Guild Wars Money Making Guide
(How to love your guild and alliance mates while taking everyone else's cash)
By Ar Ahael (Shelob EnB)

Aight so I'm gonna divide this guide into a few sections the first will include basic money making tips and tricks on manipulating the Guild Wars markets. The second part will basically cover a few of my favorite farms and whatnot. To get things started I'm going to tell a bit about my history as a gamer.

Why You Should Listen to Me

A bit of history on me may help you understand why I think the way I do in MMOs and the way their markets work. Feel free to skip it if you want as I'm prone to rambling. :) I'm 21 years old and I've been playing games since I was 5, I broke into MMOs back when I was 13 with a brief stint in EQ, Then I met my first real MMO love: Earth and Beyond it was a game designed by westwood who were then bought out by EA. EA then screwed the game over and killed it...but I digress....I logged over 30days of gametime in my first 13 months in EnB (and thats just on my main) Thats were I first picked up my basic understanding of how MMO markets work. After EnB closed I moved onto Eve where I helped found a manufacturing corporation that is worth trillions of in game cash and boasts over 100 members. I've also spent brief stints in well everything really. From EQ2 to Maple Story to City of Heroes I've played it. Currently I'm a big fan of GW and probably spend more time talking and making money then actually playing the game. (the story of my gaming life)

How to Manipulate the Market

Alot of my tips in this section are based on manipulating the average buyer's wants and desires. If it comes off abit Machievellian well, thats why you shouldn't expose your pre-teens to online gaming and alot of social/historical theory at the same time. o.0

1. Be patient - Lets say you know a particular trophy for an armor piece or mask is selling in the 1-2k range. It might be tempting to sell and get the quick 1k. But a better idea is to throw it in your box and stockpile them until you say someone spamming up your local channel paying 2k and insisting that they buy those collectables so they can get that armor piece RIGHT NOW so they can be cool gosh darnit!!  Thats when ya send them a private message demanding 2.5k per collectable. If they pay the 2.5k well awesome, if not then the 2k normal high-end price will probably sound reasonable. :)

2. Know what crap is worth - Say your attempting to kill every single charr in the northlands because Gwen is cute and full of Charr-hatred. Well you should spend a few minutes in the local market town and see what people are buying. Because the last thing you want to do is vendor 30 Superb Charr Carvings for 600 gold total only to find out later that the standard going rate is 100 gold each and that if you had applied my first rule you could have gotten 150-200 per trophy. The second part of that rule is to know what are coveted weapon and offhand skins. check out guildwarsguru once a week or so and just see what types of things are selling.

3.Never overlook the value of materials - Just save them up till ya got a stack or three. I always carry salvage and ID kits with me and I break down the crap. Even the crappy materials stacks are worth 1-2k each. And the rarer things (im still talking common mats. and yes their is different rarity levels in common mats) can be worth 6-8k per stack. Especially when some poor guy absolutely has to have his max armor right now and its 3am and noone else is available to sell to him.

4.Vault space is valuable - Your vault space is valuable so don't keep a bunch of random crap in it that you probably can't sell and won't ever use. Every few weeks assess what you have in your vault and merch the crap. That leaves room for the important things. If you got a semi-cool skin (say a serpents axe) that you might be able to get 3-5k out of but you can't sell it and its taking up space for another stack of charr carvings then merch it or even better give it to a guild/alliance mate. Trust me if you start handing out free stuff people will show up in droves.

5.Make contacts - Lets say you just offloaded 3 stacks of glittering dust, a stack of iron, and some feathers to a guy. Chances are he makes and sells consets. Add him to your friends list. Next time you got a crapload of iron send him a PM. Theirs a good chance he will be interested in more supplys. If your really dedicated you might even setup some sort of contract with him to provide XX materials a week for a set price.

6. My final rule is to be at the right place at the right time. Its actually easier then it sounds. If you know an event is coming up with trophys that you can farm ahead of time then do it! People always pay more when they are excited about something early in the event. If your gonna spend 6 hours farming better to do it ahead of time and be able to sell into the spiked demand then have to go out and farm after the event started and try and compete in price with everyone else that ran out to farm when they saw charr carvings selling for 25k a stack. Also being around LA/kamadan in off hours (during the day or later at night) can be extremely profitable. Their aren't as many people to compete with you on price and their is normally at least one neurotic, sleep-deprived, basket case willing to pay extra just so they can go to bed with perfects mods on their new destroyer sword.

That concludes the advice portion of the guide (until I think of more stuff) here comes some of my favorite ways to make cash.

Ar Ahael's Favorite Farms and Cash Builders

COF:  This is still one of my favorites and is my standby when I just want to chat or watch tv and still make cash. Another bonus is you will slowly work up your delver title track, and if your willing to make a bit less cash there are a reasonable amount of chests to pick. This farm is located in GW:EN at the doomlore shrine. Expect to pay 2k for a veteran runner and 1k for a new guy. Keep your eye out for rin relics, diessa chalices, and superb charr carvings all of which are worth selling.

Festival item drops: I love farming low level areas/missions for trophy and random event drops like grog and trick or treat bags. The best area that I've found for a good mix of trophys and event drops is still the Great Northern Wall mission. Almost any lvl 20 can come up with a build that can farm it. My favorite is the Elementalist tho. :)

Vanquishing: I like to vanquish. Is it the absolute most profitable thing to do? Nope. Is it more challenging then farming raptors for the 6 millionth time? Definitely. You can really vanquish anywhere that you have hard mode unlocked. That its really.

GW:EN Dungeons: Again this isn't the absolute fastest way to wealth, but there's alot of cool skins that can only be found in dungeons not to mention the normal 1.5k payout for beating one and the xp and GW:EN title faction.

One more for the really new guys: Be a gate monkey in pre-searing ascalon. all ya have to do is open a door and map out and for that you get paid 50-100g a spin. Thats good money when your new.


One word of caution in farming: mix it up...don't do the same farm over and over again or you'll lose interest in the game. Generally you'll make more money playing for 3 hours then farming for 30 minutes. I had a friend who spent an entire weekend (he slept *maybe* 4 hours total) raptor farming so he could buy an everlasting tonic. Once he got it he was on maybe an hour to enjoy then he logged off for 7 weeks cuz he was bored with the game. I'm just saying.