"Those kids and their get-rich-quick schemes" xD

Your average guru visitor has maybe 50-100k. Your average wealthy has way above that.

There's really no reson to hoard gold in this game. Get enough to get what you NEED, Max Armor and Max Weapons (both of which can also be obtained from NPC collectors in exchange for certain monster drops.)

When you find something you WANT, a certain weapon or armor skin, use one of the many available farming techniques to raise the funds.

Since you're new, just worry about enjoying the game your first time through. There will be plenty of time to get the fancy stuff later.

I was on my 3rd character before I could afford a set of 15k armor. Now I have 10 characters with multiple sets. You'll get there.

Enjoy the game and Welcome...

I found that playing through the game, as noobtastic as I was at first, still yielded me enough money to buy what was absolutely necessary: materials and armor, blue 5k collector weapons, and kits. The rest...is gravy.
I was level 20 before I had a green or gold weapon. I was level 19 before I even understood what those WERE! (like, the sword is gold? ooooh, purdy!)

If you have multiple campaigns, the quest reward gold will pile up quickly in your pockets. If you just have prophecies, the original campaign...patience, my friend, is necessary.

Sell your drops to merchies, identify everything, and don't buy what you don't need.
The trade chat in some places is tempting, but if you ignore it, you'll save your money.

Most of the guildwars community has never seen over 500k before. To play the game all you really need is max armor and max weapons. People just spend alot of money to get shiny weapons or new weapons.

Thanks for the help, guys.

Okay, then, here's my deal: I'm a level 4 warrior in Prophecies with Eye of the North, wearing the armor I started the game with. What kind of purchases should I make and when should I make them?

PS - What is farming? Is it buying low and selling high, or is it literally farming crops?

Wiki is your friend.

Farming is the killing of monsters for the purpose of gathering items, experience, gold, Faction, or promotion points and is considered to be one of the quickest and easiest ways to amass wealth. Often you will find parties (especially in the harder areas of the game) searching for people to go farming with them.

1mill is poor. You're classed as rich when you hit double figures.

Oh, okay. Thanks, but could you answer my other question too, please?

Follow the storyline. Save all items. Get the best collector weapons you can for the area. If you get any truly rare weapons late in the game hold onto them, use them, salvage their mods. Buy armor often but later on you can get collector armor.

Sell stacks of consumables for starters i guess.

You are probably still in "Pre-searing" so your choices are limited. At this point in the game you should mostly be concentrating on doing quests to level up your character and gain experience and skills. I believe there is a weaponsmith in Ascalon who you can get to craft you new weapons, but another way to get better weapons is just from getting drops from enemies and by opening chests. You won't get large amounts of money in pre-searing (although finding a black dye would help).

Try to get to at least level 8 before going through the Academy - that's the place where the NPC warns you you will leave everything behind.

Once you go through the Academy you will start the real game in Post-searing Ascalon. Two of the first things you'll want to do are to talk to the Xunlai storage agent to get access to storage, and talk to the [armor] NPCs in Ascalon City to get better armor.
As you go through the early stages of the game (post searing) you will find that the amount of gold you get increases along the way. You will also need to upgrade your armor occasionally, until you get max armor (at Droknar's Forge)

I realize that at this point you are picking up like 3 gold at a time a wondering how you can ever afford those 15k items people are selling. But, later on, the amount of gold you get by simply playing the game increases by quite a lot.
And despite what some people say here - buy and use keys. Chests are like a box of chocolates......

Actually, I'm already in post-searing. I've participated in the Wintersday events and everything. I saw the armor merchant, I just wasn't sure if it was worth the money to buy armor so early in the game.

And what's Max Armor?

As you go through the game, the armor level (AL) of the armor increases. For example, the armor available from the armor crafter in Ascalon City has a higher AL than the armor you started with. In fact, one of the armor NPCs in Ascalon gives you a choice of two ALs. Refer to this: http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Armor_%28rating%29 for more info.

It's generally speaking worth the money to upgrade your armor whenever possible. You can do this by buying new armor or by getting new pieces from collectors. Better AL means you can survive better, thus making more gold, faster.

At any rate, there is a maximum to the Armor Level for all classes. Once you get to Droknar's (in Prophecies) you get armor with the maximum AL. After that, you get into 'vanity' armors that have no better AL, but look fancier (or not, depending upon your own taste. )

Why........?

If you are trying to save money, buying keys generally results in a loss, as the item you find from a chest is almost never worth the cost of the key.

Id say if you have 100k+ you rich

if you have over 1,000 plat your ELITE rich

and if you have over 1,000 plat plus ectos, plus the best stated swords n axes your a GOD among guild wars

shhhhhh!!!

dont tell anyone....

Haha, call me Noob to the MAX!!!

I'll probably just progress through the game and pick up some dough along the way. If anyone wants to meet me in-game and, well, y'know...*cough*gimme all yo money*cough*, it'd be greatly appreciated.

Most rather rich people with over 1000 plat worth of stuff don't keep 1000 plat sitting around in their vault. I know I'm worth far over 1000 plat, but if I've got more than 500k pure sitting in storage it's for a very specific reason(elite armor or short on ectos). I would say to be rich, the easiest way to tell is to buy an ecto and if you don't notice a plunge in your funds you're rich.

I personally enjoy playing the market. Investments and the like. Others may not. Find what's fun and set a goal, nothing more to it.

Here are some tips and tricks on how to make money, and keep it.

- Keys are okay to use if they are drops off of enemies. After a week of buying and using keys, you will probably notice your money amount going down. After you sell all those items, your funds will be less than you started. Almost always this will happen.

- Save, save, save. Don't waste your money on unmeaningful things.
[EXAMPLE] If you want colored armor, don't go for red, white, or black dyes. I'd advise: green, purple, yellow, orange, brown, and orange. The dyes other dyes usually go for 200g or more, and after buying 5 of those (4 if you are an ele) will cost 1k for just 1 set of armor.

- Buy the armor you can buy first (in Ascalon City, Shing Jea, and Kamadan), then wait till you can get Max Armor. Constantly buying armor ever moment you can just wastes money. The cost to get materials you don't already have adds on to getting new runes and such. If you really feel the need for new armor every chance available, just get collectors armor.
[HINT] You may even be able to get through a whole campaign with one of the first available armor sets. I'm attempting to go through all of Nightfall without buying Max Armor; this will allow me to save up for 15k Sunspear.

- Farming is your friend. Just get some heroes (if you have GWEN or NF) and some Henchies and run around and kill things. Having an added quest onto that will help as well . You can get a solo build for your class off of PvX (even though some people oppose using PvX for builds). An Invisi-Monk is always a good farming. There are otehr great builds that can be used.

- Whenever you get an item, Identify it with and ID Kit. Make sure it is an item you got from an area where level 20s roam around, or you'll just be wasting money. After awhile, the money you make from merchanting/selling those items will overcome the cost of the ID Kits and you'll make a good profit.