How to make money: Beginners Guide

This is a guide for low to mid levels (1-70). The purpose is to give players of all classes an idea of what they will require money for and how to obtain it. Players that aren't aware of the high costs associated often have to choose between upgrading their skills or buying hp/mana potions. When you plan and save appropriately you will have the revenue you need to pay for these skills as they become available as well as be able to purchase things you want as opposed to trying to make $$ really quick so that you can take advantage of a deal that's too good to pass up. This guide is also focused on other ways to make money besides spending hours mindlessly grinding for minimal drops/xp. Time is money.

1. What is money needed for?

There are many ways to use in-game coins... more than I could possibly list but there are a few things that coin is especially important for:

- Apothecary Potions
The apothecaries sell the basic MP/HP potions. Although not prohibitively expensive, when you buy 100 of each at a time the costs can make a dent in your stash.

- Upgrading Skills
This gets VERY expensive as you level and you will often have to choose between available skills because of the prohibitive costs in coin and spirit.

- Super Stones (Inventory/Bank/etc)
These are optional items that increase the size of your inventory, bank and other things. While you do not need them they can be very beneficial. I personally recommend at least the super inventory stone especially if you plan on using the consignment shop as a source of revenue. There are some in-game quests that will increase the size of your inventory/bank a nominal amount but you still need the stones for the maximum available space.

- Flying mounts (and widgets to upgrade them)
Elves receive a free flying mount at level 1. All other classes receive a free flying mount at level 30. These initial flying mounts are very slow compared to the cash shop flying mounts. Any player that has done the dragon quest can tell you that flying across the map 15 times with the beginner wings is not exactly the most efficient means of travel, but, flying is one of the cheapest and easiest (read AFK) methods of getting from here to there unmolested. You will want a faster mount for general travel and especially when you start to PVP. The cash shop items do not always come completely upgraded. You will likely have to use Wind Widgets to upgrade the speed.

- Shards/Socket Stones
In addition to making your armor glow (when two or more of same type in same item) shards give additional bonuses to your equipment. These are one of the most expensive things (aside from refining) in the game at high levels so you'll need quite a bit to shard your eq properly. You don't want to be the person with lvl 8 gear and g5 shards. people will just laugh at you. Also you'll want a regular supply of cash for your crazy stone quest (not expensive but it adds up).

Shards level 1 through 6 are in-expensive. It's up to you whether you want to use them in your equipment or hoard them for combining into higher level shards. Realize that even with only moderate play-time you will be leveling fast enough that you probably wont have your equipment long enough to justify the use of the expensive shards. Sometimes if you get a nice mold or a nice weapon (or any eq you think you will have for about 10+ levels) it can be worth adding the highest level shard the equipment will allow. Once you get to level 7 equipment the price for the appropriate level shards starts to get prohibitive. The more popular Flawless shards (g7) tend to run around 300k. Citrine (hp), Sapphire(matk) and Garnet(pdef) shards are among the most popular and most easily traded.

- Guardian Scrolls (Dolls)/ Binding Scrolls
These are optional cash shop items. They can be helpful if you aren't a big fan of using safety lock. Guardian scrolls prevent drops or xp loss on death, binding scrolls permanently prevents an item from dropping. The poor man's replacement for these is to set your Safety Lock to, say, an hour and then re-log on. This will prevent items from dropping but you will be unable to NPC, Catshop, Auction, Mailbox or trade (you can still use bank) until the safety lock time has expired. be aware that if you bind an item it is permanent and you can never sell that item. To get rid of a bound item you must destroy it.

- HP Charms/MP Charms
These charms are optional but if you are a barb you will appreciate the HP charm and if you are a cleric you will appreciate the MP charm. These items are typically used by people that do Zhen Grinds, PVP, Rebirth and other instances that require quick and sustained HP/MP generation. Once you equip one of these items it becomes bound until it runs out.

- Training Esoterica/Oracles/Hyper Exp
These totally optional items allow you to level faster. The oracles let you level at incredible rates. The xp charms I have only really used during zhen grinds.

- Dragon Orbs / Tienkang Stones / Tisha Stones / Mirage Stones
You will likely not need these until after level 60 when you will start refining some gear. The benefits of refining are awesome and also awesomely expensive. You will probably not refine any gear unless you plan on having it for a long time (+10 levels) and even then unless it's your end-game gear you will likely not refine past +4 so don't sweat these items too much, just be aware that end-game you will be wanting quite a wad of cash to buy these.

- Fashion
Makes you look purdy and if you don't want to look like you just dropped your paycheck at the thrift store you'll spend a fortune in pigments to dye your clothes.

- Auction House/Equipment/Molds
As you probably know by now the only way to get nice piece of equipment is to get a really lucky drop from a mob, manufacture it, or buy it. There's a dirty little secret about equipment I'll share. Some of the best equipment in the game between levels 1-70 are the 3* equipment and not always the molds. Some molds are incredible for the level you can use them. Some easily last you 20 levels but in many cases you can find 3* armor that is better than the legendary equipment and it is usually found at a fraction of the cost. Review the Auction House on a regular basis for those incredible deals.

- All the other every day stuff... like teleports back and forth to BH from illusion stone, those 5 extra mats you need to craft some new gear...etc

Of all of these, if you have a few bucks in real money, I recommend buying the Super inventory stone right out. You'll really appreciate the extra space.

2. How much money should I have?

As much as possible right? This is certainly debatable but I would say try to have at least 500k+ at all times just in case some really awesome deal comes along. If you are starting a Materials consignment shop from scratch you'll want about 300-500k to really get moving.

3. How much are coins worth in RL?

Calculating the value of your coins is easy. Go to the Auction House and click on Gold Trading. Note the lowest sell price. Lets say that gold is currently selling on your server, as an example, for 400,000. This means $1USD = 1Gold = 400,000 in-game coins. 20,000 coins would be a nickel and 4,000 coins would be 1 penny. (tax must also be figured here but I wanted to keep the example simple). An average of the lowest sell price and the highest buy price provide a "more accurate" representation of coin value but in most cases the price needed is just a rough estimate so there are only a few instances where you will need to be exact. In general If you are buying things use the lowest sell as a guide and if you are selling things use the highest buy price as your guide.

There is a phenomenon in the game that allows the value of coins and items to not necessarily coincide with the value of the RL money. This is caused by most people not being aware of Boutique sales on items and the fluctuation of gold prices in the auction house. Simply put it means that sometimes your 4,000 coins are worth less than a penny and sometimes they are worth more. If you sold a gold for 400,000 in-game coins and the next day gold is selling for 500,000, your coins are technically worth less but since most people do not pay attention to this decrease in the value of a coin you can buy the same items (like a material) for the same amount you purchased them the day before. This means you just bought the item at a discount.

I'll put it another way: Regardless of the gold price, the in-game price of a mirage cellstone is around 10,000 coins. Let's say you are buying mirage cellstones for 10,000 apiece. On monday you sell a gold in Gold Trading and it sells for 400,000 then you can buy 40 stones. On Tuesday if you sell another gold in Gold Trading but this time it sells for 500,000 you would then be able to buy 50 stones. A smart seller would have adjusted the price of their stones to match the new price of gold but they almost never do this.

If you have your mind set on something from the boutique, you can calculate how much in coin you will need. Let's say a Super Bank stone is 12 Gold (which it is =] ). Now go to your auctioneer in one of the main cities and click on gold trading. As an example let's say you can buy gold for 400,000 in coins (your server may be different) 400,000*12= 4,800,000 coins to buy your stone (plus 96,000 for the auctioneer's tax). A multi-million coin price tag may seem like a lot but it's really quite attainable, even for a low level. It will just take a little patience and some market shifts in your favor. If it's a pak of items you would do the same process. So let's say leather is on sale and 50 leather is 1 gold and 70 silver from the boutique: 400,000*1.7/50= 13,600 coins is the worth of 1 leather


4. Ok so how do I make money?

- Coins on the ground
At the early levels (1-30) it's really not that much and there are much better ways of making cash. I would say (and some would argue) that it costs you more to take the time to pick up the coins than to leave it on the ground and just concentrate on getting the xp needed to finish the quest/level. I typically leave coins on the ground unless it's an accident, like when they happen to be close enough for the auto-grab when an item I want is dropped. You're going to level so fast 1-30 that the benefit is negligible. It's not until you're in the 50's that gold drops are around 300 or so. Pick it up if it makes you feel better but you probably wont even notice the money.

- Quests
Most quests give you coins. Some, like One-Man Army do not. You'll receive a decent amount of coins (not as much as you'll need) just by doing the quests. Press Q to bring up your questlog, click on Find Quests. The reward in coins is usually displayed in the reward box. I usually then go to all the NPC's and load up on your quests for the level while I am still at 0% for the level and turn them in all at once. This way, when you die grinding on mobs for 60 of whatever silly item you need, you can minimize the XP loss. One or two deaths will usually result in more xp lost than the xp you will gain for completing the quest.

- Selling Dragon Quest items (DQ Items) to NPCs
These items are random drops from monsters(mobs) that will say they are for a Dragon Quest, just hover over the item if you are not sure. These sell at NPC's for a decent bit of cash. Often you will see people leaving these on the ground. Always pick them up, it's worth your time.

- Selling Crafting Materials (MATS)
There are two kinds of mats. The kind you find on the ground like Coal, Refined Steel, Rough Lumber etc (You will need a pickaxe for these) and the kind that are dropped ever so rarely from monsters like Rough Fur and Purified Oil. This is going to be, initially, one of your primary sources of income so ALWAYS grab that stuff. You probably wont make much money with herbs. I myself only collect the herbs I need to make the apothecary stuff I use.

http://www.pwdatabase.com/pwi/items is a great site to find coords or the monsters that have the mats you're interested in

The auto-sort provides a nice way to keep things organized. You will notice that the mats come in different types like: Finishes, Power sources, Glues, Threads etc and they come in different grades: Lowest, Low, Medium, etc.

The Lowest mats are virtually worthless for selling and can be largely ignored. Low mats and Mid Mats sell very well. High and Highest mats are kind of 50/50 with some items selling well while others not at all.

The mats I -always- keep a pile of on-hand for buying/selling are (in no particular order): Rough Fur, Leather, Purified Oil, Concentrated Oil, Silk Thread, Compound Thread, Coal, Anthracite, Gravel, Rubstone Powder, High carbon Steel, Refined Steel, Fine Lumber

- Consignment Shop w/Basic Materials(Cat/Cow shop)
This is probably the easiest and BEST ways to make money. So many of the cat shops are **** that if you set up a halfway decent shop you will make coin hand over fist every night. I make most of my in-game coin this way. After I'm done playing for the day, I set up catshop and go to bed. Press E and the consignment shop is located about midway down.

There is no real "trick" to it... it's simple economics. Supply/Demand... Buy low, sell high. This means you sell something you have for, say 4000 and buy for 1500. A lot of ppl here will troll saying they would never buy from someone that is selling for one price and buying for another out of principle but they buy and sell from me just the same. There are a few good reasons for this:

. To craft some of the higher level molds you need a craft level of 4+. To get to level 4 crafting (which is available at lvl 50) you have to do all your level 1-3 crafting and because they procrastinated and because drops, like rough fur, are very very very hard for a lvl 50 to get, they are pretty much resigned to buying them.

. There are TONS of players in the 1-60 range and these are the mats they come across daily and need to use daily.

. Often someone only needs one or two of something so they will pay market prices rather than go back out and grind/farm for the item.

. People often pick up a lot of stuff they'll never use (like if they don't craft) and don't really care how much you buy it for because it's a lot more than the NPC is paying.

. Even though people complain about high catshop prices it's often still cheaper than buying from the boutique. Using the example from before if you can buy 1 gold for 408,000 (includes tax) it usually costs 2 gold for 50 leather... or 16,320 per leather. The farmable mats are even more expensive: A lot of 20 coal costs 1 gold or 20,400.

Since your initial capital is low and your inventory space small I recommend focusing on a few items. Always try to set up your shop so that you're buying and selling as much as possible. The best places to set up shop are usually in West Archosaur or by an Auctioneer. Also near the more frequented Blacksmith, Tailor, Craftsman etc... Bankers are also good spots. Now of course prices on servers are different so look around and see what everyone else is selling for and use that as a guide.

A rule of thumb you can use is buy MOB drops for about 1/3 of the boutique cost. So using a 16,320 leather as an example, you can usually buy these for 5k apiece. Farmable mats you can usually buy for about 2k. Other items like tokens, cube of fate items, TT items, etc you will be come more familiar with as you play the game and will be able to identify a baseline price.

Here is what I usually price for the normal mats:
rough fur, Leather, reinforced leather try to buy between 4k and 6k and sell for 8k to 15k. Everything else try to buy somewhere around 2.5k and sell for 6.5K+

All ground mats (Especially power sources and lumber) Buy for 1-3k and sell for 2-6k

To buy & sell the same mat you have to use two slots in your inventory. ALT+Drag an item to an empty slot (like the one right next to it) and move 1. The big pile is for selling and the pile with 1 in it is for buying. Always keep at least one of the mat so that you can buy more if need be. I also recommend buying widgets, mirage stones and really anything else this way. not always reliable but usually very efficient. Once you set up your shop, it will remember your prices and amounts until you log off from the server as long as you do not sort your inventory or move the piles around.

If you are really short on an item you need more of, raise your buying price a bit... be generous... just raise the selling price to something the person would have to be stupid to pay... if you don't sell, good.. more for you.. if you do, great, now you have more money to buy more of that mat.... alternatively if you have 100 of an item, time to discount...

Try not to set your catshop where it's impossible to see and give your catshop a good name like: "B/S MAT" Everyone knows what that means. Don't lie to people and say Sale or Cheap... most ppl don't care anyway. Finally double check your prices to make sure there are no missing 0's =]

Soon you will have plenty of mats for your own crafting needs and lots of extra coinage.

- Making Wines
Starting with Bounty Hunter 59 some squads prefer to use wines rather than fight/walk past all the mobs. A wine will kill all the monsters except the bosses in an instance. Wines, like the Ancient Well wine sells from the npc for 380,000. Alternatively you can make one for 40 materials. If you were buying the materials for 2k apiece, you can create a wine for 40,000. If you create two of them, your costs are 80,000. If you sell the wines for 80k apiece you are making a pretty quick and easy profit. If you are high enough level to use the wines yourself, you can often charge the other squad members a fee for using the wine on the instance. If you charge 50k per person, a full squad would net you 250,000 (-80k for the cost to make) gives you a quick 170k profit and a super easy and fast bh run.

- Gold trading at the Auction House
There are other, better, guides on how to use the gold trading but the basics are: go to auctioneer, click on gold trading, deposit coins into the auction house, click on buy, type in how many gold you want to buy, enter the price you're willing to pay, note the tax and click submit. pretty straight forward stuff. Be aware though that the gold trading tax is kept even if you cancel your bid or the duration (a few days) expires.

same as catshop... buy low.. sell high.. First determine your taxes. Note the lowest sell price and see what the tax is to sell 1 gold at that price... then note the buy price and how much it would cost to buy one gold at that price... if those numbers added together (convert the silver price to coins) are less than the difference in buy vs sell price then you can make immediate profit.. and you can immediately put that profit back in and do it again. This works best when there are more than 30 or so gold going at those prices because it represents a sort of plateau in the price variance and can help reduce the chance that you'll get under/over bid.

I recommend looking at the gold prices for a few days to see where they range. Start small... take the time to do the math... wait for good prices... Try to keep about even amounts in gold and coins in deposit for when the price skyrockets or drops, you'll be able to take advantage either way.

Seriously though, there's times where you'll be able to flip 20 gold into 25 in less than 5 min.... rinse repeat.. Again, just be careful to list a price that will actually get bought/sold because otherwise you may be out bid and may lose the tax amount because of duration or you have to cancel the order.

- Selling Molds/Equipment you craft
Honestly, not many people are going to be interested in the equipment you can make prior to level 50 or so. Unless you're getting the mats for a reduced (free) price you probably wont make much of a profit considering the time and cost it takes to create a good 2/3 star item with more than one socket.. Unfortunately even when you do create 3* equipment that is better than the equiv legendary equipment people for some reason will still not pay a comparable price.

Molds are pretty easily sold, just check the auction house and see what similar items are selling for and set a low/high price within that range.

For selling your old equipment, chances of selling it are better if it already has the max level shards in it. For these I'll typically price for the shards plus 100k/200k so a Level 7 3Star(2 sockets) armor with two flawless shards (about 250k apiece on my server) I would price at around 500,000 with a buy price of 1,200,000

5. Saving money
- This can be slow but walking/flying instead of teleporting helps (especially if you have to do lots of little hops)
- Save the dq items for a while instead of cashing them in immediately. you cant spend the money you don't know you have.
- Invest your coins in gold, it's harder to spend
- When considering manufacturing equipment/molds, check the auction house first to see if the equipment you want is already listed at a good price.
- Meditate instead of burning HP/MP pots, or use apothecary stuff like the life/focus powders
- Questing/Grinding in groups is MUCH cheaper than solo (of course you don't get as much xp)