Curse

TopGun · May 27, 2005, 01:00 AM // 01:00

This thread was started in order to compile tips which will allow us to increase out bankroll.

Granted, the first rule of the fight club is to not talk about the fight club, but if anyone has any good money-making ideas which could help the community, that would be great.

I'll start!

You can play the commerce game if you're good at it. Districts are the best thing that ever happened to the financial aspect of an MMO-type game: Advertise your product for 5min per district, and run around Ascalon in each active district trying to purchase materials cheap. Some players are stupid enough to sell them to you cheaper than a trader will buy 'em.

Overprice your wares to start. When someone says "Wow, you're a dumbass, no thanks," lower the price for them to something more reasonable. But the fact of the matter is that a lot of very wealthy players will run around the game dishing out oodles of cash for even blue items.

Kill shit. If you hate grinding, then tough luck.

Learn to sell stuff the right way. DO NOT USE "WTS, WTB, PST," EVER. A lot of players understand your lingo, granted, but you sound a lot more mature when you type out "Looking to sell off a Longsword, priced at 500 Gold, send me a whisper if you're interested; I'm by the Merchant." There are two advantages to doing this: Firstly, you sound like you're older then ten, and secondly, you use more words, thus making your block of text in the chat window larger. This makes it more probable for someone to actually read your message, as its BIG, and thus will get more attention.

DON'T TYPE IN CAPITALS.

Use correct grammar, you should.

/\/0 1337!!!

Use exclamation points! Its a subtle way for your words to sound exciting! A good reader will make a sentence sound better with exclamation points at the end! Do not over-use exclamation points! This will annoy people!

Don't ramble on JUST for length. Say what you have to say and no more. We don't need to hear about your girlfriend's boobs or the fact that your mommy hates you. Quite frankly, the general populace doesn't give a ****. So don't bother telling your life story.

Don't flame people. If someone says something you don't like, ignore it, go to another district, advertise elsewhere. Flaming will only reduce the number of your potential customers.

Use whatever color everyone ISN'T using. Its okay to advertise a product on "ALL" chat, its okay to advertise a product on "SALE" chat. If people are talking on ALL, use SALE, if people are selling a lot of stuff on SALE, use ALL so your words stand out in the differnet colored font.

Know your audience. It can be a tactic to WHISPER your target players when selling your items- but it can also be annoying. If you're selling a sword, whisper an appropriately leveled warrior with your offer. This tactic often doesn't work in Guild Wars because whispers look too much like party chat, and the point of this is to be able to stand out in the chat window, so you may want to use this tip sparringly because many players find it quite annoying.

When in a crowd of players, /JUMP! ...okay, so this isn't of that much worth, but if you need to draw attention to yourself, it tends to work better than /dance.

HOCK IT. Ask teammates for their vendor trash (crud items worth 3gp that only vendors will take) and they may give it to you, as it may free up their inventory space. You can then hock it at a vendor.

If you're pre-searing, keep killing grawls for their armor and salvaging it. You can accumulate massive amounts of materials post-searing this way.

Morgan19 · May 27, 2005, 01:06 AM // 01:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by TopGun

Use whatever color everyone ISN'T using. Its okay to advertise a product on "ALL" chat, its okay to advertise a product on "SALE" chat. If people are talking on ALL, use SALE, if people are selling a lot of stuff on SALE, use ALL so your words stand out in the differnet colored font.

I disagree with that one. If anything, IMO that's akin to TYPING ALL IN CAPS or overusing exclamation points. The trade channel, spammed though it may sometimes be, is there for a reason.

Definitely agree with the "use complete sentences instead of WTB/S" line, though. I don't know how many times I've sent out "WTB itemXYZ" and get a bunch of "how much do you want for it?!" replies in return...

m19

Mr. Matt · May 27, 2005, 01:07 AM // 01:07

I find that you get more success with a remotely entertaining sales pitch rather than the standard "thing for sale, will take 1,000,000g".

For instance, when my character in pre-searing wants to sell dye, he may say something like, "Does your face look like it's been hit by a double-decker bus? Make it nicer to look at with some pink dye! Only 400,000g!" or "Spice up your love life TODAY! Paint your parts mangy green for only 9,278,753,293,752.9g!". I type out a few different ones and then cycle through them on the different districts until I hook a buyer. I found it easier to sell with something different than with something which looks the same as everything else. Even people who aren't necessarily interested in what I have to sell sometimes take notice.

TopGun · May 27, 2005, 03:12 AM // 03:12

lol Matt, I should try throwing some Dane Cook into one of my pitches.

MasterDana · May 27, 2005, 03:28 AM // 03:28

i use the WTS thing. When i do, i include a description of the item and the price. ex. "WTS Rare Ebon Summit Axe of Fortitude! 6-19 earth damage, damage +11% while enchanted, +24 health. 1,200 gold!"

Zorax · May 27, 2005, 03:57 AM // 03:57

You write a long description but are too lazy so not use WTS? I think if you can write a good description, you can avoid using WTS as well.

zatch · May 27, 2005, 06:17 AM // 06:17

The use of WTS and WTB is often necessary, they are abbreviations that allows you to use up the limited message-length with more useful information such as magical properties, atrribute requirements, etc...

Also, please don't promote the use of Local chat instead of Trade chat. As more and more people spam buy and sell orders in local chat, it becomes more and more difficult to form parties, one of the key aspects of GW gameplay. You shouldn't have to sift through a sea of buy/sell orders in local chat just to find somebody who is looking for a group.

Other than that, the suggestions are decent and will definitely lead to success through higher profit-margins, but the dishonesty of such practices will not earn you a good reputation and, at least in my case, I'd rather make people happy than swindle them for a quick buck.

Cheers to Mr. Matt for promoting humour in the otherwise frustrating mob of ugly-looking buy/sell messages.

The IOU · May 27, 2005, 06:27 AM // 06:27

I don't mind WTB and WTS and don't think it is "wrong" to use it.

Let's say I am a person who wants to Buy a weapon. If I see
"WTB: XXX"
"WTS: XXX"
"WTB: XXX"
"WTB: XXX"
"WTB: XXX"

Then I just saved myself, as a buyer, 4 lines of reading...if anything this saves your buyers time as well as yours.

cyberzomby · May 27, 2005, 07:16 AM // 07:16

yes, wts and wtb is handy to see, when im out in Lions Arch selling, i just mind the WTB to lines in order to see if anyone is interesting in my stuff.
And the All chat is not used because u bug the ones that blocked the trade chat
but for the rest, a very helpfull post, thank you

TopGun · May 28, 2005, 02:54 PM // 14:54

What if you put:

(WTB) Buying xxx... etc.

Put the WTB/WTS in the beginning, then type out your message.

$php_lover · May 28, 2005, 03:21 PM // 15:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by TopGun

What if you put:

(WTB) Buying xxx... etc.

Put the WTB/WTS in the beginning, then type out your message.

Heheh, why not just type something like below.
"Selling a XXX. Attributes: XX XX. Price: XX"
"Buying a XXX. Attributes: XX XX. Price: XX"

Stev0 · May 28, 2005, 03:25 PM // 15:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by TopGun

Use whatever color everyone ISN'T using. Its okay to advertise a product on "ALL" chat, its okay to advertise a product on "SALE" chat. If people are talking on ALL, use SALE, if people are selling a lot of stuff on SALE, use ALL so your words stand out in the differnet colored font..

ummm ... NO! You should use the goddamn trade channel and be considerate of others. The trade channel is there for a reason. If you are THAT greedy to put your person above others then you should be broken in half.