Welcome to one of the largest and most complete websites for EQ Tradeskills!

This is mainly a 1-person website, but content has been, and will continue to be, fueled by input from the active tradeskill community on the message boards. Please remember to read the Visitors Corner message board threads before posting onto the boards, as there are some rules of the road that guests are asked to follow, not only to keep things focused on tradeskills, but also to cut down on the massive workload involved in maintaining and updating this site.

Who's Who?

I call this "mainly" a 1-person site because my RL husband, known on the message boards as Ngreth ("The House Ogre") has done much of the physical web design for the current site, and he helps maintain order on the message boards. Aiding us in full message board moderation are also the lovely lady-rogue ... erm scout ... Khevrynne and the very talented lady shamaness Verdandi Snowblood. Joining them are several other dedicated moderators, some of whom handle specific forums, others of whom "float" and pitch in on various forums as needed, With their devoted help, we manage to keep the message boards relatively "troll free" (the definition of troll is found below), and it allows me to focus more on site updates, in-game testing, etc. (For the curious, my average time spent on the site, the boards, in-game testing, merchant verification, etc. is 20-40 hours per week, depending on patch status. During a launch such as Luclin or Kunark, this amount jumps to 40-80 hours a week for the month following release.)

For the main website, Verdandi Snowblood is the keeper of knowledge with regards to the Thurgadin Shawl quests as well as Alchemy information. The rest of it is currently maintained by me. After we launch the database, this may change some however.

What's This About a Database?

Ngreth, myself, and many volunteers have been hard at work for a few months now, building and populating a massive tradeskill database. When complete, this database will contain all known tradeskill recipes, vendors, forages, fishes, etc. as well as information on any mobs known to drop tradeskill components. While it may sound like something that would be "quick and easy" to do, it's taking a considerable amount of time, not only to verify all of the information on supplies, items, mobs, etc., but also because of the huge amounts of information needed to keep it as accurate as possible. (Random trivia: it takes well over 300 item slots for just the dyed fine plate armor [3 sizes, 7 pieces, 17 potential shades], not counting the dyes, molds, extracts, etc needed for the subcombines, and each of those items needs to have an individual item entry as well as an individual recipe entry.) We don't have an ETA for when it will be launched, but keep your eyes peeled for an announcement on the main site as well as on the message boards.

Why Did I Do It?

Just why did I make this site shortly after the launch of EQ anyway? Partly for myself, since I was gathering some of this knowledge for my own tradeskilling and partly to help others working in the trade skills. With the fact that many recipes are not available in-game, or are still incorrectly listed in-game, having a site that actively tests and verifies recipes and stats has become a more important tool for saving the time and energy of tradesfolk. I know most of us would prefer to spend our precious in-game time actually tradeskilling, instead of spending that time running around, finding recipes, collecting parts, and THEN finding out that all that time was wasted because the recipe they found was wrong!

While we've managed to keep this site ad free and fee-free since the launch of the site a month after EQ went live, we're at the point where we're going to have to accept donations in order to keep the site running. However, we wish to make it clear that the donations help keep the site running and accessible - they do not grant special status on the boards, and we're still going to be strict on our insistence that everyone follow some rules for the road on the message boards.

The following was something I wrote a while back, and while I've edited it slighly since the donation button went up, the gist of it is still the same. While I regret having to spell things out, the sheer volume of traffic around here requires that I do spell it out, so folks can't say they weren't warned ...

Beware the Redhead's Wrath

Since the start of this site, demand has grown, tradeskills have hit the mainstream, and there are often weeks I just can't keep up with it all. On weeks like that, please excuse the random redheaded outbursts. Generally it's sparked by the 0.1% of the folks on the boards and in game who are selfish snerts and decide to either stomp about complaining about the things I have or have not done to this site, or ones who just decide they have to be "trolls" on the boards in a bid for attention. (And no, this does not mean that I am against the troll race within the game, but in real-life folks who decide they need to ruin things for the sake of ruining them.) Unfortunately, as time goes on, and tradeskills become more popular, that 0.1% becomes a larger physical number of folks, and they just don't seem to understand they're not welcome here.

I never thought I would have to so baldly state the below, since, when tradeskills were small, and tradesfolk were considered hobbyists instead of folks who could make "l33t" stuff ("elite" for those of us who don't speak d00d speak), the 0.1% was small enough in actual numbers to be easily ignored. The rest of us had fun exchanging recipes, celebrating our successes, and commisserating over the more creative failures. Unfortunately, 0.1% of the new user base is not such a small number anymore, so perhaps they will listen to the following. (Meanwhile, I hope those of you who are here because you enjoy tradeskills and want to learn more realize that I'm not doing this to be a selfish wench, but to preserve my sanity while continuing to provide a valuable resource for the ever-growing tradeskill community). It's likely, however, that the folks who really SHOULD read this are the very ones who will ignore it, and the clearly-stated rules on the message boards, and continue to have to be slapped down when they act up and try to ruin it for everyone else.

So, here it is, plain and simple ... my site, my rules. If you don't like this, you have two choices. 1) siddown, shuddup, use the resources here that you need but keep your kvetching to yourself, or 2) go somewhere else. If you think you can do better, please put your time and money where your mouth is, and leave the rest of us alone. We're a strong community here, and while we try to welcome all the eager newcomers, troublemakers get run out of town quickly.

~Niami DenMother, halfling with large feet, large heart and impish attitude

The fine print: All text on this site is copyright by the respective authors. The game EverQuest is a registered trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment America, Inc. This site is not meant to represent official EQ policy, and we are not responsible for errors/omissions that occur due to changes in EverQuest trade skills.