EverQuest 2 - Getting Started in Qeynos...

So, you're fresh off the boat from the Isle of Refuge. Things on the Isle were pretty straightforward; an introduction to questing, plenty of goblins to slay, even a bit of tradeskilling too. But now... now there's a great big world out there just waiting for you, and that can be an uncomfortable feeling. No worries, we're here to help!

First of all, your EverQuest 2 racial choice determines what "racial village" you'll land in when you step off the boat:

• Baubbleshire - Gnomes & Halflings
• Nettleview Hovel - Humans (warriors) & Kerra
• Graystone Yard - Barbarians & Dwarves
• Castleview Hamlet - Frogloks & High Elves
• Starcrest Commune - Humans (mages (and priests?)) & Erudites
• Willow Wood - Half-Elves & Humans (scouts)

When you land, you'll see a "Steward" nearby. Hail him or her. Completing this quest first is essential to learning about several key places within your racial home: your apartment, your bank, and your local "city-adventure area." Simply follow the orange "line" to your inn room (hit alt-w if for some reason you lose your "waypoint"), then double-click the door and accept it. Welcome to your new home!

Remember to use your map to avoid getting totally lost. Pull it up by hitting "M" (that's the default key binding). The map will be revealed as you explore.

The Innkeeper inside will give you a piece of furniture. Right click it in your inventory, and select "place" to finish this part of the quest. The innkeeper will instruct you to find your banker. Leave the apartment and "Alt-W" to the bank. Don't be afraid to start filling up your quest journal too- "hail" any NPC you see and dialogue with them a bit to see if they'll offer you a quest. Questing is the fastest and most lucrative way to advance into the early teens, so this is our next step after the "Welcome to Qeynos!" quest.

Hail your banker, then head back to your inn room. Your innkeeper will give you another piece of furniture to /place, then its time to do a bit of exploration. Alt-W to whereever you're told to go. You may have to venture into Oakmyst Forest, the Down Below, or the Forest Ruins to complete this part of the quest; simply double-click on a door which glows when you mouse over it to enter. When you've finished exploring, head back to the innkeeper for yet another piece of furniture (they must be cleaning out the attic!) and an explanation on how to become a citizen of Qeynos. Go ahead and grab a citizenship application from the sign located on or near the door to Eldaar Grove, South Qeynos, or Qeynos Harbor. Read it to start your "Qeynos Alignment" quest, but more on that in a bit.

Until you become a citizen, you'll be confined to the racial villages and their corresponding city-adventure zones and may not enter Qeynos' center-city zones. No worries though, you'll have plenty to do!

Spending Your Hard Earned Money

I know there's a certain allure to spending virtual money, but in your early days, you simply won't have much to spend. My advice: don't upgrade much at all until you hit tenth level. The reason: most fighters and some scouts get an armor and weapon skill upgrade at level 10, and its worth saving for (not to mention you'll be aptly rewarded for finishing your class quest at level 10 too). Mages and priests might want to look at buying an apprentice 2 (from the village scribe on your map) of their favored nukes, pets, and heals, but upgrading spells just for the sake of upgrading is a good way to run through your coin quickly. Food and drink don't become very important until the early teens too, so you can certainly use what you quest for while adventuring and save the coin for later.

You might want to wait to hold off on tradeskilling for a bit too. Effectively levelling tradeskills costs a fair amount of coin to start; some of this can be circumvented by harvesting in the Forest Ruins and Oakmyst Forest, but you're still going to lose crucial money you'll have to spare later in the game.

Questing for Fun and Profit

Your first unofficial lesson starts now, learn to use the mariner's bell! It's the fastest way to get around Qeynos. It should appear on your map quite clearly, and if you go there you'll see two different bells: one for "Travel Within Qeynos" (for now this is limited to the racial villages listed above) and one for "Travel Outside of Qeynos" (which includes Antonica, The Caves, and Oakmyst Forest.). The only pertinent zones you cannot reach with the bells are the Peat Bog (whose landlocked entance is in Starcrest Commune and Nettleview Hovel) and the Forest Ruins (whose gate is located in Baubleshire and Willow Wood).

These next steps are optional, but though it takes a bit of time, I wish I would have done it for my main character and now do it for all my alts.

My recommendation is this: take an hour and explore each of the six racial villages fully! Hail every NPC you see, pull up your quest journal ("J" by default, set the view options to categorize the entries by zone of next step) and complete the delivery quests you receive as you travel to each successive zone. Can't find an NPC to make a delivery to? First, make sure you're in the right zone, then right click any guard. Choose "Find NPC", type in the full name (I believe capitatlization is important too) from your quest journal. If the NPC is close by, the guard will point in their direction and give you a waypoint to them. This will be useful to track down NPC quest givers for "kill tasks" later too.

Your secondary objective is to create a laundry list of "kill task" quests so that one trip to the Oakmyst Forest, Forest Ruins, the Peat Bog, the Down Below, or The Caves will net you 5-10 quest completions a piece. "Killing with a purpose," defeating creatures that count towards quests, is a great way to rack up experience and coin quickly (that goes for higher-level adventurers too).

The definitive listing of level 5-9 delivery quests! (Click hyperlinked text to make us look for quest details via TTH search!)

See below for the kill tasks you should get in the city-adventure zones!

Qeynos Citizenship

Okay, you've made your deliveries and loaded up your quest journal with quests for the city-adventure zones. One more thing. Remember the citizenship application you picked up a while ago? It's time to make good on it! It should already be in your quest journal if you've been with me from the start. Make the zone your journal lists for the citizenship task your first stop. If you're confused on how to reach it, see below!

Once inside, pick a quest (any quest) and start killing the mobs listed for it. You'll need five tokens from any mob in the zone, but these are random loot and you may have to kill 15 mobs to get 5 tokens. You can kill more, but why not go back and finish your citizenship quest first? Odds are you'll be rewarded with something you can use in your further adventures.

Once you've gotten your tokens, head back to your home village and the gate next to where you received your citizenship application. You'll notice the gate is now clickable, go on in. This is a special "instanced" zone- no one can enter it but you. Hail the NPC inside, who will explain that your wisdom is needed to deal with the traitors inside. Talk to each, some you'll have to fight, others you may pardon. At the end, you'll be a Qeynos citizen (with full access to North & South Qeynos, Qeynos Harbor, and Eldaar Grove! And, you'll get some nice equipment too!

The City-Adventure Zones

The ugly thing about the city-adventure zones is that there's no auto-map provided. I've included some notes about the zones themselves however, plus player drawn maps that will help you find your way around. One other introductory note, on harvesting: take the time to keep your harvesting skills up, no matter where you go! In the endgame, harvesting is a great way to earn a lot of money (your rare finds can also be crafted into great equipment).

I've also provided some quests for each of the city adventure zones. I've not included the quests you'll find in the adventure zones themselves nor quests that require you to be level 10 or higher; this is essentially a "shopping list" for your first run around the village zones.

Don't stress out over these quest, by any means. Most of the mobs are readily found as the zones are fairly small, but if you can't find a mob, skip it. You can always delete these quests if you outgrow them, or come back later when the mobs are trivial to you to touch up your quest journal.

The Caves. These quests are available for the Caves, a zone which is reached by the "Travel Outside of Qeynos" bell. The Caves traffic mostly consists of people needing their citizenship tokens, but it's not a bad zone to duo through. The snakes on the second level are great solo material through levels 9 and 10.

These quests are available for Oakmyst Forest (Oakmyst Forest map here!), one of my favorite zones when I was growing up. You can stick with Oakmyst right through level 14 if you want, in fact its wise to do your experience grinding here since adept spell upgrades seem to drop in greater quantities in this zone. You can reach Oakmyst by a gate from a number of zones, or just double-click the "Travel Outside of Qeynos" bell.

These quests for the Forest Ruins (check out this Forest Ruins map!). The actual ruins in the center of the zone can offer a great opportunity for a well balanced group through level 12 or so; heck it might even be your first taste of working with a large group. Be very careful of aggro in and around the ruins, however. If you're soloing or duoing, grab a repeatable quest from an NPC near the zone-in; you can delete and hail again until your entire group has the same quest to kill badgers / hawks / snakes, etc.

These quests for the Down Below (map here!). The sewers are a good place to group, but a nasty place to solo. If you're like me and get lost easily, save these quests until you're level 10 or so.

And these quests are for the Peat Bog (check out a great Peat Bog map here!). Some very nasty boss mobs (we call them "Named Mobs" or NMs) like "Lurkblister" roam this zone, mobs that can kill you in about three swipes, so be on your toes. It's likely you'll have some dealings in Peat Bog for your level 10 class quest, so you might want to save your Peat Bog quests till then.

What Lies Beyond...

Now that you're a full fledged Qeynos citizen, you'll want to start in on your "class quest" - both to unlock new abilities and to be able to reach level 10! You'll need to first talk to your class trainer:

• Fighters: Master-at-Arms Dagorel in South Qeynos, near a fountain in the northeast.
• Mages: Magister Niksel in South Qeynos, outside the big huge Mage Tower.
• Priests: Hierophant Aldalad in North Qeynos, on a southeast wooded area of North Qeynos.
• Scouts: Councilor Vemenk, likewise on a hill in the southeast of North Qeynos.

Good luck! And though you might be tempted to venture out into Antonica, remember that the city-adventure zones are a great place to level through the early teens!