How to Make Money in Norrath: A Guide for New and Old Alike

I decided to perform a little challenge for myself in coming back to EQ2. I cleared out a character slot and rolled a brand new character. I meant to put her on a new server to avoid the tempation to twink but I goofed and she ended up on Crushbone with my others.

I'm trying to level, as a new person, via what is available to me as FTP. No mercs (even though I have the feature and the oh-so-OP 10 year reward ones), no twinking.

After puttering around for a while, I'm finding it's not really possible. Not without access to selling on the broker.

You see, level 1-20 adepts, handcrafted, anything that might remotely be an upgrade, is more than 1p per item. That is insane. I can't sell anything on the broker, so between what I've gotten from quests and selling trash loot I've managed to scrounge up 4g in 14 levels. I know broker access is one of the few FTP restrictions but it makes this game at this point in its life completely unplayable for someone that doesn't already know someone/have a guild that is willing to hook them up. And I can't make money by selling on the broker unless I sub or buy SC, and the point of my challenge was to truly play as a FTP player.

I'm going to have to break my self imposed rule but I'm trying to do it without using my high level toon's money, so thankfully I have a mid-60's level sage for spells, and I think I have enough levels on tailor on someone to make her some armor.

This isn't a call for any nerf, or changes to the FTP model - like I said I know there needs to be SOMEthing that makes it worthwhile to sub, I just didn't think it would be so bad this early on. I only have taken a few months off, didn't think the low level attunable gear market would triple in cost. Even if I did have broker access I wouldn't pay 1p for an adept.

I'll tell you what though, it is a ton of fun going into Forest Ruins, Oakmyst, and the Caves and having that fear of "is Grubdigger up?" With my newbie armor and app1 tank pet I wasn't able to take on the named unicorn (level 11) until I was level 13, and that was a pretty nail biting fight still that involved much rooting and recasting of my dead pet. It's so sad to see these zones empty though.

Not sure how long I'll be able to go on since I can'tr truly be self-sufficient but we'll see.

Have you tried doing your own crafting in order to get around those issues? I've been making my own spells, and harvesting enough to ensure that I can get Experts of any spell that I consider important. That works up until level 39, where you can no longer buy advanced recipe books off of NPCs.

Why are you looking at handcrafted gear? I have yet to see any handcrafted (levels 1-46) that would be an upgrade to the gear I looted or received as quest rewards. Even mastercrafted barely qualifies as an upgrade (and its rare when it does).

One of my wife's friends recently started a F2P account. She's level 15 and still mostly using apprentice spells. In part, I think you have expectations of where your spells should be, and they're not necessarily matched by where they need to be at that level. (And since she's an inexperienced MMO player, she is operating at a disadvantage due to lack of game knowledge.)

After you hit level 20, you can get decent gear and all of your spells by running agnostic dungeons. You will have to turn off XP temporarily to keep from out-leveling your gear and spells, but it is a way to get those things.

In MMOs, I tend to save my money and spend very little until I get close to max level. It's a slower way to progress, but it's a lot closer to the lifestyle that F2P experiences.

That said, there are very few avenues for making money if you're F2P. You may be able to leverage social connections to sell things on the broker for you. But most of the tips in this thread are irrelevant for F2P players.

I also want to tell players a little seceret about a raid named tower of the frozen shadow most of time it's duoable or trioable I personally can solo it for those of you who don't know this secret each named in this zone drops a plat cache of anywhere between 10p-21p a drop plus raid drops of tier 6 and up usually pay about a plat each so get out there and fight fight fight! sorry dev's but sometimes players need to speak up and that's what im doing go get dat money! truly a champion of the people Darthegreat aka DTG

I have a wizard I'm trying to save up enough money to hire a mercenary so he can continue to adventure. I've leveled to the 20s and I'm in Butcherblock and there just seems to be able to able to do so in the first part. Should I go back to Kelethin and do some harvesting? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Leloes....the lower level you are the cheaper the mercs are to hire and pay for services. At level 20 you are probably looking at a few silver to hire a merc. Can't remember the exact cost.

Also, if you've been harvesting and have any rares in your level range, you can probably get a crafter to make them into mastercrafted gear and Expert level spells for you, which will help. If you are just using the Apprentice-level spells you get as you level up, you are using a peashooter when you could be using an assault rifle.

My wizard is level 23. Where would the best place to get shinies that I wouldn't get slaughtered?

All of Norrath you just need patience and skill zipping in and out and and grabbing all of the shines!

I don't think a level 23 wizard can go anywhere in Norrath without having a lot of problems.

Hehe, the beach near the New Halas starting area /ducks

j/k If you need help Leloes and are on AB, give me a shout and I will come assist. Usually on Kittaene.

Kitty

It really depends upon your level of skill in "threading the needle" and, to some degree, on how fast you can run. By threading the needle, I mean finding the space between two moving mobs that is just outside the aggro range of both.

At level 23, you can have mostly aggro-free shiny collection in: Darklight Wood, Greater Faydark, Timorous Deep, Frostfang Sea, Antonica, The Commonlands.

Nektulos Forest, Thundering Steppes, and Butcherblock Mountains are ~ level 20-30 (BBM goes to 35), and those would also be good spots.

For good dungeon shiny hunting, you've got Wailing Caves (10-20), Blackburrow (11-18), Stormhold (16-27), Fallen Gate (18-25).

With a little challenge you can hunt in the dungeons of Crushbone Keep (20-30), Ruins of Varsoon (25-34), Tombs of Night (30-42), Nektropos Castle (30-37), Kaladim (30-40), and Runnyeye (30-40).

Thanks, everybody!

So I made a new toon on a TLE server. Wow memories of being dirt broke. Level 5 ranger has... 15 silver LOL

As much as I hate crafting I might have to.

But still the TLE... deja vous man

And that sense of accomplishment and wonder when you make your first gold piece.....

For sure. Actually I've made a few now. Unlike in 2004-05, I actually have a clue on what's important to buy and what's not. MMO experience ftw

Playing in TLE is kind of brining old memories ... by level 12 my necro by just running quests in Darkling woods easy accumulated 4.5 gold I'll see how progression goes up next, but questing is not something that should be passed by

There is no such thing as a silver account. Its down to two choices: Free or Sub.

I also tried going completely free, starting over on a new server and making all new characters. It is hard but you can do it. I also had to make multiple characters for crafting but found such high time sinks in using the harvests to make the gear I need. Adventuring supplementing it -- oddly I found when playing a wizard I would get fighter drops and visa-versa. I also had the help of a couple of friends to share in all manners of obtaining items, gear, rares, and harvestables.

Buying a few merchant coins (or whatever they are called) can go a long ways in make some very good money -- sell only the best drops. Reactants can bring in great coin. I also suggest playing for a couple of months building up loyalty coins (again whatever they're called) and then buy 1 month and cash them in for platinum coins -- you can trade them for "Bags of Platinum" getting 75 plat.

There are many ways of getting coin, sadly most require spending at least some real money in the game.

Anyone have a better link for this? I'm having problems with my browser getting this to display. The Web Archive site doesn't like this link.

EDIT: It looks like this domain ripchi.com is defunct. Anyone know where else I can get this PDF?

Found an updated one (well, from 2012) in the Old Forum Archive.