This is guide for making money at lower levels (although the same principles apply to higher levels as well).
So what is this great way of making money you ask?
MANOR!
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The Manor consists of 3 steps.
1. Buying your Seed from the Manor Manager.
2. Sowing the Seed onto monsters and harvesting the Fruit.
3. Taking your fruit to the Manor Manager and selling them to him in exchange for materials.
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Going into more detail now:
1. Manor Managers are located in every Village/Town/City. Some are standing near little Manor Carts, some are standing all alone. You will need to speak to him and 'View the Current Status'. This shows you the Manor information of the area you are in. It also allows you to view information on other areas, but I will go into more detail later.
You can view what Seed the Manager is currently selling, as well as what Seed he is selling in the next period (the next day). You must select a Seed that is within your level range, and also the level range of the monsters your hunting. Purchase an amount of Seed (100 to start with is a reasonable amount) and also purchase a Harvester (you cannot Manor without one).
2. Now you must go to an area within the region of the Manor (for example if you buy Seed from Dion, you must hunt in the Dion area, you cannot hunt around Aden successfully). Begin buy dragging your Seed onto your skill bar (F2 key as an example) and drag your Harvester on the skill bar as well (F3 for example).
Next you must sow your Seed onto the monster before attacking. This is done because the act of sowing is a magical attack and can be interrupted by someone attacking you. Sowing does not agro the monster, although you will automatically start to attack the monster when you have completed the action. If the sowing action was successful a message will be displayed notifying you of the fact, likewise if the sowing failed. As long as you are hunting monsters in the correct region and both the monsters and your own level are suitable for the Seed it shouldn't fail with any regularity.
Once you have defeated the monster you must then Harvest the matured Fruit. You do this simply by clicking on the Harvester after the monster has fallen. Remember to do this as after a few seconds the monster disappears (along with your hard earn fruit!). Depending on the monsters you are hunting, you can receive 1 or more fruit (even more if the monster is has higher HP than normal, in a Catacomb/Necropolis for example). This can be key to making large profits from the Manor. The best way to find out how many fruit a monster returns is simply to sow and find out ;).
3. Two important details of selling the fruit back are that unlike sowing the Seed you can sell the fruit to other Manor regions. For example if you where to buy 100 Red Coda from the Oren Manor Manager and grow the fruit, you could sell the fruit back to the Schuttgart Manor Manager. This can be achieved from any Manor Manager (although they warn you that they take some payment for this), but you must be sure to have the correct region selected that you wish to sell too.
The second important detail is that each Fruit has two possible rewards for each type of Fruit! For example you can receive either Varnish or Cokes as a reward for selling Red Coda Fruit. Sometimes one of the rewards is not of high market value, so you must either wait for the Castle Owners to change the reward type on offer or sell it to a different Manor Region that is offering the more appealing reward.
This in an important step in making a profit as some regions will pay better prices for Fruit than others, so work out which Manor Region will offer the best reward for your hard-earned Fruit.
This is also the part that can cause the most headaches, selling the fruit back to the Manor Manager! The problem is that there is a maximum limit of the amount of Fruit each Manor area can buy back. So if there are many people Manoring the same Seed as you, it may be difficult to sell the crop of fruit back. You have a few options open to you at this point. You can either wait until the Manor resets each day, or if that is an inconvenient time you can pool your fruit with a close friend/clan member so that only one of you has to be at the Manor Manager to sell.
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The Manor isn't the absolute fastest way to make money, but if you make the time to work out which Seed will make you money it can be one best ways at lower levels to make money.
As an example, I recently made a Dark Elf fighter. Outfitted with mid to high NG gear I was able to Manor Red Coda (bought from the Oren Manor Manager, who oversees the Dark Elf region amongst others) from level 5 all the way up to 20! This crop was then sold to the Schuttgart Manor Region a day or so later. From that I received over 700 varnish as reward. So for an investment of roughly 30,000 adena (1,100 Seed at 25 each = 27,500 + Harvester) I made approximately 600,000 adena!
Let me say that again. Investment of 30k, end worth 600k! A 20x increase!
You have to allow that you are give materials as a reward not adena, so you will either have to setup a sell shop and sell to make the most money, or if your impatient (you shouldn't be if your Manoring ;)) you can sell you player buy shops for a quick buck.
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Finally just some general notes on the Manor.
The best classes for Manoring tend to be melee classes. The is simply because you have to be at close range to sow the Seed, which is at odds to how Nukers and Archers tend to level. Summoners and Orc Mystics as the exception as they can be within close range of the monsters without suffering.
The Manor system resets every day at 8:00 PM CST (8:00 GMT+1 on Teon and Franz). This would be the best time to sell if you have a popular Fruit to sell back to the Manor Manager.
When you have planted a seed on a monster it will no longer drop normal mats. It will still drop adena,herbs,pots and seal stones though. Plus you can spoil and seed the monster without any problems.
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I hope this guide helps show just how to make money through the Manor system. As a follow up I recommend reading PoulKrebs excellent guide HERE (http://boards.lineage2.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board=spoiler&Number=740469&pag e=0&fpart=1) .
I will try and get some screenshots to help illustrate the guide. I will also try and reduce length of the guide as well (I realise its a long read ;))
Any tips/constructive criticism etc will be appreciated.
Mame
- edited for typos + more info