Today i shall attempt to solve your money making and levelling issues in one fell swoop; how? the answer is not so simple.
The majority of adena making in this game and in many others involves a lot of sitting. well this guide shall attempt to keep the sitting to a minimum.
Before i formally begin this guide i must point out that i mean everything i say, and i hold nothing back. if any of you are offended in this guide, well tough noogies.
************ADENAS ARE FALLING FROM THE SKIES***************
if you are over level 20 there is really only one good way to gain experience, make friends, and make a ton of cash all at the same time. for the casual gamer this is a big bonus, for the hardened basement-dweller even moreso.
what i am talking about is the Necropolises and Catacombs.
how do u get in tho? the doors are blocked by ziggurat and he wants some sort of sign ....
easily solved by either the prisest of dawn/priestess of dusk. join one of them (cant join both) and participate for the seal of Gnosis. please note: after level 40 you will either pay adena to join or use a certificate pruchaseable through castle lords.also worthy to note: gnisis (if it is broken by eithe side) will allow the winning side to see the blacksmith and trader of mammon. also worthy to note: if it is dusk that wins the seals, the taxes go DOWN and no preacher of doom to PI$$ you off spamming in the chat :p
but how to make tons of cash? well that all depends on how much you grind. of course you could sit and buy your way into tons of cash using a buy shop for seal stones/aa/blank scrolls... but thats already costing you money and you risk loosing grind time and drops/manor spoils.
that being said what should u do in these catacombs?
get a party. one that deals a fair amount of damage and where the players are all similar level. get a healer and something that can take a hit and keep on slugging. doesnt matter what you hunt in the catacombs as long as 2 things happen: you kill fast, and the seal stones get picked up. if you got the quest from the Ziggurat gatekeeper, youll get some quest rewards called Blank scrolls. these are the essesnce of the money making scandals that do down every day in aden world. without these, youll get nothing.
the more you get, the better.
once the week of competition for seals ends, and hopefully your side wins, trade in your stones for ANCIENT adena at the priest/priestess of your side, and take all your money and scrolls out to find the MERCHANT of mammon first. you can ask other people where he is, but be warned: he only appears in Necropolises. Before you go looking for him jot down on a piece of paper what price the following scrolls sell for:
Enchant armor D, enchant Weapon D, Enchant armor C, enchant weapon C , (and so forth up to A), Blessed scroll of resurrection/ escape. what you want from the merchant of mammon are Enchant scrolls. Do a tiny calculation before you venture into this creepy and eerily profitable industry; see the cost that mammon wants for each scroll, and ask yourself how much you spent getting enough for 1 of that particular scroll. if what you marked down on the piece of paper before you left town is HIGHER than your cost price for the scroll, buy it and sell in the city you left at the same price as other players are selling. if you didnt purchase anything and worked for every scroll and ancient adena, your cost = whatever you spent in Shots. so keep track of what you spent on shots, and divide by the number of scrolls you earned. this will give you a cost per blank scroll value; use that and multiply by the number of scrolls required to purchase an enchant scroll.
Blessed Resurrection and escape scrolls always sell high. very high for new players. net yourself a whack of these scrolls for INSTANT cash (literally!).
lets do some arithmetic .... how much have you spent in adena buying ancient adena (if you bought it at all) ? take that number and set it aside call it variable C (for cost). how many enchant scrolls (variable N) can you purchase with the blank scrolls you got and the ancient adenas you got?
how much do the enchant scrolls sell for ($)?
take these numbers and do some math ... (N*$) - C = profit.
gogo profit!!
a thing to note about the BLACKSMITH of mammon:
he will upgrade your existing weapons in D through to C. he will exchange B weapons into B fist weapons.
this can cost you a ton of ancient adena though so make sure before you see him that you know some people who can help you hunt for that extra couple more stones. theres a complete list of what the merchant sells, and what the blacksmith upgrades i the stickied thread in this forum.
dont worry about getting that weapon upgrade on the first day of the validation period. if you dont have enough, dont fret. you still have 6 days of hunting to earn it. so get out there and hurry it up.
one note more: DO NOT EVER EVER EVER buy seal stones or ancient adena over the ratio 2adena per ancient adena.
this is a waste of your cash and will end up costing you more to upgrade your weapon/buy enchant scrolls than would be normally be a good idea.
there are many loopholes int he market but the seven signs competition is one iron-clad promise to make gobs of cash almost literally overnight.
Besides making money like above, many people have to learn how to "keep" money especially when soloing. :P I know there are some mistakes even made by me sometimes.
1. Best way to get rid of money is to spend more then you earn! It's a fair way to keep a keen eye on your incomes during hunting. If you spend less than you earn, you make profit. "(N*$) - C = profit." ;-) e.g. at lvl 40 Warrior/Gladiator hunting alligators and lads on alligator island you earn fast and quite easy money, but as soon as your GSAPS's are gone you should not buy as many as you can carry...
2. There's no need to have 25 Soe's in your inventory, as you can buy new one's when you're using one. On quests you need more SOE's for sure, so check out the quest guide and you get the sum of SOE's.
3. Selling mats to npc at grocery doesn't make sense at all. It's better keeping them in WH, if no player-buying-shop can be found. (btw. this is the tipp i like to miss :P )
4. There are some consumables you always have to buy, like Spirit Ores for Spellsingers. Learn how many are needed for each skill, and multiply this when buying. Try not to buy more than you can consume. (e.g.: 12 Ores needed, 120 would be ten times. Skill lasts 20 minutes. 10*20 = 200 minutes this skill we be available).
5. In addition to the OP, always watch for XP per Time not per Mob. The more XP you earn, the more money will result. Atm the Alligator isle is even faster than AOE in Catas, as collecting the trains takes longer. Alligator isle was 5148 xp, 1280a per mob. I didn't have to walk long to get next mob. ;-) But might be just a feeling.
6. Quest for hunting areas are nice extra adena. Alligator island got two Quests at once that reward money. Check out the quest names in Map Info to find a suiting for your preferred area. Returning items to NPC "Kluck" in the warehouse gives you ~40k.
7. Dont put consumables onto your shortcut-bar. You know why. Only makes sense for healing potions sometimes i think (talking 'bout soloing, not party with healers. lol)
8. When you go shopping, take your time. Player-shop prices differ a lot. Don't buy at the first you find, like "omg, no cheap shots at race track. But my party is waiting..."
9. Buying weapons and armor is a milestone in your wallet. It would take long time to earn the money you spent on buying a weapon. At this point a clan is the most helpful. The dwarves (if you're not one) can tell you wich recipe you need for your weapon, where you can get it and can tell you wich mats are needed. Go collecting mats with parties, or use manor system to get them. Craft it! Yes, sure, that takes its time and you don't have any cause you want to win the levellig world championship... but these threads talk about money, not xp. ;)
10. Spellsingers dont need SS - no idea why they should have some.
but heres one trick for those people who are new to market playing and dont want to refer to paper notes; use the in game MEMO pad. these memo's are viewable by ALL your characters. write down an important price, or important piece of information (who's griefing you, next grade equipment pricelists) and use them to compare to existing shops.
so that next time you dont want to grind, and want to spend a day watching the shops in giran, you can take note of the prices of your desired gear, and ask around who will go lowest.
if you have a recipe that you want to keep particular attention to how many of each material you need, use the memo pad as a checklist.
When I find a good source for consumables (ie. when a quest or clan need calls me to a town with lower taxes or when I see a shop selling low cost shots, etc) I buy in bulk and store in my PWH.
The prices are never going to go down. There IS a good chance that prices will go up, or that you'll find a shortage of what you need when you buy "in need" or that you'll find yourself paying "convenience charges" for shots and the like outside of Giran, Aden, Dion.
Know a good bargain and take advantage of opportunities while they last.
One thing i'd say to the original OP is if you hand in your stones in the competition period and not in the validation paeriod, you get a bonus to the amount of aa you get
eg. I had ~900k seals stones which was 3m aa, then at ~1.1m seal stones it was ~4m aa, then at ~1.3m seal stones it was ~5.4m aa
make a bh and se two box, plant a buffalo, and get a full keg of healing pots. pull 1/2 to 5 rooms depending. spoil and seed. rinse and repeat. stones, scrolls, mats, more mats, more mats, crops......go back to town saying ka-ching ka-ching.
for those that wish to avoid the manor like the plague for fear of loosing money:
there is one good source of coal, iron ore and varnish spoils for those at lvl 36; red rock ridge/wastelands. since the exp there is horrible, youll spend HOURS making money instead of levelling like a monster.
make a level 35 (or if youre really into it, level 48) summoner. set up your nuking summon and put your hotbar to f1-5 attack skills and summon nukes, wear light armor, and use whatever pole you want. i find no differenece to fishing in NG through C grade, so i am sure it still doent matter all the way into B and A and S.
tried and tested and proven accurate by everyone i know; get a pole, learn level 15+ of fishing, get fishing shots, and some green lures. night or day, both are great. night is harder as mobs tend to gank you repeatedly.
plant yourself with your summon out and TP on around a body of water and start fishing. dont care what the fish gets you, just fish as fast as you can. spam shots, protect yourself with your summon, and make sure you start with as close to an empty WH as possible.
at lvl 15+ of fishing mastery you get some pretty funky stuff; save all the oils and gems, learn the oil recipes and acumen/gsap recipes if you happen to fish them as well. those sell for (on my server) around 50k a pop. whatever's left over if its not colored scales, convert to POCF. sell POCF same as Farmer prices or use them, whatever. this thread is money making so i suggest sell them. sell the scales around 100k each and any mask/accessory keymat you can find for close to 500k. believe me itll sell. total money form selling at the end of the day for 500 lures initially should be around 3m at level 17. 500 lures might have cost you 200k LOL
this past valentine's event i hunted for about 4 hrs. i got a LOT of heart fragments as i killed a TON of mobs. i played the event cat like a fiddle and netted over 10 EWC 10 BSOE a dozen or more Brez and a few potions. i will use the potions and sell the rest of the stuff and make enough to buy my B armor.
anyone could do it, you just need to participate.
lets go over the events again: the medal event drops medals redeemable for loot. some argue the event items drop at a certain period, but its not proven yet by any stretch of the imagination. remember all drops are luck. the medal event was easy to play up. just hunt for a day; any weekend warrior can make a dozen mill in less than 4hrs in most of these events.
the letter event; same thing. kill A LOT of mobs. make some words and get some loot. for some, this event is a bit harder as specific key letters are rare drops. the loot is always good even from the words that arent "boss jewel" lootable.
the squash/pumpkin event; again hunt your butt off. gather pollens like adenas and break open as many as possible. the loot from this is more on the potion side so its not a completely useless event nor completely unprofitable. with a good sized clan and one willing to pool your stuff and divide evenly, break the big squashes and loot some A scrolls for great cash.
the bunny event; bring the potions youve acquired from the other events here. hunt and hunt and run all over the place. find bunnies and KILL them. these things are H-A-R-D to find and pretty tough. if you do find one, props to your new adena collection.
the fireworks event; meh, save them for important occasions.
not every event gives out loot like candy; the coffer of darkness event had people BUYING event items from NPC's. this took money out of the game and a lot of stuff went UP in price. those that could afford it blew 10's of millions of adena at a time trying for that special coffer with a stage 12-13 crystal. i blew 24m in that event and ended up making 450m selling the crystals i got from it.
boss raid events like the random spawn zerg events are very hard to me to tell if they are worth farming; mostly they are known spots and are constantly camped anyway. lots of L2day scrolls in these events for a lot of effort to kill these bastiges. imo not very profitable adenawise but these kinds of events bring out the fighting spirit in clans.
events are fun; and many times very profitable even for little participation. i only usually get 4hrs to play accross 3 days of the weekend. and i have in the past made a big friggin wad of cash in a very short time; i can only imagine how it is for those people that play all day everyday and dont have OOG lives.