Frequently Asked Questions for Newbies

First of all, excuse me for posting here instead of posting a new thread, since I can't find a post new thread button anywhere.. :x Anyway, my question would be about the good/evil alignment.. I've only got the Trial account atm, so I'm limited to reaching level 10 and can't go to Qeynos or so. My friend, who's also starting the game soon, is going to play Evil, and well, I'm loving my Halfling dirge. So the question would be if anyone could tell more about the evil/good alignment thing, or perhaps link to somewhere where I could read more about it? About the betraying, consequences and such.. Anyway, thanks in advance, and sorry for posting here if it's wrong.

Okisai wrote:

If you're not on a PvP server, then after about level 18 or so it's very easy for both of you to group together and see the world together without either one of you leaving our initial home cities.

If, however, you'd still like to leave Qeynos (which I, of course, recommend, as the player of several Freeport-based characters), then the consequence of betraying is that all of your spells and CAs are stripped and reset to App I level when you betray. However, if you do it in the low levels, it's not such a problem, since all of the spells and CAs you have at level 15 will more or less be completely replaced by level 25 anyway.

Also, Dirge is a neutral class, so if you were betraying a halfling to Freeport you could remain a Dirge or go Trouby.

If you are on a PvP server, it's all different. Good & Evil can't talk to each other, trade goods, or do anything together on a PvP server, what with the whole "mortal enemies" thing. But on the normal ruleset servers, my groups and raids (on the 50 Fury and the 70 Assassin) are mixed classes and cities all the time, anyway. Paladin and Assassin make a great combo.

These are all questions about Status points I had needed answered, compiled here since this is a good informational sticky thread:

Had some questions about Status Points (Personal/Guild).

I have been doing some various searches on the forums and I am getting some conflicting information, along with some outdated information. I just wanted to post what I've learned and please correct me if I'm wrong on any of this (I'm sure I am):

You must be in a guild to earn status points, do writs, buy items using status points, etc.
Incorrect. You gain personal status no matter if you're in a guild or not. In order to use them to buy things, however, you must be guilded (there are exceptions on PvP servers, but I won't go into that here). You can still do writs when unguilded for personal status.
10% of any status you earn goes towards your guild if you are a patron. If you are just a member, you don't contribute to the guild status at all.
The patron system was trashed a few LUs ago. Everyone in a guild contributes an amount equal to 10% of your personal status that you earned. This does not subtract from your personal status, it's more like a 10% match.

Having more than 12 patrons affects the speed of exp gain (imposes a penalty) for the guild. If you have patrons that have zero status, and never earn status, it hurts your guild.
Outdated information, no longer applies.

If you quit a guild, the guild loses all your status points but it does not affect the guild's experience level. When you join a new guild, they do not get your previously contributed guild points (it is reset to zero). Your personal status is unaffected (you retain it, although it is not visible until you join a new guild).
Correct.

You do not spend Guild Status points. The sole purpose is for gaining guild levels. Merchants never take from the Guild Status points, only from your personal status points.
Correct.

Writs yield status points based on guild level, not personal adventuring level.
Incorrect. Writs are based on your adventuring level. Therefore, a level 70 doing level 67 writs earns more than a level 40 doing level 40 writs. The points awarded are based on the level and difficulty (solo vs. heroic) of the writ.

Doing a bunch of writs with Academy of Arcane Science builds up faction with that group. It does not lower faction with others (such as Freeport Militia, Dismal Rage, etc.)
Correct. It used to, but no longer.

Each faction has its own vendor of items you can buy with personal status points, based on your personal faction level with that group (not the guilds overall faction).
Correct. The faction you build doing writs is all about you, not your guild.
City Merchants sell items based on your guild level, using personal status points to purchase.
Correct.

As long as you are in a Guild and meet the guild level requirements or faction requirements, you can buy any items you want from City Merchants or faction specific vendors. (Meaning that there is no difference if you are a patron or a regular member of the guild)
Correct, since the patron system is no longer in effect.

You get discounts on items such as horses or houses, based on guild level. The cash price goes down, but you have to pay personal status points.
Correct. Some items can still be purchased without status points, but they will cost more.

If you quit a guild but have a house that requires status points, you will not be able to earn personal status points (except by selling status point items to the appropriate people) effectively causing you to eventually "lose" your housing when your personal status pool dries up. (You don't really lose it, you just can't walk into it again until you pay the upkeep).
Incorrect. The house is yours, and you can continue to earn status for heritage quests and writs.


Thanks in advance for any help!

Nice summary, added a link to it!

http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?&topic_id=286466 I don't know if this is outdated, but its some good mount information if its accurate.

Im new to this and have never used a forum. Not sure if this is the correct way to go about asking a ? But.

I am new to EQII I created a toon last night and when I went to a quest giver they had audible speach. I created a new toon on the evil side and when I go to the quest giver there is no audible speach. Any Idea how to turn the speach on or off?

Some quest-givers have voice-over speech, some don't, so without knowing the name of the guy who didn't talk to you I can't confirm if he should have had audible speech or not.
If you heard the good side quest giver's speech then you should have downloaded all the voiceovers, so it's probably not that you just didn't download the voices yet.
There are some options in the Options window (alt-O) under sounds that let you turn off NPC voiceovers, or only hear them once. It's unlikely you could do this by mistake, but if you remember poking around in that window previously, you might take a look and check what options for sound you have chosen.
Other than that I'd say it's entirely possible that you just happened to meet an NPC that didn't have audio recorded for his text. Many of the newbie questgivers do have audio, but not all, and it becomes less common as you level up.

Re the mount guide, I think prices are accurate but the pictures show the old models, not the new post-EoF ones. There's a more up to date guide archived on www.soefan.com, I'll dig up a link.

Didi,
The link to AA / Axp information has a problem.
First it asks you to be logged in and once logged in it tells me I dont have sufficent access to view.
Thanks.

How do I mend my weapons? I haven't found any menders around and I am unable to fight.

UlteriorModem wrote:

Thanks! Achievements changed a bit with Game Update 32 which goes live today, if I have my dates right ... so the old guide has been replaced. The new one is here! And I've fixed the link too. Well spotted!
And I believe the mender question has already been answered on your other thread - but for posterity, in your home village (or, I think, any city zone) right-click a guard, choose 'find NPC', and type in "Mender". That'll get you a dot on your map, and a waypoint leading you to him if you aren't too far away.

Where is the box to post a new topic?

It should be at the top left of the screen (below the graphic banner), but I think you can't start new topics until you've been registered for a week. Something that may possibly change, at least for this forum, but we've just changed forum software so there are still a few bugs and changes to work out. In the mean time you can ask questions in a reply, if you can't find your question already answered somewhere else.

Ah, that answers my question also! Thanks!
Just bought EQ2 today after playing the trial for a couple of nights, last night until 1.30! I had been playing the WoW free trial but found it quite hollow and cartoony (my son liked it though but I have him liking EQ2 now because he can be a frog!) but love EQ2.
I have installed the full 10Gb and just waiting for all the updates to download.
Can I just ask, in the trail on the island it was all very 'corridor like' with the rock walls very close, are there large open spaces in the other lands?
Thanks

Mace71UK wrote:

Yes, definitely! The zones are quite variable and some are small dungeon-like tunnels, others are wide open spaces. I think you'll find a good mix once you move out into Antonica/Commonlands and beyond, the newbie zones do tend to be smaller and simpler but after you move out of the 1-10 zones you'll start feeling the size of the world more.

So, I'm finally starting up an EQ2 account to join some friends on the Nagafen server. There are 4 of us that connect to Ventrilo and we will be starting in Qeynos. One has a mystic main (though I'm gonna persuade him to switch to a Fury because he thought a shaman would be badass like Jara was in EQ1, but looks like druids are better here if you want DPS, HoTs, roots and stronger overall healing), one has several alts but prolly will be mainly a monk for our PvP grp, and his stepson rolled a zerker. I've levelled up a Swashy to 9 on the trial account, and am ready to purchase the base EQ2 game and the needed expansions.
What is the best and cheapest way to get up-to-date in EQ2? Separate downloads from the Sony store seem expensive and redundant. Will going to a retail store like GameStop and buying the latest expansion pack EoF be enough? Is that a compilation of all the expansions up to now?
And what are these things called Adventure Packs? Are they even necessary?
Basically, I'm looking for the minimum basics with some important frills (like quicker travel), but not too much as EQ2 will be a secondary PVP hobby as EQ1 still has some juice left in it for me. And 2 EQ1 accounts and an EQ2 account can get expensive monthly. Thanks.

Went to GameStop and bought the EQ2 EoF All-in-One pack... includes basic EQ2 game, Desert of Flames, Kingdom of Sky, and Echoes of Faydwer for one low price of $39.99.
Includes 30 day subscription and the Clockwork Copter.

That is indeed the best solution you've purchased! The Adventure packs are all you're missing now, and I wouldn't worry about those to start with, there's plenty of other content to play with. Splitpaw is probably the first one you might want to look at, it's good from levels 20-50, but certainly not required.
You could also consider upgrading to a Station Access account - as of April it'll be $30 per month and that will cover your EQ2 subscription as well as one of your EQ1 subscriptions (assuming they're on the same account). If that works out no more than you're paying already, it could be handy for you, as you get all the AP's free with a station access account, and extra character slots too.

Where might I find an explination of mentoring I looked into the FAQ and must have missed it.
How does it effect your level, how does it effect your skills, what is the max / mind you can mentor down etc etc.

Mentoring is a mechanism whereby a higher level player can group with a lower level player and lower his level to match, so they can fight together.
There are no level restrictions, though from memory I think when mentoring first came out they said it didn't work well mentoring to under level 10, but you can actually do this so I'm not sure what the issue was.
The higher level groups with the lower level, right-clicks them, and selects "mentor". (This has to be done while they're not in combat.) A few things happen at this point.

• the mentored player (the lower level) starts getting a bonus 5% xp for being mentored. If two higher level folks mentor the lower level person, he gets even more XP bonus - I think it's 5% from each. This lasts till the mentoring ends.
• the mentor (higher level) gets less xp than he would fighting at his own level, though still gets a bit
• the mentor's armour is automatically scaled down so that it approximates the armour that a person of the lower level would actually be using. For example if a level 70 is wearing a 300 mitigation breastplate, but mentors to level 60, the mitigation on his breastplate and all the other stats would be temporarily scaled down by a %, so might end up around 250 mitigation (at a wild guess).
• the mentor's spells and combat arts also scale down to about what they would normally do at that level. For example if a level 70 wizard can cast Ice Nova for 10,000 damage, but mentors to level 15, casting Ice Nova will no longer do 10,000 damage ... possibly more like 500 damage.
• the mentor does get to keep abilities that he didn't necessarily have at that level. For example, dirges get a resurrection spell at 42. If a level 70 dirge mentors to a level 30, a "real" level 30 dirge can't cast resurrection, but the mentored dirge still has it and can use it. So, higher levels mentored down do still tend to be more powerful than they really were when they were that level the first time.
• higher level folks who are mentored can kill lower level monsters and complete lower level quests and get experience and achievement experience from them while mentored, although they would be "grey" and give no experience to them normally if they were not mentored. As a result it's fairly common for high level folks to ask lower level folks if they can group and mentor them for a short time while they finish up quests. On the down side, of course, while a higher level player is mentored to a lower level, they can also get stomped into little pieces by monsters that would not normally even dare to attack them.

Hope that answers your questions!

Are berzerkers effective duel wielder? And can they duel wield lng swords?
Thanx!