the resources to have a skill high enough to make
it. I found a Shiv (5/22 piercer) and a Netherbian Chitin (AC 20 plate
BP) on sale on NPC vendors that I happened across (skilling up smithing
to sharpen a rusty weapon for an upgrade!). These sell *very* cheaply
from vendors (<1 and ~6 plat respectively). I love these kinds of
"lucky breaks", so I bought them. I also found a Great Reptile Tooth
that someone had sold to a vendor! My finely honed bazaar trader
instincts would not allow me to pass that up for only ~18 plat, even
though that wiped out my savings. I thought about selling it in the
bazaar for a small fortune in cash, and I somehow managed to leave it
in my bank, for now. I am almost done with the tutorial, and I have
found a better weapon than the Shiv, but the quested breastplate is
inferior to the Netherbian Chitin, for those keeping score at home.
After I leave the tutorial, funds permitting, I'm considering learning
some more smithing to create banded armor. This would be an upgrade
over the cloth and burlap that I'm wearing now in many slots. If I
were a leather or silk class, I might have been looking into tailoring
instead.

So, it is inevitable that adventuring will cause your bank balance to
grow. You just won't spend it all on spells, disciplines or spell
reagents, and not everyone will choose to do tradeskills. Here's the
question. If you do allow purchase of items, will this mean that, even
within your new guild, banded and studded leather armor will be
obsolete?

What about the journeyman/expert DON armors? If I were twinking a new
alt, I wouldn't even consider journeyman DON armor, due to much better
bazaar alternatives. For those keeping score at home, the journeyman
DON breastplate has better AC than the Netherbian Chitin, which can be
had by killing a level ~25 named. A large downside to journeyman DON
smithing is the expense of the components (10.5 plat investment in the
hammer, ~18plat for the cultural metal for one attempt, plus a rare
farmed component). I would probably have to charge around 20 to 35
plat per piece, just to cover the cost of failures, once I had
completely trivialed banded armor.

If I could get a queue of guildies lining up for me to make them banded
armor, I might just join this new guild. :)

That's how I'd do it. Getting the odd drive by buff doesn't really
pervert the experience at all. Its a nice little temporary boost... like
the doublexp buff, the jester, etc...

As someone who's been doing this for a while I feel qualified to
comment...my biggest and really only signficant expenses are mounts, and
as an SK I have some non-trivial epic & spell quest cash requirements
(life leech and epic quest for SK both need 3k in straight cash as part
of the quest). I've also had to shell out for gems from time to time for
various reasons. However, you do not go broke, and gradually amass a
signficant fortune... by the time I shelled out for life-leech it was a
very small dent in my pile-o-plat.

So I don't worry about money, I have plenty of plat to fund coffins, and
what not other daily espenses. Once I've got my cleric a better horse, I
figure I'll save for a pre-nerf circlet of shadow or something. Its not
available in the game except for the bazaar so I feel its a legitimate
cash sink for me... and besides its not like i need anything else.

Other than that... tribute maybe? (although I've learned of several high
tribute items that are far more efficient to farm) And since I don't
bazaar sell either I dump a fair number of items that are useless to me
into tribute that would have gone for several k or more in the bazaar.

I'm sure I'll amass cash ever faster as I gain levels.

That was my objective. And while someone could go for a more extreme
old-world-only ruleset I do like being able to interact with the rest of
the playerbase on fairly equal footing.

At the stage my alts are at I'm well behind the alt-ubertwinks but well
ahead of most newer/casual players with 60th level mains in just bazaar
gear and on par or ahead of most "budget alt-twinks" too. If someone
tried to kit out someone in bazaar gear as good as mine they'd be
spending at least a couple hundred k. Of course, there are *plenty* of
people who can and do do just that and more...I know of 3rd level monks
with more hp than me... :)

But I hold my own comfortably when in a group. And I like it like that.

Heh... you could always fund an alt outside of the guild, lol.

Or just buy the equivalent from that gnome in SolA. Of course, in my
case I don't have them. I don't need them. I have enough WR bags that
I'm not overburdened... beyond that big deal.

A monk might really care... but a smart monk won't want more than one
anyway, and can probably make do with a rallic pack, EE bag, or
something until haversacks are available. :)

Paying even for "level appropriate gear" undermines the point. If its
truly level approrpriate go get it yourself. :)

Your little experiment sounds quite consistent to what we're trying to
accomplish.

I find it hard to twink with my knowledge of the game, but extremely
easy to twink with hand-me-downs, farmed plat and buying stuff in the
Bazaar. The whole point of this guild isn't just to start from scratch
and then go back to doing what resulted in being over-geared every other
time, but to start from scratch and earn as much of your gear as
possible. If I look at a purchase I made in the Bazaar and consider it a
"moment of weakness" or something I "broke down and bought", then I've
taken a shortcut. That's what I intend to avoid. I plan to use that
rusty sword until something I kill drops something better, not until I
can scratch together enough money to buy something I've really got no
business having at that level. Heck, I might even take up smithing and
work on it until I can *make* something better. There are plenty of
possibilities even when you rule out upgrading in the Bazaar.

We plan to *strongly* discourage any sort of farming unless it's
tradeskill/quest related.

So at what, level 8, you were using a piece of armor that drops off a
level ~25 mob. That's the kind of imbalance we will strive to avoid.

This is a problem we intent to discuss and work out. Playing the market,
in my mind, should be prohibited in this guild. If we do decided to
allow Bazaar purchases, I will suggest that doing so merely to turn a
profit on a great deal be prohibited.

I really don't know anything about the DoN armors. Are they
accessible/appropriate for lower level players?

I can assure you that in this guild, as I envision it, banded armor
would be desired. However, doing so with the intent to pad your bank
account would only compound the problem of having a bunch of coin and
nothing to spend it on.

I should note that the list of rules I provided was abbreviated, meant
as a list of examples and quite open for debate. I plan to have a
meeting beforehand to settle on the particulars. Fact is, I really don't
want any sort of situation where people have to be monitored or they are
only allowed a certain number of purchases or anything restrictive like
that. What I would much rather see is everyone in the guild buying into
the core philosophy and being dedicated to it on their own. Expectations
will be clearly spelled out. I don't know why anyone would sign on for
this without having similar desires.

Random buffs of generosity are a small but significant part of what
makes EQ great. I would never push to eliminate that. It's one of the
biggest beefs I had with EQ2.

I kind of figured that as well. At some point I may check my bank acount
and see 50kpp there. So? Who says I have to spend it just because it's
there? I get little satisfaction from buying gear. I'd *much* prefer to
earn it myself.

Thanks for the tips. If you could drop me an email, I'd appreciate it. I
might need to pick your brain on occasion as far as dealing with some of
these issues goes.

< snip >

Exactly.

That much at least is unlikely. The quested newbie armour trumps banded
iirc. :)

Indeed, by happy circumstance it does. That's why I'm paying attention
to what you're saying. :)

What I mean is, I know things that let me be more efficient. Instead
of hunting in, say, Nek Forest, I know the newbie yard in Qeynos has
mobs *blue to a level 4* that regularly drop items that vendor very
well, for the level. Even besides the occasional >1plat rat tail, you
can get stackable drops that sell for ~2 gold each. That's a lot of
money, at that level. I've used it on several alts to be able to
afford vendor-bought backpacks early. I know where to go to get the
Iksar Berserker Club, for example, which is an extremely good weapon
(7/18 ! ) for the stage in the game at which you can kill for it.
These things put you ahead of someone who, say, just kills in their
race's newbie zone then wanders over to the next one and blithely sees
what's there. I'm sure you can do the same things.

I understand. That's why I hope I was clear that this was an
independent, although similar, experience. I'm not claiming to be your
advance scouting party. :)

What about hunting for a specific drop? What about preferring to hunt
mobs that you know drop better loot? Would you refuse to hunt hill
giants with a level appropriate group? I see this guild doing lots of
targeted hunting. I'd bet you're going to have regular raids on Unrest
in your 20's, for example, to get upgrades. Your magician will be
begging you to hunt in Najena for the focus item drops. The list goes
on. :)

I'm saying that I know *level-appropriate* ways to make relatively
decent money. I'm not sure how that, in itself, runs counter to your
goals. What I think we're exploring right now is what you would
consider appropriate ways to spend that money. I think we agree that
buying a drop from a mob many levels above you runs counter to your
goals.

Yes, I agree. This runs counter to what you are trying to achieve.
Heck, it runs counter to what I am trying to do, too. I admitted to a
moment of weakness. :)

It seems to me that the evil is not so much in making money but in how
easy it is to "abuse" it in the bazaar. Personally, I sometimes enjoy
playing the market - it can be a game unto itself, and it works because
I *know* something. I could as easily be reselling spiderling silk,
which anyone can acquire. Then I turn around and buy a drop from a
critter 15 levels above me, and there the problem happens, to my way of
thinking. I would like to hear your perspective. Certainly, it is
easier to avoid temptation by not amassing lots of money in the first
place, and this may be your point. Again, the money required for your
basic needs (food, spells, etc.) is quite modest. A question now being
adressed is, is there any point in having more? If I wanted to be
provocative, I might argue that having unspendable money is also a
busted economy. :)

The quest to get started on the basic armor can be done in the mid
teens. The journeyman (lowest level) armor combines have trivials
around 120-140, and they are required level 15, recommended level 20.
This is fairly daunting tradeskill range for a low level character to
achieve, but possible. The quest for the journeyman level
augmentations requires about level 20 or 25 and the augs take
jewelcraft around 60 to make reliably. The gear is decent for the
level. Honestly, I haven't checked thoroughly how it stands up against
what else you can "honestly" hunt at that level. Certainly, it isn't
bad gear. It is at least competitive with or better than the old
newbie quest armors, in terms of stats, and the AC is better. The
expert gear is required 35, recommended 40 with trivials in the 180-220
range. This would be fairly difficult for a level 40 to achieve.
Remember we're talking about smithing and tailoring here, not brewing.
:) A level appropriate character, dedicated to the appropriate
tradeskill, could probably attempt the combines with a decent, but far
from certain chance of success. If you want this gear, you will need
some serious (for the level) money and/or component farming to fund
your tradeskilling. Is this a bad thing? A downside for the guild
would be that the DoN cultural armor is race-specific. My hypothetical
troll SK/smith could make nice armor for a troll shaman or troll
warrior, but the dwarf would have to settle for banded.

Oh, I wouldn't mind making it for guildies at cost, or thereabouts.
What would get me excited is actually making something that someone
would wear before having a tradeskill over 250. :) I can't think of a
single thing fitting that description since my first character made a
10% WR backpack, and raising tradeskills involves a LOT of successful
combines... Wait, I take that back - I did eat some long-since-trivial
baking foods as novelty items. I also used some Wu's armor to twink a
new beastlord, which lasted until about level 10. :) Working under
constraints like this would be a paradise for a tradeskiller. I
suggest that's a good thing, at least for tradeskills.

Indeed. Looting, rather than buying, upgrades is more fun. My main's
most treasured pieces are the ones he looted, and they aren't
necessarily the best pieces.

I'm equally sure nobody is suggesting they play with a philosophy of
"only use knowledge this *character* has personally acquired".

Personally I doubt it. There aren't likely to be enough members playing
at the same time at the same level to really be mounting lowbie raids.
As cool as such a thing might be.

I don't see it running counter to anybody's goals at all. If you want to
be rich, get rich, buy a horse ... whatever.

the way i'd see it... don't spend the money on what other players are
selling in the bazzaar or elsewhere... and by extension avoid spending
the money on stuff other players have dumped on npc merchants. In
essense... avoid the "screwed-up" player economy, as much as possible.

Outside of that spending is fair game.

Welcome to EQ. The economy is busted. That's a reality. Many raiders
have oodles of cash and literally nothing to spend it on. At one piont
in EQs history plat lost all value at the end game... several pieces of
gear were negotiated primarily by trade. Most tradeskills were
essentially pointless, the npc vendors sold nothing of value, and the
players who had items of value already had tons of plat and nothing to
spend it on... the last thing they needed was more plat.

SOE has added enough plat sinks into the game to mitigate that
somewhat... but i think the main reason you don't see a lot of items
being negotiated for trade is that the truly good stuff is all no drop
anyways.

I disagree. I'd say its reasonably easy. Going much beyond that though
requires higher level drops... and lots of them :)

Heh... you haven't really thought this through yet have ya? :)

See below.

You'd think that but your only looking at it from YOUR perspective. Look
at it from the perspective of thsoe you are selling too... wait for
it... wait for it... DOH! Do you see it yet? You just undermined the
whole reason they joined the guild.

I know it seems draconian but the rule almost has to be: players cannot
buy gear from other players even within the guild. (Along with strict
grouping and assistance restrictions between higher and lower level
players. A bard at 15th level can finish his solro armour with a pair of
40ths beside him after all... of course he won't have to do even that if
he's buying acrylia gear from someone else anyways.

Yay for personal accomplishment!)

The only exception might be to establish some pools of tradeskill gear,
spell research components, etc that players can donate to and draw upon
if they are of suitable level to get the items themselves. Let the
enchanters, necros mages etc trade pages and runes etc ...

I'd also *consider* allowing certain quest drops to be looted and held
for other members on a case by case basis... lambent stones are needed
for each piece of the bard solro armour for example...i feel the quest
was designed with the theory that the bard's guild would be keeping them
for him... they drop rarely enough that it would be foolish to sell one
to an npc merchant while a bard is actively seeking them.. I'd stipulate
that the bard would have to be involved in at least one legitimate kill
of a hill giant or griffon per stone that he takes. But I'd probably
leave it to the honor system that he actually do it... players who cheat
the philosophy are only cheating themselves.

If they cheat themselves enough to impact the rest of guild enjoyment of
the concept though then invite them to leave.

Its like taking an oath of poverty. If you take the oath and then look
for ways to work the system to sneak cash to yourself you're missing the
point. If you -want- to work the system and get rich then you weren't
really interested in the whole oath of poverty thing, and had no
business taking it.

All that said I think the hardest thing this guild would have to learn
to deal with is that the 45th level guy coming home from a trip to guk
with a backpack full of fine steel is going to sell it. He is not going
to offer it to the poor souls still wielding rusty and bronze. He can
tell them where to find the IBC or whatever, but he wont give them
his... even when he outgrows it. He's not being an ass though. The lower
level players should actively not want it from him. If they've bought
into the concept then they don't want his. They want to go and kill
skeletons in Kurns and get their own.

Ditto the minute a cleric his 40 and gets Temperance. He'll use it on
his group mates, and maybe the odd time cast it on someone else in
passing. But he won't offer it up, and lower level players won't ask for
it. Ditto KEI, V, and so forth as the guild members reach those
milestones. If your grouping with the guy he buffs you... if you not ...
be prepared to do without... given the new elixirs, and tribute this
isn't even that much of a sacrifice.

That's the whole reason they created these characters, after all, wasn't
it? To discover the joy of doing things on your own gear under your own
power, to gain the sense of accomplishment that comes by pulling
yourself up by your own boot straps...

If your just going to wear another guildies hand-me-downs, castoffs, and
stuff that they crafted or found but have no use for while wandering
around at 25th buffed to the hilt by the guild ubers ... what exactly
was the point of this guild again?

I thought it was to avoid the screwed up EQ economy... not recreate it.

;)

Ok, email sent :) I see no harm in trying it on.

Should be very interesting to see how playing a non-twink tank in
today's EQ will go. I'm thinking very, very badly after the first few
levels.

cheers,
James

James Hicks wrote:

I don't see why it should go very very badly. You should still be able
to tank against level appropriate mobs whereas twinks can tank against
things that they shouldn't really be able to handle. A problem could
arise if you group outside of the guild because their expectations will
be that you can handle the mobs that they see as level appropriate.

The path to uberness *will* be much longer without the shortcuts which
twinking allows but the path does go all the way there for those that
are determined enough. (Of course when you get there you'll find that
it moved and left another path for you to follow)

steve.kaye

Oh. Heh. Then I stand corrected.

I get that, but that's where the whole buying into the idea comes in.
Honestly, if one is unable to avoid approaching the game strictly from a
perspective of amassing wealth with which to buy better and better gear,
then this is likely not the guild for them. That said, your example of
the Iksar Berserker Club, or any item for that matter, would be
perfectly acceptible as long as the player obtained it themselves rather
than by purchase.

All good points. I don't feel hunting for a specific drop is comparable
to farming, if that's the comparision you were making. Camping a drop is
a basic part of EQ, and if someone needs to do so to obtain a particular
item, then I would hope there would be guildmates there to help.

The idea of hunting hill giants does pose an interesting point though.
Imagine if their loot table were suddenly changed, causing them to drop
no more than several gold. Would people still choose to hunt them? I'm
guessing not. Well, maybe for some fine steel weapons or something. The
point is, this guild should embrace the idea that money is not the be
all end all of EQ. In fact, what wealth may collect in one's bank
account doesn't necessarily have to burn a hole in their pocket. They
don't have to just run out and spend it, do they? That would run counter
to what they joined the guild for in the first place.

I'm sure no one will be perfect in this regard, but I will try to make
it perfectly clear up front what we are trying to achieve.

Valid points. As I mentioned, maybe the real challenge will be to adopt
a mindset that doesn't care how much money is in the bank. So what if
you wind up level 50 with 30k amassed? Maybe you could splurge and buy a
mount or something. It doesn't have to be spent at all.

No, as I mentioned, farming for tradeskill components would be fine. As
a matter of fact, it might be a good idea to discourage the purchase of
even tradeskill components, as it does go against the idea of doing for
yourself.

I agree, though I would mention, as pointed out to me elsewhere, that
banded apparently pales in comparison to the newbie armor these days. :/

So what are ye waitin fer? Come on aboard. ;)

Well, yes and no. I really don't expect everyone to practice ever
tradeskill in order to be able to obtain a tradeskilled item. What I
*might* expect would be for the guild to support its tradesfolk
internally, and for those tradesfolk to get their components through
their own efforts or those of their guildmates exclusively. Certainly,
this should only occur "within reason" and likely exercising the honor
system. Maybe we could impose a guideline that discourages the use of
any crafted items that trivial at more than 5x the player's level or
something. That just might work...

Very good idea. Something that normally occurs in any guild.

I think that would just be chalked up to, if they could have obtained it
themselves, then they can have it. No lambent stones for a level 10
bard, though. ;)

Precisely.

That's approaching the perfect world scenario, and I don't know how
close we'll come to that, but I agree.

Hope you don't mind me quoting you in the kick-off meeting. :P

< snip >

Nah. We'll all be poverty stricken together. ;)

Welcome aboard.

>what are the chances of that EQemulator coming back?..that might be a
>good place to play. I never even knew it existed until people posted it
>was taken down so i don't know that much about it, or if it's even
>feasible. Heck if it's easy enough to do I would dedicate a comp and set
>it up for the people who wanted the old world.

Never looked into it, but sounds interesting.

Palindrome

You're probably right. Nevertheless, I stand by my prediction of
targeted hunting. I *want* those Dwarven Work Boots, durnit! Who's
coming with me?

That sounds like it summarizes the philosophy fairly well.

Alert the media. :)

> ...

I want to come back to this idea.

Let me get back to you in a day or two, after I try this out. I know I
can get to 120-ish smithing on only vendor bought stuff, maybe higher.
What makes me doubt the ease of doing this is the limited ability to
raise cash at lower levels and what those vendor-bought materials cost.
I think the banded combines cost on the order of a plat each (or
more), and that is a lot of money at level 10. You get much of that
back, if you resell to a vendor, but failures will be costly. After
that, you'd definitely want to be farming lots of fine steel for ornate
chain, and you won't get that at level 20.

Apparently not.

Ow. I understand your point. Let me try to wrestle with this a bit,
at least as an academic exercise. Losing out on a tradeskill economy
bothers me. :( I can imagine a few trading scenarios that don't seem
too bad. Poke holes in them, if you can. :)

I'm a smith. I'm working hard to raise my smithing, and I suddenly
need lots of leather padding for fine plate. I'm not really interested
in tailoring. I go farm up lots of pelts and spiderling silks. I go
to my buddy in the guild who is an accomplished tailor. "Hey, could
you please turn these components into leather padding for me?" There
might or might not be a fee for this service. Perhaps I bring him a
few stacks of silk or something.

I hate doing tradeskills. Passionately. However, I really crave some
LDON plate armor. I'm going to go on several LDON runs and collect the
ingredients needed for the tempers. Then, I will go buy the
ingredients needed for a combine or three, or kill for any that require
drops. I then look up the guild smith and ask him to press Combine for
me. Again, perhaps there is a fee. Perhaps I donate a few extra
materials for tempers so he can attempt more skillups.

I am said guild smith, working on LDON plate. I know my skills are
developed beyond those of most others. I also know that all this LDON
plate I'm making to skill up on is desired by other people. I want to
sell my LDON plate in the bazaar. I will use the proceeds to buy more
stuff from vendors to skill up further.

We've been on a long crawl through Lower Guk, camping upgrades for
everyone. Over the course of the camp, the drops have magically failed
to adjust themselves to just what everyone needs. It all gets sorted
out, but there is one more Ykesha sword lying around than the melees
can possibly use. The magician takes it and offers to trade it to his
friend, the ranger, in return for a drop from Najena that he needs for
focus gear.

I am a master smith and a plate tank. I can craft Bazu armor. Can I
trade a piece to a shaman in return for him crafting me a spiffier
augment?

I am an enchanter. I can create mana vials. A guildie tailor, a
druid, comes up to me and asks for help getting them. I tell him to
roll his own $%#@ chanter alt to make them or get booted from the
guild. :)

The thought of raising research skill without any vendor diving makes
me shudder..

Forget that! I'll BUY it from him, at whatever the vendor is offering!
Do you how much fine steel I need to skill up smithing? :) Assume
that I'm capable of killing for it myself. But I've been stuck at the
$@%* forge all day...

This is actually much easier for me to take. :)

I understand. Is there any point, consistent with this philosophy, at
which you can say - you've invested the effort, but in a different,
acceptable way? Certainly, farming hill giants to buy the Sword of
Pwning that drops from critters 15 levels higher is not kosher.
Remember that we're talking about a guild here, not a "lone ranger".
Can we do anything for each other besides fight at each others' sides?

Yes. Are there aspects of the economy that are NOT screwed up? Are
there player to player trades that do not cause these problems?

Tradeskills are a bit of an odd duck. Anyone can go up to 200 skill,
and we're primarily talking about the lower skill levels (e.g. banded
armor) that, theoretically, anyone could acquire. Is there room for
allowing specialization within the guild that would not lead to economy
problems? On the other hand, tradeskills also allow almost an end run
around content. The way to get the Uber Sword "should" be to kill the
Nasty Monster. Does crafted gear take away from that?

Count me in. ;)

That sounds feasible. Though I'm still kicking around the idea of a
item_combine_trivial < level * 5 policy for buying crafted items.

This is exactly how I would hope to see it work. Also, I would never
charge a guildmate to do a simple combine, or several, for them.

Again, sounds right. No fee.

Honestly, I've also kicked around the idea of discouraging Bazaar
selling as well as buying. We will likely be amassing plenty of coin in
the course of our adventuring. Is there a reason for skilling up in a
tradeskill faster than that money supply can provide? Wouldn't there
come a point where you would be making gear that is level-inappropriate
for lower level characters? I would question the need to put such a huge
effort into skilling up.

If absolutely no one can use it, roll on it and sell it on a vendor. As
I've said before, the money will be there when you need it down the
road. It doesn't have to be turned into something right now. I don't see
any reason to be opportunistic about it. If you need the drop from
Najena, get some people and go hunt in Najena. This is another mentality
that will take some getting used to. It will also be tested for
adjustment over time.

If the items are appropriate for you, then I don't see why not.

That's not what has been suggested at all. We would be quite concerned
with helping each other in their own efforts.

In a giddy sort of way, I hope. :P

Again, why would you be putting so much effort into your trade? Let it
improve as you adventure. Perhaps this isn't the best place for people
who are so ambitious where tradeskills are concerned. :/

Assuming his group mates are all of similar level, why not? That's what
it's for, right? Same with KEI and others.

I hope I've answered that adequately.

Sure. The ones that do not artificially develop a character by providing
them a loophole through which they can obtain items that a character of
their level should not be able to acquire on their own.

(item_combine_trivial < level * 5) is sounding better and beter...

I gotta wait til L5 before I can wear Patchwork? I'll be slaughtered!!!
:)

If you make the gear yourself, from mob drops you killed yourself, from
vendor-sold ingredients you bought yourself, it *must* be level appropriate,
by definition.

If you're making the gear for someone else, the trivial level limit is
probably reasonable, although it'll really highlight how much Opal Encrusted
Steins have trivialized shopping :)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Roger Bonzer | There's this guy. And he falls in a vat of
mino...@hurloon.net | radioactive chemicals and instead of getting
| superpowers like you'd expect, he just dies.
| -- Ronnie, Zot #31

Lol! I doubt any of us will spend too much time at level 5 what with the
new tutorial and all. ;)

Good point. Self-crafted items would always be appropriate. It would be the
obtaining of the tradeskill components that would be restricted.

It is not at all clear to me that tradeskills are actually balanced
that way. Banded armor and reinforced leather have trivials close to
100. Are they appropriate for level 20 characters? I can get the
drops that I need earlier than that, for the leather (HQ pelts). I
started playing only around PoP. What was the average level to wear
banded armor "back in the day" (pre-Kunark)? For a tradeskiller, it
seems reasonable to say, if you can get the materials yourself, you can
make it. For the non-tradeskillers, it is less obvious. Happily,
there is very little wearable crafted gear that does not require a drop
of some kind. Jewelcraft is the obvious exception (although it
requires a certain level of enchanter to create), and armorsmithing can
only be done up to banded, using only vendor bought stuff. Well, I
guess you can buy ornate chain supplies from vendors, but that gets
expensive REAL fast - it's better to farm fine steel.

For another example, my level 60 main is working on studded acrylia
armor, which trivals at 188 tailoring. A level 38 character would have
a tough time gathering the needed materials. I think it could be done,
especially if you just want a small number of pieces, and you don't
mind failing a lot until you get it. But for skilling up, my main has
done far more than a hundred combines (I don't have my records handy),
and he's not finished yet. At the rate a level 38 could acquire the
materials, I think I would go insane. I already never want to see
another grimling again. For what it's worth, my main typically hunts
in Acrylia Caverns, fills up his bags with acrylia and vendor loot, and
sells the loot. That usually generates just enough money to buy just
enough of the needed hopper hides in the Bazaar. This gives me an
average of one skillup for each 2-3 hour solo run. I need around 20
skillups to reach 188 from the last thing I gained skill on. The
effort required for an untwinked level 38 to accomplish this ... are
there guildies anywhere that giving of their time? :) (to be fair, a
level 38 would NOT hunt in AC, but elsewhere, perhaps DSP or Tenebrous)

In summary, raising tradeskills is already somewhat limited by what you
can reasonably attain at your level. If you insist on no bazaar
purchases, I'm not sure that the level=trivial/5 rule holds up in
practice.

That sounds reasonable. As the crafter, I would expect all materials
to be provided. Even if everything is vendor-bought, there seems a
qualitative difference between "here's all the stuff you need" and
"here's 50 plat".

Ask me again after I've actually tried this. :) It requires lots and
lots of combines to get a skillup, under the EQ model of tradeskills.
It is not immediately obvious to me how much pain or expense is
required to keep the skill raised to make level-appropriate gear. I
define level-appropriate tradeskilled gear as: you can hunt the drops
yourself from non-green mobs.

I'll admit, this seems the least defensible to me of all the ones I put
forth.

So the payoff for being the mage on a Guk run is that your guildies
will turn around and go with you on a Najena run tomorrow? That sounds
fair.

Even if the druid was also a halfling? :P How about gnomes, can I punt
them? :)

Seriously, I'm glad this passes the test. I suppose the right way to
do this is have the tailor furnish the components and have the
enchanter just cast the spell (i.e. hit "combine" in his own unique
way).

I'm not going to join this outfit as an INT caster. I know my
limitations! :)