Gold and Credits Tips to Help New Players (Especially Free to Play)

Originally Posted by sirixamo (view original source)

Hello all, I am by no means a veteran but I was answering a few questions in another thread and thought something like this might be valuable to a wider audience. So, I'll try not to be too wordy, but here are a few tips for newer players and especially F2P'ers!

• 1) Do not spend money at the cash shop. No, really! Things are very cheap on the Auction House right now, just spend the time to farm some gold and buy it that way. I will use my own server as an example (Aranzeb): On our server $2-3 = ~3-4g (1 labor potion = 300 credits = $2 = 4g, but apex goes for ~30g and that's $10). Even at starter levels you could make 4g in 1-2 hours. I can make about 100g a day JUST farming, that's just planting trees on my land and chopping them down, turning them into lumber, and selling them. I have 2 large farms and a small one, this equates to about 30 minutes of work a day. Using the above formula, that is ~$25-35 worth of gold per day for 30 minutes of work, or 1.5 months of playtime if I buy APEX! These prices will fluctuate a lot, so take advantage of them now!
• 2) Get your APEX now! People don't have a lot of Gold, but there are some Whales out there (people with more money than time, I am usually one of them), so you can get APEX dirt cheap. You need 2 APEX to qualify for Patron, and you have 100 credits left over (1 APEX = 1250 credits, you need 2400 credits for Patron).
• 3) If you can rush Patron without getting the Auction House License, do that. Patron gives you permanent access to the auction house, so there is no need to waste the money on the pass. Remember, you can buy on the auction house (that's how you get APEX), you just can't sell.
• 4) The easiest way to make money right now, that I know of, as a non-Patron is mining. Everyone needs Iron/Stone/Ores, and you can mine just fine as a F2P'er! Your limiting factor is going to be Labor, so make 4-5g, buy a labor potion, then spend it all mining! You can easily make 300-500 raw stone an hour mining, that will net you 30-50g on the auction house. But you can't use the auction house to sell, right? Which leads me to....
• 5) Use trade chat to sell your goods! If you can get your APEX without needing the auction house pass that is the best, advertise your Raw Stone or Stone Bricks in trade chat, make enough to get your APEX, and then you have permanent auction house status.
• 6) Make an alt. You will need him for labor. Labor is shared across all characters on a server, but the cooldown for a labor potion (12 hours) is per character. You need to be level 15 to quaff a labor potion. For maximum efficiency: Create an alt, level him to 15, gather 15 gilda stars (should easily be done along the way), buy your housing plans from mirage island (you can do this as F2P you just can't place it), then sell the housing plans for 10-15g. You won't need a house on your alt anyway (probably, if you do you can always remake him), but having the extra cooldown for the labor potions is nice. This means every 12 hours you can generate 2,000 labor for 4-10g.
• 7) Don't worry about land. You missed it, the land rush is over. But it's ok! You can still make good money leveling up, selling goods you find from drops, selling things you buy with Gilda stars, and crafting with the (cheap) mats you get off the AH! You can find small farming plots scattered about, but you likely won't find anything larger. Next Friday will be the next land rush (pt2). Land becomes available a week after you miss your tax payments, so prepare yourself next week to see if you can find a spot. Don't get too greedy! The best spots will be very crowded with a lot of people trying to snag them, it's not a huge benefit to have a pristine lot, just get somewhere to get your large farm up. In a few weeks/months there will be plenty of land available, the population will not stay at this inflated value forever.
• 8) Level! You can level just fine as a F2P player. All the patrons took time out to get their land/farms setup, but now the market is crashing because it is being flooded with supplies without much demand. At higher levels you will make a lot more money from grinding mobs and opening coin purses, so take advantage of that! I bet you could out earn the land owners at this point if you were high level and simply grinding.
• 9) Play on a low population server, but be aware that you might have to server transfer later. Aranzeb had ~700 person queue at prime time last night and it only took a little over an hour to get through. This is the absolute peek time for this game, so don't set your expectations too high. There will be queues, but in 2 weeks they will completely disappear. In a few months, the lower population servers might not have a healthy enough population, so you might have to move servers. Just keep in mind they are implementing that functionality, so don't be afraid to roll somewhere you can play right now!
• 10) Don't over think your race/class choices. Races provide very, very small bonuses (Firran is the best for PvP because of the fall damage passive, but it's a very small perk), pick the race you want to look at for the rest of the game. Also, classes are very flexible, and you can level up another specialization on the same character, so if you make a mistake it is not a big deal.
• 11) Upgrade your glider, you can get a Glider just as good as the $150 archeum phoenix glider for ~2g on mirage island. You need to be level 20 to craft the final version ("Ultimate Glider"), but the 2 prereqs you can make as soon as you get your Experimental Glider. They all build off of the experimental glider, so don't throw that away!
• 12) You will get free mounts as you level up via various quests. You get your first (9m/s) mount at about level 7-8. You get your donkey (can carry trade packs faster) after you complete the 2nd trade quest (you are exposed to these around level 11). You get your Glider soon after you are exposed to the trade quests (follow the instructions above to upgrade it). You get a rowboat fairly quickly on Nuia, and you can get it about level 15 on Haranya via a quest down Mahadevi Port (south end of Mahadevi). I'm not sure about any other mounts, perhaps someone else can fill us in.
• 13) Gear upgrades are fairly infrequent, so don't be worried if you have gone 4-5 levels without upgrading. That's normal.

That's all I have so far, if anyone else has any please add them!

Edit:

What is APEX/Patron?

• APEX = A container that has 1250 credits in it. It costs $10, people use this as a way to turn real money into gold (buy the APEX, put it on the auction house).
• Patron = Subscriber status. This allows you to own land, gives you a 10% experience buff, and allows you to regen more labor (10 per 5 minutes while online, 5 per 5 minutes while offline).

What are credits?

• Credits are the cash-shop currency. Much like Riot Points (League of Legends), Microsoft Points (Xbox), or other currency systems, you buy an amount of currency for real money (750 credits = $5, you get bonuses for buying in larger quantities), and you can use this currency to buy things on the cash shop called 'Marketplace'. The marketplace icon hangs out in the bottom right corner of your screen all the time. Most of the items in the marketplace can be sold on the in-game auction house for in-game gold.

How do I buy Patron status?

• I believe you get it directly off the website, you have to be logged in and it uses your in-game credits:www.archeagegame.com/en/shop/[1]

What is labor/why is it so important?

• Labor is used to do almost anything not involving combat in the game. Crafting and gathering require labor. Opening coin purses require labor (though it is a minuscule amount, you should not have difficulty doing this). Paying taxes (can) cost labor. If you can do it outside of combat, it probably costs labor. This is not hugelylimiting unless you want to craft/gather, but that is often the best way to make gold.

Why is gold so important?

• Because, unlike most modern MMO's, almost everything in ArcheAge is tradeable/sellable for gold. This means you can get fantastic end game gear for gold. You can get mounts, boats, houses, cars, tractors, farms, even land for gold.

Where can I buy Patron?

• I believe you do it on the website here: http://www.archeagegame.com/en/shop/[2] (you still use your in-game credits though, make sure you are logged in)

Many thanks to sirixamo from r/archeage on reddit for providing us this great guide. We are always looking for quality content that can help our readers, if you'd like to have your guide or content featured on our site then please email guestContent@TotalArcheAge.com