Go to some of the side zones: The Graveyard, Sunken City, The Sprawl, the Ruins Or, head out into the Commonlands - there are at least 2 quests right outside the front gate of Freeport to get you started.
Or: head to Darklight Wood (use a druid ring to get there) or the start area in Timorous Deep (use globe travel to arrive on the dock, where you can ride a griffon to the start area).
Thanks for the quests in the Commonlands...now if only I could work out what the hell is going on re the AA trees and how to craft!!
AAs you just need to read what they do. Crafting, there's a tutorial quest in the tradeskill building in West Freeport (just across from Execution Plaza).
If in FP, take the globe at the docks area (past the spare broker and banker in the building, go thru that building to reach the globe im thinking of) and go to FP, if a citizen of FP, the guards of Neriak will just not notice you. Walk to the exit to Darklight Woods and Start looking for quest givers! Some not far beyond the bridge at a small outpost. Good luck, have fun and remember that the pointy end of your weapon goes into your enemies, not your hand!
Thanks for all the help people; although I have to say that the AA tree is completely baffling, if I roll back anything I have to re-spend 345 points which the system just ignores anyway - oh and saving it is next to impossible. I presume this is because I am still free play and not subscription yet - but I won't sign up until I get crafting and the AA tree to work so we are in a bit of an impasse..
The AA tree allows you to plan out what AAs you want to take as you earn them. You don't actually get granted these AAs until you earn them. So, you can plan them all in advance and that saves you from having to sit and stare at the window trying to decide what to take each time you gain a new point. If you're not on Fallen Gate, there should be a generic "leveling" set of AAs you can select and it will grant them to you in what the devs deem as a good order to level with. (This isn't available on Fallen Gate) As for crafting, what isn't working for you?
I can gather stuff fine, however on my previous SK (when I was on the training island you get to via the pirate boat) I went into the crafting area and could not get out!! literally, it was either bugged or something or it's not open to non-subscription players..
I assume you are talking about the Raffik quest . First one you click the boat to get out. Second you have to call to home or guildhall or use the item you made during the quest. That's not the crafting tutorial though, though obviously it's a crafting quest line. The tutorial has you make a few things and rewards you with some of the low level crafting books. Very few zones are not open to non-subscription players and of those I don't think any are that low in level (I think 90s or maybe even 100 is the lowest levels you run into sub only areas.)
If the OP is talking about the crafting area on the Overlord's Outpost, you go into a basement, the door out, is a panel in the ceiling by the ladder and you cannot actually start the crafting in either Queen's Colony or Overlord's Outpost any longer.
Oh yeah, there never was much of a tutorial there anyway. Best just to head into the city to start crafting.
Err - where is the wholesaler in the Freeport tradeskill area, and is there anywhere you can get to learn tradeskills without spending real money (not going to do that until I can figure tradeskills/AA out)
It's the Coalition of Tradesfolke in West Freeport, southeast of The Execution Plaza (36, -18, 90). The initial crafting tutorial teaches you the basics and gets you a handy crafting tunic that boosts your crafting skills a little. After that, you can follow the Tradeskill Timeline on the wiki to see where to go next and what you need to do a given quest. You will need to either harvest or purchase your raw materials, and you'll purchase the fuel you need to craft with. Tradeskill quests tend to pay you back enough money to cover the fuel. Also, as you skill up, you will need to purchase at least the basic tradeskill recipe books for your class, which start very cheap and never get super expensive. There are also Advanced recipes for each tradeskill, and those drop from monsters at the level of the recipe book. So, if you wanted the Advanced recipe book for a 42 crafter, you'd need to kill level 42 mobs to get that book to drop, or else buy it on the broker. Some people price recipes stupidly high on the broker, so you either hunt them, or else you can get one for a given tier while doing the tradeskill quests from the Craftsman Timeline. I did a short little video recently showing how actual crafting works. You select a recipe, and start the combine. As you craft, periodically detriments will pop up, and you have to counter those by mashing a button with the corresponding image. When you don't have detriments, you want to spam those buttons as you go to speed things up. I use my numeric keypad, and 1, 2, 3 corresponds to your Durability reactions (the leftmost three buttons), while 4, 5, 6 are your Progress reactions (the rightmost three buttons). So crafting usually looks like 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 4-5-6, 4-5-6, 4-5-6 etc. (or two sets of Durability then mostly Progress thereafter).
That's really interesting. I've always assumed that it's quicker to focus on Progress, and then do a quick Durability when that bar gets too low, so the opposite of you: 4-5-6, 4-5-6, 1-2-3, 4-5-6.
