(N)EverQuest Scrolls

Tips from an experienced player on what anyone, even a person just picking up the game, should do on their first day. I still do this on all my new characters.

Map the keyboard

First, set up your keyboard controls. This only needs to be done the first time on any new computer, and carries over to all new characters (mostly). Bring up the Options panel, and choose the Keyboard tab. Different people will have different preferences, but I like to remap auto attack from A or Q to the Ins key on the numeric keypad. I also change the actions for F7 and F8 from target nearest player/NPC to cycle through nearest.

Make sure that autoduck is disabled; check to see if you want autostand or not.

Hot buttons

Next, hot keys. I create socials for /corpse and /assist. If my characters has the ability to forage or track, I create a social for these, too; if both, then both commands go in the same social. Use /doability n for these skills, then you can put them in your social. This goes on hot button 9, for me, and I associate it with presses of Numpad 8 (the forward key); other people prefer a turn key.

Pet users get another social: /pet hold, /pet back off, /pet attack. The hold part is for when you get pet discipline as an AA skill. I use this to both call my pet back (by first targeting myself), and to ask it to switch targets, by targeting the new target I want it to switch to.

Any special class abilities, like lay on hands or harm touch also go on hot buttons; for melee characters, so does taunt and slam/bash (use slam, if you have it, as the key will activate both abilities, not just the should slam).

My assist macro goes in slot 1, taunt in 2, pet attack or bash in 3. I will put a fast cast spell in slot 4 – healers get their heal there, paladins get yaulp, beastlords fleeting fury, etc. My ‘get out of jail free’ ability goes in slot 0 – DA, FD, HT, LoH, evac, etc. Slot 8 gets bind wound; slot 6 is reserved for a clicky – jboots, CoS, etc. That leaves slots 5 and 7! I hope you won’t put some convoluted macros in there; spam announcing your intentions gets old fast.

Prepare offline

You may think this is enough set up, but there’s more. Before even entering the game for the first time, look up spell lists for the first few levels – I prefer Allakhazam for this, as the lists contain sufficient information and you can reach full spell details and vendor information quickly. Also, find out full shopping lists for any newbie armor quest, and one other quest. Most newbie zones have a ‘bone chip’ quest; one that returns lots of experience for handing in easily obtainable, droppable items; in Field of Bone, Felwithe and Kaladim it is bone chips; Kaladim also supports crushbone belts and shoulder pads.

The Tutorial

When you are ready to start the game, enter the Tutorial. Stay there to level 4 at least. You want to collect the charm as soon as possible, and make use of Rytan for buffs, as well as the Vigor potions from the mushroom hand ins. Aim to collect a full suit of stitched burlap armor from handing in silks, an iron weapon from killing the slavemaster, and your starter spell/ability. If you choose to start groups, you can also have several leadership points accumulated. You can level to six easily in the Tutorial zone. In a way, it doesn’t matter if this is relatively slow (which it won’t be), as one of your objectives should be to keep the main skills (defense, offense, one weapon skill, and a casting skill – in that order) up for your level.

Newbie armor quests

When it is time to leave, you will appear in front of your guild master in your home city. Follow the standard conversation, hand in your note (for faction), and hail the guild master to be told where the newbie armor quest starts. Why do the newbie armor quests? Because they are cheap, and good value, provided you know when to move on. The weapons are never worth the effort, but the rest of the items vary from ok to excellent, all items being at least decent gear with stats.

By this time, you should make sure that you have all your spells for your next or current level; 4 for int casters, 5 for priests. Now get some money. Plague rat tails are worth 1.6pp from the better merchants, and some zones have special rich mobs – kobolds in Steamfont, green goblins in Butcherblock, skunks in Butcherblock and Toxxulia, aviaks in Steamfont and Butcherblock. Once you are rich (20pp is easy, 100pp is feasible), save some away for your next spells, and buy any drops you need, that you haven’t already accumulated from kills, for your newbie armor.

A few pieces of newbie armor will need no drop items. Sometimes these are easy kills, and sometimes absurdly rare. If the mobs that drop them are no longer dark blue to you, skip them, forget the armor, and move on.

Twinks

What if you have existing characters, and want to make life ‘easier’ for your new character? Whatever you do, still do the tutorial; the reasons to do it apply to any type of character. Put into the shared bank slot: spell money (100-200pp is fine), 1 or 2 x platinum (or velium, but platinum are better value) fire wedding rings or shadel bandit rings; a good, no level restriction, fast weapon (centi short sword, shaded blade, shaded dagger, centi spear, centi warhammer); if a caster, kits to get the PoK ring and mask (sarnak blood, HQ cougar skin, undead froglok tongue, cockatrice beak, tiny rockhopper eye). Priority for all characters is HP first; for melees, then weapons and AC; for casters, focus items (which sort depends on the caster, but spell haste and mana preservation are good basics), then mana. Note that int/wis for casters isn’t on my list: it makes almost no difference to mana pool compared to +mana, and you will be using level restricted items later that will take them over cap on these stats anyway. Something similar applies to strength and stamina for melees, and their ability to deal damage while being powerlevelled isn’t exactly significant.