The GOLD Post: Making Gold/Money in Guild Wars

I wanted to start this post to see if we could get the ball rolling for a guide to making money in Guild Wars. I see a lot of crafting guides and quest guides, but no money guide. Please put your two cents and any information as to how you've made it big in Guild Wars.

Molotov

There are already a couple of topics about this. You should have searched before making a new topic.

The idea is to get sort of a guide/sticky post where all information about Gold can be posted here. (Even if it's already been posted; just copy/paste here). This will make the "search" function work better when users are trying to get to this topic.


Molotov

Answer is: Play the game

I've never had a single moment from first armor set to last where I didn't have enough resources to make the upgrade. Guild cape bought, hall bought, nothing else to spend money on. Excess is now piling up with nothing to spend it on.

Never merchanted a single item, or farmed a specific area for 'great lewt'. No special effort at all beyond selling intelligently to merchants.

The sky is raining gold. It's valueless.

when i kill stuff, gold drops
then i pick it up

i had nothing to spend it on so i had 250 stacks of most common crafting materials, tons of rare crating materials, and about 10 plat

but then i got to droknar's and bought a whole new suit of the best armor in the game for 6 plat so now i only have 4 plat and a bazillion crafting materials, and nothing i need.

I guess i'll use it to twink my lowbie alts.

What do you need gold for anyway?

i made 10 plat and had a full inventory of crafting materials by the time i hit ascension.

I have never farmed anything. I have never sold a thing to another player. I have the best equipment in the game, and have 4 plat left over.

What do i need to farm for again?

Hmmm... lemme check. Kill things... pick up loot... sell loot...

Yup, it's all there. Let's summarize:

Step One: Steal Underpants.
Step Two:
Step Three: Profit.

Did I miss anything?

Well, other than making for a funny read (gotta love sarcasm), you have made a great service to the community; and I thank you. Now, when new players search "Gold" or "Money" this post will pop up easily and they won't have to ask questions. Thanks again...


Molotov

I bet that's what the creators of the other dozen money threads thought too

yes i think the only thing you missed is the most important thing...the fact that i was being sarcastic when i said "when i kill stuff, gold drops...then i pick it up"

the point of my post was there is absolutely no reason anyone needs to concern themselves with farming gold/grinding/spamming trade channels when you can EASILY be rich and have THE BEST equipment if you just play the game without hardly even thinking about it.

I was following you until that part.

Maybe its just me, but im one broke warrior at level 16. I do not think ive ever kept more then two plat on me at one time. All of the kits cost quite a bit. Im not sure how you can get rich without selling things/farming/grinding... but maybe im missing something.

Gold is a poor label for the stuff we are finding. It should be more like "paper clips". There's no real value for the stuff. It will cease to be a medium of exchage shortly, as soon as a good number of people realize that after they make a level 20 character, there is no real need for the stuff. Sure... there's costs in the game, but they're either one time costs, or they're incidental. A 1 plat admission fee to an area that produces huge gains... no biggie. Items don't decay. Good items are found quite easily. The best items are only a fraction better than the good items.

This game will never have a gold based economy, nor should the designers change that fact or worry about it. The way to make more gold is simple. Play the game. Get to level 20. Keep playing the game. Anyone who is concerned about maximizing the rate at which they gain gold is doing it for accademic purposes only. There's no need to.

Don't salvage any materials you don't need.

For instance, perusing the crafting guide for the types of materials I'm likely to need for an elementalist, you come up with cloth and scales (mostly). Both of them lead to obvious things to attempt salvaging (anything cloth-y or carapice/scale-y). I don't need to salvage weapons, they get converted directly to coin. I don't need to salvage 'collectible' pickups, so collect five of each kind (to trade with collectors) and sell any excess.

Worried you might need bone/iron/whatever to twink an alt some day? Then salvage the cheap junk until you've got a maxed stack in storage...and stop, sell the rest. Or let the alt make his own bloody materials...there's no shortage, and he won't go broke doing it.

Identified a magic rune on a bow? Sure, I'll yank that offa there and pass it to a guildmate, but I surely don't need one. Maybe he's got an elemental he'll swap for it.

Don't buy dye. Vanity spending when you can't afford it is...American.

(Now maybe you're one of those poor folks who had to come up with fur squares in a broken distribution system, and thus you're broke--if so I commiserate--but that's fixed now).

The biggest mistake people are making is going through areas with the maximum number of henchmen in order to progress through the missions as quickly as possible. They get quite deep into the game and are surprized to find that they didn't find as much stuff as people who went through exploring every corner, using area's that they could do with minimal help from henchmen or group members. This game style has always given people the impression that it's "hard" to get gold, or find items. Again... play the game, but I'll clarify what I mean by that... Play the game like I do.

I tend to go out and explore a map as soon as I have access to it. I'll do any quest I can find, many times more than once. I'll run the missions just to scope them out, before I actually attempt to finish them. There's plenty to pick up this way. I bet you're going to beat me to 20, but then what?

I notice the increasing popularity of "runner groups" these days. Basically people have their lvl 20 W/Mo friends run the maps for them to get to the next town/mission. Its basically free 1k XP and the chance of getting the best armor early. But of course you'll find yourself short of gold if you do it this way.

I did most of the side quests and did all the mission the "normal" way. Never had gold problems.

I re-run missions with guild mates. No experience, but lots of salvage.

Plenty of stuff drops, and I always seem to have a surplus of materials for crafting (except right when I need them, it seems).

Granted I am only 18, and I only have 2 plat to my name, but, I have decent gear and am generally in good shape.

selling things to npc merchants yes...i never said not selling things...just not selling things to players

when i hit droknar's forge just after i hit lvl 20 i had 10 plat, and full stacks of all the resources i use, looted dye out the wazooo...and i didn't run every quest in the game...since lvl 15 i did little but run missions because i was focussed on ascension. Mainly the only quests i did were for skills.

I updated my armor when i got to post-searing ascalon, then again when i got to the wilds (i'm pretty sure i didn't upgrade at piken, but i may have), then i upgraded my armor again to the best in the game when i got to droknars.

I have never bought a weapon. I have TONS of awesome weapons looted while doing missions. I have awesome axes, swords, shields, runes, and bows that i am saving for alts, i made a couple alts and got them to post searing just so i could buy them all bags and runes of holding so i could store more weapons.

I can't imagine why anyone would ever buy a weapon when so many incredible ones drop like candy.

If you get to 20 and don't have the 6 or so k to buy the droknar's armor then you are probably not being very smart with your loot or you're buying waaay too much crap that you don't need.

Ok, I'm confused. you said there is no need to grind/farm and to just "play the game" and you'll have all the gold you ever need, and yet you claim to do many quests more than once? Doesn't that fall into grinding/farming? You do a quest, get the reward and you're done. What's the point going out and doing a quest you've already done, in an area you've already explored if not to grind for more xp or farm to get more drops?

For the same reason some one would pay 1-2k for the ashes: laziness.