I am level 112 and have a spartan and about 1 billion gold.

I have spent a total of 15 bucks on the game when i started for a 30 day adventurer package.  If you can get high level getting money is easy, and you can buy the stuff other people buy from RMT with your gold.

-Danrax

After spending 500$ and still having crappy gear, my conclusion is item mall dont' matter that much.

Unless you willing to spend a rediculous amount of real life money, you wont' be able to buy your way to the top. 

And most of the top players have been playing 10 hours a day for a year. 

So if new players want to catch up they need to play 20 hours a day for a year.  lol

The main thing is progression in this game is very linear.  So if you want to be as good as your friend who have 2000 playing hours, you'll have to play 2000 hours to catch up.

That is only if you want to compete against the top players on the server though :).  Don't get discourage by my comment.  The bulk of the server dont' play 10 hours a day, and not everyone have been playing for a year(Infact most only a few month).

Actually almost any mmo out there needs to be invested to be one of the top players. money maybe optional but time is definitely needed. I just mall for the pack and the bless license sometimes, my gears are very suckish but im level 116 right now and around div 2 in fl. the warpack and license is just to speed things up. never had malled atlas, my gears are a mix of freezing and divine. lol. the top playeers are heavy buyers. but still catchable with intense playing. just grind money in game and buy the mall stuffs.

I agree, Like others said if you really want to be a top player and you think you can just attain it by buying in the Item mall, well this all depends on you... I spend real money in the game also but not as everyone spent a lot more... For me you can be a to player if you really know how was the cycle in the game... and if you think you can't afford to buy in real money or through item mall, there's a lot to do in the game to gain gold, then you can buy it in game.... you just need to exert an effort to Craft,Fishing or any activity to earn gold.

I totally agree with u

I am level 50 but my weapon is still 35+3

sucks me

Monster are even better than me

U are kinda fun /////

^ spam post from the aionfan...

BTW... additional tip for non item mall buyer who are 100+... in mycenae blessing licenses are around 500-550m. around 700m I think for war pack

wanted board per day = 8m gold in total. in 30 days = 240m

trading post per day = 10-20m.  and in 30 days thats = 300-600m

+all the indy dungeons per day in which boxes can amount to 50m + for 90 94 and 98 if you can solo all dungeons.

that's 1.5 already

That covers war pack, bless license and some gear ups if you don't mall.

This game is still playable without item mall.. just additional grind. ^^

^lol.  You must play on a dead server.  I get 7 mil of the trading post on a good day.  Usually it's only 3 million.

And the problem isn't on the item I trade.  I trade different item for all 3 of my characters everyday.

Fortunately the blessing license and warrior package is cheaper on my server.

If you want my tip is dont' use warrior package.  And dont' even use blessing license unless you play alot per day.  I mean really, if you make only 1.5 billion a month, better use it to upgrade your gear.

AO is an impressive cash shop game.

But don´t let you trick by some posts here.
The game does not begin at level 110, it begins at level 1.
And the cash shop is the most expensive if have ever seen. And this is a dilemma for me. I totally recommend this game, if you are 30+ and the twitch-based games are too fast. So many good ideas; imagine Blizzard would make a quest at level 60 "give 10 Gold or an item worth it to a character below level 20", reward would be 15g. You as a newbie would wonder, what a friendly community it is.

But the item shop...
You can upgrade your mercenaries, when they reach level 20. At this point you get a first feeling, how rich you are.
At level 50 not only you can upgrade your mercs again with rare stones, you can hire a merc named beastmaster. This lady not only neads 50 special stones at level 20, or 50 very rare stones at 50, she has an interesting AoE spell. To upgrade this spell you have to... well I used the item shop and sold a blessing license for 390million gold.

"the only people who complain, use item shop"
This is an interesting statement. Cash shops are mostly "money vs time". do you have the time to play or do you have the money to pay? This time it is "hardcore" to pay the money.

im currently at level 63 and i have yet to use the item mall. gold is surprisingly easy to make in this game. and if you can earn in-game gold, you can buy stuff  people who use the item mall sell in the market. of course the downside with not using the item mall is simply taking more time to get better equipment and other items.

And of course you had 700-800 Ashen Crystals to upgrade your mercenaries at level 50. Did you farm them? Because the stamina-system is a bit tricky. Plus after hunting several mobs in the same location you get a penalty.

Or did you buy them? 700x5000g = 3.500.000gold

Or do you craft lvl60 weapons? ~1 million g for resources for a stack of 10

Did you find enough Enchant stones to upgrade the Equipment boxes and crafted items around lvl 50? If not: 20000-30000 each box

Yes, there is much to do. It just may take a bit longer without cash. :)

yup... all previous statements are correct. with regards to item mall... it is just money vs time. I suggested buying warpack either via IM or ingame cuz it saves time for players with high play time. you can just tele automatically to the floor of dung and back to town for questing. also healthcheck minimizes the time spent on mobs because you can cycle through you mercs choosing what skills/ attacks to use depending on the monsters remaining hp. Also the auto-search licenses speeds up the turns used. and patrol is for those quests wherein you need to kill specific monsters so you can check which mobs to attack for further efficiency. Almost all high level players use war pack. that's why aside from bless licenses it is the only thing i buy from IM. I only play around 2-6hours a day depending on my schedule. an all these is just to speed things up in game. It shows in the settings menu that my total online time is 1 month and 26 days. not totally in league with the beta players and gamers around 1 year ago but i just started playing 04/27/2009 and Im now 117 going 118. not bad for my play time i think. ^^

In PVP, if your opponent purchased a Blessing License it would be disregarded since in PVP only the power of your equipments work and also your own power. :D Licenses and Titles don't take effect in PVP. :D

Main lvl 120, rest mercs 109-117.  Division 1.

Never used Item Mall, thats how much it matters.

Took me longer to get to where I am, but if people don't want to put the time and effort to make a good party they can either use IM or they can go play a game that isn't a RPG.

How much? while waiting for the server to up, it was really matter if the item for Druid can only be obtain in the IM..... like other players we expect that  recruiting this new Class A merc would be difficult but if true that the item would only be available in IM well too bad for us... :(

Originally posted by Myrean

How much? while waiting for the server to up, it was really matter if the item for Druid can only be obtain in the IM..... like other players we expect that  recruiting this new Class A merc would be difficult but if true that the item would only be available in IM well too bad for us... :(

I think that it is available in the coyote valley dung.. Druid recruitments I mean. But I hear it's a very difficult dung.