Key

General
Keys are used to unlock chests across Tyria.

Keys are named (more or less obviously) after the geographic region where they are bought or found (eg. Ascalonian Key for Ascalon)) and can only open chests from that region. The value of keys increase as one progresses in the game, as does the value of the items found in the chests they unlock.

Keys of the same type will stack.

Note: There are no keys or locked chests in pre-Searing.

Usage
Keys may only be used once, meaning players will have to gamble that the items found inside a particular chest will either be useful to them, or have a higher resale value than the key. Because of this risk, when you click on a chest, a confirmation message will popup asking whether you were sure that you want to use a key to open it.

Each member of an exploring party will have to use their own key to open each chest, however, the items found from chests are not shared across the party. A chest opened by a player cannot be opened again by the same player.

Note: Currently, the rarity of items produced by the chests is consistent for the same chest. i.e. If a chest produces a purple item for the first player who opened it, it will produce purple for all who open it afterwards.

Acquisition

 * Bought from merchants in the same region.
 * Random Loot from monsters in the same region.

Value of Loot
While the keys are guaranteed to produce purple items or gold items, it is not guaranteed that these items will be perfect or have maximum statistics. In general, the key is worth more than the item produced from the chest if the item was sold back to the merchant. For example, a Shiverpeak Key is sold for 600 gold but on average produces items that are worth 200-300 gold at the merchant. The real value is that identifying the item might unlock upgrades or that the item would have great statistics and thus sell for multiple platinum to other players in trade.

The Keys themsleves can be sold for half their price to all merchants.

Keys by Value
Following is a list of keys sorted in terms of their price which gives an indication of the value of the items they produce from their respective chests:

Key (Location): Price
 * Ascalonian Key (Ascalon): 50 gold
 * Steel Key (Northern Shiverpeaks): 80 gold
 * Krytan Key (Kryta): 200 gold
 * Maguuma Key (Maguuma): 300 gold
 * Elonian Key (Crystal Desert): 450 gold
 * Shiverpeak Key (Southern Shiverpeaks): 600 gold
 * Darkstone Key (Ring of Fire Islands): 600 gold
 * Miner's Key (Sorrow's Furnace): 750 gold
 * Phantom Key (Underworld): 750 gold
 * Obsidian Key (Fissure of Woe): 1,500 gold

For a general list of keys, see: Category:Keys