Why Do Tradeskills if not for Profit?

[Stugein]

It's been awhile so I may be wrong, but I believe I started tradeskills as a timesink to allow friends to catch up. I have a couple RL friends that play and we make up each others' "regular" group. Someone would go on vacation or move or for whatever reason wouldn't be able to play for an extended period of time. When they returned I would do tradeskills instead of exp'ing or anything so that they could catch up. Eventually this extended into making tradeskills a regular part of my play time because I enjoyed it so much.

Tradeskills are just relaxing to me. If I wasn't playing EQ I'd probably be doing something else that creates something of no real value but is more of an "Oh gee whiz" type thing. Like models or something of that nature. It's a hobby.

[JMorgana]

Re: Hunting and Profits

Originally posted by Tejaye
If you spend so much time doing tradeskills, doesn't that cause you to level up slower since you are not hunting?
Especially since some skills, such as Smithing, require you to stay by a forge and are not mobile like some other skills?
Just curious.

Sometimes, I've had such a long day at work I don't even feel like doing xp or AAxp. I find tradeskills are a GREAT way to just wind down and relax after a frantic day at work. Sometimes I just don't feel like dealing with people after dealing with them all day long at work.

[Laiane Wolfsong]

PRIDE! Obstinant, stubborn PRIDE!

I'm a Ranger. I fletch, therefore I am.

Yep, it's taken me 2 years to get to level 55, but leveling and the exp grind aren't important to me. I would much rather spend some nights tradeskilling and enjoying myself in /gu than fear kite my way into a stupor.

Plus, it adds so much more to the game for me. I wouldn't have any fun if it were all about leveling and exp.

Plus, I must admit to a certain amount of smugness in teaching half a dozen 50+ chars in my guild (the exp grinders) how to FISH

[Kilauea Bacchus]

I GMed baking so I could make justice pies for my ranger sweetie. Then I thought, well, how about pottery so I can make dye.. then brewing, just for the heck of it.. and um.. well.. I'm doing tailoring now.. just cause!

[Crystara]

Just to max numbers, I like having every skill I have maxed for some reason, now to finish up AAs.

[Traydex]

While I hope this is not hijacking the thread too much, I wanted to ask all of your opinion on this.

Is lvls 1-10 too low to try to start Tradeskills?

The reason I ask is that while I want to do them, it is hard to balance getting armor and spells, especially with the temptation of going to the Bazaar with my saved coins to get some Wis bonusing gear.

Any thoughts would be welcomed...

[ColdHeart]

Traydex, will post a new thread to answer you.. but on topic

I do TS's primarily for fun and something different to do. I did brewing to 250 as I wanted a 250 skill and I wanted the trophy. Now I do Tea and Constitutionals as my main source of income (not that much but it saves farming).

I do smithing because I LOVE people using items created by me If I sell them to friends at cost, or just give them away, I know something I worked on is being used to help someone else. If no one I know wants it but it sells in the bazaar, great, covering my costs so I can make more.

Coldain Shawl is another reason. I feel in love with Velious, have done the 9th ring and completed the 8th shawl. I will eventually get all TS's to 200, if not 250. Wether I will carry on making items for all TS's? Not sure.

[Thicket Tundrabog]

Why do tradeskills? Synergy of course.

250, 250, 250, 250, 250, 250, 250 is in harmonious balance. Numbers are beautiful.

Thicket

[Callandre]

Originally posted by Koru
The tradeskiller can always go back to killing for some relaxation when they get bored or frustrated at the forge.

*wry chuckle* and after some of the sessions I've had at the pottery wheel or the forge, I end up wanting to kill something...

I tradeskill mostly to be a resource for my friends (and ok... because the synergy of all 250s appeals to me on an obsessive-compulsive level)

My sweetie is stupid rich so pretty much the only things I can give him are little tradeskilled items.. he lives on a steady diet of Tormentor Stir Fry and Kaladim Constitutionals I make for him, and has a fleeting quiver and a lemming fur backpack from me.

Its makes me feel useful showing up at a raid and handing out stir fry to the all the melee, being able to make a faithstone for a friend that needs it or knock out a couple of the Solstice earring items that a guildie can't find in the bazaar.

[Kytelae]

Originally posted by Traydex
While I hope this is not hijacking the thread too much, I wanted to ask all of your opinion on this.

Is lvls 1-10 too low to try to start Tradeskills?

The reason I ask is that while I want to do them, it is hard to balance getting armor and spells, especially with the temptation of going to the Bazaar with my saved coins to get some Wis bonusing gear.

Any thoughts would be welcomed...

You're never too young to tradeskill! Even if it's just turning your silk into swatches or your pelts into padding, there's always something to do (and lots of those things will sell well in the bazaar too, helping you buy your spells).

[Waverlyn]

I begain making stuff for several reasons:

- back in the day .... *snicker* it gave me something to do instead of staring at my spell book while I medded.

- If I made the arrows we didn't have to stop killing while we waiting for the puller to make them and since I was sitting on my duff anyways it again made me useful in different ways.

- Barter - I bartered a lifetime supply of arrows with a barbarian warrior friend (when we hunted together) for my first decent robe SMR

- I needed clothes to wear, I could make my own

- Was poor and hated to go shopping for food so always carried a spit and bread to make sandwiches, and I always had friends that would "forget" to buy food.

- It's fun to make things, it's funner to make things guildmates/friends need and be generally helpful.

- I liked being the tradesperson and having folks come to me for info, was a good conversation starter and good way to meet new folks as people would learn who could do what.

- I like being different than the masses - Few people were tradeskilling, back then the folks didn't see any value in it the majority of trades

That's the short list .... GRIN

[Oolianelle]

Why I do tradeskills

[Sanna]

Originally posted by Laiane Wolfsong
PRIDE! Obstinant, stubborn PRIDE!

....

Plus, I must admit to a certain amount of smugness in teaching half a dozen 50+ chars in my guild (the exp grinders) how to FISH

hehehehehehehehehe!!!!

The guy that got his roommate into EQ, who got my roommate into EQ, who got me into EQ, is one of the best PKers on Sullon, and was wanting to know how to combine sigs to Superior Sigs or whatever, to conserve bank space. He sent me a tell one day...

"omg what's a forge"
"... ?"
"i have to combine sigs. they said to do it in a forge. what's a forge??"
".... you're kidding me.... please?"
"you know everything about that stuff. cmon plz plz?"

so when he stroked my ego of course i told him ^_^ but it just struck me as funny. Sometimes it still amuses me that people don't know where the pond is in pok, or small bank, or the pottery wheels. You kinda forget that just because you know something doesn't mean everyone else does.


And Oolianelle... I am jealous of anyone who can get the flags to do that. I would love to be able to invest the effort to get that. ^_^ Maybe. Maybe this time around.

Tis a worthy goal. ^_^

-- Sanna

[TheGiantOne]

Quinner and Dory hit the nail on the head!

Max out all the skills to say you can do it and make something USEFUL out of items that some people think is garbage.

But never start tradeskilling just to make a profit. You will get discouraged real quick.

Instead start it for one of the first 2 reasons and then if you make a profit even greater bliss for you

I can say I started out tradeskilling for both of the first 2 reasons but then once I became a GM in all the tradeskills I did make a profit of which I outfitted myself with all the armors and weapons I needed.

[LexBardMT]

Comment

I always figured one day I'd do them.. maybe, like after I got to the max character level at least. I procrastinated alot until the new UI came along. (I still think the TS system in this game is TERRIBLE. The tedious clicking, boring pharming, the arbitrary failures.. blatant time and money sink.. And items in the game don't even "decay" so the market is completely screwball.) Anyway, the time did finally come when I basically had nothing better to do.. so TS r me. lol Plus I saw that Aid Grimel quest which yields a nice reward. I imagine they'll add more stuff like that to the game so I may as well raise TS and be prepared.