I’m going to help some new players out with a guide on how to make some bucks.
For all you veterans out there, the next time someone asks you for money, refer them to this guide. If it can help a few people that have some patience out, then it was worth writing.
General tips on etiquette:
I gotta say this. Nobody owes you anything, no matter how much they have and how little you have. If you can understand and learn to accept this, then things will go a lot smoother for you in this game.
We were all new at one point. Every level 200 person you see with uber armor and a godly weapon started out in a backyard with nothing but a bat, a solar pistol/rifle/shotgun…..or their bare hands. No armor, no money, no nothing.
I started playing AO at a time when nobody had anything. We were all new, hell the game was new. Back then, there were even fewer ways to earn money than there are now, because, well, there wasn’t much money in the game to begin with.
It took hard work and a good deal of patience for us to get the amount of money we have today. Nothing was handed to us in the beginning. We had to work for our cash and fight tooth and nail to scrape up the cash for bare essentials. Yahlms were something almost unheard of back then as well.
The point I’m trying to make here is that we had to actually work for our cash, so why shouldn’t you?
I don’t believe in giving away cash for exactly that reason. You’ve heard the term “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for life.” Put that in game terms and it translates to “I give you 100k now, you blow through it fast and the rest of your life you’re going to be begging for more and will never achieve self sufficiency.”
Also, for us, making money comes easily. Even if we started a brand new level 1 character and transferred nothing to him from our mains, we’d quickly have millions before we’re even high enough in level to spend it. How? I’ll get to that in a bit.
So now that you can sort of understand our point of view on how hard work repays itself, let me discuss proper ways of interacting with veteran players especially when you need their help.
First the do not’s:
Do not call us greedy. Like I said in the beginning, nobody owes you everything. I will admit that in the credits department, I’m extremely well off. That’s not from exploits, or hacks, or greed, that’s from smart playing and hard work. Long hours went into my characters, figuring ways to legitimately make more credits. Most of this is stored for safe keeping on a rainy day, but that doesn’t mean it belongs to anyone but me. It’s a good feeling to know that if I need something, I can buy it with little worry.
Yes, I have a decent amount of credits, but think about this: If I gave money to every person that asked me (in a typical day, I receive twenty requests for money), how much money would I have left? From my perspective, I’m not helping you out by giving you money, I’m contributing to laziness and refusal to work. As a business owner in real life, I frown heavily upon laziness and the feeling that folks have that the world owes them something.
This is also why you will encounter high level players that are rude and insensitive when asked for money. Imagine trying to chat with your friends in guild chat and every 20 seconds someone runs up to you and says “can you give me money, you look rich” or even worse “credz plz”. No matter what your reasons are for asking and no matter what you intend on doing with the money, we only see it as an interruption, a display of poor manners and laziness. The bottom line is, we do NOT appreciate being treated like your personal piggy bank.
Furthermore, and this may actually surprise some of you, not all high level players have a lot of money. Yes, the cat is out of the bag! I know of several lvl 150+ players that have less than a million to their name. At one point, even I was one of those people.
Now the DO’s:
DO watch what you say If we say no, fight the urge to call us ‘exploiters’ or ‘greedy’ or something equally rude, indicating that we ALL acquired our wealth in . There will come a day when you need implants assembled, a tradeskill item assembled, or even a buff and if you’ve slighted one of us, then why would we help you?
Let’s say you called me ‘a greedy bastard’ like one young fixer did just the other day when I wouldn’t sell a 3 million credit Notum chip to him for 205k. When your char grows up and you have 6 minutes left on a buff and need an implant assembled ASAP, should I help you? What goes around always comes around and reputation goes a *very* long way, so think about what you say before you say it.
DO take our advice when we try to give it. I tried to give that same fixer that called me a greedy bastard some advice on making money at low levels and his reply was “yeah yeah, I gotta go. Bye.” He won’t make it far.
THE FOLLOWING IS SOME OF THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS THAT YOU WILL EVER EVER READ ON THE FORUMS
http://a.chavasse.free.fr/ClickSaver/
That address will save your life more times than you can count. It’s a link to a player made program called “Clicksaver”. Around the cities and outposts in Rubi Ka, there are mission terminals. A mission is like a part time job. You kill a few people, you pick up an item and BAM! You get cash, experience points and a reward!
Now normally your reward is a random item, but clicksaver saves you time by scanning the mission terminal until the item you want comes up as the mission reward. Say, you want a particular piece of armor. You can type the name of that armor piece into clicksaver and it will scan the terminal until it finds that piece of armor, saving you a good deal of time in the process.
The following is a couple of items that even high level folks desperately need or desire that *only* low level players can mission for. These items many of us did not know about or forgot to acquire when we were at the appropriate level.
http://64.106.154.149/showitem.asp?AOID=125456
That to you may look like a ridiculous pillow, but for some of us, it’s pure gold. Those QL10 concrete cushions add +8 to stamina and +8 to strength and are almost painfully easy to equip. Yes, even high level folks use these at times. +16 (duel wielded) to strength and stamina is the difference between wearing a piece of armor or not wearing a piece of armor for many of us.
[b]QL10 Concrete cushions sell for anywhere from 200k to 500k per pair! I even sold a pair once for a cool million credits before. There’s no worse feeling than your buffs are about to run out, you’re 7 short on stamina and your cushions are on some alt and you don’t have time to make a transfer. At that point, the cushions are priceless and folks will pay a good deal of cash for them. Offer them up for 300k and you never know, someone may be impressed with your good business sense and throw on a tip
http://64.106.154.149/showitem.asp?AOID=124147
Oh now this one is crucial. Look at the modifiers. It not only adds +8 to stamina, but it also adds to what is arguably the most important skill in the entire game. Treatment.
Now while it may be hard to believe now, you will always find yourself short on treatment at one time or another. Implants run all the way up to QL220 and 9 times out of 10, you’re going to find yourself in need of a ql22 (or even ql25) quartz rifle. I have two of these to share among my half dozen active characters. How did I get the second one? Well when my MA was young, I was trying to throw together some implants with limited time when I realized my rifle was on my main, who was halfway across the world. I needed/wanted that rifle ASAP or sooner, so when I saw one for sale, I grabbed it. Without even giving a second thought, I offered him 500k for it.
If the pillows are gold, then the rifle is diamond encrusted platinum. Depending on who needs it, how many you have and a half dozen other variables, between 300k-1 mil is a good price for that rifle. If you sell it for less than 300,000 credits, then you got ripped off. Just my personal opinion. My first rifle I got when I was around level 150 or so. I had NO IDEA they existed and by that point I had been playing AO for nearly a year! I think I might have paid a million credits for my first, I was so happy to see they existed.
Those are the two big ones. Those will always net you some buyers on the shopping channels, the marketplace forums or if you just scream it out in a group of high level players. It takes patience to forgo teaming and just sit and run missions for the same item over and over and over again. BUT, you will become self sufficient all the way to the higher levels.
I gave a guy this piece of advice once and he came back a couple days later and told me he had 7 million credits. He came back two weeks later and told me he had 35 million credits. I gained instant respect for that guy and I know that wherever he is, he’s going to make it far in this game! Spend your money wisely and you’ll end up with enough cash to make it to level 100 or so, where you’ll find money a wee bit easier to earn, or you’ll find missioning/blitzing for your items a lot easier.
Finally, if you’re omni, Omni-Med suits (6 pieces, each piece adds +13 to first aid and treatment) can be purchased in the clothing store for an extremely low price, around 4k for a whole suit. Now, since clanners can’t buy these and it’s more of a hassle than it’s worth to roll an omni alt and transfer the suits over, many clanners are happy to pay 50-100k for a full omni met suit. I’ve managed to accidentally delete or lose a piece of my suits before and was more than happy to pay a low lvl omni employee the handsome some of 70,000 credits for just ONE piece.
Below are some other items that are missionable items and add to key skills that many do not know about.
http://64.106.154.149/showitem.asp?AOID=124149 +8 to agility and +15 to rifle
http://64.106.154.149/showitem.asp?AOID=123950 +20 to comp lit and quantum FT
http://64.106.154.149/showitem.asp?AOID=123863 adds to int and psy (they start out a lot lower ql than 100 though). 200-400k a pair. The lower the ql, the more it’s worth to use, since it’s easier to equip.
http://64.106.154.149/showitem.asp?AOID=123857 adds +5 to int and actually starts out at ql1. I’ve even found some in the training backyard! Maybe 20-40k a pair, maybe more.
Nova Dillon helmets are quite valuable at any level and are only found a team mission boss loot. I can’t put a price on them, as I see them so rarely that I have no idea how much they go for. But it’s going to be quite a bit.
That’s the short list.
Add on to that the treasures found in the subway dungeon, like morphing memory (50-100k per chip is a VERY decent price) that are found on any robot or dog type mob in the subway dungeon (and you will collect A LOT of these) and http://64.106.154.149/showitem.asp?AOID=202717 which adds as much as +20 to ncu (this item can be upgraded from a lvl1 ring all the way up to a ql that adds +20). That item is found on one of three bosses in the subway (trust me, you can’t miss them) and sells for around 5-6 mil. I teamed with a new guy with my alt down in the dungeon a while back and we killed the first boss together (I was so twinked out that I could have done it alone) and the ring dropped. Seeing as he was brand new, I gave the ring to him and told him how to sell it. At that point they were only selling for about 3 mil, but boy was he ever happy to get that money! As for me, I just bought a ring…for 5 million. Doh.
The final boss, asbmouth supremus has a slight chance of dropping an item that adds +10 or +15 to multi wield and the price on that is around 15-25 mil, considering the difficulty in acquiring it and the rarity in which it drops. Yes, 15-25 mil by the time you’re level 20 or so. Requires a good team to take the last guy down though, but the fun you have in the process and the people you meet along the way makes it all worthwhile!
But be fair to your team and split the cash. Always remember that you may need them at some point in the future and it never, ever pays to rip someone off in this game!
Finally, mission settings. When you roll a mission, you’ll see six sliders that say things like “good” or “bad” or “open” or “hidden”. If you are looking to make mostly or all cash from your mission, set the first slider all the way to “bad” and set the sixth slider all the way to “money” and most of the missions you draw will have all cash. The other nice thing about this is that if you run through your mission without killing anything, going straight for the item, you will get the cash no matter what, even if you kill nothing. This is a great way to make money btw. It’s called “blitzing”.
If you don’t care about cash and you’re more interested in getting a healthy XP bonus from completing the mission, set the sliders in the following order. Left, left, middle, left left, right. This also has the advantage of having fewer locked doors (the trapped doors or locked doors can get you killed in a hurry).
Well I sure hope this helps someone out at some point. This is sound advice that is going to make your playing experience a lot more enjoyable and you not only acquire the pride in becoming 100% self sufficient with your funds, but you also gain the sense of accomplishment that is only found through hard work. Stick to these tips and you will end up with more money than you can spend!
Just remember to be patient. Time is all you have. Fight the urge to power level with no cash, as you’ll quickly find yourself with poor quality weapons, armor and ncu and not much use to your team. Take the time out in the beginning to tap into this vast wealth and you’ll see it pay off for your character’s entire life!
Now if you’re too high level to mission for any of these items or to go into the subway, don’t fear. Roll a martial artist alt (MAs do not need to use weapons and make very good soloers), get him to level 10, get your pillows (get a dozen if you can between ql10 and 12), go to the subway, get your rings and memory and level to around 22 and then go hog wild getting as many OT rifles as you can get your hands on!
And finally, the word “can’t” is not an option, nor should that evil word ever creep into your mind under any circumstance. You CAN and you WILL should be the only two things you should ever consider.
Peace and hugglez!!!
-Thedeacon
