Faction rep and travel - what am I missing?Follow

Hello

I'm still pretty new to EQII, having been playing just over a week now. I think I've got to grips with most things but there are two areas - faction and travelling around - which still confuse me somewhat.

With regard to faction, is it just a case of handing in relics/amulets/whatever to the merchants in cities who'll swap them for rep and picking up quests to kill X number of mobs giving Y amount of faction rep, or am I missing something else which gives better rep? My current guess is it's a matter of picking up the faction quest, commuting to the area to complete said quest in, then back to city to pick up next quest, as well as simply grinding for the drops. Would this be correct?

This also brings me to travel. I know there are various methods of getting around the world but in my newbie state it's all a bit confusing and horses seem so expensive (and I need a LOT of rep) so they seem to be a bit out of reach at the moment. I've found various griffon towers which help out a bit, but - for example - if I'm in Neriak and I need to get to Commonlands, do I really have to run through Darklight to get there?

I'm having a whale of a time discovering the world of EQII on my little brigand (sneak is such a blessing!) but these two points in particular have been puzzling me so any help and advice would be welcome. Thank you.

Take heart! I believe next update it will be a lot easier to travel, especially to and from Neriak. They are finally adding bells and a carpet into Neriak. They will also be adding bells on the TS and Nek docks that can taker you to Antonica and Commonlands. YOu still need to run here and there, but it should be easier in just a week or two.

There are different factions for gaining rep: city, tradeskill, and other races later on in the game. The more faction you have, the more cool things you can acquire. Some stuff can be just house items, other things really good gear, and others recipes to make some helpful things.

Another thing you'll need to think about is status. The more status points you have the more you can buy certain things. In order to buy a horse, you need a certain amount of status points. You gain these by completing certain kinds of quests, including writs, but you can also loot items called relics/scrolls/moonstones/amulets and turn these into certain people in each city to gain more status. These things drop often off of regular trash mobs, so you can just save up and turn them in after each night. It adds up quickly

In Neriak, you can go to the Dockside area, and on the dock itself are two portals, one will take you to the Thundering Steppes, and the other will take you directly to the Nektulous Docks. No need to even set foot in Dark Light at all.

There is also a carpet in DLW that you can take to Sinking Sands, and then use the carpet down by the general merchant to quickly take you to Freeport if you are headed that way for any reason.

As for your faction question: The sellable items do NOT give you faction, only status points. They can be a good way to build up status at lower levels, but as mentioned doing Heritage Quests can net you some serious status. The first one you get will probably be Hadden's Earring, or the one for Missing Mask (Guise of the Deceiver), each of those are worth about 35k status.