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THINGS I WISH I'D KNOWN EARLIER - NPCs, Brokers, and Merchants

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* Use the brokers to see what people have for sale. There is a broker in each major city zone (for Qeynos, this is Elddar Grove, North Qeynos, South Qeynos, and Qeynos Harbor), and brokers in each of the wholesaler tradeskill instances (near the entrance in Qeynos, at the base of the stairs in Freeport).

* If you want to sell things on the broker, open the store, click on the sell tab, and put a box or bag in the vendor container slot.  You can then put things in the container to sell.  The default price listed is the most you could expect to get from an NPC merchant for the item - generally you want to sell for higher than this.  Use the "Search the Broker" button to see what the going market value is for the item, then you can set your price accordingly.

* You can only have one vendor per account active at any time.  You can set up as many characters with items on the broker as you like, but only the one who has most recently accessed their store on the broker will have their items listed for sale.

* Specialty vendor boxes can be made by Carpenters out of rare woods (except bone or alder).  These have MANY more slots than regular boxes.  Once in a vendor slot, these boxes can also be placed in your home, allowing people to buy directly from your house without paying a broker fee.

* Some merchants are greedier than others and will pay you less for things that you sell to them. Check with a few merchants and you will generally be able to tell which ones are greedy and which ones aren't. Merchants in "convenient" locations (such as out in the middle of popular hunting areas) are generally more greedy - except for a "Gratified Merchant," who will give you the best price possible every time.  These are spawned from a "Distressed Merchant."  See the "Out and About In the World" section for more information.

* Brokers and fences take a commission based on where the item you purchase comes from.  If the seller is in a city with the same faction as you, the fee is 20%, if on opposite faction the fee is 40%.  All brokers and fences now sell items from all cities.

* If you try to access your bank or a merchant and get the message "you are too busy", there are generally three possible reasons why. Either you have your attack mode on, you have a trade window up, or you are currently interacting with an NPC. Hit escape a bunch of times, make sure you are not in combat mode, and then try again.

* If an NPC speaks to you, or waves at you as you get near, they may have a quest that they want you to do. Note that they may continue to wave at you even if you already have their quest.  Also, some NPCs will try to hail you for quests that are no longer in the game, particularly in the starting hamlets.

* If you need help finding a particular NPC (perhaps to finish off a quest) but have forgotten where they are, click on a guard, type in the name of the NPC and you will be given a waypoint path to that NPC. Note: you often do not have to type in the full name. This is particularily helpful when you want to find and NPC with a crazy unpronouncable name.  Job titles, such as mender or broker will also work.  If there is more than one NPC in the area who matches the partial-name or title you type, the waypoint path will guide you to the closest one.

* If an NPC speaks to you in gibberish (with a symbolic font), you do not understand the language this NPC is trying to speak. In the various starting hamlets, you can find language primers on the scribes for 12s. As soon as you purchase the primer, you automatically learn the language. In the hamlets, most (all?) of the NPCs who require you to know their native tongue give quests. There are quests to learn languages for some non-starting races (like Gnoll).

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