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 might be a hard sell at first (as literally thousands have been sold since this guide was first written), but you know what? You'll find someone needing them at the oddest of times. When they do, expect to make anywhere from 100-200k a pair! 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.
People are always rolling new alts. Don't let anyone tell you that the cushions are impossible to sell now, because they aren't. When an experienced player rolls a new alt, the first thing they do is transfer over their concrete cushions, med suits, treatment rifle and power level the heck out of that char. Thing is, they usually forget to transfer them back and you'll find high level characters asking to buy these cushions once more. Once a high level person loses their cushions, the only thing they can do is buy new cushions. I'm sure if I checked out my own bank I might find 5 pairs. But to me, it's easier to spit out some cash and buy more
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, 250k is a good price for that rifle. If you sell it for less than 100,000 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.
As supply increases, demand decreases, so these again might sit in your inventory for a few days before you sell one. DONT GIVE UP! AO is a demonstration of patience. Things won't get handed to you, you need to have the will to keep trying.
The marketplace forum is an excellent place to sell the cushions and rifles. Put a link to your auction in your forum signature as well for a bit more advertising.
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
It's an excellent "buffing" item. Buffing weapons are weapons that are completely useless combat-wise, but boost important abilities such as base skills (agility, strength, stamina, etc), a weapon skill or a tradeskill. A perfect application for the above rifle would be for an individual that does not have enough skill to self equip their weapon.
Let's say I have 931 in rifle skill and the rifle im trying to get on a QL200 rifle that requires 946 rifle skill. I could first put that above rifle in my hands and boost my rifle skill to 946. Now while im still holding that "buffing" rifle, I can put on the QL200 rifle.
Hard to put a price on those and I can't guarantee you'll sell alot of them. I can tell you that most of your customers will be nanomage though, as they have the poorest physical skills
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. Lower QL items require less skill to equip, yet usually have the exact same skill modifiers as their high level cousins. Lower skill requirements means that folks don't need to spend precious IP on that skill. So if your character uses swords, you probably don't want to waste IP on pistol skill, so having the lowest ql "buffing" pistol is ideal.
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.
http://www.aodb.info/showitem.asp?AOID=123950
This is becoming a nice little seller. Each pistol adds +20 to computer literacy. Now at higher levels with a 1k board, a player can already self equip QL200 memory, so why is it important for a level 200 player to have another +40 comp lit?
Towers! The higher ql towers require insane amounts of computer literacy to build and every last bit counts! Make sure that you can get ql44 exactly if at all possible. The higher ql pistols don't add any more comp lit and they have steeper requirements to equip.
These pistols are very good sellers atm and while 500k is the "going rate", I personally feel that they're worth more like a million credits for a pair of ql44s. If they haggle you down to 500k, take it. you can always mission for more. Better to make less money than no money at all. And be polite about it. He may have friends that need 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, as they add to sensory improvement and modifications.
Acquiring full sets of armor is also a lucrative way of making money.
Omni-pol elite armor starts at ql75
Omni-pol (the white armor) I believe is found at all QLs
Senpai and Primus Decus armor is also sought after. The coats used to be awesome sellers, but these days the cloaks found in the temple are alot better...
And now SPEAKING of the temple of the three winds...
There's a literal GOLDMINE waiting for you there!
Some of the bosses drop an item called a "purifying rod". It's a one-time use only item that removes nasty debuffs in pvp. Easily...EASILY each one of these could be sold for 1-300k credits EACH. Try to sell them in stacks of ten though. They usually aren't high enough on anyone's priority list to drop what they're doing to pick up one or two rods.
For enterprising Engineers, you can make bucketloads of cash with beacon warp. We all know that anyone over level 60 cannot enter the dungeon by normal means. From level 61-70, you can warp in and have your fun all over again with no penalties. Anyone over level 71 will be frozen in place and warped back out of the dungeon after 30 seconds. At the time of this writing, beacon warping IS allowed in the TOTW and there are a good amount of items that even a level 200 player would kill to have.
So you could, in theory, get the help of a meta-physicist's nanoskills buffs to upload the Beacon Warp crystal (it's a QL90 nanocrystal), team with a high level player that needs a particular item from the dungeon, kill a boss and warp your new high level friend into the dungeon to loot the item that he or she needs.
Recently, I paid a kind gentleman 20 MILLION CREDITS for about 60-90 minutes of warping. Spend a day doing this and the potential to make around 100 MILLION credits per day is possible. I would say that you could make a billion credits in less than a month by doing this. Let that sink in....a BILLION credits. Max cash.
post too long, continued HERE (yeah click this y0)
) Anyway, I have kinda jacked up my IP on this guy....better to keep going or start all over? And what does that little "redo/rollback" (forget the actual name) button do when assigning IP?
GREAT post
