Tipping for Ports: Apparently I've Been Doing It Wrong

[arh555]

Speaking as a porter on Green:

There are too many people taking advantage of old fashioned EQ community goodwill and its pushing me to be more transactional about the service. I'm talking about the elite guild member, 10+ levels above you, wearing JBoots and Guise, who pull "all I got is 11 gold on me, we good bro?" after the port.

I really want to keep the EQ magic alive especially for lower level players but this is pretty rampant.

[M.J.]

Originally Posted by Brut [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

We're not at blue amount of plat yet, so I wouldn't go by those standards. 50p is a lot of money at this point when most of server can't kill a hill giant yet.

I'd say there are two things that make me still tip in the 20-40 range for just about any porters time:

first, there are no Clarity spells besides bard songs. When I'm in a rush or the druid went OOM porting in, I have had to let druids click my manastone to get on the way in under 5 mins (the lower level they are the more time it takes them to med), and I wouldn't offer to a wizard unless I had time to bandaid them up some, as they have no regen / health back to help them top off.

second, there are more than a few camps and quests that put out decent plat from 9-15. and there are plenty of desirable items from zones like black burrow and crushbone that you can offer in trade for ports as druids have alts too - including things like cb belts / df belts / cb pads / cuttthroat rings.

Things that don't have much value on blue, have value here and are in demand. I'd also say that early on there were plenty of exp focused druids that weren't making money hand over fist and plenty of slower levelers like myself that prioritized platinum / research word camps had plat to throw around that people hunting animals / cheapskate mobs didn't. So it was a trade off. Which still doesn't help the poor that need ports, but shopping around for a druid in the mood to help, while not being a terrible human being, will resolve that. As will running while soliciting tells everytime you approach a druid / wizzy port in.

[AgentEpilot]

Green at level 19ish I tipped 10 plat, but if I needed more of them that would be pricey, blue it is usually 50 plat at this point with a 58 chanter piggy bank

[zodium]

i usually tip 15-20-25pp depending on what level port spell I need

[Natewest1987]

I think the tipping culture here is a little weird. I tend to approach it like, “hey, would you do xyz for x plat?”. I don’t like it being open ended and I don’t think it’s fair to either party. Obviously some people are ok with it and cool with them, but I don’t want anyone to feel stiffed, or to feel weird about however much I tipped, so I just lay it out up front. Then, if by some chance they do something extra for me, then I’ll throw them something extra afterwards. But I always, always, always, pay above market rate for things like that, and in the event that I couldn’t, I’d be cool with walking.

Another tip actually, ask people how much would it cost for xyz? They’ll let you know their expectations right then, usually.

[Invalid_Bard]

It's a tip, that's it. Tip what you think is fair. If people want 50pp for porting, they should advertise that.

[skorge]

There's like double the amount of druids vs any other class in the game now. Friend one of them. Free ports for life yo.

[GinnasP99]

Why do I gotta be Mr. Pink ?

[Evia]

I’m probably doing it wrong myself....but this is my donation rules for BLUE.

Sow and a basic buff or two thrown on me - tip 0. I never get paid for these and I never expect to be paid for them. The only exception here is maybe breeze, clarity or a mega hp buff and I might tip 20-50 for these.

Ports - 1pp per my lvl up to 50pp max. I’ll pay 50 extra if the Druid or Wizard need to run or spend time waiting. I’ll also tip 50 extra if they evacuate me as well since I view that as two ports.

Rezzes - 100 minimum and that’s if they’re in zone or 1 zone away and body is brought to them. If the cleric has to get my body or goes out of their way to Rez me I’ll pay 300-500 minimum.

Corpse Drags - 50p minimum but usually around 100.

Corpse Summon - regent cost + 50-500 depending on how much of the Necro or SKs time I use.

On GREEN/TEAL I’d still do 1pp per lvl for ports and whatever I could afford on the rest. I’d be straight up with the person beforehand so they could back out if it wasn’t worth it to them to help me.

[DMN]

I think 20-25PP should be a pretty fair range right now on green, assuming the druid/wizard was actually advertising for ports and didn't have "somewhere else they'd rather be". At least double if not.