A little help on items please?

Firstly, I would like to point out that I am a complete n00b, so feel free to reply in a patronizing tone.

Ok, so when I first started the game, I joined a guild, and when I was talking to one of the members, they told me... "Save all vials of dye and materials you pick up, and save all purple items and gold."

So, I did.

Next time this person came online, they told me to use identification kits to identify all my purple and gold items.

After that though, I didn't play the game for a couple of months, and coming back to GW I find that that helpful person has left, there are only a few people left in the guild, and it is practically inactive.

So my question is... what am I supposed to do with all this stuff? Sell it to merchants? What?

I have;
Lots of identified weapons and some other stuff that I have no idea what they are, like "harnesses" and "idols." All either purple or gold, (in, er, name colour.)
Lots of rare and common crafting materials, like feathers, bones and bolts of silk.
Some vials of dye.
5 (un-opened) "Gifts of the traveler."

Apparently these are important, so I just want to know what to do with them, as they've stayed in my storage for a long time now.

If this question would be considered as "asking how one should play the game," then please take it as, erm, asking why they're important, (though I really want to know what should be done with them!)

Thankyou for taking the time to read this!

Basically harnessess etc and armors you pick up from enemies can be salvaged. Depending on the type of colour will mean which runes you get. Blue = minor, purple = major, gold = superior, check the rune traders to see how much the runes are worth.
Usually identifying an item will increase the amount its worth at a merchant anyway, so usually worth doing to anything...but i stick with blues and above.

Generally, here's what I do:

1. Get to know each basic type item and what it salvages into. It's a lot to learn, but it's easy after a while. Bows salvage to wood, Swords salvage to iron, and so on.
1a. Get to know what salvage items sell well at the trader, and which do not
1b. Salvage the items that salvage into materials that sell well
1c. Vendor/merchant the rest
1d. This applies to white, blue, purple, gold and green items. Srsly. All of them!

2. Keep a little notepad of items that you're "on the look out for"
2a. Maybe your Monk's Koss needs a decent sword!
2b. Maybe your Warrior's Gwen needs a decent staff?
2c. If you find an item that is on your list -- yay! Give it to the hands that need it!
2d. But for all the items that aren't on your list, refer to #1 above.

If you don't need it, sell or salvage it.

No really, Send everything either to the crafting material trader or to the vendor. Don't waste time trying to sell things to other players. It doesn't really work well in this game (GW2 will have an auction house though woo). Just get your cash from the trader/merchant and get back to fun times and epic adventures.

It's all fake money anyway. Have fun with it!


Edit: The above advice is for "regular" gear like weapons and other junk. Here's some special cases:
Dye: Stockpile it. It's fun to dye your armor.
Runes: Sell them or put them on heroes. Don't store runes, it's a waste of space
Gifts of the traveller: Open them! Eat or drink what's in them! Wooo!
"Consumables": Items that give you buffs or summon monsters to fight for you or whatnot. Use 'em up! I find if I store consumbales "for a rainy day" then I end up never using them. Use 'em!

Have fun, and don't take items too srsly in this game!

Dont merch greens. They have perfect mods which are usually half-way decent, and therefore make great weapons for heroes. For example, unless every single one of your ranger heroes on all of your characters has a fully modded bow or a green bow already, you should be giving any green bows you encounter with half-way decent mods to those heroes.

There are a few good auctioning sites where you can sell items. One is guru auctions, and another is gwauctions.com. If you have req 9-10 gold items with perfect base stats (perfect damage, perfect +energy, and/or perfect inherent HSR modifier), you should definitely auction these items off on one of those sites. Greens should also be auctioned off if you dont need them for heroes. Its a good way to make money and even common weapon skins go for 1-2k.

You're better off selling them unless you're one of those people that always gets lucky. Opening them is more fun though.

Yup! Which is why I suggested that he open them up. I think it's tons more fun to open a present and see what's inside.

Much less fun to stand in Kamadan saying "WTS 5x Gifts of the Traveller, nK each" over and over, until you sell them. After you sell them, your gold count will be higher, and that's the end of that.

Heck no! Presents are made to be opened! Tear into them and see what's inside! Enjoy!

I concur with Ghull. Unless you are really strapped for cash opening the presents is the path to take. Most of the time it is too much trouble trying to sell them anyways. And who knows you could be lucky enough to get a mini or Everlasting Fireworks

The wiki is your best friend use it constantly. I always have it up on a second page while I play just in case. Examine the wiki for "max" on mods, upgrades, inscriptions, etc. Check the rune trader for the prices of runes and insignias from your identified armors. If you won't get anything worthwhile from salvaging it, then merch it and you are richer. Stash away your materials in your material storage. Then if it gets full you can sell a whole stack (people are always more willing to buy in bulk anyways)

That's usually true for most items, but there are a few that are quite easy to sell to players for a bit more than you'd get from an NPC. Specifically, these are feathers, iron, and glittering dust (they're used to make consumables from Eye of the North -- if you have the expansion, you could craft the cons and sell them, but selling the materials is less work). And, lately, granite slabs are in high demand for crafting Destroyer Weapons.

Also, perfect "Aptitude Not Attitude" and "Forget Me Not" inscriptions can fetch a bit of money.

A rough & ready way to get an idea of what's worth anything and in demand is to open up your "P" window while in Lion's Arch or Kamadan and skim the trade ads. Don't take them all at face value, but after a bit you'll notice a pattern emerge that will indicate what you should hold back to try and sell to people.

Ok, thank you very much - I don't think I'm ready to face the trading community, so will take your advice and sell things to merchants...

Can I confirm though - so, I *identify* the item. Then do I salvage it, or do I sell the identified item?

Ok, so lets say I salvaged it, what do I do with the stuff I get? Sell it to the merch, material trader, (or do they pay the same?) Or keep it?

& I know I shouldn't be worrying about stuff like this so early in the game - I just want to get a routine sorted so I can start to build up cash to get prestige armour.

Oh, and ok, will open the presents - its been killing me not to anyway!

In regards to any mats you get from salvaging items - keep them! If you have spoken to the Xunlai (spelling?) agent you should have access to the Xunlai Storage, otherwise I'd suggest talking to them - there is a mats storage tab that you can get for 50g .. which lets you store up to 250 of each mat.

You might want to keep the mats as it will allow you to craft armor later on (to craft armor you need mats and gold, without the mats you'd have to buy the mats).

The merchants and the rune/material traders do not buy at the same price - your generally always better off selling to the respective trader if you sell (runes to rune trader, mats to mat trader).

It sounds as though you started in Prophecies and the Guildie was telling you to save those gold and purple items so that you could get mods off them when you got out of pre-searing and save the dyes, feathers, etc., for use later.
If you are now out of pre-searing, you should have access to storage so you have more space to keep things. Just go ahead and save the stuff you want in storage. Identify the items and decide if you want to keep any of the weapons and use an Expert Salvage Kit to salvage any mods you want off the weapons and Runes/Insignias off the armor pieces.
Use a wiki - either the official one off the GW website or http://www.guildwiki.org/Main_Page - to help determine what does what and what you think may be useful.

And don't be afraid to ask more noob questions - we were all noobs once and know all the answers.

Ok, thank-you very much.

Will go save what I want and salvage the rest now.

EDIT: When I salvaged a "centaur harness of major absorption" it said I could either salvage a rune of major absorption, or crafting materials.

Which do I choose?

runes are usually good to keep if you are playing the profession that it is intended for (absorption runes are for warriors---if you have a warrior keep this rune--or if you are planning to make a warrior).
runes to keep are ones like vitae that give extra health (or the one that give extra energy)...also you might get insignias--they also are good to put on your armor.

there is a whole section on this on the wiki:
runes:http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Runes
insignias:http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Insignia

and yes if you have not had a chance...get over to the wiki it will help you with lots of questions and helpful information as well:http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Main_Page

As cosyfiep said, you'll want to salvage and hang onto runes that you will use for yourself and your heroes. Generally, you'll probably always want to save Survivor insignias as well as Vitae and Minor/Major/Superior Vigor runes. And then, yes, take a look at the different runes/insignias for different professions and see what's useful.

For runes that you don't think you'll use, visit a Rune Trader NPC (there's one right next to the Merchant in Great Temple of Balthazar) and take a look at the prices of some of their runes. While most sell for around 100g each, you'll notice some are very expensive -- Minor Soul Reaping (necro), Minor Spawning Power (rit), for example. You'll want to salvage these runes off the item and sell it to the Rune Trader for much, much more than you'd get for the crafting materials or selling the item to a merchant.

Ok, thank-you guys; and cosyfiep, it's a warrior that I play on, so that's perfect.

My one concern is - I must be doing something wrong, because according to everyone posting here, runes and things salvaged from the rare items sell for a lot more than the identified item itself - yet when I go to the rune trader, they'll only pay 25 gold each time for the salvaged rune, and I've just destroyed an identified item worth 300.

Only some runes sell for big amounts. Most do only go for 25g.

Check with the rune trader first to get an idea of value. If the rune's selling at the trader for 100g, than he'll only give you 25g to buy it off you
At the moment a Radiant insignia is selling for 380g at the trader. He'll buy mine for 280g
Vigor runes will sell for much more; Super vigor for multiple platinum (selling at 23 plat at the trader atm)

Prices fuctuate, as the market is driven by trade, and that, in turn is driven by the current favour of the week builds

Before salvaging, you need to decide whether the item you're salvaging for (rune, weapon mod, whatever) is worth more than what you'd get for just selling the item as a whole. For runes, you can just go to a rune trader and check. If the rune is only listed at 100g (that's buying price, you'll get much less for selling) then I don't bother salvaging. For weapon mods and other such things that don't come with a trader, you'll need to have a good idea on whats valuable and whats not. For the most part, mods that aren't max are worthless. If you're not sure, keep an eye out in the main cities to see what people are buying/selling. Looking at price guides on Guru helps too.

All right, all cleared up, thankyou!