what started it?

[Emeraldeye]

Re: what started it?

Originally posted by kaleep
what started your desire to do tradeskills? i'm curious when people started getting into them.
so, what got YOU into tradeskills?

I do it because I can.

I was noob and discovered all these items, which I just sold to vendors.
One day I saw a guy OOCing he was selling rings that gave +2 (I think) to STR. Now I was amazed until that point I had never seen a magic item. So I scrounged my life savings together (10 Plat) and bought the ring. That when he told me if I wanted another to let him know because he was a Jewelcrafter and could make more! I was shocked.

After a while I became aware of people selling armor and various items and I suspected they were made with those skills I had 0 in. So when I leveled the next few times I made sure I had a point in each. Then I found out from a friend about sharpening weapons so I saved all the rusty ones got ahold of sharpening stones and walked from Felwithe to Kaladim to use the forge (I didn't know there were other forges.) After that I learned about a tailor's kit and making thread.

After that I had no idea where to go from there, so I started searching. One day I came across this site and began reading and reading and reading. I read anything I could get a hold of. I read the guides, posts, even things that were questions. These led me to the disovery of padding.

I didn't know what this padding was, but I knew from posts that people bought it, wanted it , and thought it was overpriced. I searched till I discovered what they were talking about was leather padding. I learned the ingredients to create them.

I researched and found the best places to get my skins and silks. I found it was easier for me to hunt than others (Due to ranger's tracking ability.). So I began hunting and combining. On my first outing to the bazaar I checked and other merchants and they had theirs priced at 20 to 25p . I also realized that this was a fortune to me a probably very expensive for any tradeskillers, I also realized if my wares were priced cheaper I would sell them quicker. So I listed mine at 5p each I sold out almost immediately. So I went hunting again and again, I also became skilled at dumpst..um merchant mining, and quickly built up an inventory. In a week I could fill up my bank full of padding and make a good profit. At this point I set my price at 10p per padding. I still sold out quickly. That when I realized that those that were selling at 25p were the ones buying me out the majority of the time. So at that point I quit going to the bazaar and focused on leveling, but I started getting tells from TS'ers that wanted some padding. So I would farm and find ingredients for them, then came potters needing zombie skins, etc. I found I was good at finding people what they needed at a cheaper price. I made plats enough to equip myself well, but over time I realized something was missing.

The joy of create something, just to see it there on your cursor. So I planned a route of training tailoring and as time passed I realized the trades were a bit interdependent so I planned a skill up route for the other tradeskills with the intents to master them all. I eventually made my first alt an enchanter for tinkering. Since then I am hooked and have been broke ever since

[Malathos]

I originally started tailoring on Terris Thule with my first character (Malathos) who was a wizard - and silk armour was about as good as he was going to get for some time (this was in days of yore before silk stacked !).

When I restarted on Firiona Vie I started tailoring again but made up a barb warrior who could smith and started churning out his own banded.

Then EQ New Dawn cam along and I beta'd for that - and made up a dwarven paladin who made it to master smith before the beta finished. When Venril Sathir went live, Grolber was reborn as my main and made master smith in double quick time. I sold enough banded to newbies to fund my expensive experiments in Dwarven cultural - which has taken me to the giddy heights on 175 and a full set of Enchanted Dwarvish Plate

[Dhomal the Scavenger]

Hello-

I'm not 100% sure how/why I first started tradeskilling - but I played for a Long time without doing any. I know i worked on Tailoring a bit - I think because I wanted to make hand-made backpacks. Got to 75 or so. Seemed tedious. So - Like a good Dwarf - I switched to Smithing. I managed to get that to about 120.

Then - for a couple of reasons - I was out of game for about 2 months - right around the time Luclin came out.

When I came back - and continued to merchant mine to make money (was not very good at it yet though...) I started seeing something new and odd....

A Chunk of Condensed Shadow. And then - later - the rare Fire, and even rarer Ice....

I did not know WHY precisely - but I started buying them all - hoping they would be useful. Back in those days - it was pretty easy to find them on merchants - sometimes in sevral stacks quantity. (Well - except for the Ice that is!)

Finally one day about 6 weeks into collecting them - I found something Truly wonderful! Someone had sold 3 Condensed Shadow Arrowheads to a merchant. I quickly bought them - and I had finally figured out what the CoCS was for.

I kept buying and buying - and a friend pointed me here (EQTC) and I was able to find the information on the arrows. I started working on Fletching - as I could see it would be a long time before I could actually make them...

Anyway - Now I am knee-deep in arrows on an alt. I have done mostly Acrylia arrows for my post 202 skillups. As I had been merchsnt-farming the condensed for well over a year - I did not need any of that (though even now I buy it off NPC's though finding it is quite rare now.) - I was short just Acrylia. Some friends have brought me some - but as I became more adept at Merchant Mining - I started to actually Make some money. When PoP came out - I was fortunate enough to make some great finds early on and make some really good money.

Alas, I was foolish once - and spent about 30K making bows! Ugh! Never again! I think when I finish up - I will have spent about 50 - 55K on 202- 250 Fletching INCLUDING the 'wasted' 30K on bows. However - I am lucky - I did not need to pay Bazaar prices for Condensed - just Acrylia - which I buy in Block, sm/lg Bricks (grinding them down to sm myself if needed - smithing skill came in handy!) up to about a max price of 50P each. Sometimes a little more to round out a stack of finished components.

Also during my Merchant Mining - I have come across Nightmarewood bow components - and have made quite a number of those. I still carry the First one for myself though!

And next? Well - I have been hoarding Elemental Bow components! I am nowhere NEAR getting INTO the elemental planes - but Have two types where I just need string components - and another where I need string and metal (The fourth however has eluded me - I have No components yet.)

It was a goal of mine at one point to be the first Fletcher NOT in an elemental plane guild to make one of these bows (On my server) - But I have a feeling someone has done that already probably!

Anyway - I made a huge Acrylia purchase from a fellow player a few days ago - and Im ever so close to ending the Arrow Madness (as some of my friends and Guildies call it - for what else would you call 190+ stacks of arrows stored?) being currently at 241 skill. My Trophy awaits me also.

Thats MY story, in a nutshell!

Dhomal the Scavenger
Warrior 51 - Brell Serilis Server
Officer - Brellian Defenders
2AA's 241 Fletching

"What this means, dear - is that I should make a lot of Ranger friends - maybe Then I can get rid of all these arrows..."

[Araon]

so, what got YOU into tradeskills?

I looked into what these "frost giant toes" and "kromrif heads" were for when I was hunting with a friend in the Great Divide. It turned out there was this "Coldain Prayer Shawl Quest" and I haven't looked back since

[Heartsong_Steelsoul]

Well, to start with, my husband got me into it. He was playing before we were even dating and he showed me his messages from the EQ Brewers mailing list.

Eventually (well, pretty quickly actually) I started playing. My first bit of tradeskilling was making my first character her very own patchwork armor.

[Phabos]

What started it? When I first started playing EQ, like most people, I didn't have any plat. I noticed I could buy food from vendors, or I could *gasp* spend a few gold on a fishing pole, buy bait at 4cp each, and fish! The fish sold for a few silver, as did the sandals and daggers I caught, which more than paid for the bait and the occasional broken pole. Better yet, I could eat the fish and save money on food.


That was the extent of my skilling for just over a year. I then had the thought (I should have ignored) "Wouldn't it be cool to make a cake?"

I started baking. Then I needed utensils, so I started smithing and pottery. Then I needed baskets. By that time, I was hooked.


Phabos Aphsion
Drunken Paladin of Brell
Tarew Marr

[DeegerStormcrow]

When I started Deeger over 4 years ago (yikes!) my very first goal was to make my own Trueshot bow. I scrounged for every single plat (a cracked staff is worth 1pp!) and tossed it all at fletching. I almost cried when I accidentally did the wrong combine and lost my 12pp fletching plane (back in the day when combining the wrong recipe lost all your items).

That's what started it.

[Ladnia]

Two things really started my addiction...

1.) I just wanted to make edible goo to gross out my sweetie when we played

2.) I make a level 1 newbie, and ran all the way to thurgadin just to see what it was like (didn't want to risk getting my uber level 12 main killed and no way back). When I got there the bank building was bustling with activity, and I started asking what all these people were doing standing in front of the pottery wheel in a line. I learned about the shawls, and the rest is history... can't stop!

[Emeraldeye]

Wow

Originally posted by Ladnia
When I got there the bank building was bustling with activity, and I started asking what all these people were doing standing in front of the pottery wheel in a line.

You mean people actually have to stand in a line to use things like pottery wheels?

I am from Kane Bayle and that is pretty rare here. Is it common on other servers?

Then again on my server if you check out G'fay there are a whole lot of high level characters, alt twinks and not a true newb in sight. The newbs around here are almost as rare as black powder weapons in EQ.

[GraemeFaelban]

I wanted to upgrade my armor, and I was dirt poor, so, I go poorer and learned blacksmithing and made myself some uber banded armor, then, some of the old barbarian imbued cultural chain. I was fortunate in that it was still possible to sell banded, albeit rarely, when I did this, and I managed to make back my investment. Unfortunately, I did not continue my pursuit of smithing until after they nerfed the trivials.

I then discovered this shawl quest, and that got me going on all the rest of the tradeskills.

[Kahmon]

I was level 4 and hunting spiders in Field of Bone trying to get a Burynibane Spider Fang just so my weapon would Proc. Someone else came in looking for silks which were useless to me so I gave them to him. He then combined the silks into bandages for me. I asked him what skill that was and he told me tailoring. So then I decided to try to be the best tailor I could. Then at skill 30 something I needed to make Studds so enter Smithing. Then later I needed to make Heady Kiolas so enter Brewing. Eventually I discovered the shawl quests & New Tanaan Crafting Mastery. My sig below shows how the story ends.

[Ladnia]

You mean people actually have to stand in a line to use things like pottery wheels?

That's not the case any more, but when I first went there, Velious had just opened, and Thurgadin was the most convenient place to do the shawl quest combines. There were so many people clamoring to make the shawl, that lines quickly formed at all the tradeskill containers in thurgadin.

Now it's actually quite rare to find someone using any of the containers I like to use, in thurgadin or throughout the game. I never have to stand in line any more.

[Trezark]

Heh, like most others I just wanted to be able to do something with all those pelts and spider silks that I ended up lugging around while I was growing up in East Commons. Plus, since Tailoring would provide equipment that I'd be able to actually wear, I figured it made the most sense. The promise of being able to some day make 10-slot backpacks was also quite tantalizing.

It's been two and a half years since I bought that large sewing kit from Spoolie Gee. Skill is still at a mere 191. My sanity has gone down quite a few points though...

[Brodder FoamyMugs]

At least I'm not getting blamed for it...

[Whizbang_Dustyboots]

Oy, nothing like the pottery wheel hogs back in Thurg. Bad old memories.