How to Make Money in Norrath: A Guide for New and Old Alike

Discussion in 'Tips, Tricks, FAQs, and New Player Discussion' started by Sigrdrifa, Aug 7, 2013.

  1. Sigrdrifa EQ2 Wiki Author

    Part I: The "Investment Banker" Speech, in which I Suggest You Invest in the Game and be Prudent in Your Purchases

    Broker Access
    F2P and Silver players don't get broker access. That means that non-Gold low-level players can't buy low-level gear easily. The biggest recommendation for making money is to go Gold, so you have the use of the broker. If you just can't, pay the one-time $5 to go silver: you still won't have broker access, but it does remove a bunch of hassles.


    Living Within Your Means
    With Echoes of Faydwer, SOE beefed up low tier equipment, to the point that quested gear was better in some cases than Legendary or Mastercrafted. I have found that I can level to at least 30 using just whatever loot drops as I kill things and complete quests.

    However, every new player can level crafting enough to make their own Mastercrafted armor, should they spend the time leveling crafting and harvesting their tuchis off. Mastercrafted armor is pretty darn spiff, all the way up to at least level 80 or so.

    I can hear you thinking, "But I hate to craft!" No worries, you can commission the work from a player crafter. You don't have to know a crafter. You just have to be able to use the /who command.
    Most crafters will work for fuel costs and a tip, and you want to provide your own rares that you've harvested yourself (see below). I generally plan on paying about four times the fuel cost, because a happy crafter is one that will craft for you again.


    Part II: Strategies for Making Loads of Plat

    Kronos and Station Cash Cards
    If you really need a wad of plat instantly, buy a couple of Kronos with RL money. They sell for ~550pp on Crushbone, at the moment, either via broker or auction channel. YMMV on other servers. Similarly, people will pay good plat for a Station Cash card, especially on double and triple SC weekends.


    Harvesting
    Harvesting can be a huge money-maker. You can sell the rares on the broker for decent money. Even if you do not have broker access, you can use the rares to equip yourself.

    Put on iTunes or Pandora or the stereo, find a zone, and harvest. Seriously, it can be relaxing.

    If you want some easy money, and added incentive for your harvesting, find a World Bell at one of the docks or in a guild hall, and travel to the Isle of Mara. Swim across to the village, and go uphill just to the left of the rice paddies until you find a strange little boy swimming fully clothed in a pond. This is Quo Augren, and has he got a deal for you: The Gathering Obsession Questline.

    Qho' s quests operate off either adventure level OR crafting level. I have done the whole "Gathering Obsession" questline with a level 1 mystic. In higher level zones, you DO have to be patient and wait for monsters to path away, but there are reasonably safe places to harvest in every tier.

    To make it easier, faster, and more fun, get you some stuff that boosts harvesting skills. Harvesting kits can be crafted by a woodworker or tinker, so you can hire someone to craft them for you if you can't buy from the broker. Others are quested, or faction purchases.


    Collectibles
    This is where you get the big bucks. Along the way as you harvest, you WILL see shinies, which you should nab. Don't neglect the lower zones: note the prices on some of the butterflies, ants, beetles, and spiders on the broker!

    Know your market! Not every shiny sells well on the broker. If there's more than two pages of broker listings for an item, it's probably better to sell it to a vendor for the 7 or 8c.

    HOWEVER, all collections have one rare item that drops less often than the others, and these can sell for plat. I have in the last two weeks sold ants, spiders, and beetle collectibles for 1p or more, and many others for 20-50g. I personally don't waste broker space on anything that sells for under 20g, YMMV.

    For a lot of the collections, you can use Ripchi's Collection Tracking Sheet to determine which items are rare, or no-trade. This is a really handy PDF file that you print out and use to track what collections you have, which you need, and what you are missing. It also indicates which items cannot be purchased on the broker, and tells you where the clicky is to go harvest the needed item yourself. I still use it even today.


    Crafting
    The crafting trades can make money. Again, the key is to know your market! Put up your "LFW" tag (Looking for Work". Occasionally advertise in level chat, just a quick "Level 32 Sage LFW! I got your mage and priest spells! PST!"
    • Carpenters are the only tradeskill that can sell items from all tiers, because interior decorators don't care about tier, they're after appearance; and everyone needs boxes and sales crates.
    • Tailors make backpacks, which people need until/unless they can carry huge boxes. Mages in particular like the mastercrafted backpacks, which reduce weight, necessary if you have little strength.
    denixius, Mihoya, Tillamook and 5 others like this.
  2. Hyole New Member

    Prior to going gold, I was able to purchase items off the broker, just not post items.

    Good write up either way, I didn't know about the island of mara questline.

    I had no idea weight was still in the game either :/
  3. TechUp Active Member

    If I remember correctly weight was removed from the game just before Destiny of Velious launched, but it's not a factor now so loot all that you can. ;)
  4. Sigrdrifa EQ2 Wiki Author

    Ha! All my current characters were grown up enough to carry big boxes by the time that change was made, so I had forgotten. Thanks for the update!
  5. Feara Well-Known Member

    Do the Daily Objectives daily to receive one loyalty token. Buy bag of 75 plat for 5 goobers loyalty tokens.

    Nice write-up Sigrdrifa, as always.
    Pikachuuu and WhysperWynde like this.
  6. Enymac Member

    I would like to add to this. If you are a new player, the first thing you want is BIG huge bags. Most players can type /claim and get a free backpack. The next place to go is to a broker and buy the biggest cheap backpack you can. The Bear Backpacks are usually cheap and sell from 10 to 20 gold a piece. You can use them temporaily to sell stuff with from the broker. Also don't be afraid to beg. Many players have old slightly smaller boxes and bags they would happily give away to another player, if asked. Most people beg for plat, barely anybody begs for big bags.
    Treasured, legendary, and fabled items in the very low levels(1-19) still sell very well on the broker, because people want to transmute them to get their transmuting levels up.
    Tradeskilling is actually very hard to make gold and plat on unless you carefully watch your bottomline. This is because quite a few of the plat sellers make their money this way. I believe quite a few of them use bots now that are programmed to do all the work for them.
  7. Dexella Associate Producer

    This is a great piece. I hope folks continue to build on it and share their own thoughts/ideas! We'll go ahead and sticky it for a while so people have a chance to reference it. :)

    ~Dex
    Torvglaani and SierraDawn like this.
  8. Tetrol Well-Known Member

    For those with broker access - a few refinements

    Tinkers (yes, that is the correct word, someone who tinkers is a tinker, not a tinkerer) use lots of tier one loam - so in a moment of boredom, go and harvest tier one hard rock nodes (along the edge of the cliffs near Gorowyn is probably the best spot). They will sell well.

    Transmuters - (almost) anything treasured and above such as Adepts, Armour, Weapons etc will be bought by transmuters. Low level stuff is actually at a premium as it is needed to start transmuting - and higher level characters usually have more gold than time (to mentor and slaughter low level mobs) - so list all those items. If you look at the broker every day for a week or two you will see to what price level is regularly cleared. If everything up to 10 gold changes almost every day, then list at 10 gold. There is no point listing below the amount that regularly sells - unless you want to sell to resellers lol. If you are selling a higher value item - fine, list to sell at or below the lowest listed price, but if it was going to sell anyway, use the going rate.

    If you don't have contacts through a guild etc to make sales crates - keep an eye out as every so often someone will list them far below the "going" rate - pick up a huge crate for a few plat - it only takes 20 of those 10g treasured items to pay for it.

    Shinies, as mentioned above - at low level, most of the starter areas share the same shinies. Greater Faydark is the exception, and the shinies are thick on the ground around the starter area. Fat Grubs and Goliath Beetles are not that scarce and sell for a good amount. The original shell collection - found in The Sprawl and Forest Ruins seems to sell ok as well.
  9. blueangle Member

    Great writeup, I can one more good tip. In my guild I supply new members with th biggest backpacks and I offer my broker services to the f2p members. I setup one or more of my low level characters (as needed) to sell for my members. I keep a note pad next to me and assign a box to that player. Somthing sells member gains. Helps keep members in the guild, cost me nothing but a few minutes of time and hopefully the ftp member will get enough plat to buy kronos. So find a good guild will help you free to play people a lot.
    Jaden and Feara like this.
  10. Mimixx(2) Member

    What? who sells the bag?
  11. Dulcenia Well-Known Member

    The Loyalty Rewards vendors. There are 2 in Qeynos and 2 in Freeport:
    • Freeport: -226, -56, 88 in the East Freeport tent
    • Qeynos: 901, -25, 53 in Qeynos Harbor, Qeynos Province District
    You must have a gold subscription to purchase the bag of platinum.
    Pikachuuu, SierraDawn and Feara like this.
  12. Feara Well-Known Member

    I ran into the new Loyalty and Veteran Vendors in Qeynos Harbor when I went to mentor down.
  13. Feara Well-Known Member

    I did forget to mention that, thank you Dulcenia.

    Good reason to go for Gold among many others.
  14. Jeorge Member


    o_O I've been looking for someone to do this exact thing for awhile now. Just questing for plats doesn't yield as much as I'd like. Up to 157 now, so nowhere near enough to buy one yet, even on the poorest servers, which AB isn't anyways...
  15. Deathbecomes Member

    If you can master experimenting you can make good money. I've made over 100 visionary items without ever losing one most do not know how to do this and are afraid to try on expensive items. I've made 100pp per visionary easily and have customers that only trust me with their very expensive items needing experimenting. I easily can make enough for a krono every month.
    Geroblue and Ghostchild like this.
  16. Kerrthunk Member

    Trade Skills are great for coin if you enjoy them. There is a challenge to figuring out how to be profitable, but that is part of the fun.
    Advanced Solo instances are actually good money. Especially if you are selling the loot drops to vendors. I also broker every collectable and status token I pick up. Now and then I group up, and that coin has been decent as well.
    I play casually using all of the above, and have been able to buy 4 Krono in the past two months.
  17. Fountain Of Stone New Member

    Gawd I might have to start a new character to get the hang of the game again lol. Seems like alot to get to know. I also hope the next update comes in soon then I will just buy that and hopefully it has all the previous updates for 1 price.
  18. ConcealFate Well-Known Member

    I have been playing for about 4-5 months and have made around 700 plat on broker. 75 to 80% of all income is collectables. another good thing to sell is L&L items
  19. ConcealFate Well-Known Member

    forgot to add that trash loot is also a big part of the income stream. most of the Legendary loot is trash too.
  20. Gregore Active Member

    Run OOA, run solo DC, you can still run PR for about 20 plat after selling drops, run groups and raids for plat splits, and you can buy low and sell high on the broker if you have the patience and know how to do it.