This is a guide by Torak, designed to assist players in making Adena.

Please feel free to contribute your own ideas and methods, however since this is sticky it MUST remain helpful and ON TOPIC!

Any attempts to turn this into pro or anti ANYTHING will be harshly dealt with. You have been warned

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Making money in Lineage II starting out

While on my anti- farmer / bot crusade I started thinking that anyone can cry foul but in my (RL) career field one is expected to not only find deficiencies but solutions as well. So after looking at the problem of the bot/farmer I really have to ask ?why does anyone really need to buy the currency in first place??

One of the most common complaints about Lineage II is its difficult economy. I agree that it is out of whack in SOME respects but it is a player driven economy. I started to look a bit closer. The revelation that struck me was that there is very little need for a great portion of the player driven portion of the economy to begin with. ?WHAT, are you insane?!? You cry out.
Let me explain. I will approach this from the new player prospective.

From levels 1 ? 25 there is the Newbie helper. He trades the value of your gear and then charges the difference in price for newer gear up to top No Grade Gear. This works out very well in the favor of the player. Also in each starter area there are quest to do that provide Soul Shot. The amount provided is enough to get a player to about level 17 or so. That eliminates a large expense up front. The helper also provides free ?buffs? to speed up the lower level grind. There are also ?Weapon Quests? to do at roughly level 10 in most of the starter areas that provide a fairly nice weapon for the level range. I used my ?Silversmith Hammer? until level 22 with my first character but that is another story lol.

Quote from the Lineage II official page

1. Additional Quest Rewards
Characters designated as new characters, if they perform certain quests, will receive additional quest rewards that are not given to the other characters. Fighters receive 13,000 No Grade Soul shots, and Mystics receive 6,000 No Grade Spirit shots. They receive Soul shots and Spirit shots twice: when they begin the game for the first time, and when they perform the weapon quest around level 10. In addition, these new characters will receive more rewards in many quests.

Once at level 20 and after doing your first class transfer quest, a player is eligible to start doing the ?Seven Signs? event. This ongoing event allows you to hunt in dungeons where the mobs drop ?Seals? These seals can be traded in at the end of the week for what?s called ?Ancient Adena?. What can you do with Ancient Adena? Well you can find an NPC at the end of the event week named the Blacksmith of Mammon. He will take your current weapon and trade it for a better weapon with a cost difference not in regular adena, but Ancient Adena! Basically its free weapon upgrades for as long as you can stand to hunt in the Catacombs. (See event descriptions)

I would strongly recommend that anyone read up on the ?Seven Signs? event that is interested in playing or just plain old ?stuck? on the economy of Lineage II.

That?s fine and dandy but that only solves the weapon portion, what about the rest, you say? The biggest recurring expense of ANY character is Soul Shot. Soul Shot can run you millions into the hole. Now I am not going to tell you to hunt without it, especially solo. I feel your pain with the grind. So how can you help alleviate that expense?

It?s a simple answer some of you may not want to hear:

Make a Dwarf.

At level 20 a Dwarf gains the ability to craft D grade Soul Shot. At level 36 they gain C grade Soul Shot and so on. You can cut you Soul Shot cost by roughly 55- 60% by crafting it yourself. Can you use that sort of discount?
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Example
At level 30 I got a D grade Pike as a drop. By crystallizing it I got 1170 D grade crystals. Each Crystal yields 154 DSS. That comes out to 180,180 DSS. Now to make those I need to buy Soul Ore from the NPC shop. 3 soul ore (the base unit for 154) cost 876 adena. That works out to 1,024,920 total cost. (Now, of course you can not craft 180k DSS in one day lol it?s going to take a long time to craft that much) Compare that to the cost of buying DSS from a player at 12 adena each, it works out to 2,162,160. On my server the price of DSS is averaging around 13 each which is 2,342,340. That?s a pretty big savings. Roughly 1.3 million adena, I don?t know about you but I could always use that sort of extra adena rather then handing it out to other players.

Needless to say, you won?t ever need to buy DSS from another player again!
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The main problem with this is getting the initial drops. Drops really start happening for players when they start hitting their mid 20?s or so and its usually lower D grade items like Puma Armor and things like that. Fine, crystallize them. The point is to get away from paying other players the market cost of SS. You will still need to do it, especially starting out but I am here to tell you that I have never ever bought SS from another player once I did this consistently.
The other reason you may want a Dwarf is this. Drops are fine. Had I taken that D Grade Pike and tried to sell it I would NOT have gotten the value of it. It sells in NPC shops for about 800,000 adena. Now unless a no ? brain ebayer buys it at that price, you are NOT going to be selling it at that price. You will need to sell lower, especially if you expect it to move in a reasonable amount of time. The fact of the matter is the weapon has a very low ?street? value. D grade crystals however have a much better and CONSISTANT value because they are consumable. They are always in demand. Crystallization is a very important skill to have access to.
The math basically replicates itself throughout the game at every grade. The obstacle you are likely to hit at C grade is the availability of drops at first.

Everything else you do at this point simply supplements your income. I found that selling Weapon Enchants is very profitable. You get them by using ?blank? scrolls from the Seven Signs dungeons and, once again, Ancient Adena.
If you follow this, all that really remains is Armor as your main Adena expense and some of the consumables like ?healing potions? and ?Scrolls of Escape? which are more or less negligible. Armor is comparatively inexpensive. A C grade suit of ?Composite Armor? cost on average two million Adena. That is a level 40 suit. It is completely able to get you into the upper level 50?s. I?ve talked with people who said they used it to level 60.

Here are some other tips.
? Do not buy anything from players at D grade. It?s a total and complete waste of money. You will not use D grade long enough to justify buying over enchanted top D grade weapons at 3 to 6 million apiece. Save that money for C grade.
? Buying weapons. Why buy weapons for regular Adena when you can trade up with the Blacksmith of Mammon with Ancient Adena? Leave you regular adena alone, stop wasting it.
? Wasting money on top D grade gear. You see a lot of people running around in D grade ?Brigandine?. The suit (breastplate and pants) run about 550,000 (give or take) plus the cost of the shield. The suit gives a very nice bonus but here is the catch. There is NO bonus until you have the FULL suit which includes a Brig Helmet. Brig helmets are crafted by players and run anywhere from 1 to 2 MILLION adena. So?the suit is a waste for a starter character. You can easily use/buy a full Mithril suit (mid D grade) for half the price and get all the parts from the NPC shop. (Breastplate, pants, shield and helm) and it has a nice ?Hit Point? bonus on it as well.
? Watch your TELEPORT cost!!!! Porting around carelessly can kill your savings pretty damn fast. Pick your level area town and stick to it. Run if you have to, the world of Lineage II is fairly safe to traverse if you stick to the roads.

Really what you are doing is becoming as self sufficient as possible.

Hopefully at this point you have done THE most important thing in Lineage II along the way and that is to make some friends and contacts. I can?t teach you to be social, either you are or you are not. If you plan on being anti-social and soloing Lineage II, I wish you luck, enjoy the free first 30 days because you aren?t getting much farther then that.

All of this takes Time and a bit of Luck. There is no fast and easy way in Lineage II. There are many other games on the market if you want ?fast and easy right now? style of play.

This post, by far, is not the only way to do things in Lineage II. Part of what makes L2 great is that there is no ?one? way of doing things. There is no single best hunting spot, there is no single best town, there is no single best dungeon and there is no single best class. It?s a large living world that you must carve out your own way. What works for me, may not work so well for you. If you want the best gear right now, Lineage II is not your game. Then again, no MMO is. The nice thing about L2 is that you are not forced into any one particular activity to get the best stuff. You can craft it, you can raid for it, you can also buy it. The freedom is there, don?t abuse it and use your head.

In the end, don?t support the farmer. Only you can make that choice. If no one bought currency from them, they would have no reason to farm. It?s in your hands. Many other people have a lot of great ways of making money in L2, learn.

Good Hunting!
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Originally Contributed by Torak

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for those who were also a bit confused,


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Originally posted by Gameloading
for those who were also a bit confused,


? = '

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Yeah, I noticed that. Not sure what happened there

This site is a bit quirky.

I cant even cut and paste porperly 

I got something too add that I did all the time if you are not a dwarf and don't want to level one up:

First find out what your server is in most need of for basic materials (that is your varnish, iron ore, coal, charcoal, steel, etc.)

Then go to Gludin and set up a buy shop for a really cheap price to buy.

Then go to Giran and look around for the shop that you can sell for the most (this doesn't take long BUT sometimes people have buy shops with no words - CHECK THESE STORES OUT AS WELL - because sometimes you may get lucky and get some nice prices from *cough*adena farmers*cough*. Trust me I have gotten really lucky).

And keep doing the cycle, you can easily just set up a buy shop and left it up for a bit or whenever your afk. You could also if you do not want to move your main, create an alt and put some money on him, go to Gludin and try it out. Then once you get a lot, just sell and then use freight system.

Shame on you Torak,

adena making guide and you didn't ask me for help. Shame shame on you, I go pk you now on Teon. go go go go PK go go go go go. Thorakk DIES TONIGHT. Thorakk must die muhahaha.

Here are some of my strategies, also did I ever send you that link of my money making tips that I made? It wasn't a link, it was an excel spreadsheet. Oh my I just checked my email, I never sent that to you. omg.

I'm going to vomit some tips on how to make cash.

Hey guys,  
 
I have a few strategies that I use frequently to make some money. I hope this helps a few people start making money.  
 
Strategy #1:
Buy shop/sell shop:
 
Last night i saw someone selling S crytsals for 41.5k, and right next to him someone as buying S crystals for 43k. I checked to make sure to see how many he was buying. It was 500, i bought 500 S crystals at 41.5k and i sold em to the guy almost next to him for 1.5k profit. It may seem like a small thing, but it's amazing when you don't have money and it gave me 750k profit which I will take any day of the week.  
 
So at times check the mat sellers and the mat buyers about pricing, you may get lucky and find someone screwed up or someone is selling at a price and a buyer is selling at a higher price
 
Strategy #2
Placement
 
If I need to sell something, I try to find a person selling it at an obscene price and then I put just a bit lower. For example, I bought a +2 FP shield for 500k (ridiculously low price), i got it to +3, so my total investment cost was 650k roughly. I found a guy selling FP shield +0 for 4m. I put the shield at 2.99m. Sold it the next morning. I'd never buy an FP shield for more than 1.5m, but If someone didn't know prices, like most of the players on this server, they see our stores, they're like woah, Fatimah is cheap, but in reality i was overpriced but not as much as him.  
 
I forgot to say the strategy, put your sell store right next to them and make sure you have the same item msg ithat they have so if someone does /findprivatestore fp, yours lights up too.  
 
Strategy #3
This is the "I have the item how much do you want for it" trick
 
Basically, since i check every store multiple times, I pretty much know what's on the market, so if someone spams, WTB SoL +10 or more. Which happened, and I know someone has a +16 SoL for 80m near GK. I may say, I have it how much will you pay for it, i'm hoping the guy hasn't seen the store. It sometimes works.  
 
Someone yesterday was WTB yaksa mace, of course some guy had Yaksa in their msg but he didn't see it. I msged him, we agreed on 12m + 3 squash seeds (which one went to waste grrrrrrrrr). I bought it at 13m, sold it to him at 12m and 3 squash seeds.  
 
I'm hoping my 1m for 3 squash seeds investment pays off and i get more than 1m worth. I could get one EWB and i've made money.  
 
Strategy #4
Don't feel afraid to pm the person
 
A lot of times i'll see something I want but i'll pm the guy, even though it's a shop, they sometimes respond and when you talk to a person you can usually lower the price as most rational people aren't patient (a la myself). Plus you make good friends this way too.  
 
Strategy #5
The helmet craze
 
The prices of helmets have increased substantially, the prices are double for B grade basically. So if you find Doom helm recipe/Bw helm recipe, i'd think about purchasing it. 60% is preferable. Then get the mats and craft away. I spent 2-2.5m crafting a doom helmet (60%) in which half the cost was the 1m recipe. I sold it for 6m, making 3.5-4m profit right there. BW sells for like 7-9m, don't bother with FP helm unlessyou have the materials there.  
 
FP helm fluctuates from 3-5m. I've bought and sold that helm multiple times getting 500k to 1.5m profit each time. It's a very easy item to sell and get rid of.  
 
Strategy #6
You never know who is a noob/ebayer
 
If you have someone and they pm you, always give them a ridiculous price just in case they bought the account or are ebayers, when i was selling my top D +10 SoL (that i bought for 20m). I was asking for 40m or best offer. 40m is a ridiculous price to pay but you gotta always try and it usually sets you up to sell at the price. Also, be polite to whoever pms you, someone pmed me, i told him 40m he said he couldnt' afford.  
 
Then he keeps pming me and says 20m + (+3 sol) i say nope and everntually we reached an agreement of 31m and (+3 SoL which i sold for 4.5m). Always recognize who is desperate and who is patient.  
 
Strategy #7
I think everyone should do this
 
I truly believe eveyrone should have a sell shop up 24/7 with all slots filled if possible. At times, I sell the gear that I'm using off my gear at a ridiculous price knowing that I can easily buy it back at a cheaper price. I wouldn't do this with tallum plate armor as that can get tough to find, but FP armor/helm, brig helm, BW stuff, i'll do it every time. Like last night I put up a +4 FP armor for 7m (a bad price, but not as bad as other people putting it up for 7m). I guess I should hvae done that, but then someone bought it for 7m. I know i've seen FP armors +4 for 5m, I've seen FP +0 for 4m which is just 4.5m to get it to +4. So I could replace it easily.  
 
I said what the heck, i put up my maj necklace for 15m, what do i know, someone bought it. I go look in town, see one for 12m, buy it and boom 3m profit.  
 
I wouldn't suggest doing this with weapons, as weapons aren't as liquid.  
 




Strategy #8
Craft soulshots plz.  
 
Don't buy soulshots/spirit shots, just craft it from town,yeah you don't save much , but do it over 1-78 levels and you'll save a crap load. I know i've used easily over 200,000 bss. If crafting bss saves you 6 adena per shot, then you're saving/making 1.2m adena. I know some people don't care, but over time nad the long run this adds up. I wouldn't be surprised if i've used over 500,000 bss.  
 
Strategy #9
buy low/sell high
 
This is a good strategy but be prepared to hold on to things for a long time, this is a more feasible strategy when you have lots of liquid cash, but make sure that you do your market research before hand. Check www.l2wh.com to see price and the trend. I personally make sure the item is very liquid and can sell easily as having inventory pisses me off to no end.  
 
Strategy #10
Check stoes without msgs on them
 
There are many stores you see in giran in which people forgot to put a msg, i check those immediately, because if they made a mistake in price, chances are it won't be picked up. So always check blank msg stores, you never know what you'll find, i've seen things i've been looking for very cheap from stores like that. I mean EAA for 822k is very cheap price, but it stayed up for 24 horus it stil lmay be up, but that store had no msg.  
 
Also, if you see someone make a sell shop right in your face, CHECK IT IMMEDIATELY to catch any mistake they make. I made 1m adena from this, when someone put stem price for 725. So check those stores immediately.  
 
 
Strategy #11
Staticpulse's strategy
 
Set up buyshops, people are always willing to unload stuff for cheap cuz they dont' want to waste time in giran. So if you're logging off everynight cuz you have all your A grade or don't need anything, it's a good idea to set up buy shops in giran for key mats and what not, you could get cheap crafting items and help yourself out. Also, to those who assume they have their A grade they are all set, i think new items are coming out in C5, so you may want to have some cash laying around. Also, i assume once the c5 market hits, there will be a lot of fluctuation, so be prepared to have some cash to own the market.  
 
If i 2-boxed, i'd have one person either in buy mode or selling mode 24/7, I wouldn't have to sell items so cheap either, but alas,  I don't .  
 
Strategy #12
Do your research before you need items
 
If you know you're going to use tallum set at lvl 61, start looking for the items early, you never know what good deals you may find. Perhaps if you buy now, you can save yoursef money later also if you do your research early, you can recognize good deals when they come up. I found tallum boots for 6.5m early on when i was lvl 60 or so and I bought it and it saved me.  
 
Also, it allows you to be patient, if you see an item for a decent price and you're not that level yet and you know that's an average price, wait awhile, if the item doesn't sell the seller often times decreases that price, if you see an item decreasing you may want to email them giving them a lowbie offer so they just get rid of it. Also, take full advantage of those people who've been spamming in giran for hours, they are desperate and you can often times get a really good deal off them.  
 
Strategy #13
Check unfamiliar sellers always
 
I've noticed that in Giran there are 80% of the same people there 24/7. I know which guys actually give relatively good prices for sell/buy.  
 
There was a guy who gave very good prices and very bad prices he was dibanzhuan, but i haven't seen him since the PW fiasco, also Frindd usually buys for a good price, ventiloquist sells for a good price but he buys at a terrible price, him and masochist are brothers i think. Elizabetha right before you enter into crafting corner is horribly overpriced, decbolin or whatever is okay priced, jinwan buys at a decent price. lao4, or lao5 are decent but usually sell the same thing. Kiffy is was overpriced he's shouldn't even be used to measure pricing. I don't have a complete listing but I do know most of the sellers/buyers in giran and if they buy high/low or sell high/low.  
 
Getting back to teh point, if 80% of the population if not more stay the same and sell the same crap and know the prices down to an adena, check the unfamiliar names that you see. You may end up with very good deals or terribly bad deals if you dont' know pricing. I've bought FP helm for 2m, for 2.5m off people like that. I mean some idiot was selling SoM for 55m . . . I make sure to check his store everytime i see it now.  I may just contact him and have him as a supplier.  
 
 
 
NOTE FROM ME:
Be very wary from buying from my sellshops, in general i'm cheaper than most people as I like to get rid of inventory. But there are times, like i've shown above, that I overprice, like the +4 FP armor for 7m. It wasn't a gross overpricing, but about 1-1.5m overprice. 

Ebay.

only way for new players now adays.

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Originally posted by Ravan

Ebay.

only way for new players now adays.

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Wow, then you must be horrible at this game then. I have never ebayed and I am pretty rich. My current character has top C-grade and some have enchants on them and plus I have almost 2.5 mil extra at lvl 42.

Good job Greatness,

Most people ebay and you have top C grade and 2.5m extra at your level. I commend you for doing a great job. And yeah i was tempted by ebay very much, but I stuck to not doing it, but I did have help.

Also, top C grade varies in price depending on what class you choose, if you are a mage, then it's pretty cheap, if you go melee it's kind of expensive.

But good job greatness and to make you feel better, most people do ebay. I had help, when I hit lvl 40 i was able to amass only 6m in net value by myself, it's the price of soloing i guess. Then in got help in the aid of about 25m from a friend and I was able to afford FP set and +4 duals. That took all my money.

From there on out I went from 30m net worth to 450m net worth in 3-4 months, then i got lucky and jumped to 1B then i became stupid and dropped down to around 750-800m. yayayayaya.

Just so you know greatness, if you get lucky you'll be able to afford top B grade, but affording top A grade is a whole new story, it is so expensive it is bloody insane. If you can resist the urge to ebay when you hit A grade then you've done a really good job.

Cryomatrix