GW's Rich And Famous

Lol @ someone commenting on power trading when he's clearly no expert on it. Look at shadeblade47's post and see what power trading really is like. "But there aren't people so stupid to sell q9 Emerald Blades for 15e". Too bad then I suppose, if you don't have the patience to wait for good deals.

Power trading isn't making a good deal every 10 minutes. If you make 5 million gold in one day, you're already extremely rich. You may not make any killer deals over the next week, but there are consistent powertrades you can make (trading Lockpicks, ZKeys, Ectos), so you shouldn't ever not be making money. Incidentally, power trading isn't necessarily preying on the uninformed. There can be informed players who just want to get rid of something quickly, or generate money quickly, or believe market trends will change in a certain way (WTB Elite Derv tome just before the Derv overhaul, anyone?).

Somehow you make me think that some PvP'ers are just jealous how much faster PvE'ers can accumulate gold ...

botters are not dumb like that

A typical UWSC takes about 30 minutes. This is somewhat of an average between pro guilds who go about 22 minutes and PuGs who go about 40 minutes.
Not sure about other people...but I usually only get 4-5 ectos per uwsc (yeah...I usually only get the end chest rewards). I can farm between 10-12 ectos per hour by SoS'ing the chamber over and over. So by my personal experience, you get more ectos farming than SC'ing.

"But you SC to potentially get Dhuum's Soul Reaper, mini dhuum, and/or mini smite crawler!!!"
And how many times have you gotten one?

WTB zkeys 5.3k each (100)

WTS zkeys 5.8k each (100)

I just made 50k, what a waste of ten minutes

After a certain point it all becomes vanity....All most ppl need for the game comes via regular play, for the vain yeah there's other means. (ofc not including contest winners)

I know I didn't buy this game to stand in Kamadan buying and selling for artificial wealth to convey some sorta epeen that says "I don't actually play the game I just ptrade"

Ofc there are the dupers....we all know who some are that escaped the ban hammer/scythe...famous? not really...notorious? disliked more probable

And lastly rmt which is the sadest of the three. It has to be a pretty pathetic feeling to buy artifical wealth to get an epeen knowing you spent rl cash for it. (or even worse spent someone else's rl cash for it)

learn to farm. tons of guides and vids and guilds to help ya.

learn to trade. it's like anything else. you have to learn to trade and take risks.
unless you spend time in kam and places like guru, you won't know what is worth what and when prices change. if u buy that r9 obs edge for 33 ectos and expect to turn for 43 ectos in an hour or less, you may fail. then you try again the next day and notice that several people are selling for 40 ectos which means some are taking less. with new farms and people learning new exploits every so often, you have to be careful. as more people acquire anything, the value drops unless they hoard it. that's why old school weapons that don't drop any more are worth far more than any edge tormented voltaic whatever. i have to check here when trading since i don't hang in kam much anymore.

if you're not rich, no reason to put all that effort in to be that. save it for gw2. in the meantime, doa scs, uw, fow, feather farming, con sets, pvping will make you enough to fill your hom, dress up your toons, and pay for gwamm title. so what if you don't own a min kanaxai.

if you are kinda rich with a couple- several k ectos and don't want to farm or play the game, then trading rare mini's, items, or large amounts of stuff and flipping for profit is obvious way to get more loot.

OR you could help out new guildies and give stuff away to friends. Let them hold their 1st crystalline or tormented weapon. help them get that armor they are saving up for or title/gwamm or fill their hom. thats been more satisfying to me than any mini so far.

OH and don't hate. Unless they cheated, they spent the time or got lucky enough to score a lot of loot. That's just like real life. Those who focused or got lucky or cheated, come up.

As usual, your prejudices are getting in the way.

The math is straightforward. Suppose that you obsessively pursued wealth for 12 hours a day for a year. The best method for doing that was dungeon running, which paid 100k-250k an hour depending on the dungeon if you were skilled. At 100k per hour, running dungeons 12 hours per day for 365 days, you would have 438,000,000 gold at the end of a year. (Assume that you have two accounts with the second account constantly converting gold to ecto.) At 7k/ecto, you end up with 62,571 ecto at the end of a year.

That's filthy rich. No power trading required, just a lot of time. (No, I haven't got that kind of time on my hands.)

Sitting in Kamadan watching pixels scroll by isn't an efficient use of your time, and never was. It only makes sense to sit there during certain events when it's unusually likely that players will acquire a high value item and underprice it. Otherwise, it's best to poke your head in for a few minutes, spam something a couple of times if you have something to unload, note who's selling high value items, place some bids and get back to productive endeavors.

Same

No they are much dumber... for botting.

that's my little collection. The height of my wealth was 800 ectos and 1 armbrace (which was used to purchase the Kanaxai).

Most of my money then was just made from selling Unid golds.

You are the most lucky person farming chamber UW I have heard of ... I have made ( and plenty of my mates) this farming hundreds of times ... our average is around 2-3e per chamber ... same for UWSC

at topic ... putting aside illegal ways of making money in GW, obviously great money are from trading (in fact some pll are playing the game sitting i Kamadan all day trying to find hot trades - for me sick but it seems that for some pll this is fun), historical purchases ( done over 3 years ago) and some pvp hardcores. Doing SC, Vanqs, collecting crap etc will give you a decent amount of money but for sure not so much to purchase panda, IG or Kanaxai

my 2 cents

I do that often. Try staying behind in DOA after a speedclear is complete and rest of the team left. Bring a merch stone. You can easily make 20k from looting garbage (and salavage the suitable stuff for mats), and sometimes ppl leave gems and valuable req8 items behind too. It is easy to gain nice extra cash by that.

BUT: You get comfortably rich from that, just not super rich. Over time you can accumulate maybe a stack of extra ecto from that, and as said earlier 1 stack doesnt make you super rich.

In my view there are basically 4 ways to get super rich.

1. Be there,do the right thing at the right time. Examples: Bought denravi swords before they disappeared, had perf req7 weaps dropping and kept them from 2005. Looting the free chest in south shiverpeaks before it disappered. Or a thing I got into myself right before it was too late, barrage/pet teams in tombs. I made myself a obsi armor from there with not too big effort. If I had been there from the beginning and spent enough time I could have made many millions. Lots of other examples. All have in common that you cannot just go do it now, but you must wait for the next similar opportunity to arrive, and grab the chance when it is there, using that sixth sense of yours.

2. Luck. Win contest and get a reward, be the first to get a new mini etc. The first person to open a EL destroyer certainly got a good start towards getting rich.

3. Powertrading. Self explaining. It was asked, where does all this wealth come from. I guess its the bots and RMT that infuse it into the game. Some rich kid buys a stack of e with daddys creditcard. The powertrader buys a cool item for 20e expecting to resell for 30-40e. The rich kid sees cool item and buys for 50e. Thats my guess as how extra ectos get infused into economy. Without rich kid the powertrader might only sell for 30e, making much less profit. Ofc there is lots of genuine hand farmed ectos, armbraces etc, but the bots increase the amount.

4. Cheating and rulebreaking, no need to go into details here.

Collect garbage (if u have space), salvage the living hell out of items with iron, dust, feathers, granite (use wiki to learn).
Learn to watch others people drop, sometimes somebody forgets something really nice (that's how i got a shield i sold for 35e some time ago).
If somebody is that stupid to allow you powertrade, please use the chance, if he doesn't know a CC is worth 10e+ most of time and sells it as unid gold, he deserves it.
Learn a build you find easy and use it, grind till you hit the lucky shot and enjoy the profit.
If you're aiming for gwamm, use the time you'll use doing it trying to get money, AFK VQ is easy money in elona. Start thinking outside the square, most people don't know a skin? sell it claiming it's new (don't know if it's considered scamming, but i sold a Sea Purse shield for 80k, was q10)

If you mean pure luck, an inscribable weapon drop with low requirement (<=9), high/max damage and nice skin. You can also try your luck opening gifts, bday presents etc. and hoping for a green mini. But it really is a lottery -- the house wins 99 times out of 100, not you.

If you mean simple stuff with almost no skills required, it really is simple. Selling unid golds. Selling mats as they add up. Simply playing the game, doing quests and missions. Selling unopened gifts and substituting yourself to the house in the lottery game. Picking up, identifying and merching every white. This last one is probably the most overlooked money-making activity in the entirety of GW, considering 4g cost of identification and merch prices starting from at least double (and that's in the lowest possible areas).

If you mean stuff that takes some skill, trading, solo farming, and dungeon/elite area runs.

If she thought it was a good deal, it was. That's one of the most basic principles of any trade: have all participants walk away happy. "Coulda woulda shoulda" doesn't enter into it. It only serves to make yourself crazy.

Look, I don't want to get into the psychology of the moment a person parts with their stuff or money. Some say "a fool and their money are soon parted". But did you stop to consider that maybe the "fool" is happy with how things turned out?

Speaking of which, did you two rush to tell her she got "scammed" right away, or did you think "she's happy, let it be"? It strikes me as funny that, if you told her, you're the ones that ruined it for her, not the buyer.

I'm also curious as to how exactly you reached the conclusion that 100k for a never-before traded mini is not a fair price. Based on what, the purely theoretical price it would have never fetched because her dad would've never let her sell it?

Man, I love people who ride high horses through pink fluffy clouds, God bless 'em. I'm sure that people who trade in the real world strike you as cynical arseholes and I understand the pleasure you get in calling them "scammers". But if you're honestly interested in expanding your horizon, try this: a thing is worth exactly what the seller thinks it's worth. You can easily get more money. A sense of satisfaction is harder to achieve. And the mini itself clearly didn't hold any value for her, otherwise she wouldn't had been so eager to part with it.

Now, I'll admit that I tend to dislike people who constantly prey on newbs, those who initiate undercut deals in newb outposts. Not for some misguided sense of "justice" or blind adherence to some inexistent price list; those are abstracts. Plus, ignorance is no excuse, ever; if you click "open trade" without knowing what you're doing, or YOU come to ME saying "here's an armbrace for 100g", it's your problem (and I might just take that armbrace, and you can chuck it up to life experience). But to initiate such deals says something about the person; it's like taking candy from a baby, and you have to be a real arsehole to do that, especially if you already have all the candy you need.

Did you ever stop to think that perhaps power-trading takes some actual skill? And you can't simply jump in and do it? Allow me to quote myself:

Different people play GW for different reasons. For some it's collecting trinkets. For some it's getting titles. For some, it's trading. It's a testament to the beauty of GW that it can be so many things to so many people.

seems to me that a lot of people share my opinion. Getting super rich cannot be done legit. Earning a few stacks of ectos/keys is relatively straightforward, for me i do it through GvG tournaments (and snowball AT's at christmas). But theres no way anyone could earn tens of thousands of ectos legally, nobody could farm that much without getting massive real life depression.

I admit I abused the hell out of the dye trader when the regions were separate. I traded my euro account and american vice versa to tons of gold/ecto. I was also at the trader for the reset with a few hundred plat so buying ecto at 100g-1k each when they went up to some what near that time 23k each.

I hit a few crystalline swords as well from twin serpent lakes and the dreadnaughts chests before those were removed. I wish I had kept those since what was a lot then is pennies compared to now.

The duping did leave more than a few extraordinary wealthy players. The mallyx exploit pretty well got stomped out and even if they hadn't banned it wasn't near as bad as the dupe.

The odd ball contest/mini pet activation codes were another source of being there at the right time.

The final big one is the bots which honestly affect all online RPG's but guildwars is quite a bit more susceptible with the instance based play.

In the grand scheme though the insanely rich people rarely took one of these vectors but rather multiple and were cautious enough to not get banned/robbed along the way.

It's funny how you keep QQ'ing bout DoASC, whilst it doesn't actually mean that much at all. 250e/month isn't as much as you think, I know people that make way, way, way more money than that.
Also, DwG is really killing our trades, Armbraces down to 21-22e, gemsets being pushed down to 10-11k/ea, it's getting harder and harder to get a fair price for our stuff..

Misguided sense of justice... I love Guru just because of things like these.


Friend: Ohai! I was just slashing my way through PvE which I rarely, if ever, play and I got this sword drop. It's kind of ugly to me and I was wondering if you'd buy it for 10k to help me get money for Obsi armor.
Me: What kind of sword is it?
Friend: Elemental Sword, req 9.
Me: Go to Guru and put it up for auction.
Friend: That place is crawling with retards and auction takes time. QQ
Me: You'll get more than 10k for it.

Three days later he sold it for 800k. At that time I was farming as a 55 monk and 800k took a while to get. Then this bastard decides to stop his PvP thingies and play through NF. And in his first pass gets the Ele Sword to drop.

I'd rather be misguided than cheat someone for personal gain. This has been applied from RL to on-line, not vice-versa. Before you start ranting how I'd act differently if it were RL money or whatever.

cya

So you set your friend straight, it's perfectly normal.

But consider that a complete stranger approached you in a high-level outpost and insisted you take it for 10k, even after telling him it would fetch more on Guru. You still wouldn't take it?

If not, I'd love to hear the reason. You're denying the man 10k he needs right then and there, chances are he's not a newb, and you've satisfied your moral bone by warning him it could be worth more.

They would have gone down in price eventually due to people getting
all their stuff for HoM.
People would have seen it coming.

I know, it's just annoying^^

Well I think it depends on when you played the game and what you did play? For example my boyfriend has played since beta, and he got into the high end stuff really quick. He got into high en HA & WM GvG top 20. He got Oni's, shirokens and all that stuff. That's how he got rich. I know that some people took breaks and saved their money. I am by no means that rich however. I can buy everything I want, but minis are not one of those, and it would ofc take me a while unless I joined some DoASC guild. Before they banned all the bots there were tons of people with über rare minis and tousand of ectos. Alot of people got that money from botting, and there are people still who get the money from botting. I can't explain the people with 1000e other than

1. They have farmed it for a really really long while, with for example DoASC(Not DwG).
2. They were gifted one of the most expencive minis before they went so high in price.
3. They bought a mini before they went so high in price(Like my bf sold his oni and shiroken when they were cheap ).
4. They bot, or buy gold.
5. They are incredibly good scammers.

I would and have "set straight" any player that was selling something of value for peanuts. As far as your fictional "not newb in a high-level outpost" player is concerned - I'd sooner lend him those 10k he needs so desperately and continue with my affairs. Sounds weird, right?

1000e really isn't that much.. We're talking 10,000-100,000 ecto here...

I agree if I decide to really do a lot of DoA sc with my guild and get average lets say 40-45 minute runs and do 2-3 runs a day. It isn't very difficult to produce a stack of ecto in less than a month.

Shadeblade you must be a genius lol. No i agree with what shadeblade says. You got to find out what's in demand first. Once you find out what's "popular" you start farming them starting small. For example, what shadeblade says. Ever since the update to alcohol and sweet tooth there has a been a rise in demand for them. Try to sell the full title and them move on to rare weapons, minis, etc... You'll start accumulating money quite fast. What shadeblade is referring to is the "buy low and sell high strategy". This strategy does work assuming the traders have no idea of what the items are worth. But for the players that do their not willing to sell them that cheap. It all comes down to patience. If you got patience, then you'll eventually get the rare items, hopefully lol.

U can get like 500e/month if u do about 6-7runs/day
so like 4hours/day, isn't that long tbh(6-10pm or w/e)
10months= 5000e
and then u still can trade in between so u can double up rly 'quickly' if done right

There is what should be an obvious sample bias with SCers and personal wealth because you already represent a very small minority of the playerbase. The average player is never going to reach 1000e in Guild Wars. From that perspective it's easy to see why that much ecto can seem (but isn't) extraordinary.

PvP ZQuest are a good source of money. especially gvg ZQ. you can make easily 50-100 zkeys in 3-4 hours and you even dont have to fight :d

People don't realize that being at least capable in PvP will net you more money than most PvE based methods. As the person above said, Questday can get you upwards of half a stack of keys which is like 1.5 million gold, mATs, ATs, etc will all get you lots of RPs if you perform well.

No lol, people don't realize just how much money power trading can generate. Just take a look at the screenshot posted a few pages ago. Can you get that much gold via PvP?

Yes, but high-end GvG is even more exclusive than high-end PvE. Just saying...

That's true. If it's above then still my assumptions work thought.

"With my vindictive and back-stabbing personality, I always knew I’d be
successful." - an advertisement on GTA: San Andreas radio.

Some people quote Shakespeare; I quote Rockstar Games.

It's rings true, however.

That's a bit patronizing, isn't it? Any player, really? You just assume they're all clueless?

Not weird, more like half-arsed and naive. And stop feeling righteous about it, it's killing me. Just don't try it with the guy selling an iPhone for $50 at street corner, please.

Back to the game: has it ever occured to you to take the item, sell it for the "right" price yourself and then track down the guy and give him the money? I'm sure both my fictional guy and your friend would have appreciated it.

Both in the RL and in-game, if someone is trying to sell an item for a fraction of its "real" worth and you give them the asking price but don't take the item, they will either trash it, or keep offering it for the same price to the next passer-by.

What you're missing is that the process of getting the "fair" price looks too complicated to them (for whatever reason), and they need the money they asked for, now. It's irrelevant whether they know or understand what they could be getting for it in ideal circumstances.

sour grapes are sour, eh?

I'd buy it if

A) He knows full well he is drastically selling it below market value
B) I actually want the item for myself

Since skins/minis/etc are nothing but vanity, there's no special advantage for me hoarding and enjoying it myself, making it ok to trade.

I would NOT buy it just to sell it later. I still consider that taking advantage of them, even though they are willing.

But recognize, in my view, power trading always takes advantage of someone. All those extra ectos you make have to come from somewhere. Through market manipulation, you just get other people to farm them for you.

Some self called power traders know full well their taking advantage of the ignorant there is no denying that. Can't remember who it was but I remember on a thread a while bac the poster was laughing how one time they were running someone through EotN and they saw a q8 enameled or darkwing drop(can't remember) and they asked to buy it off the person for 10k(think it was close to that). I believe it was blue I can't remember details since that post must have been ages ago but still those were worth 400e/each last I checked if tact.

That person knew full well the price of the shield while the one who traded 10k for it was most likely completely unaware.

Question: Is this being smart of just taking advantage of others?
Maybe smart isn't the best word to put there let's just say cunning instead.

A lot of the money I've made probably just came from playing the game. I never really did too much hardcore farming, because that just wasn't for me. Raptor farming on the holidays is probably the most farming I've ever done.

Most of it though probably came from playing festival arenas and selling off tokens, or all of the tournament reward points that I got from Snowball ATs. I can't even say that I've made money off of the four beetles that I've won through the CNY, since I kept one, got one hacked off of me, gave one to a friend, and still haven't done anything with the last.

If I were a mechanic and you brought your car in for a small problem you couldn't diagnose and I told you it was something exponentially more expensive, would I be taking advantage of you or being "smart"? It's an easy answer.

In-game currency is mostly worthless aside from show, so I don't see the point of the cut-throat mentality.

my sweet floor, dunno if u remember ur Lao but i get many money by
- power trade (sometimes 10/12 hours per days)
- many accounts for store many things for get value later (aka q8 weapons blablabla)
- abuse exploits / bots.
- permasin abuse doa/uw at start with multi-account

no need to argue, u cant get "super super super rich" by only playing.