Tradeskilling is becoming an increasingly broad part of playing Everquest, with quests and Epic rewards.

How do you get started? The first step is to become an artisan. Hailing people around the tradeskill areas will generally do the trick but if you want to be sure, find someone with a title of Crafting Trainer. They will start you off as a level two artisan with a copy of Artisan Essentials Volume 2.

Then you should speak to a tradeskill delegate and get started on the tutorial. It’s not only a useful primer in crafting, it also awards large amounts of experience for very little effort! The delegates have a title of “Tradeskill Tutorial” to make sure that you can’t miss them.

Take a look at the Ultimate Tradeskill Tutorial Tutorial for everything you need to know to get to level 10 in record time.

At level 9 and level 19, you will have to speak to a Crafting Trainer to progress your craft by choosing a specialization.

If you change your mind about a specialization, you should speak to a Tradeskill Career Counsellor who will reset you to Artisan level 9. This means you lose all levels and the recipes you gained after level 9 in order to allow you to choose new specializations. You can then go directly to a Crafting Trainer who will give you level 10 in the profession of your choice.

Details for these NPCs in the tradeskill areas is listed per starting city:

• Freeport
• Gorowyn in Timorous Deep
• Kelethin
• Neriak
• Qeynos

Posted by Taymar on http://proof.mmorpg-info.org.

Tradeskillers used to be known for their pasty white skin and obsessive discussions about reactives and balance. Domino’s arrival on the scene as the new “tradeskill Dev” changed all that with new quest lines and tradeskill epics tempting the tradeskillers out into the open air and … well, not quite adventuring, perhaps, but not far off!

One of the latest additions has been red shinies: collections that are only visible to Master tradeskillers wearing the Earring of the Solstice, part of the tradeskill epic reward. There are six collections, all of which are accessible at low adventure level, although collecting the items is much much easier if you don’t have to dodge the mobs. Each collection rewards a one-of-a-kind furniture item.

The red shinies are simply ?’s to be gathered, like the standard collections seen in adventure zones, except you must be wearing your Earring of the Solstice in order to see them and the shiny / glowy color around them is red.

Before you start, make sure that your Particle Level of Detail is set to max (Particle Effects can be found under Options → Display) so that you can see the ?’s from as far away as possible.

The collection pieces are lore so you can’t stock up on them. However, you don’t have to take collection items you don’t need - if you choose not to loot the item, the ? will fade in two minutes and a new one will appear in a separate location. However, if you are actively hunting for shinies it is faster to clear them.

You can use Gnomish Divining Rods (made by tinkers) to lead you to the location of a shiny near you although you can’t tell if the node is a standard one or a red tradeskill shiny; the tracking display simply shows a ?. However, as you need to have your Earring of the Solstice equipped for the red shinies to show up on the tracking window, you can check the ?’s that show up by unequipping the earring and seeing which ?’s disappear.

You will find these collections in your journal alphabetically under “Tradeskill:”, below the various Tome collections.

Locations

There is one collection per zone, in the following zones: Down Below and Thieves Way, Enchanted Lands, Barren Sky, Fens of Nathsar, Loping Plains, and Steamfont. [More...]

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The macro system in EQ2 is very simple to use and can save you a lot of hotkey space. Your macros are on a tab on your socials window. The default way to bring up this window is by pressing the letter “o” and you can create and edit your macros directly in the window. You can also turn any ability or spell hotkey into a macro simply by right-clicking on the hotkey and choosing the “create macro” option. That ability will now be the first step in your macro and you can add various other functions. [More...]

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One of the things that has amazed me with Paxmar is how much money she is earning by selling low level collection items and harvests. I usually store all these things on mules (unplayed characters, generated only for storage space) but as Paxmar isn’t to be twinked, I don’t see why she should help support my twinkers. So if she can’t use something, she drops it straight onto the bazaar at the going rate. Admittedly, she probably spends a lot more time collecting and harvesting than the average player and the lower tiers are probably least represented. But still, from these sales, she’s already got a plat of her own money and she’s only level 10!

It takes some time to complete low-level collections but there are some clear hotspots that can help you on your way and you’ll get lots of extras that you can sell on for a profit … or hand to your alts, collections being the best power-levelling system in the game. [More...]

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I was in a group with a transmuter and so we handed all the no-drop loot to him and then used a round-robin system for the result. One person handed the powder she received back to the transmuter, saying she didn’t want the hassle. When I asked, she told me that she didn’t really understand adornments and so the item would be wasted on her and she didn’t like to take it from the group just to sell.

If you could imagine doing that, then this guide is for you. Otherwise, skip straight to our definitive list of adornments. Sixes has made this table showing all the adornments and their ingredients. And because gnomes are clever, it’s got automagical sorting so you can list them by type or stat or tier or quality. Look, there’s more! Place your mouse over the tier of the item you want and a pop-up window will appear with a shopping list. This is the most second-most wonderful thing Sixes has done all month.

Meanwhile, let’s look at the basics you need to understand to get adornments for your character. [More...]

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All you need to know about Kunark Faction, collected in one handy-dandy place. Bookmark this page!

“For many years the Iksar wandered Kunark, seeking shelter and food. They began to form small packs, which formed larger tribes. After six decades, these tribes numbered five - the Kunzar, the Obulus, the Jarsath, the Kylong and the Nathsar. Feuds and skirmishes between the five tribes tore much of Kunark apart. Some shaman of the Iksar tapped into the powers of their original master, the god Cazic Thule, and their power grew. Others began delving into the darker arts left behind by the Shissar and others practiced hand to hand combat as an art.”

The Rise of Kunark expansion includes 4 zones with progressively higher NPCs and quest lines:

• Kylong Plains
• Fens of Nathsar
• Kunzar Jungle
• Jarsath Wastes

Traveling in Kunark

Travel in Kunark is primarily based on Sokokar posts. In order to use these posts, you must first do a set of quests which will reward you with a sokokar that will allow you to use the posts. If you are under level 65 in adventure levels [More...]

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Game Update 43 is live and includes new recipes for all tradeskillers. Hurray! However, there’s a catch: you need a significant amount of faction in order to get the recipes.

Kunark has three factions of interest to tradeskillers: Bathezid’s Watch, Riliss, and Legion of Danak. Tradeskillers have always been able to gain faction with these factions but up until recently there was not much incentive. Now each of these factions carries two new unique recipes (or sets of recipes) per tradeskill.

Each faction has the same timeline:

• Apprehensive (-10,000) You can purchase fuel (beware of Danak Shipyard!)
• Amiably (10,000) Quartermaster will sell you advanced recipe books and prov advanced recipe
• Kindly (20,000) initial faction-based tradeskill recipe(s)
• Warmly (30,000) secondary faction-based faction recipe(s)

In addition, -20,000 with Bathezid’s Watch gains you access to Tradeskill Epic Quest.

Note: Although you may be pleased when you gain the convenience of purchasing fuel locally, you should be careful. Not all merchants in Kunark are fair with their pricing.

Bathezid’s Watch

Bathezid’s Watch are located in the Fens of Nathsar. The tradeskill area is indoors at 1191,203,1444. [More...]

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There are five fast travel options in EQ2 which can get you to various points on Norrath without spending half an hour traveling. These abilities have a 30 second cast time, so are not usable as an escape mechanism and have a one hour cooldown. Every character receives a call spell at the point of character creation but there are additional methods of teleportation in the game which can be earned. [More...]

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I have been trying to work out which is better, a weapon with a
wide range between minimum and maximum damage or one with a narrower
range. The main difference appears to be when a critical hit (a “crit”)
occurs.

It seems that a crit occurring on a combat ability (CA) is
a straight 30% bonus; if you would have hit for 1,000, you will hit for
1,300 so the weapon range is irrelevant. The interesting time is
when you crit on autoattack. [More...]

Posted by Sixes on http://proof.mmorpg-info.org.

The Rise of Kunark has introduced three new languages to Norrath which must be quested as a two-stage process. For each language, you must first collect the pages from a mysterious tome. The page locations are all static. Once you have collected the pages, you can hand them to a collector NPC who will give you a book in return. Reading the book will give you a quest to find the owner, who will in turn send you on quests to help him. Once you have helped the owner of the book, you will gain the basics of the language.

You must speak Sathirian to do the repeatable quest for Riliss faction at the Ruins of Cabilis. The heroic quest For a Few Coins More (part of the Fists of Metal sequence) requires someone in the group to speak Di’zokian.

There is a full write-up for each tome and the resulting quests on MMORPG Info so it is quick and easy to gain these languages:

• Froak: A Mysterious Green Tome
• Di’zok: A Mysterious Red Tome
• Sathirian: A Mysterious Black Tome

Posted by Taymar on http://proof.mmorpg-info.org.