Where do you like to tradeskill?

[Tiroon]

Reading through another post I found myself comparing tradeskill hubs and thinking about why I like or dislike certain places.

So I went and made my personal Top 10 list of places where I go to do my combines. Now I wonder which are your favourites and why?


Least favourite place: Abysmal Sea

• Incessant Chatter. Hormel has less Spam than this place.
• The spam even extends to NPC bards who will happily make your character spam the dancing animation even though you just failed a combine and you feel more like wrecking the place than dancing.
• Getting there is easy. Getting back to civilisation for a gate impaired hybrid a pain in the patoot. Makes even CR look reasonable which is a rather big achievement.
• Can't really say more but AS is the one place I really feel like wanting to get out of as soon as I zone in even though I sometime just end up there for the pure convenience the place offers.

#9: Corathus Creep

• At least the music stops when you open a bank or merchant window. Thank god it's a one trick pony and only useful for researchers.

#8: Crescent Reach

• Surprised myself how low I put it on my personal Top 10 list.
• Plenty of people and chatter, good supplies.
• Out of the way.
• Too much lag for being a place where I would attempt to create anything meaningful (my comp is not the problem here).

#7: Home Town

• I love being in Shar Vahl but sadly most tradeskill supplies come off merchants that have been flagged as greedy and for that reason alone it is not a good option in most cases.

#6: Guild Hall

• The fact that I use it often for tradeskilling because I can preserve buffs does not mean I have to rate it highly.
• Oh and someone please get rid of that ladle hanging off the top shelf.

#5: Gukta

• Yeah I surprised myself with this one too. Buuuuut:
• The place for anything that involves Heady Kiola.
• My place of choice if I need to make a quick combine and the PoK stationary tradeskill containers are taken.
• Another zone that is very easy on the eye and invites to linger.
• Once I'm done lingering PoK is a hop and a backflip away.

#4: Bazaar

• The place for plate smithing and convenient for all the PC vendors.
• As much as I hate the spam in AS here it is appropriate. A good market is exciting, lively, annoying, funny, sad, mundane and astonishing all at the same time.
• I just wish they hadn't messed with the zone design. It's as sterile as the technical brief must have been. Not even the bartenders have a bar to tend anymore.

#3: Shadow Heaven

• A well designed and implemented zone that feels right.
• Plenty of supplies for most tradeskills with some hard to get items.
• One of the zones where I seem to linger even after finishing whatever business I had there.

#2: PoK

• Another place alive with people.
• Most supplies are readily available at standard prices.
• Overloaded characters won't go splat anymore by just stepping off the pavement.

#1: Thurgadin

• Can't really say why I like this zone as much as I do but part of it is the people I have met there.
• Part of it is the colours. Bright and airy for an indoor place, not faded pastels that newer expansions have brought nor the drab brown of other places and their NPC's clothes.
• The place feels alive even when no other players are there. The dwarves move and chatter but unlike AS they don't spam and when they move they always seem to do so with a purpose.

[Pootle]

I tend to have different places depending on the tradeskill I am working on.

I used to go home to Rivervale when I wanted to work on tailoring, mainly cos its quiet and no lag. After a run of skilling, I would usually zone out into MistyThicket and pass out what I had crafted to any noobs who could use them. Nowerdays there are no noobs left in the origional noob zones.

Jewlcrafting I always do it in the gem shop in Thurgadin. (I can see that Thurg may be annoying for large races, ducking to go through doors).
I have always liked the zone ever since I was working on Coldain Shawl quest, and I am max ally there, which makes me feel welcome. I even have my pet chanter parked in that room to enchant the metals.

I hate abysmal sea, had to do some stuff there and I am forever getting lost and just hate it... bah!

Baking I headed to Shadowhaven, and probably will again for 250-300 MTPs.... The halfling jumjum vendor right beside the Oven is a godsend!!

Fletching.... all over really untill 212, then set up in Surefall Glade, and burned arrows untill 300. I have Karana to thank for that! (I agree its unfair to non Karana followers... but whats a halfer to do???)
Again, its a great zone, nice and empty, good surroundings for a Druid to spend some time in. Only drawback was having to zone to go to the bank (the name of that forrest zone next door escapes me at the moment)

With my Rog i did the 2nd half of my poison making in POK... all the vondors are easy to find. Plenty of vendors to farm components from, can be amused by the general chat and ooc that goes on there....!

But if you push me for a top place, will have to say Thurgadin!

[Ursawraith]

Personally I usually work in Shadowhaven or PoK for the convience. The chatter usually doesn't bother me as I typically have all those channels filtered out anyway. I still go to Thurgadin often enough to include it in my list. I will ONLY go to Abysmal sea if I absolutely must and will be seen in the new freeport even less! I am finding that Crescent Reach may become easier to work in with everything being available there, but I havn't really ventured there yet, so far PoK and Shadowhaven have been good to me.

[Posatrocible]

Every tradeskill combine that I have made in the last year happened in only 3 places around the EQ virtu-scape. Based on number of combines alone, here are the top three:

3. PoK -- This is a simple case of convenience. PoK is a book away from almost anywhere and vice versa. All the alchemy stuff is there (although their room is overcrowded) and the baz is a hop skip and a jump if I need to snag something. But, noisy and "can-you-buff-me-please"-y.

2. Halas (or insert your hometown here) -- I agree that one's hometown has a strange appeal. Also, for smithing, it's a necessity. Can't find that Northmans Forge anywhere else

1. Abysmal Sea -- So far everyone has poo-poo-ed this zone... which is probably the reason I like it so much. I never have to compete for trades containers, I learned the layout and can find anything quickly, and it seems like whenever I check if an item I need is vendor sold, Abysmal has it. I would never have been turned onto it if it hadn't been a necessary evil for alchemy, but now I use it for just about everything.

Abysmal is two fast zones from the GL, and a throne of heros back. If the alchemy vendors would stock "small vials", PoK might drop off my list completely.

[Ddemons Ddemise]

lets see..

4) Abysmal -- Nice place, but Find path being teh sux lately and its a pain to get out from ..

3) PoK -- Bit annoying sometimes when stupid chatter comes up (good chatter is fine.. spam is annoying :P)

2) Crescent Reach .. fell in love w/ the place doing pottery.. so..easy :P

1) Cabilis .. what can I say, I'm an Iksar, and my first char was an Iksar.. I <3 Cabilis..

[Qaladar Bragollach]

PoK... its the only viable tradeskilling zone that I can port directly too. Absymal sea is 2 zones... thats too far for my lazy self.

[Mudrido]

Aside from the occasional run of cultural in Ogguk, I did virtually all of my smithing 189-300 in Shadowhaven. So Shadowhaven gets my pick!


(Cue Bob Hope singing "Thanks for the memories")



Mud

[Taushar]

I used to all my tradeskills combines in Freeport area. Then I helped out with Pally epic 1.0 and got kicked out of there. Then I did most of my combines in Shadowheaven, where I got to 250 in smithing, baking, JC and Pottery. I still used Shadowheaven for getting smithing to 300. I only use PoK for tanaan containers. I also use Abysmal, Crescent and Felwithe for specific combines but guild hall has become one of my favorite places now.

Taushar

[Quichon]

1) Cabillis. Although the Water Flasks are inconveniently located, you can do MHB's in here to your heart's content from the two vendors and brew barrel convienently located next door to the Bank. Merchant's Island is also the place to go for cultural tailoring for high-end stuff. Alchemy vendors have just about everything you need to get you to over 200 skill in Alchemy. And nearly no one ever comes here, so no chatter, no begging, no competition for containers.

2) PoK. What can I say, it's convenient. A stone's throw (bad pun) away from every home town, the bazaar, the guild hall, and Shadowhaven. It's got almost everything I could ever ask for unless I'm doing some obscure recipies.

3) Shadowhaven. MTP's can be done exclusively here (once you get the trivial amounts of foraged/farmed goods). GLM's can as well. When I was a food vendor, I spent much time here. Still like going here to tradeskill from time to time.

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and in last place...

Abysmal Sea. OMG NPC SPAM!!! You can't even filter it out! If those NPC's would shut up and not fill my chat window full of worthless spam I don't want to hear for the umpteen-millionth time, it would be significantly higher on the list. Also, as has been pointed out, it is extremely inconveniently located for a return trip. Sure, you can hit Guild Lobby to Nedaria to Abysmal Sea... but comming back you're going to have to hit one of the five original LDoN camps then hike back. If you've got faction issues (like us Iksars), this can be a significant PITA. This goes most especially when I'm trying to get some Tradeskilling done in before Raid time and we form up in GH. Usually I have to blow a Gate potion just to get back in time for form-up

Sure, AS has nearly everything you could ever use, but all the NPC spam and the PITA trip back to 'civilization' makes it so inconvenient that I'd nearly always look for somewhere else to do my tradeskilling if at all possible.

I still don't own the latest expansion, so I don't know about the latest 'mall town', but I'd be willing to lay odds that since it's the latest expansion, the Devs just couldn't resist all the graphics-intensive sparklies and gogaws that makes any computer with less than 2Gig Ram and a 512Mb video card to seize up. Also, because it is touted as the tradeskill capital, every toon and their brother's alt are going to be packing the place, adding to the Lag, Spam, and Tradeskill Container Lines, making it seem like a very unattractive place to go.

As a futile plea... slap in the Magus in GL as a destination to go from Nedaria. It will make things so much more convenient.

[Queletan]

Going from a 'most useful' standpoint, I'd say its either ASea or PoK.

One's got the Bazaar and the stones, the other has a more complete vendor list. Both have inconveniently located vendors/items that make me run much more than I'd like to when I forget something. PoK would probably have the edge if the smiths and tinkers were not split up, and the JC vendors were on the south side by the small bank - I always seem to be running to that north building for something no matter what I combine.

Crescent is great for proximity and availability, but the lag is murder on my computer so that's sort of a tossup too. My mage is there almost permanently now tho - finally no PoK-CC-PoK-CC trips when I forget stuff.

Kaladim.. well, while I love my hometown, it has to be one of the worst for tradeskilling. Too much stuff scattered between North, South, and Butcherblock, and the cultural forge is in a different zone than the bank, ore vendor and water vendor (Deistic and non), which means I spend alot of time zoning back and forth when I forget stuff (notice a theme growing? )

I agree with previous posters, I've always liked Thurgadin, its quiet, I enjoy the look, and the dwarves there have been one of my favorite critters in game since I first saw them.

Q

[tnexus]

Shadowhaven gets my vote. It's the first big tradeskill zone, has everything I generally need, is never crowded, stacked brew barrels (or did they fix that?), and just a well designed zone.

[Zacatac]

I do a lot of my stuff in Shadowhaven. I did 300 baking on MSTs there, I did 300 smithing on MCS there, I did brewing to 248 there, etc. etc.

Also, because Shadowhaven was adjacent to bazaar, I would simply zone over and buy supplies like celestial essence from sellers there.

So.

1. Shadowhaven
2. PoK
3. Bazaar
4. Corathus Creep. 300 researching takes awhile, and that's where I did it.
5. Felwithe, because I often have to go home to do cultural because that's the only forge.
6. Abysmal Sea. Yes I hate the layout and still have a hard time finding stuff. But lately I've been doing a lot of things which require supplies only found in a few places (AS, New Freeport, and Crescent Reach) and I pick AS of the 3.
7. Thurgadin. Many months spent in that zone skilling up during the shawl quest days.
8. Highpass. Back in the old days, I did a lot of tradeskilling in Highpass. It had quite a bit of supplies, and it had 1 big advantage, NO NEWBIES! Almost every place (back then) with tradeskill areas was a starting city full of level 1s begging me for stuff or interupting my work somehow. A zone where each end is guarded by mobs helps keep them at bay.
9. Guildhall. Although I often make combines there, it's pretty low on my list considering it has no supply vendors.
10. Crescent Reach. I have heard good things about it, but I've yet to do a combine or any serious tradeskilling there.

[Sukrasisx]

Hm, well, there's really two questions here. The one asked was where I like to tradeskill. The other question is where I actually tradeskill.

For "like", I'll add my vote for Thurgadin. I've always like the atmosphere there. My other choice is my home towns (Cabilis for my main, who mostly just does brewing; Rivervale for my jack-of-all-tradeskills). And I enjoy tradeskills in PoK for the convenience, both to ingredients and containers and to meeting up with guildies when raid time rolls around.

Oh, and to Quichon, I'll point out that water flasks got added to an East Cabilis vendor recently. I was also pleased to discover that East Cab offers purification tablets for when I'm brewing up more Celestial Temper.

As to where I really tradeskill, well, Abysmal Sea is the clear winner. Someone in the ts chat offered the tip of turning off the sound, and I was amazed at how much that helps. The droning waves (which don't make sense out in the middle of the ocean anyway) really compound the monotony of the NPC chat. I'd still like to strangle that bard, though, or at least teach him something more sophisticated than rhymed couplets! Anyway, both my general tradeskiller and now my spell researcher are bound in Abysmal, and as druid and wizard they can easily port elsewhere, so getting out isn't hard. The druid, being higher level, often binds elsewhere since she can port to Natimbi if she needs to return to AS.

I've looked some at Crescent Reach. I don't have TSS yet, but my druid's home city got changed by accident to CR, so I can go there using Return Home. I have a fairly new machine, which can run around the bazaar lag-free even with all traders visible, but CR is painful to move around in. If my spell researcher could go there I'd consider it for him, but as it is I just filled up 1/3 of his bank with various powders/additives/etc. from the Corathus Creep vendor, and now he does his spellcrafting standing in the bank in AS, with occasional dashes to the gem merchant or others as needed.

I've got mixed reactions to the Guild Hall. The containers are quite convenient, and having int/wis buffs last forever was useful until I had gear the capped my stats anyway, but I dislike traveling at least two zones to get ingredients. I do occasional quick jobs there, but whenever I've done skillup runs I always ended up having to pop out for more stuff. What would really help would be if the GH containers were Tanaan, i.e. if I could use them to make Ethereal Curing Agent and Ethereal Silk Swatches and such.

[GrimwoodCT]

I move an elliptical orbit beween
*The Bazaar zone-in to
*Bind point at PoK fishing ponds (near the looms and the forges) to
*Guild Hall Bankers to
*Small bank (where I conduct most of my transactions and MGB C3) to
*PoK JC Merchants and
*Back to The Bazaar zone-in.

It seems I am moving from advertising spot to gathering/purchasing spot to combine spot and then repeating the cycle over and over when I am in TS-mode.

I don't mind PoK since its a hub where I can auction, access most of my stored materials, get to most places I need to be and find stationary containers quickly. I live and die by the ever-fluctuating market and if I can catch someone directly from Ashengate with a stack of Taaffeite then I can get a jump on the bazaar buyers.

I will never ever ever combine in Thurgadin if I can avoid it.
I can't talk about it, I won't.

Abysmal Sea? Too much NPC spam and still (after how many years?) mysterious forces prevent..blah..blah..blah.

Shadowhaven isn't bad for some skills. Can get some uncommon tinkering supplies.
Guild Hall is nice if the stationary spots are occupied in PoK. Quiet, private and access to bank and guild bank but a pain if you need incidentals from vendors.

[Tamoro]

Another vote for Thurgadin, especially since they put the alchemy vendors outside the bank (my kitty shaman is camped there.... shrink spell ftw!). Also, PoK/Guild Hall for the other tradeskills. I did some of the freebie TS jobs in Abysmal, but I rarely go there anymore (for reasons that have been previously noted in this thread), and when I do it's for something other than TS'ing. I'm trying out CR for tradeskills, and am liking it, with the exception of falling through the lifts.