Any guide?

[Deadshade]

Hello all

I have just tried to come back to EQ F2P. To my surprise I found my little 65 Gnome Deadshade still there, sleeping for 8 years. However I was instantly overwhelmed by 3 things : very few people, no calls for building groups with few if any LFG and everybody speaking a foreign language (mercs, molo, infusable, attunable, shrouds and what not).
So I decided to start slowly and begin with tinkering where I was 240 and thought to have adequate knowledge.
Well it appeared that I didn't even know what the skill cap was (400? 500? More?) let alone what to do to get there. All tinkering sites have disappeared and my last straw, EQTC, doesn't provide any guide or information that could be useful for a player beginning EQ in 2012.

So I have 3 questions for those who still play and would be kind enough to answer me :
1) Does it make any sense to restart EQ after 8 years (I mean not staying limited to just camp the same spot forever but to be able to enjoy the content - quests, trade skills, lore) ?
2) If yes, does it make any sense to tinker ?
4) If yes, where could I get any information how to get past 240? Does such an information even exist ?

Thanks

[Paloverde]

For philosophy, I will defer to others.

For suggestions I offer these ideas:

http://mboards.eqtraders.com/eq/show...)-Rev-Apr-2009

This is accessed independently from the forum lists, seleting "Tradeskill Guides and UI Mods".

Furthermore, I suggest this: From ths search box on the home page, select Recipes / Tinkering Recipes / at the bottom Quick Trivial List.

During the course of my EQ experience, things have changed that modify what to do in trades a lot. I skilled with Geerloks and was able to sell my output in bazaar. Now there is little market for those but they can still be used for skilling. At the very high end there is little choice besides cultural armor which also requres a lot of farming or high cash output and also high skill in smithing and or tailoring.

In case you have not come upon the advice elsewhere, do the trophy quest(s) in West Freeport. These trophies are what have superceeded the Geerloks.

[Deadshade]

Thanks I looked at that thread.
That to get to 300 one did Wok is what I still remembered and it didn't apparently change.
I am still confused for items above 300 where apparently doesn't exist any Guide helping with the path what to do (in "my time" there were dozen of guides for every skill but they apparently all disappeared). I looked also on the Quick Trivials before I even posted here. But there are millions of recipes so that it would take weeks to read and figure out what they could be good for, what are the conditions and how hard the eventual farming would be. There is also a whole lot about "cultural" where one apparently needs other Skills (smithing, pottery) what didn't exist for Tinkering in my time.
I realize that I probably ask questions that are trivial for those who played through these last years but I feel totally lost and not only for trade skills.
Hence the question if it was reasonably feasible (e.g without investing 5 hours/day for several months) to begin with EQ in 2012.

Is there a skill cap at all ?
Are the items above 300 useful for anything? Can some of them sell ? Or is the whole Tinkering (and other Skill trade) production no more sellable?
I had a look on Bazaar but for items other than armor and weapon I had mostly no idea what they were for.

In any case thanks for having answered. I will try the W.Freeport quest even if it looks like a very time consuming task and it doesn't tell what the reward is.

[Aanuvane]

The West Freeport task will give you a *Mechanist Trophy. Depending on what you're skill is when you get the quest (the earlier the better, the combines are easier/less rare). Keep the trophy equipped as you're doing tinkering combines and it will continue to evolve and increase in the % skill modifier.

Tinkering is a hard one to skill up, it takes patience and platinum and the market for our wares is small. As Paloverde indicated the market for geerloks is pretty much gone, the market for many collapsible containers is gone (since we can now store containers in containers anyway). In my opinion one of the only reasons to level a tinker outside of the sheer accomplishment of it, is if you want to make Amalgamators (opal only at this point), which are extremely arduous to make because of all the subcombines and failure points.

Back in the day, I worked on both tinkering and research together using sunshard pebbles and ore by making * Energeiac Rods. I also peppered in miscellaneous combines when I could come across the ingredients. Cultural Symbols are another plat "sink" route you can go to skill up - but you do have to do annoying tasks to get the books to make the patterns for the symbols.

[Paloverde]

All trades cap at 300 now.

Geerloks, worn in primary slot, modify skill up from present by 5%. So then with Geerlok maximum modified skill would be 315.

Trophies, worn in primary, seconday or range, start at 1% and go to 15% when maxed. Maximum skill with trophy would be 345.

While trophy is at low skill player can use both Geerlok and trophy. The higher will prevail, not the sum.

Another things that we did not state earlier, and perhaps the most important, are
Alternate Abilities. You can purchase them in the trade (three levels) and in Salvage [potential recovery of some random item(s)] from the combine. The Salvage AA applies to all trade skills.

[Drazzminius]

Welcome back to Everquest, Deadshade! EQ has changed a lot since you last played. I'm an Admin over at www.Necrotalk.com and we have a pretty good "Welcome Back" guide there that you might find handy:

EQ FAQ

Best of luck and again, welcome back!