(N)EverQuest Scrolls

Yes, the title is a deliberate parody of the money making guides sold from web sites for EQ, and the continual posts on EQ forums from ignorant newbies wanting to find that hidden way to wealth, riches and rapid level advancement. The real truth is that no such store of secrets exists, and if a system did exist that was easy, SoE would remove it faster than they nerf bards.

Having said that, there are quite a few ways that will earn you a good amount of cash – given a large investment of work on your part. Some of these may appear easier than others, but they just take more time.

First of all, here are a few that won’t work – guaranteed. Making a tradeskill item and selling it back to vendors; SoE have said many times that they don’t want this to be an option. Buying items in one place and selling in another at a profit. So if you see tips about pickled gator or shark meat, ignore them – they don’t work.

However, you can minimise the amount lost when selling, and this is a good trick to practice. You get the best prices when selling to vendors when you have a charisma of 105/109 or better, and your faction is indifferent. Apart from a rare few vendors who just plain give bad prices, you won’t get any better with 200 charisma and ally faction. So invest in some charisma gear for selling – 2 opal encrusted steins will boost cha by 50, and if you need more, there are other items you can get. (Kobold jesters crown, loam encrusted gear, some player made jewelry – cat’s eye) Also remember to compare prices when there is a choice of vendors, in some zones (Plane of Knowledge) there is no difference at all, and in others (Shar Vahl in particular), there can be a large difference between vendors. You should also be aware that as a vendor buys a lot of any item, it will gradually start to offer lower prices. At early levels, it is often extremely profitable to do newbie quests to boost your faction, then sell to the merchants in your guild.

First, level to 65…
There’s a saying that in EQ, level > all. So the options available to a level 10 character are extremely limited, and make a lot less money than those available to a 65 character, who may well already know all the money making tricks.

It is generally true that you are better off killing lots of mobs that drop a good average amount of money, than one or two extremely rare mobs that drop a fortune. It may seem like you are getting a better deal with the uber loot, but you really aren’t; calculate the amount of money earned per time invested, and remember to include not just your killing time, but the time getting to the kill spot, time taken camping placeholders, and most important of all, the time required to sell the item for a good price.

For a level one player, you can easily make 20pp per hour or better. In Freeport and Qeynos newbie areas (also in Misty Thicket and Steamfont, although the mobs there are slightly higher), rats and snakes drop a number of items that sell for several gold each, and these items are stackable. Rats also drop the plague rat tail in most newbie zones – this sells for roughly 1pp 6 gold. Get to know which common drops off of common mobs are worth the most. N Qeynos is my favorite zone for this approach.

At higher levels, your options open up. One of these possibilities is (green) goblin camps in Butcherblock. The items that drop there sell for 4.5pp in some cases. In Butcherblock (and Toxxulia Forest), pristine skunk claws are relatively common, and sell for the same price, as do some other drops from Wandering Greenbloods.

Willowisps are around level 12 and need magic weapons to hit – but drop uncommonly (about 1 in 10) greater lightstones. These can be traded via a quest with the gypsies in North Karana (or the dark elf vendors in South Ro) for an item worth approximately 8pp. Wisps are found in North Karana, West Commons, Qeynos Hills and in Eruds Crossing. Wisps in Jaggedpine Forest always drop a GLS, but they are much higher level.

For 20 – 40 players, look for mobs that drop fine steel weapons, or bronze or ringmail armor; these sell for an average of about 5pp to vendors (3pp for the dagger). In general goblins are good for this, in High Keep basement, Butcherblock crazed goblins, Solusek’s Eye; and the gnolls in South Karana outside (and inside) Splitpaw. Bandits in Paludal also qualify, but are usually overcamped. I’d expect to see 100 – 250pp per hour from these; not great compared to aqua goblins, but these will give a 20 – 30 player experience as well. At higher levels there are always good money making experience camps – geonids in Crystal Caverns for 35 – 45 will make 500pp/hr, scarabs in Sebilis for 45 – 55 can make 1000pp/hr, and so on.

At higher levels, guards can be good – look for 200 – 500pp per hour from these, depending on which set of guards you are willing to trash faction with. Guards in Paineel, Oggok, Misty Thicket and High Keep are good for 30-40/45, whereas Neriak, Felwithe, and Katta work for the 50+ player. These all give faction hits, however. The mysterious Kaladim Citizens in Butcherblock also come into the 35+ group. In the same category would have to go the rangers at the druid rings in West Commons; for mid 30s, around 800 – 1k pp per level is possible.

Buy Low, Sell High
All of the above involves killing, looting, and selling to vendors. Selling to players is a different game, and requires more patience to wait to see if your items will sell. In general, it is better to hold out for a good price, even at the risk of being seen as expensive – after all, who cares? To follow this, you should have a permanent internet connection, and either be willing to sit in Bazaar afk 24/7, or use a second account to create a mule character who will.

In the purest form, get together some cash, about 2k pp is ideal, and sit in the bazaar, checking ooc and auction tells as well as general bazaar prices, and get to learn the typical selling prices for popular high value items on your server. Haste items are great, as are regen and mid range weapons – silver chitin hand wraps, flowing black silk sash, argent defender, ceremonial iksar breast plate, centi weapons, Lamentation, etc. Buy low, sell high. Never ever price something less than your competition in the bazaar in the hopes that it will sell quickly – if that is what you want, price it the same as the lowest. Someone else can always undercut you, just as you can them – and there is no point at which this has to stop. If you see an item with a limited supply priced too low, buy it and sell it for more – but never do this with tradeskill items, as the supply will be replenished.

Vendor Mining
You don’t need to sell only things that you have made or hunted for yourself, or bought from other players. A great source of items to sell is from NPC vendors. Very often in newbie areas players sell tradeskills supplies to vendors (I have found more HQ bear pelts this way than from hunting), and in popular transit zones like PoK and Shadowhaven some very nice items can be found on the vendors. In fact, one of the best zones for finding decent items is Bazaar itself!

Turn in Spells

Most spell classes have a mid 50s range of spells that can only be obtained by turning in a Kunark drop spell to an NPC in Firiona Vie. These turns can, I believe, be done by anyone of any class. Multiple copies of the least good of the turn in spells can be bought cheaply in the Bazaar (Spirit of Scale for druids, Yaulp IV for clerics, Defoliation for necromancers, etc) and the result resold in the bazaar for considerably more.

Tradeskills
can be great – but, if they are seen as being a way of getting rich quick, too much competition will ruin your market. I have seen Halas 10lb Meat Pie being bought in stacks of 20 for 20pp each, and the next day some impatient idiots selling them for 1pp (the cost of making them, ignoring the 45 mins plus required for the combines and the time to hunt mammoth meat, is closer to 2pp per pie, assuming they are trivial to make). Tradeskills are only truly profitable if you already have a high skill level, probably 200+, and a new recipe is introduced; this happened when the Cabbage patch (Solstice earring) recipes came out, although in that case it took a long time for prices to settle down. Tradeskill item prices will tend to drop to below the cost of making, as people skilling up are prepared to lose money in order to skill up faster, and as second hand items come back into the market.

One system that is supposed to work is to make fish rolls, and buy Fuzzlecutter Formula 5000 from the gnome outside W Freeport (Ping Fuzzlecutter). These individually cost a few gold, and should sell well in the bazaar for 1pp each.

The other way to make money from tradeskills is to be a supplier, not a consumer. What I mean by that is you provide tradeskill components that are timeconsuming or inconvenient for a higher level person who needs to master a tradeskill for quests to pursue. This can be done profitably by level 10 characters; collect pelts (cat, wolf, rockhopper or bear, all except for ruined), and sell for 2pp – 20pp each. High quality bear skins should sell for 20pp to make tailored backpacks (the same applies for high quality rockhopper hides), all the rest 2 – 10pp, depending on market forces. Harvest spider and spiderling silks and sell for 1 – 5pp each; or convert them into leather padding and silk swatch, and sell for a lot more. Other items used for tradeskills that are rarer can be dealt with in the same way – perfect owlbear pelts (not really a tradeskill item), superb and flawless rockhopper hides, crystalline spider silk, and so on. A very good example of this is swirling shadows, which drop from lesser shades (level 5 and below) in Shadeweavers Thicket, and sell for 50pp each on most servers; these can be found on the hill side SW of the Paludal tunnel entrance.

Spiders are common in East/West Commons, East Karana, and in Upper Guk. Spiderlings are common in Innothule Swamp and the Feerrott. Pelts are commonly found in West, North and East Karana (cats), West Commons (bears), Shadeweavers Thicket and Dawnshroud Peaks(rockhoppers), and Marus Seru (greyhoppers). You will also find shade and shadeling silk in Shadeweavers Thicket. Generally speaking, if you are a new character sub level 10, your newbie area will offer a good mix of pelt and silk drops – Qeynos Hills, Nektulos Forest, Feerrott, Innothule Swamp and Shadeweavers Ticket are all good for this; but Steamfont Mountains, Butcherblock Mountains and Greater Faydark aren’t.

Ores for smithing can be excellent Bazaar fodder; these are required for the Coldain prayer shawls quests and general skill ups. Both velium and acrylia ores work well for this. Velium drops are common from orcs in Crystal Caverns, 20s/30s mobs, as well as the rather higher spiders and kobolds in Velketor’s Labyrinth; and acrylia drops from tribals and grimlings in Dawnshroud Peaks, Maidens Eye, Grimling Forest and Tenebrous Mountains. These can be hunted for exp, depending on zone, from about 30 to 45, with 100 – 500pp per yellow of experience.

Supplying intermediate products for tradeskills is another good policy. Tradeskillers will pay a premium for common intermediate combines that only require a low trade skill level. I have already suggested silk swatches and leather padding above; others that come to mind include celestial essence, heady kiola, LoY dyes, and others that may occur to you if you search the trade skill recipe pages at eqtraders.

Why not just trade cash?
Another way of making money is to become a banker. First, get yourself a lot of platinum, and several summoned bags (100% weight reducing). Then go to a zone like Everfrost or Rathe Mountains, and offer to give people platinum in exchange for copper and silver, with a 10 – 15% markup. This assumes that these are popular camps for money making, of course. Or go to places where fine steel drops, like South Karana and Soluseks Eye, and vendors are far away, and offer to buy all fine steel for 3pp each.

Uber L007z
The last money making technique is the closest you’ll find to the uber loot guides. Find an item you want, and camp for it. Let’s take an example – the ancient croc in Upper Guk can be killed in your 30s, and drops gatorscale sleeves and leggings, probably worth 200 – 600pp on most servers. The placeholder spawns every 20 minutes, and I’d guess you get the ancient every couple of hours. Forget it. 200pp an hour on average is decent, but not great – unless you are getting very good exp from the camp. Much the same applies to absolutely any possible drop you can think of. The best you can realistically do is to attempt to string together several named mobs with special drops, close together, in an empty zone. In fact, write up a zone guide; good candidates for this are Solusek’s Eye (a 45 warrior and cleric could do king, jailer, barman and drunkard at will), Permafrost, Hollowshade, Crystal Caverns and the Warrens. Apart from a few, special cases; these are the named cycles in a few zones – Frontier Mountains, Trakanon’s Teeth and Skyfire Mountains (I think). For these cycles, every time you kill a mob on one of these cycles, the next in the sequence spawns; these mobs have specific loot that always drops. Provided you can track them down, and know what the cycle consists of, this is a good way of making money.