In Part 1, I spoke about how to use the auction house, how crafting can earn money, and the importance of identifying what currency is the one in common use in your game. Let’s conclude this guide on how you can make coin, no matter which MMO you enjoy!
The Grind
Grinding involves repetitive actions, such as staying in one area killing the same creatures over and over, or running the same dungeon instance over and over. I actually like a bit of grinding for relaxation as it’s mindless and generates results in most games. You can grind for a lot of things depending on the game. Reputation, rare drops, raw materials and so forth.
Good grinding for coin involves good research. I find that online guides that tell you where to grind don’t work, as the places tend to be overcrowded, so I like to find my own places. Have a set goal in mind and find a place where that goal has the best chance to be met. I highly dislike dungeon grinding because it breeds a weird elitist sort of vibe I find very unpleasant. I prefer kill grinding where I can zone out and either chat with others or just listen to music. You want to find a place where the kill rate is sustainably high, but free of sudden surprises that can catch you unawares as you zone out.
You will also want to optimise your character for the grind. This means lots of bag space and limited down time waiting to heal or recover mana. If half your time is spent sitting down waiting for stats to refresh, then you are not grinding effectively. Ideally you are aiming at zero down time, just kill, kill, kill! If you are chasing profit, then resources spent on consumables like health potions are best kept to a minimum as well. I often find low grade potions helpful in some games as they are cheap enough they don’t impact profit much, but they help just enough to keep me in zero downtime.
Ultimately, most grinding sessions end on the auction house where you can sell the acquired goods. If you did your research well, you will have a good pile of whatever niche goods are now selling well. Make sure you evaluate your profits after each grind. Cost in consumables are often neglected on a grind. If all has gone well, you now get to have a well-deserved coffee and just wait for the money to come in.
Chasing rare drops
This is really a common form of grinding, where your goal is an all or nothing gamble to get rare equipment or recipe drops. This type of thing often suits dungeon/instance grinders more as the best drops are traditionally gated behind instance bosses. Thankfully for people like me, this isn’t the same in all games. I often look for little niche items that drop outside of instances and are thus suitable for kill grinding. One notable example is the purple dress pattern in WoW, which dropped mostly from one single tower.
The thing about grinding for rare drops is you often what get the primary thing you’re after. For this reason, it’s worth researching what else might drop from those mobs. Let’s say the Wiki tells you there are two creatures that drop what you want. One creature has a 0.4% chance to drop the rare, but the rest of what it drops is trash. The other creature has a 0.3% chance for the drop, but its other drops are salable cloth. I’d go for creature number two every time, because creature one is often unrewarding, but with creature two I’ll always walk away with something. Constantly getting nothing leads swiftly to disappointment and discouragement, while getting something at the end is more sustainable.
Gathering
Technically another form of grind, but this time you are running around looking for herbs, ore and wood used in crafting. This can be the most time consuming way to earn coin, but it’s also one of the easiest, and in most games, the most guaranteed to yield reliable results. WoW was an annoying exception, as good resource nodes were often camped by bots, leading to nothing being gathered. GW2 is one of the best for this, as other people cannot prevent you gathering a node. Lord of the Rings Online was a great medium between the two, because nodes were common enough that there was enough for everyone, but rare enough that the price was high.
When gathering, you only need to find what is selling well, then establish an efficient route which allows you to hit the nodes you require. Most games offer maps online suggesting good paths for resource gathering. These maps tend to work pretty well, but I prefer to work my own paths because I’m contrary like that :-).
I actually keep this gathering to a minimum in GW2. I currently leave most of my characters near a guaranteed rich node that’s always there and harvestable daily. Once a day I log in each character and gather the node. It takes me about 10 minutes all up, so it’s doable any time I have a little spare time in the day. It’s not a lot but it nets me around 1-2 gold per day and is utterly effortless.
Selling your services
I don’t mean prostitution or similar, that’s just not good for the game. There are perfectly decent ways to offer your services for others. People who really want help to run an instance and are often more than happy to pay you for your expertise. Others might want help grinding, help on some class quest, or just your company. If someone wants to pay for help, then let them. GW2 gives a spell to mesmers that allows them to portal people between locations. For a long time mesmers sold that ability helping people complete jumping puzzles. Now payment is usually optional, but I’ve thrown a mesmer a whole gold piece because I really appreciated their help with a particular challenge.
Basically, if people want to pay you, let them. Even if you don’t need the money it helps them feel better about taking your time. If you can actually advertise and sell your services I say go for it. However, expect hate from people. I don’t know why, but many people online think such help should always be free, so they hate on people with the audacity to charge. While I don’t tend to charge for help, I certainly see no difference between paying for a tutor irl and paying for a tutor in-game.
Begging and the ‘other’ stuff
I do not beg, I do not condone begging and I highly dislike beggars. However … it works, though not in all games. People seem to have a pathological need to be seen as being nice, so when someone gives a sob story about why they need money, then some people will respond. Expect people to treat you badly, if you have any self respect or feelings, then begging probably isn’t the right path for you.
I cannot speak from experience, but as far as I can gather, the best way to beg is as follows. First of all, claim to have a modest but worthy goal, such as 1 gold to get class training. Some people will give you the gold just to shut you up if nothing else. Be polite and apologetic, not crude and demanding. People will respond better if you seem like a nice person. Female characters will almost always get more than males. In the words of Morrigan from Dragon Age, “Men are always willing to believe two things about a women: one, that she is weak, and two, that she finds him attractive.” While Morrigan isn’t 100% correct, she’s not far off.
Under the same tag as begging, I will also add inappropriate actions in exchange for cash. Things like naked dancing, cyber (or eRP if you prefer), or any other form of prostitution. As I said above, it’s just not good for the game. Yes, people do this in real life and I don’t have anything against that, but these games offer complete anonymity. If I told you that cybersex with a 10 year old is wrong you’d probably agree. Well, how do you know the dwarf who just dropped you a gold to dance naked for him isn’t a 10 year old with his pants around his ankles? Just don’t do it, it’s potentially illegal.
In all honesty, if you need coin so badly that you have to debase yourself to others, then you have a problem. Coin can be easily earned in most games if you walk out the front gate and kill a few boars.
In closing
Earning coin in games will almost always take a combination of time, luck and good ol’ fashioned research. A combination of methods is usually the best. You have to decide for yourself what you do and do not enjoy doing. If you don’t enjoy the activity, don’t do it, simple as that. It’s a game, not a job, so don’t let it be anything other than a game. For this reason, I have no reservations about dropping real cash on a game if it gets me the shinies I want. I don’t have a lot of money, but $10 here and there is manageable, and I’d rather spend that on a game I love than waste it on a cinema movie I may or may not like. It has to be about fun, otherwise you’re not really playing.