How To Make Money!

Snograt

Snograt

rattus rattus

Join Date: Jan 2006

London, UK GMT??0 ??1hr DST

[GURU]GW [wiki]GW2

R/

No, this isn't a guide ...yet.

I need your help, people. As we all know, the most F of all FAQs is "how do I make money?" - and threads like that tend to get shot down on sight. After the latest such thread (here) I thought it would be a good idea if we had a brief guide, just a list of bullet points, to which we could point people when they ask that most oft asked of all Qs.

For example:

  • Identify all items including whites before selling
  • Use collectors for weapons and armor as much as possible
  • Pick up and sell everything
Give me your ideas, people - all input will be most welcome.

some-_1

some-_1

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Jan 2008

Reading, England

Zaishen Masters [ZM]

R/

I find Speed Clears and Running are the easiest and quickest methods to make fast cash. IMO Power Trading takes too time of standing around and "learning the market"

My tips for anyone wanting to make money via SC and Runs:

- Join a Speed Clear Guild - Important

- Work out which areas are and aren't worthwhile, for example: VSF runs, are they really worth spending hours and hours doing when the chance of getting a VSF is slim and could take weeks? (I once did VSF non-stop for a month and only ever saw 3/4 drop). An example of an area which is worth the effort is DoA, you'll get a minimum of 1 gem from each chest plus an additional gem from the quest, a gem set is worth 15k so, for around an hour and a half's work you've made 30k (include the other drops and DoA can net you on average 75k+ every run)

- Don't rely on one character: be prepared to remake toons depending on what’s good and isn’t (e.g. if SF gets nerfed tomorrow and something else takes its place be prepared to learn that)

- Got to spend money to make money: Getting the right build and equipment for a run or SC will cost money, I’ve personally spent hundreds of gold on getting my toons armour, weapons, skills etc. But it will pay off in the end.

That’s all that springs to mind at the moment but I'll keep updating and editing this as and when I do think of stuff.

Regards.

Akroma Angel NL

Akroma Angel NL

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Nov 2007

[LLL]

W/

sell ur weekly gifts 20-25K a week
let all ur req 9s PC'd some can be worth much more then u think

Darcy

Darcy

Never Too Old

Join Date: Jul 2006

Rhode Island where there are no GW contests

Order of First

W/R

- Material farming - feathers, granite, dust - they sell for 3-9k a stack
- Items for Nick farming - even if you can't reach him or you already got your five gifts, keep farming and sell the items. Enough for one gift sells for 2-3k.
- Don't spend money on weapons and armor
- finish a campaign so that you can do HM and vanquishing

jiggles

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Sep 2007

N/

Sell unid gold items (insert current price here).

Play lots of pve, this includes vanquishing, SC's. Time spent sitting around wondering how to get rich, is time lost getting rich.

Spiritz

Forge Runner

Join Date: Apr 2007

DMFC

A major tip for newbies - dont use expert salvage kits for materials unless your after rare materials.Always use normal kits otherwise you tend to be paying more in the long run - common mistake new players always make.
Dont waste money of flashy armor untill you have completed a campaign - get hardmode then find a gd farm and then the armor cost wont make a huge dent in your money.
And last is one which im sure many will agree upon - Never rely on 1 single farm nor on 1 single chr - when kegging was killed a lot of players quit their sins as they made them only for kegging

Lord Dagon

Lord Dagon

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Jul 2009

Inside the Oblivion Gate

The Imperial Guards of Istan[TIGE]

E/Me

Do alot of vaettir farming. Most of the wepons can be salvaged for dust at a preety high rate, and people need lots of dust for BUs and the like.

ill edit this if more comes to mind.

Eragon Zarroc

Eragon Zarroc

Atra estern?? ono thelduin

Join Date: Jan 2008

Madness Incarnate

[Duo]

W/P

Do Zaishen Elite once a day for 6k balth faction. Exchange 5k balth faction for z-keys and sell keys for 6k+ each.

Rushin Roulette

Rushin Roulette

Forge Runner

Join Date: Sep 2007

Right here

Ende

Find something your good at (Running missions, outposts, Running lockpicks/keys, Powertrading or farming for example), check the market to see if others arent as good at that or dont want to do that. Expand on the idea and see what people are willing to pay and offer your services.

If your good at what you do and honest with yourself and your customers, they will return for more. The biggest mistake you can do is always say that you are perfect every time. I run missions for example, and if I get a request for one im not so good at, then I will let them know in advance that they may expect a fail or 2 before it works out. Stick with whatever you choose as long as you are enjoying it.

Another thing is; dont forget to diversify as others have said above. If you farm, make sore that you have more than one char that is able to farm (Monk, Necro, Ele, Sin, Rit and Im guessing Mesmer might be the next in farming character after the next update hits live).

Finally, choose something where you can relax and chill out to balance the hard action times. It doesnt haev to be anything which makes loads of money or has great rewards. I run the Minister Chos solo mission on my Necro for example

cosyfiep

cosyfiep

are we there yet?

Join Date: Dec 2005

in a land far far away

guild? I am supposed to have a guild?

Rt/

reward trophies (luxon totems, imperial commedations, kourman coins) can be traded for items that are worth more than the trophies alone, eg (from the wiki) The faster rate for converting these directly to gold is purchasing and selling superior salvage kits, which will pay out 200Gold per totem (1Platinum per kit, 1 kit per 5 totems). Keeping and using the kits may be even more profitable, since each one saves you 4 expert salvage kits, at a cost of 1.6Platinum total, increasing the potential value of 5 totems to 1.6Platinum; that is, 320Gold each. In any case, do not sell them to other players for less than 200Gold each.

many collectable drops (plague idols, decayed orr emblems) can be exchanged for items that are worth more than the items them selves...and some items (wintersday collectable items) can be sold to other players around holidays for a LOT more than they are worth to the merchant.

Star_Jewel

Star_Jewel

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Mar 2010

Denizen of Tyria since Feb. 2009

This is mainly advice for newbies, but I'm assuming those are the ones who ask "How do I make money?"
And that is: Make the Rune Trader your best friend.

Knowing which runes and insignias are worth something (not just the Vigors, but Soul Reaping, Spawning Power, etc.), and when their prices are apt to fluctuate (festivals drive the prices down with all the farming), can put a significant amount of cash in your pocket, and can also save you money down the line if you store the expensive ones you think you might use.

Icy The Mage

Icy The Mage

Forge Runner

Join Date: Apr 2008

Canada

E/

Buy and use normal salvage kits on any white items you find, keep the materials and sell them in stacks to people. Try to avoid salvaging bows though - they usually just give you wood planks, which are mostly worthless.

Keep in mind that you should ID them first, that way you get more materials.

A former guildy once told me: "Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves."

-Makai-

-Makai-

Jungle Guide

Join Date: May 2007

WA

DH

Rt/

If you have a lot of characters and NF HM, doing Chabek Village on HM can rack up some good cash.

Also, playing a lot of JQ nets you z-keys and amber/jade.

Yol

Yol

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Feb 2007

GameAmp Guides [AMP]

E/

Only identify whites if the pre-id value is 50g or more. Identifying a white worth 4g isn't worth it (you'll get an increase of a couple of g), but identifying a 50g white can increase the price to 120 (the highest I have personally seen).

Don't buy skills that you can get for free as quest rewards.

Snograt

Snograt

rattus rattus

Join Date: Jan 2006

London, UK GMT??0 ??1hr DST

[GURU]GW [wiki]GW2

R/

I'm loving this so far - thanks for all your ideas.

Tidied list in a few days, hopefully

Anon-e-mouse

Anon-e-mouse

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Apr 2006

@ Home

League Of Friends [LOF]

R/Mo

Quote:
Originally Posted by Yol View Post
Only identify whites if the pre-id value is 50g or more. Identifying a white worth 4g isn't worth it (you'll get an increase of a couple of g), but identifying a 50g white can increase the price to 120 (the highest I have personally seen).

Don't buy skills that you can get for free as quest rewards.
Actually it IS worth id'ing whites even if the pre-id value is say only 20gp. The id'd item is always worth more, and a good part of the time it's nearly twice as much as it was pre-id.

Eragon Zarroc

Eragon Zarroc

Atra estern?? ono thelduin

Join Date: Jan 2008

Madness Incarnate

[Duo]

W/P

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anon-e-mouse View Post
Actually it IS worth id'ing whites even if the pre-id value is say only 20gp. The id'd item is always worth more, and a good part of the time it's nearly twice as much as it was pre-id.
yeah, but like for his example with an item being 4g pre-identified. even if it does double in value, it would just cover the 4g cost of identifying it in the first place, being a waste of time.

MisterB

MisterB

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Oct 2005

Planet Earth, Sol system, Milky Way galaxy

[ban]

W/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anon-e-mouse View Post
Actually it IS worth id'ing whites even if the pre-id value is say only 20gp. The id'd item is always worth more, and a good part of the time it's nearly twice as much as it was pre-id.
No. For whites, you can start ID'ing at ~40g. Before that, the value it increases is insignificant, or worse, it increases in value less than or equal to the gold value of a single use of the ID kit, either 4g or 5g(superior). On average, you gain gold ID'ing whites at about 40g and up. Below that you merely break even, gain very little(not worth your time), or lose gold(identifying pre-sear whites).

Darcy

Darcy

Never Too Old

Join Date: Jul 2006

Rhode Island where there are no GW contests

Order of First

W/R

Quote:
Originally Posted by Snograt View Post
*Pick up and sell everything
If you are going on a long quest or dungeon or mapping or vanquishing and you can't be sure you will have room for everything in your bags, make sure you bring a Salvage Kit and salvage all the whites. It's better to get 3 planks for a salvaged bow than to leave the bow laying on the ground.

Use an Expert or Superior Salvage Kit to remove good mods from gold weapons. Check the guru Price Check thread for Components at http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/c...tml?t=10405139
for the sell prices. The list is not out of date because the prices do not really change. When selling mods don't be afraid to take less than top price. You need to weigh your time spent against what you would get. (Unless you enjoy the trader business, then go for it.)

Anon-e-mouse

Anon-e-mouse

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Apr 2006

@ Home

League Of Friends [LOF]

R/Mo

Quote:
Originally Posted by MisterB View Post
No. For whites, you can start ID'ing at ~40g. Before that, the value it increases is insignificant, or worse, it increases in value less than or equal to the gold value of a single use of the ID kit, either 4g or 5g(superior). On average, you gain gold ID'ing whites at about 40g and up. Below that you merely break even, gain very little(not worth your time), or lose gold(identifying pre-sear whites).
I'm not going to get into a war over this but you are quite wrong. Any item of 20gp (Usually with a Req of 4 or more), will quite often goto 30gp when id'd, this is more than the cost of the ID, and only tards id pre-searing carp.

And whilst I'm here, get the ZM, ZB or ZC bounties (depending on your playstyle), if you did all the missions in the game whilst under the ZM, that's easily another 50K+ for doing nothing more than you were going to anyway. And it's even more for the dungeons.

-Makai-

-Makai-

Jungle Guide

Join Date: May 2007

WA

DH

Rt/

Obvious one here, but learning skills at hero skill trainers can also save you a bit of gold.

Oh, and quest credits (Monastery Credit, Kournan Coin, Equipment Requisition, etc.) are well worth it.

LicensedLuny

Badly Influenced

Join Date: Dec 2005

Buying Humps! (No kidding! Check my buy thread)

Hello Kitty Krewe [HKK] Forever!-ish

Great idea Smodrat! I wish you luck with it, and if you pull it off I vote you change your title to something like "Most F of Qs"

You might stress that one doesn't actually need much money to simply play GW because the cheaper armor and gear options are perfectly adequate to get through PvE and you get most everything for free on PvP-only characters with the equipment panel.

I'd also stress the importance of playing through the game instead of rushing ahead to get rich by farming. Simply playing a character through a campaign getting the money from drops and quest/mission rewards (primaries and at least some secondaries) always seems to be a net profit to me these days. Prophecies can be a little dicey, but Factions and onward always seemed like the quest rewards were doing a good job of lining my characters' pockets. While playing anyway, it might be worth keeping the appropriate storybook handy. Those provide a decent amount of cash for something you were doing anyway.

It seems like a big money sink for newer players/characters is the skills. Note that they do not need to buy every skill right away. Others have already suggested getting as many free as possible from quests and hero skill trainers. Normal tomes are often much cheaper than 1k to a skill trainer, but those require that the skill in question is already unlocked on your account. Another sink they might want to avoid at first is keys and lockpicks.


Various other random thoughts in no particular order ...


It can be a lot faster to sell unid gold items for title points at ~700g ea. Then again, I've met a number of people who claim to turn a nice profit from buying unid golds and then selling the choice weapons or attached mods. That probably takes at least some trading experience and certainly takes willingness to spend time trading, so it may belong in the "advanced" section of your guide. :/

I agree with the suggestion to ID the closer-to-max whites before merching, but I never bother to ID the ones I salvage for iron, granite or dust. It might work - I've never tried it, so I can't say.

Get familiar with the all NPC traders and how to gauge the trader's buy price and both demand and normal player-to-player prices based on the traders' sell prices. Get in the habit of checking them now and then (especially material traders) so you have a feel for what's in demand.

While the odds of getting an especially valuable gold weapon or offhand are pretty low, it might help to know how to find PC info.
- Learn what max means (I find this wiki page does a good job of explaining,)
- Learn what PC sources there are for common items. In game NPC traders and the various PC guides here on Guru are my favorite sources. Realize that the most useful information from most of the PC guides may be in the recent posts on the last page(s) instead of in the OP (which may not be kept up to date.)
- Learn to use search! It's usually a lot faster and easier to search your own PC than to ask and wait for someone to come along and tell you. Sadly, there's no guarantee that anyone will help you with PC, and when they do, there's not often an easy way to guarantee it's something you can trust. On this site, when I'm looking for PC info I check to see what similar items might be listed in the auctions. I also do an advanced search, limited to Ventari's sections, for the name of the weapon (without it's suffix/prefix mod names) in quotes. It didn't always work, but Guru's search lets you enter quoted text strings these days!


Cheers & GL with the snazzy new guide!

Quaker

Quaker

Hell's Protector

Join Date: Aug 2005

Canada

Brothers Disgruntled

Quote:
Originally Posted by Darcy View Post
If you are going on a long quest or dungeon or mapping or vanquishing and you can't be sure you will have room for everything in your bags, make sure you bring a Salvage Kit and salvage all the whites.
Or bring a Mercantile Summoning Stone and create your own merchant. Be a bit careful about where you use the Stone though, the merchant can agro mobs and will fight (and usually die).

Robbert

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Mar 2010

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anon-e-mouse View Post

And whilst I'm here, get the ZM, ZB or ZC bounties (depending on your playstyle), if you did all the missions in the game whilst under the ZM, that's easily another 50K+ for doing nothing more than you were going to anyway. And it's even more for the dungeons.
Do these Zaishen Missions start with the first mission of a campaign and do they go on like the storyline does? In the same order I mean.

Yawgmoth

Yawgmoth

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Apr 2005

Quote:
Originally Posted by Robbert View Post
Do these Zaishen Missions start with the first mission of a campaign and do they go on like the storyline does? In the same order I mean.
The problem with them is they're not ordered but totally random - close to useless for characters going through the storylines for their first time, unless they want to stretch over like 2 years with it.

EDIT: but they're at least predictable, you can know ahead of time which ones gonna be used on each day, see this wiki page: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Zaish...st/predictions

shoesbags

shoesbags

Academy Page

Join Date: Mar 2009

Mo/Me

I have a question, sorry if this isn't the right topic

I started to do some undead farming today after trying to find some methods to make money. When players sell 'unid gold' does that pertain to every unid gold item a player obtains or just specific types? such as armors with the possibility of vigor and survivor runes?

Arzock

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: May 2009

The Guardians of flame

N/Me

Tournament points - 5 for one zaishen key - You get 50 free with your account - Zaishen keys sell for 5k each - That's right, 50k free!

Marty Silverblade

Marty Silverblade

Administrator

Join Date: Jun 2006

Quote:
Originally Posted by shoesbags View Post
I have a question, sorry if this isn't the right topic

I started to do some undead farming today after trying to find some methods to make money. When players sell 'unid gold' does that pertain to every unid gold item a player obtains or just specific types? such as armors with the possibility of vigor and survivor runes?
It applies to all unidentified golds. When you id a gold, regardless of what it is, you get a point in the wisdom title track. This is why people buy unidentified gold items. Sometimes you'll end up buying one with a good mod and make a profit, but the main point is getting the wisdom title.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Arzock
Tournament points - 5 for one zaishen key - You get 50 free with your account - Zaishen keys sell for 5k each - That's right, 50k free!
To clarify: You need to speak to High Priest Zhang in the Great Temple of Balthazar to get 50 Tournament Reward Points, then talk to Tolkano (also in GToB) to trade them in for keys.

tijo

tijo

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Feb 2007

Montreal

[CDDR]

R/

Use the zaishen bounties to your advantage. While bounties for bosses that aren't in dungeon the reward is less, some of the bosses can be killed easily and fast. For example Molotov Rocktail can be killed easily enough in HM with pain inverter and is easy to get to, with more than one character, you can make more than the bounty for a dungeon in the same time.

Plan according to the week-end events also. Double faction in Jade Quarry and Fort Aspenwood, use the Balthazar faction for zkeys.

Personally, i like to keep all my money in storage. Every time i get 1K on a character, i place it in storage, it's easier to keep track of how much money i have and i'm less inclined to spend it. Keep at least 100g on your characters at all time though for HM shrine bonuses in factions and such.

The PvP zaishen quests can be taken any number of time by the same character (don't know if it's intended or a bug). Just accept the reward, leave the temple and return. You should be able to take the quest again (tried today with my ele for the JQ quest and it worked)

Silmar Alech

Silmar Alech

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Aug 2009

Europe

Tom Son [TS]

E/

Some time ago, I started a text that should grow into a guide, but I didn't finish it. Here it is, very complete from my point of view, but unpolished. Feel free to reformat. I have the german disease of making too loooong sentences.



How to make money by simply playing Guild Wars

This is a list of hints about how you use the many in-game resources in an efficient way, so you probably never feel the need to farm for gold.
  1. General
    • Don't sell good drops you might need in the future. You will always get less and pay more gold, if you sell an item to a merchant or trader and buy it back later.
    • Create mule characters for more storage. Use Battle Commendations and Monastery Credits from the corresponding tutorial quests to upgrade their inventory to the maximum of 45 inventory places. Create your mules as PvP characters or in Nightfall to get immediate access to the most important trade and exchange locations, Kamadan and Great Temple of Balthazar.
  2. Loot
    • Pick up every loot. For each hour you play, you fill your inventory with about 30-35 items. These sell for 1.5-2k at the merchant. That's too good to throw away.
    • If you have team mates who leave an area after an accomplished task, be the vacuum cleaner and collect all the white crap they didn't pick up. More easy money.
    • If your inventory gets full during picking up, begin salvaging items. You always need crafting material sooner or later, and it is cheaper to salvage it than to buy it from a trader.
    • Identify all blue, purple and golden items before you sell them to the merchant.
    • If you have much time available, even identify white items as long as they come from an area with level 20+ enemies. In most cases the merchant value increases more than the identify costs.
    • In Nightfall, there are twelve treasures every character can open without key once for every 31 days. The first 2-3 openings yield golden drops and 1-2k, afterwards you get purple items and 200-500g.
  3. Material
    • Make yourself familiar with the material common weapons can be salvaged into. Use the Categories on Guild Wars Wiki to see what items contains what material and rare material. Or use the item list to see what items salvage into what material. If you know that you will need a certain material, salvage loot items that yield this material.
    • Salvage items with an Expert or Superior Salvage Kit, if it could yield raw material and you don't already have a full stack of it in your Xunlai chest in the material tab. If you know that an item only yields common material, use an ordinary salvage kit.
    • Make all of these quests from where you get Imperial Commendations, Luxon Totems, Monastery Credits, Kournan Coins, Ancient Artifacts, Inscribed Secrets. Five of these can be traded for one Superior Salvage Kit at their corresponding collector NPC, which would cost you 2k if you buy it at the merchant.
    • Save your Trade Contracts. Seven of these can be traded for a Sapphire or a Ruby from a Vabbi Trade Official at the Kodash Bazaar.
    • Save all of your material and rare material in the material tab of your Xunlai chest as long as you don't have a full stack of it. Why selling it for a low price, when you can keep it and don't need to buy it for a high price if you are in need?
    • If you want to sell material, don't sell it to a merchant but to the material trader or rare material trader. The traders give much higher prices than the merchant.
    • Some items contain valuable upgrades, but are valuable itself. In this case, use a Perfect Salvage Kit to extract the upgrade to avoid the item being destroyed. The Perfect Salvage Kit costs 250g, 25 wood planks, 25 iron ingots - the most common material available. If you get the kit yourself from one of the EOTN collectors, one usage costs approx. 80g. So it pays to use a Perfect Salvage Kit, if the item you are salvaging from is worth more than 80g.
  4. Weapons and upgrades
    • Don't buy weapons. Equip yourself from loot or with collector weapons. Almost every upgrade/weapon combination can be obtained from one of the many collectors.
    • Free upgradable and inscribable weapons originate from the Bonus Mission Pack. Play one mission, authorize the book, and turn it in for a customized weapon of your choice for free. The only thing that is missing is upgrades.
    • If a weapon drops you or your heroes might need in the future, keep it and put it in one of your mules.
    • If you play in hard mode, more golden items with maximum values drop.
    • Look thoroughly which upgrade your purple and golden weapon drops contain. Salvage good upgrades from weapons you don't need with a Perfect Salvage Kit and sell the weapon without it (or keep it). Upgrade the weapons you want to equip with the salvaged upgrade.
  5. Armor and runes
    • Identify all blue, purple and armor remnants, since they may contain valuable runes and insignia. Only salvage them if you need them for your armor, or if they are more expensive at the rune trader than the salvaging cost. Store them in your mules, if you currently don't need them.
  6. Skills
    • In Prophecies, many skills can be obtained by completing quests, especially in the tutorial area.
    • Your heroes may use skills that are unlocked on your account. If you need to equip your heroes with skills you have not unlocked yet, there are several ways to unlock them.
    • The most expensive way to unlock skills for your heroes is to change the secondary class of your character and buy the skill from a skill trainer or capture it from a dead boss.
    • In Nightfall and EOTN, many skills can be obtained from Hero Skill trainers. These skills are not only unlocked for your heroes but also for your character.
    • Skills can also be obtained for your heroes by unlocking them at the Priest of Balthazar in exchange for Balthazar faction points. A skill needs 1000 Balthazar faction, and an elite skill needs 3000 Balthazar faction. Balthazar faction points can be farmed at the Zaishen Elite outpost on the Battle isles. It is a PvP tutorial outpost, but can be (ab)used to farm up to 6000 Balthazar faction points every 24h. Ask around in this outpost on how to do it. Common team setups are one or two trapper rangers and the rest elementalists as finisher. You can create PvP characters for farming this; you don't need to grow new PvE characters from lvl 1 to 20 for this.
  7. Zaishen quests
    • Look at the Zaishen bounty, Zaishen quests and Zaishen combat daily. They might offer a quest you wanted to go for anyway. If they offer a bounty for a eotn dungeon you want to do, why not take the additional 1-1.5k as reward?
    • The Zaishen quests also yield Zaishen coins as reward. Some people turn them in for various items and sell these items, for example Flames of Balthazar, but I recommend to turn them in for large or heavy equipment packs and use them for yourself and your mules. Nothing is as valuable as a large enough inventory. Your mileage may vary, of course.
  8. Nicholas the Traveler
    • Nicholas is a collector NPC who gives you gifts of the traveler in exchange for various items. You can exchange up to 5 gifts every week.
    • You can sell the gifts to other players directly, or you can open the gift yourself and use the contained items yourself. Or sell them. There are "useful" items you probably should not sell, for example rock candies or summoning stones.

Age

Age

Hall Hero

Join Date: Jul 2005

California Canada/BC

STG Administrator

Mo/

Sell salvaged Mats if anyone is buying.

byteme!

byteme!

Forge Runner

Join Date: Jan 2006

On Earth

W/P

Time is money.

Sometimes items with very lil value <5k take forever to sell. Unless you have the storage space available it's probably best to sell it to the merch. Every minute you spend spamming WTS and not selling anything is a minute wasted not making any money.

Raven Wing

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Nov 2005

The Imperial Guards of Istan [TIGI]

N/

If you go on longer trips where you get more drops than you can hold the Mercantile Summoning Stone is your friend. He buys all the stuff that isnt worth salvaging, and sells you fresh salvage kits. If you dont have any yourself, you can buy for like 3-500g each from players. Just be careful to summon if there are enemies nearby. He tends to walk around in large circles, thus aggroing almost anything on the compass.
Another hint, if you are on a team doing vanquish, speedclear etc, stay in the map once the task is finished and the rest are leaving. A few days ago I was in a FOW team, after it was finished I stayed and ran around looting all the drops my teammates mates left behind. I made~10k on this free loot.
Also: Pick up everything that stacks. Trophies, cheap materials etc. If you already picked up some bones then adding more bones dont take up more inventory (unless you get full stack). When done merch the things and all these x3g from merch vill add up without too much effort. 50 bones worth 150g at merchant is much better than 3 bows worth 50g each.
My last hint: Preserve inventory space, every slot is valuable. Dont run around with half your minipet collection and 8 slots with rock candy, cupcakes, candy canes etc. Keep it to one mini if you like to have mini company, determine in advance if you need rock candy, cakes etc and only bring what you need. Invest in a equipment bag to carry extra weps and armor pieces, dont allow them to take up room in the regular bags. Even the small bag you can buy from merchants is a very good investment.

Martin Alvito

Martin Alvito

Older Than God (1)

Join Date: Aug 2006

Clan Dethryche [dth]

Dredged up the content of a couple of old posts on powertrading. Edit as you see fit. If you're serious about making money, you need to powertrade. You can supplement your in-game income by a very large amount with minimal time investment if you're wealthy enough to deal in high margin items.

My take:

1) Sell many things at once, so that you maximize data collection. You can generally juggle three different lines of trade spam without making the spam filter mad. Separate the W T S in the spam of the two items you are least interested in selling so that people see the item you most want to sell (generally the most valuable one) in Party Search.

For each item you sell:

2) Price it higher than you think you should and NEVER violate this rule. You'll probably need to haggle down a bit anyway to close the sale. If you're 5-10% high, people will PM you what they're willing to pay.

3) If nobody responds for a while (5-10 minutes), stop and go do something else. Come back later and reduce the price a touch. Don't start selling new items without going away for a while. People will be tuning your spam out by that point.

4) Iterate 2 and 3 until people start talking to you.

5) NEVER take the first offer you get.

6) Play multiple bidders off one another. Lying is optional here, but it usually helps. The guy you're talking to is probably lying to you about what he's willing to pay anyway, so you need not feel TOO bad about lying to him.

7) If everyone and his mother PM'd you shortly after you spammed, you underpriced the item. Withdraw the item and come back later at a higher price.

Follow these rules religiously and you'll figure out the price eventually. It helps to have some data already, as it shortens the amount of time required for this system to work. Auctions and High End are relatively good sources. Finding a price on Sell is usually like finding a needle in a haystack, and the 50k-100k stuff usually sells in-game anyway. For common items and item mods, watching spam in Kamadan AD1 is helpful.

PCs are only as good as the person supplying you information. PCs are time efficient, but unless the person giving the PC has sold the item in the last couple of days, they're probably off a bit. PCs can save you time but will probably cost you money in the long run. Which is more important to you depends on your RL situation and how much you dislike selling.


From Malice Black: (IDK why he started numbering at two)

2. Take any PC with a pinch of salt. See what others are selling at and then gauge the interest in said item. If someone has been spamming the same item for less then your PC the chances are you will need to drop your price.

3. Learn when to cut and run. If your asking 100k+10e and the best offer you've had all day is 100k, cut your losses and take the 100k.

4. Selling is all about minimizing the time you spend standing around. Working different areas expands your potential costumer base.

5. Learn what items can be sold where. Spamadan should be avoided if you're selling low value golds. Ascalon can be used to dump minor 1-10k items.

6. Always check the WTB forum. Look back past the first couple of pages.

7. Some items are pretty much unsellable. When you've had an item for a few weeks it's time to drop the price by a large margin. Obviously if the item was a drop then a vast amount of the gold you make is profit anyway.

8. Always ask guilides and alliance. This can save you a lot of effort. NEVER spam guild/alliance chat though, that is extremely annoying.

9. Never buy to resell if you don't know the value. Many times I've seen people buy items then resell them a few days later making little to no profit.

10. Generally I never bought to resell unless I could make a +30% profit.

11. Guru and ingame prices vary a lot.

12. Losing money is all part of trading. Anyone who says they made a profit on every sell is lying.

13. Buying the new flavor of the month weapon is a waste of cash unless you resell.

14. All farmable weapons lose value. Never keep these items as investments. Only items worth keeping are rare items that no longer drop.

15. Never buy low req weapons to keep. Sell the low req, and keep the higher req for use. More profit this way. Not to say you can't buy a few nice skins to keep, just sell the majority for max profit. I had a lot of cash, I rarely kept anything below a req10.

Trading requires little time once you're up and running. Most idiots think it's about spamming all day, but that is far from the truth. Easiet way to make money in the game bar none.

Elephantaliste

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Nov 2008

adblockplus.or

making money is about selling :
(if you consider that farming elite zaishens isn't worth your time)

-> don't try to sell actively items <5k for more than 20min
---> give them to noobs/allies for free or whover wants or needs them, (later you will get these items cheaper than if you systematically deleted them)
---> or go afk while you are selling them (go in a district that won't fill your log chat)

Anon-e-mouse

Anon-e-mouse

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Apr 2006

@ Home

League Of Friends [LOF]

R/Mo

Quote:
Originally Posted by Silmar Alech View Post
Armor and runes
Identify all blue, purple and armor remnants, since they may contain valuable runes and insignia. Only salvage them if you need them for your armor, or if they are more expensive at the rune trader than the salvaging cost. Store them in your mules, if you currently don't need them.

What I'm about to suggest is dependant on your personal salvaging break percentage (Mine is currently 14%).

As the poster mentions ID all non-white armours. However where I differ is I salvage all the runes, regardless of merchant value.. and here's why.

Once you've salvaged all the runes from an armour you can sell the now rune-less armour for the original ID value.

Now take those salvaged runes. Talk to the rune trader. see if any of the runes will sell for more than 25gp (like Radiant or Survivor), sell those. Eventually you're left with all the runes that sell for 10gp.

Now close the dialog, and ID all the runes in your inventory. Blue's will ID from 26-50gp. Purples will ID upto about 110gp. Gold runes will ID to at least 100gp, often more.

Once ID'd go talk to the MERCHANT, and sell the ID'D runes. You'll make more money than just selling to the rune trader alone.

Yes you will get the occasional armour break, but overall you will make money.

Diabloz

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Jun 2008

Finland

The Last Revolution [LR]

Step 1: Win GvG and Snowball AT's
Step 2: Convert reward points ---> Z-keys
Step 3: Make 20-25€ per stack of Z-keys

Necromankas

Necromankas

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Jul 2006

United Kingdom

BEER

Rt/

Don't buy elite tomes if you can go out and cap the skill?
Sure you waste 10 - 20 minutes capping but you can save 5 - 14k

Jk Arrow

Jk Arrow

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Nov 2008

WI

Dark Phoenix Risin [DPR]

R/

Some good advice here so far for newer players. I'd second some and add a few:

Join a good guild. They will help you find ways to make money and you will have fun in the process.

Invest in yourself. When you finally accumulate 9k, don't buy black dye. Instead get the skills or runes you need to make yourself better. Research the farm build you want to try and get outfitted for it but be ready to switch to a different build if it gets nerfed.

Save. Don't spend everything as soon as you get it. It amazes me when people don't have more than 1k on their account.

The easiest way to earn money is to do the storyline/quests/missions/play the game/kill stuff. You don't have to farm to make money.

Sell things you don't need early on. Some unids/Nick gifts/etc. Anything that is vanity or titles, you don't need until you've played for a while and have little else to do.

Read the wiki. Read it again. Keep it open as you play. Easy thing about this game is the enemies don't change and you know what they are bringing to the fight ahead of time.

Learn more than one profession. Helps to diversify your gameplay as well as learn skills/tactics/kill methods.


I'll try to think of more tips that don't involve: Kill this group of 15 enemies over and over with this build.

mko

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Sep 2010

R/Mo

i don't know if you can do this or not but

can you farm storybooks?
(like have a lot of them in your inventory while you do the missions and get credit for all of them? therefor farming them?)