So how do you avoid losing all of your gold? There a couple of methods that have been posted and talked about. The information seems so common place now, I forget who told me, or where I read it from. Here are a couple of the main strategies to holing on to your stuff:

• The first thing you should do is buy another backpack, pouch or sack. Put the gold in that.
• To keep the pack with the gold from being stolen either put a newbie item in the pouch with the gold, or fill the pouch with weighted items so the pack exceeds 12 stones. That that way the thief can't steal the item.
• If you don't have an extra pouch place your gold toward the bottom of your pack. Now cover it with something. You can cover it with hides or a robe. This way the thief has to steal the robe or hides before he can get the gold. If you have enough hides they will be too heavy for the thief to steal. This method is not safe against a random targeted steal, but works well against those who snoop before they grab.
• Create a macro that says "Guards!". If a thief does run into you (while your in town) and you get a message saying that he is trying to steal from you, just smack the macro. Within seconds a guard will come and smack him and you can get your stuff back.
• Learn the hiding skill. When you approach the bank, open your bank box and then hide. If anyone was trying to snoop you or steal from you, your paper doll will close when you disappear and they won't be able to bother you until you are revealed or you speak.
• Most importantly, just don't let anyone you don't know stand next to you. If the thief isn't close enough he can't steal.

Good luck,

- Azrael-Daedal (Baja Shard)

Buying Horses
Horses cost around 800 gold from a stable if you you can buy one. Everyone wants a horse and their often out of them. The prices depend on availability.

You can buy horses from players as well. It's tricky, and you should trust the person you buy from, but it can be done. I've sold horses from 250 to 350 gold. The problem with buying/selling horses is that you CAN'T put the "horse" in the secure trading window. So you have to have someone give the gold, then someone transfer the horse a separate acts. Anyone who has played Ultima Online can attest that the ratio of decent people to unscrupulous ass-holes is way out of whack. When I started playing I had a few horses stolen from me.  Often I suggest you go to a public place you hang out. For me the armory in Trinsic works. There is usually someone around that knows my character and is willing to vouch for my trustworthiness.

Feeding Your Pet
You wonder why the heck there's an Animal Lore skill. Let me tell you. With that skill you are able to tell your pets happiness. Happiness is a direct reflection of your pets loyalty and hunger. If your horse is well feed it will be "wonderfully happy", from there it could be "extremely happy", "very happy", "happy", "content", "somewhat unhappy", "rather unhappy", "extremely unhappy" or "confused". If your pet is "confused" it will soon go wild. If it goes wild it "thinks it would be better off without a master", and your without a horse. For a Animal Trainer this is good news. The horse is now up for grabs. Animal Tamers with a skill of 30 or better will be able to tame a wild horse.

To keep your pet happy, feed her often. Once every hour real time should be good. I still don't have exact numbers on this. I have a good Animal Lore skill level, so I just check them often. If you don't have this skill, just feed them every hour with a few pieces of fruit or hay. You should be ok. You can buy fruit from an Inn or the Provisioner. Most fruit costs around 2 gold a piece, while apples cost around 3 gold. I like apples because they stack. Pears just litter your backpack. You can also buy hay. Hay is very cheap, 1 gold piece per bail, but it's very heavy. 10 stones. To feed the horse, get off her then drag the food onto the horse.

Commanding Your Horse
Your horse may obey the following commands. I say "may" because the horses reaction depends on it's loyalty. Remember loyalty is also reflected by how hungry your horse is.

The commands are: "horse follow", "horse stay", "horse come", "horse get (fetch)", "horse drop" and "horse guard". Where horse is the name of your horse.

Mining With A Horse
Often I go mining with a horse. What I do is mine for ore, putting only large ore into a back pack. I keep mining until I have 15 large ore in a back pack. I then tell the horse to "get". The cross hair hand then comes up and allows me to click on the object I want the horse to get. Once you get the horse to grab the backpack, RUN AWAY FROM THE HORSE! Yes, run away. Well, in the direction you want to head towards, probably towards town. The problem is, if the horse catches you she'll return the item you asked her to fetch into your main backpack. You'll then be overweight, and stop dead in your tracks. If successful in this tactic the horse will eventually give up on trying to give your pack back and will stop. You can then ride the horse back to town to smelt your ore. The best part is you don't notice the weight!

Stabling
You can keep extra horses by stabling. If you just have one horse, and you want to log out, make sure you're on the horse before you log out or you'll lose it. To stable an extra horse go to the stables in the town your in. Go into the stable and get off your horse. Then say, "stable". The hand cross hairs will come up and will ask you what pet to stable. click on your horse. As a side note, you can stable any type of pet. Stabling costs 30 gold per stabling. So don't yank your horse in and out of the stables. If you have more than one horse it is better to keep them at different stables. Stabling doesn't seem to work properly. Or at least, it doesn't work right in my opinion. To get your horse out of the stable just say, "claim". If you have stabled more than one pet at a particular stable, it may return them all at one time or all at once or somewhere in between. For this reason I suggest you keep multiple animals at different stables. This way, if you only want to ride one you don't have to turn around and check the other one back in.

Stolen Horses
People can steal your horse. Say you have neglected your horse and it will go wild soon. Either it shows up using Animal Lore as "rather unhappy", "extremely unhappy", or "confused". Your horse will soon go wild, and is fair game for any animal lover. You're out of a horse, but you really weren't kind to it anyhow.

Remember this. Either log out while on your horse, or stable it before logging out. If you leave your horse standing in the world it will eventually go wild and you'll lose it. Even if you have logged out in an Inn before, and have logged back in and found your horse waiting, this is NOT a good idea.

SUMMARY

• Horses cost around 800 at the stables, depending on availability.
• Horses eat fruit, some vegetables, or hay.  You can buy fruit from the Inn Keeper or the Provisioner. Drag food onto the horse to feed.
• Make sure you're on your horse when you log out.
• Stable extra horses before you log out. Costs 30 gold per stabling.
• The commands are: "horse follow", "horse stay", "horse come", "horse get (fetch)", "horse drop" and "horse guard". Where horse is the name of your horse.

- Azrael-Daedal (Baja Shard)

1. NPCs loyalty is usually based on how well you treat them and how long you hire them. The "Report" command is very important. Use it often.

2. When hiring an NPC, make sure you determine that their abilities will suit the task you wish them to assist you in. It makes no sense to hire a BARD if you hope he will be fighting monsters at your side.

3. Some NPCs will refuse to do certain tasks, due to loyalty, or common sense. For example, if you ask a SAILOR to engage an ETTIN, he likely will say "sorry, but no." However, sometimes you can "trick" the NPC into doing that task. Almost ALL the NPCs will GUARD or FOLLOW regardless of their loyalty level. If you have your NPC in GUARD mode and an ETTIN attacks you, he will fight to his death on your behalf. You just need to get the ETTIN close enough to your NPC for him to attack.

4. If your NPC dies on you, he immediately becomes a naked corpse. You will not get to loot a dead NPC you hired, regardless of who's fault it was that he died.

5. For a new character or even an intermediate one, NPCs are invaluable. They usually cost between 30 and 80gp and are worth every bit. Not only do they provide protection, they also give you an instant "party"...and we all know there is safety in numbers.

6. It helps to "macro" certain commands for your NPC to a couple of keystrokes. The last thing you want to do when a TROLL is converging on you is have to type "Beatrice, guard me!" and then when you have to retreat a bit and heal, your NPC stays put because she is in GUARD mode! So now you have to type "Beatrice, follow me." and then when she gets there, you have to type "Beatrice, Guard me!" again! All that while being attacked by a TROLL? I don't think so! What I normally do is map my CTRL F to say "Beatrice, Follow me" and my CTRL G to say "Beatrice, Guard me" and my CTRL A to say "Beatrice, Attack" These are the main battle commands and the ones you usually don't have time to type out. If you end up hiring a new NPC, don't forget to change the NAME in your macros! I can say that from experience!

7. If faced with a monster that will surely kill you even though you have an NPC, don't be afraid to run. Once you put some distance between you and the monster, you can slowly wander back that direction and normally your NPC will catch up to you. (Unless he gets hung up on a server boundary. Boy is that annoying!)

Good luck with hiring NPCs. I feel once you get the hang of it, it's a great tool. It can allow you to go hunting for BIG GAME and advance your character's skills that much more quickly! Not to mention scare off those nasty PKers because you've got a new buddy hanging out with you now! :)

- Amanda Brooke on the GL Shard