Gameplay Tips

Warning.  This may be considered an exploit, so use it at your own risk.  It is possible to have a group larger than 6 people that still shares experience for a kill.  To do this start with a group of 5.  Then have someone outside the group invite the other non party members to form their own group.  They should hold off on accepting the invite (don't decline either).  Then invite the person who just did that invite to join the first group.  After he accepts, and is added to the group, the other people he invited should accept his group invitation.  They will now be part of the overall group, but will not appear on the main group's member list.  They will share xp for the kills and can make (but not hear) group tells.  When a party member above them leaves, they will move up onto the list.

CORPSE RECOVERY.  This is from a post on EQ Vault by John Smedley:  "In a nutshell, the Corpse Recovery rules are as follows:  Characters All Levels: If you have no items on your corpse, it will dissapear within 3 minutes.   Characters Level 1-5: Corpse will dissapear within 30 minutes (real time) whether you are online or offline. Those of you wondering why this rule is in place? - There would be WAY to many bodies if we didn't do it this way.  Characters Level 6 and above - Corpse will dissapear within 24 hours if the player is online (being at the character select screen STILL counts as online). Corpses will dissapear within 1 week if the player is offline."  An additional note to this that you should be aware of is that being online means being logged into your account, no matter what character you are playing.  Thus, if you have a character die and switch to another character for 24 hours without looting that first corpse, the corpse will disappear and you will lose all of your stuff.

Learn to Use /assist and /assist <playername>.  You may want to define a hotkey to /assist.  Pick out somone in the group to be prime target selecter. Everyone target that person and hit the assist key.  This way you will all fight the same mob.  If you group with a tank often, you can define a key to /assist Tankname.  This way you dont even have to select them, which can take valuable seconds in a heated battle.  Also, Whenever you join a group, ask who the Prime healer and who the secondary healer is, and who the prime tank is.  These jobs are very important, and they can be a lifesaver if you know to keep the mobs off while the cleric greater heals the tank.  Also in higher level zones, check to see if there is an evac person...and keep the mobs off if an evac is called.  (submitted by Munchie)

At the text prompt, you can use the SHIFT-UpArrow to view a history of your previous commands.  Just hit Enter again to repeat the command verbatim, or you can press SHIFT-LeftArrow or RightArrow and edit the command first. This is useful for repeating auctions or repeating a tell to a friend who was zoning.  (Submitted by Svane Astralsage)

You can use SHIFT-PageUp and SHIFT-PageDown to scroll a page at a time up through your scrollback buffer.  Try it once, and you will never use those annoying scrollbar arrows again.  (Submitted by Svane Astralsage)

The /yell or /y command is a great way to ask for help from those around you.  It tells everyone nearby that you need help and which direction to go to find you.  You should definitely remember it and may even want to program it into a social button and put it in your hotkeys.

You can fish while sitting down and meditating.  So if you are near water and have to med or heal anyways, you can fish and make a little extra money.

Summoned items disappear when you log out.  So be careful about buying anything that was summoned such as food and drink.

(I have received conflicting reports on this, but doing this can't hurt).  The cancel magic spell is useful for dispelling harmful spells cast on group members. However it will cancel the first icon displayed.  If your party members have many buffs, leave the first icon "slot" open for harmful magic. You can do this by casting a minor buff followed by the serious buffs. Then you can dispell the minor buff.  (Submitted by Rudo)

Use the /random command to resolve group disputes over loot.  Ask everyone to pick a number between x and y and then type /random x y.  The group will get a message something like "Whitewisper rolls a magical die that could a number from 1 to 10 but this time the number is: 7.  (submitted by Whitewhisper Brightfist)

Looking for a sack or other container to store items with your newbie character, but don't want to purchase one?  Most of the quests that involve getting multiple items for an NPC involve him giving you a container in which to collect the items.  These can usually be used to store anything, and are essentially free containers which you can get often right at level 1.

For classes with the ability to "sneak", when an NPC merchant regards you  less then indifferently, enable sneak before selling or buying from the merchant to get better prices.  (You'll know it's working when you /con the merchant and they are "indifferent" to you).  This also allows players who couldn't normally deal with an NPC merchant (i.e. Aviak Merchant in South Karana) to buy and sell from them.

[AllaKhazam's note:  I have not verified this personally].  There is a joystick setup wchich can work with Everquest. The trick is to buy one of the Gravis Line of Joysticks that supports their "keyset manager" software. This package, that comes with the joysticks, allows you to program the directional pad as well as 10 programmable buttons on the joystick to emulate keyboard functions. It works great in conjunction with placing commands in your "hotbox" section in everquest. Hope this will Help some of you all out there with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.  The joysticks that work are:  Gravis Gamepad Pro, Gravis Blackhawk and Gravis Xterminator.  I might mention that the package requires you to associate it with an EXE extension to know when to use the joystick. Be sure to associate this with eqgame.exe and not the everquest.exe, or it won't work.  (Submitted by Darque Assault)

/Autosplit and /split split coins evenly, not amounts.  Thus if a party of three loots a corpse with 1 pp, 1 gp and 1 sp, the looter will get a platinum, another person will get a gold and another person will get a silver.  Big difference!  If you trust your party members and want to be completely egalitarian, have one person go to the bank and start at zero loot, loot every monster and split the money evenly with the party at the end of the day.  To be really frugal, make your treasurer the person with the highest charisma and local faction and have him sell any extra items before the final accounting.  (Submitted by Llyndeyr Splitter)

If you hold the right-mouse button down or the control key and press either the left or right movement keys, you slide to the left or right (normally you would pivot in place). This can provide a safer way to approach a blind corner.

Ctrl-Left clicking on a multiple stacked item in your inventory lets you quickly select one item. For example, Ctrl-left click on 15 water bottles allows you pull one out in a second without sliding that annoying bar up and down. (Submitted by ShayeJarpp)

When you start out, try to learn and practice as many different weapon skills as possible.  It is much easier to practice a weapon skill at lower levels when you go against weak monsters than later on against the killers.  If you try and learn a new weapon skill at higher levels, you will either die a lot or be forced to use a lot of your practice points to bring it to a respectable level.

You can assign an inventory slot to a hot button.  This works great for magic items that have a magic spell to cast, like the wall squad ring.  Makes using such items much faster in battle.  (Submitted by MeleKahn)

Program a social button to say /corpse. If you ever have your body in a bad spot and are afraid to go get it,  hotkey that button. Then as you inch toward your body trying hard not to awake the nasties who have spawned on your body, press the hot key continually and your body will move toward you from a pretty good distance. When it comes to you, run to a safe place all the way pressing the hotkey and you will "drag" your corpse with you.  This also works good for underwater corpse recovery.  Also, summoning a corpse (/corpse) will not make invisibility drop, but looting it will. If you die in a dangerous place (say the west side of oasis) you may want to find someone to cast invisibility on you (caster and target must be in same group). You can then hot key /corpse to drag your corpse to a safe place to get your gear back. Added bonus, a corpse bouncing along the ground looks cool (anyone without see invisibility will only see the corpse dragging).  (Submitted by Onyxx and Oglug)

Here is a tip for maximizing profits while hunting with a group:  This will take a lot of trust, so if you do not know your party members well do not do it.  1.  Get a lot of backpacks, sacks or chests and distribute them to all party members.  2.  Have one person loot the corpse until he is full, then the next person loots, and so on.  3.  Do not go sell until everyone is full.  4.  Have the person with the highest charisma sell all the items at a shop that will give him/her the best prices (most likely his/her home city).  5.  Then split the gold between all members as the party sees fit (we always do an even split).  6.  Now if there is an item that a person wants the party can have them buy it and split the money between the group or the group can give it to the person.  This works very well with a group that hunts very often together.  We have employed this tactic to our advantage very often but everyone needs to remember that people get dropped from the server.  They will come back with the stuff or your share of the gold(if they are honorable). (Submitted by Brambo the Barbarian)

Use of small boats (By Tothis)  You get IN the boat and right click on it.  You will get a message that says "You have the helm" and your movement keys now control the boat.  Not only was I able to use this boat, but Rexan (my Dwarven friend) was able to stand in the back of the boat and keep lookout as I paddled us about.  The advantage was that he could click on things and con them while my view was pretty much limited to the direction I was rowing us.  Some notes on using the boats to travel about:

1. The boats have a definate "front" and "back". If you get in and take control while facing the wrong way your controls will be reversed. Simplesolution, right click to give up control of the boat, turn yourself around (do the hookey po..umm) and resume control of the boat with anotherright click.
2. The boat is NOT zippy. This is NOT a shortcut. If you are tempted to do what we did (Travel from one side ot the other) take a look at the map link on this site for the Ocean of Tears (the first one is better). EACH little square is 1000X1000. This map is HUGE. We went from 8000(near the human Island) to -9000 (sisterhood's Island). The top speed of this boat is about the same as if you were running. By comparison, the Butcher Block Zone is about 6000X6000... and that's a pretty good sized zone. The big boat travels MUCH faster...
3. No spells. Just like riding the big boat, something about these romantic ocean canoe trips just stuns your spellcasting.
4. If you fall out most races can't get back on unless you try to do so from dry land.  (Humans seem to be able to get back on by going to the long sides and swimming forward)   Also, we have managed to 'Lock' two boats together. Neither of us could move and had to swim to shore (so don't get too close to each other if you are each in seperate boats).
5. The boat has hit points. This leads to the disturbing idea that it could be sunk.

As soon as you start your character, go into options and reprogram your hotkeys to change auto attack from the default "A" key to something you will never accidentally hit, such as "~".  This will prevent you from accidentally attacking a NPC you are talking to because you forgot to hit the enter key to bring up the talk screen.

If you hold down the numberlock key you will continue to run forward without having to keep a hand on the arrow key.  This can free your hands to type messages to you group and friends.  Just keep an eye on where you are going.

If you are new to a zone, play close to the zone border while you ckeck out the monsters in the area.  This will give you a chance to run for cover if you get in over your head.

You can keep track of the people you enjoyed grouping with by adding them to your friends list.  Type /friend name to add or delete the person and then /who all friends to see which friends are on line when you log back on.  You can have up to 20 people on your list. (/friend will tell you who is on the list). This is a good way to remember names of people you liked and to develop closer friendships.

It does you no good to /shout for help.  The zones are too big and everyone who sees it will assume you are too far away.  You are better off just typing help and hoping that someone within hearing range will respond.  If a person sees a cry for help come up on his screen from nearby, he is much  more likely to try to lend aid.

Practice, practice, practice.  If you find yourself standing around waiting for someone, use your time to work on a skill.  Cast magic.  Sense direction.  Doesn't matter which skill you practice, you'll thank yourself later.

Go for swim.  Build up your swimming skill before you get on a boat. You sure don't want to fall off in the middle of the ocean and not know how to swim.

Every action has a repercussion.  Pay attention to the faction adjustments you are given.  When you go to a new area, try to kill things the locals dislike to gain faction with them.  You can readily build up either good will or ill will with almost every action.  Start killing kobalds, and not only will every kobald in the area start to single you out for attack, but all of the kobald's allies will start to dislike you as well.  This is important, because the developers have seen fit to include high level killer NPCs in otherwise low level zones that will run up and whack you if they start to dislike you (or sometimes just because they can).  Also, that kobald runt you have no problem smacking around probably has bigger siblings who will knock your socks off when they see you.

Learn which monsters give good gold, and which give good experience.  It does you no good to power game your wizard to level 8 where you have a whole new set of spells to use if you can't afford to buy any of them.

Consult with the maps section before starting into a new area.  The cities and zones in this game are huge, and it is hard to memorize every piece of them.  You should at least get familiar with where to run if you get in trouble.

Please use /ooc for out of character statements. Also try and limit the use of /shout.  It is a role playing game.  This doesn't mean saying thee and thou, but it does mean that your character shouldn't know or talk about the real world, at least not on /shout.

Before you sell to or buy from a shop keeper /con him.  The more he likes you the better the prices.  An apprehensive shop keeper will quote you bad prices just because he doesn't like the looks of you.  There can be a 15 to 20% difference in rates.  If he isn't at least indifferent, you should try and find another shop keeper to sell to.  Attutudes will vary even within a city.  Buying and selling from the right person can save you a lot of gold in the long run.

Don't play in one view.  Get used to the other camera views and use them when appropriate.  Most peoople will prefer to stay in the first person view most of the game.  I know this is how I play.  However, when in a battle, you may want to switch to one of the wider views where you can see what is happening all around you.  The other views can also help you scout the terrain around you for firends or foes.

Your social Buttons are all programmable, and some of the preprogrammed commands are pretty worthless.  I would suggest you program one to automatically do the /loc command, make it a hot key and place it right under your combat button to press just before you are about to die.  Program the button by right clicking on one of the socials you never use.  This will bring up the name and command in the chat window which you can than edit to reflect the new command.

As soon as you log on each time remember to click the run button.  Then just keep it on run from there on.  There is no reason to walk in this game.

I was amazed to find out that some newbies are playing in windowed mode.  You are missing out on the glory of the game's graphics that way.  This mode is strictly for inventory and other temporary things.  Program all of your useful commands onto your hot keys (you have 36 of them after all).  Then hit F10 once to go to partial full screen mode.  You can move around and fight in this mode and still have access to all of your commands.  There simply is no comparison to experiencing the game through Full Screen and Windowed modes.  Along those lines, you should optimize your screen size by going to options and setting your screen size as high as your video card will allow.  You will not believe the difference between the default setting and the higher settings.  Get the most out of the game.