Weapon and Armor and Population Questions from a player thinking of coming back

[Effect]

When I first played I had always found it frustusting that buying armor and weapons were so difficult. Granted each player is able to make it themselves but being a person that doesn't really care to craft it kinda presented a problem. For those that don't like to craft or want to spends hours on mining and crafting, have things improved? Especially at the lower levels?

By that I mean do NPC actually sell weapons, armor, etcor is everything based on players putting items up for sale in certain areas?

I'm not knocking crafting yet being able to buy of NPC characters(you know will always have a weapon or armor to sell you when you can't meet a craft or clearly don' thave the time to train up crafting cause all you want to do is explore and fight) makes things somewhat easier and more importantly less frusturating. At least I think think so. This is one of the main reasons I never got into Asheron's Call 2 no matter how much I wanted. Having no NPCs that acted as real shops for weapons, armor, etc killed it for me I feel.

So I was really wondering what the current state of things in this areas was, especially at the lower level where I kinda found it hard to get armor for characters even though I looked in different areas, especially since there was never anything of worth that dropped off of monsters.

[Kulamata]

On the training islands there are now NPC's selling "military surplus" equipment. It is slightly inferior to crafted equipment, but not much, and there is a full supply of armor. I am lesscertain about weapons. The prices are in line with crafters' prices. There is also now on the community main page a link to a master listing of all items on consignment. And changes are coming soon to make leaving more items on consignment more convenient.

I would suggest joining a good guild. Guild support is excellent, and there are some good guilds. They allow members who wish to specialize in hunting (which means collecting forms, techs, and ingredients as drops), or a specific craft, and collectively the members are very helpful to each other.

The drops off of monsters are of some worth; forms, techs,and ingredientscan be consigned,resources sold for coin to the pawnbroker, and trophies sold to the trophy hunter, or used to fulfill quests. There are many tasks available from craft and adventure trainers, trophy hunters, and other NPC's that will also reward with coin.

[evilkarl]

Failing a item being listed on a consigner you can always ask in marketplace or try using the /who to find someone who makes that item.

[Effect]

Thanks. This really helped. Glad they added these changes. Should make starting and getting into the game less frustrating I hope.

The joing a guild right away might be a good idea, as would be hanging on to the other loot that is dropped even though I can' t use it.

Thanks again.

[Gliding Frost]

On the training islands there are now NPC's selling "military surplus" equipment. It is slightly inferior to crafted equipment, but not much, and there is a full supply of armor. I am lesscertain about weapons. The prices are in line with crafters' prices. There is also now on the community main page a link to a master listing of all items on consignment. And changes are coming soon to make leaving more items on consignment more convenient.

Military surplus is also in Kion and Sslanis. I do not believe they have weapons.

One of the other "new" things is the creation of loot drops that are blighted. Many of these drops are decent, even at low levels, and can make a good stand in weapon while you are tracking down a crafter to make your uber, crafted weapon of bonk.

[HratLi]

Another thing to note is that populations are pretty small and I know that for myself at least, I have gone out of my way to help ease returning folks back into the game. Everything from advice to sets of weapons/jewelry to get them started. I have also seen several others step up to help, though the pushyness or way in which help is requested really does affect the response [:P]


-HratLi

[Effect]

Thanks.

I was wondering about the population. Granted more people makes for a more interestin world but I don't mind a low population. Just so it isn't so low that the game closes down and updates and more content stops. That's really my only fear when it comes to low populations and I think that's a big fear to have. If there was one more US server I think my fears would be lessened I think. Having one normal, test, and rp server doesn't give a positive outlook I think. Usually test and rp servers have very low populations even in some of the more heavyly populated games. Though I don't know how many servers there really are outside of the US. They could be doing a lot better but I've never heard any word either way.

I wish there was a way of knowing things were actually getting better in that situation. Though I've decided to give it another shot, I just hope things continue and things don't end up bad.