Earning gold

Guild Wars isn't any different from real life in that if you spend more than you earn, you'll be broke in no time. When you plan do a big upgrade you may find it hard to raise the necessary funding for your expenses. The following are a few tips to give beginners some ideas how to start. These are just some few basic principles, and there are countless variations.

''Note: Be aware that ArenaNet, the makers of GuildWars, constantly monitor the economy of the game in order to balance it. If a method of income is being overused by players and deemed too "powerful" by ANet, they will eventually "nerf" it, i.e. take countermeasures.''

Playing the game "normally"
The drops that you collect from killing foes while playing the game "normally" (i.e. simply playing through the storyline missions and quests and exploring areas) should be well sufficient to cover your "normal" expenses (i.e. buying the "standard" skills, weapons and armor).

Only if you go for the high-end "perfect" and "green" weapons and "prestige" armor will see prices skyrocket. Be aware that many of these weapon, armor and items were put into the game specifically as a "gold sink" for the wealthy players. In most cases there are alternative weapons that are near equivalent, but much cheaper. Go for the cheap alternative. You get 95% of the output for 20% of the input.

Farming
Farming means that you do not kill foes as a side-effect of playing the game "normally", but specifically for the purpose of collecting loot. A variation of farming is chest farming. For further details and tips, see: Farm


 * Warning: The use of farming bots is a violation of the User Agreement and the Rules of Conduct, and, if spotted by a game master, will result in an account mark or a ban.

The farmed loot can be used to sell it to merchants / traders, to give it to a collector or to trade it to a fellow players. See the following sections for further details.

Merchanting
The Merchanting way of earning gold revolves around buying low and selling high. This is most easily done with Green items, since their prices cannot be easily "looked up" on a Trader, like Crafting Materials or Runes can. Merchanting requires you to have a good idea of what a price range for a specific item is. If you see any items being sold that you don't particularly need, but at a bargain price, don't be afraid to take up their offer. You can easily re-sell items for double the sold value this way.

Trading with other players
Trading with other players will usually offer you better prices than vendors both when you are buying and selling goods. This means you can significantly increase your income and you can save a lot of money by trading with a fellow player compared to dealing with vendors.

On the downside, trading can be quite a hassle. Depending on the rarity of the item that you want to buy/sell, it may take quite some time of advertising and price negotiating until you've found somebody who is willing to buy/sell at a price that you deem reasonable.


 * Warning: "Spamming adverts in chat, especially the public channel instead of the designated trade channel, is not only annoying for fellow players, but also a violation of the Rules of Conduct, and may result in an account mark.


 * Warning: While trading with other players, watch out for scammers! Also, yourself refrain from any behaviour that might be considered scamming, as scamming is also a violation of the Rules of Conduct, and may result in an account mark or ban.

Collecting
Most weapons and armor offered by collectors is very cheap, comparing the value of the collectable drops input against the price you'd have to pay to buy an equal weapon from a fellow player or to craft the weapon/armor yourself. This means, you can save a lot of money if you use a "cheap" collector reward item instead of crafting or buying an equal one.

Also, because the value of a popular collector reward item is usually higher than the value of the required collectable items, you can make some money by selling collector reward items to fellow players.
 * Warning: Trading a collector reward item hiding its nature is considered scamming, because collector reward items cannot be salvaged. Scamming is a violation of the Rules of Conduct, and may result in an account mark or ban.

Crafting
Many weapons offered by weaponsmithes are equal or almost equal, but quite a bit cheaper than high-end green weapons.

Also, artisans, material crafters, provide a method of adding value (literally) to materials. Very often you can sell a rare crafting material for a higher price than the sum of values of the input materials plus the fee for the artisan.

Running
Running, i.e. leading a group to a destination, is a job that requires some experience, but it can be a good source of income.

For further details and tips, see: Run

Begging
Because of the fact that there are so many easy legit ways of making money (with only some of them mentioned above), begging is clearly the lowest form of funding. Not only does it show a lack of self-respect and initiative, but it is also a nuisance to other players. It should be avoided and only be used as the very last resort for people who are missing just a few bucks. And even then ... if you're missing 50g to buy your new armor, do yourself a favor and simply slay a handful of monsters to collect some loot. Not only is it less annoying for others, but probably even quicker than cadging the same amount of gold.

General Tips

 * A fantastic and often overlooked way of making money, is by going outside of towns and outposts, and killing enemies. These enemies will often drop money and/or loot (which can be sold for money at merchants). This is a radically different approach from begging people for free money because it requires more than just spamming "free monies plx", but it's quite rewarding in the long run.


 * Other Players in Guild Wars pay high sums of money for Green items because they are unique and a symbol of status. It pays to keep an eye out on the trade-chat to see just which items are popular, and which ones aren't; you may spend some time chasing after items that other people may just not be interested in.


 * Also it is worth considering what people may pay for bulk lots of crafting materials, especially if the price is lower than the cost of 10 at a Material Trader, but higher than the price you recieve from selling 10 to a Material Trader. For example 400 iron ingots are requred for a full set of 15k Kurzick Warrior Armor, it is time consuming to gather that amount of material and expensive to buy it from the trader, this is where people start asking the community for material.


 * Use a build for Farming. On this wiki, there are several builds. You can find them here.


 * Consider doing the missions and quests on your own rather then getting runners for them. You will earn a lot more money and experience. Runners are for people that did it before and can afford it.


 * If you are considering running as a way of earning gold make sure you have a full party or semi-full party, therefore you are earning money from multiple people from just one run. However there are certain rules of etiquette to be followed if you are a runner, see Run for details.


 * If you can, don't spend too much money on your armor or weapons. When you need new armor, upgrade the most essential parts instead of everything. For example, upgrade chest and legs in Ascalon, the rest in Yak's Bend and so on. Before spending all the money you have on a gold max-damage weapon with interesting mods, consider using a crafted/collector-weapon with the same or similar stats. It won't increase your personal bling-factor, but they have the same functionality and won't drain your wallet as fast.


 * Be friendly to people, they might give you something for a lower price, or help you out some time. At least don't spam the chat with something like "free please". Additionally, when selling items, even if it is a perfect, unique Green; do not say "NO NOOBS" or "Serious Buyers Only" this gives off an agressive impression and puts people off buying from you. It is only natural for people to want to see an amazing weapon, even if they have no intention of buying one.


 * Travel with smaller groups if you can. Smaller party size results in more drops per player and more gold split on gold drops. Many quests can be accomplished with a small experienced group. Beware, however, that a smaller group will usually take longer to kill enemies and runs a greater risk of being killed. This may reduce the amount of gold gained over a given period of time if not careful.


 * Make as much room in your inventory as you can. If you fill your inventory, each item you leave on the ground is one less item you can sell to a merchant later. Salvaging items may help mitigate this but requires space for the resulting crafting materials. It also pays to give priority to collector-drops over other loot, these stack and only take up a single slot in your inventory per stack of 250.


 * Identify items before vending them. An unidentified item will have a lower value to a merchant than an identified one, and more often then not, the extra value will make up for the cost of the identification kit, especially if identified as Precious. Gold and purple items have a high intrinsic value, shown especially after identifying (and will also very often have mods that your fellow players might be interested in buying); blue weapons are often overlooked but have the highest chance to be either precious (sell to merchant) or highly salvageable(salvage, sell for parts), both of which are mods that'll put money in your pocket. You will making a profit if the average price increase is more than 4 gold upon identifying the item. You will be making more than the Identification originally cost to purchase (more than 3 gold if the kit was purchased from a Discount Merchant.


 * Note however, that there are other players out there who will gladly pay multiple platina for undidentified gold items, in order to increase their Wisdom Rank, and yet other players might be very interested in buying unidentified pieces of gold monster-armor for the sake of unlocking runes. It pays to be discriminating in your approach.