Economy

This is a short run-down for new players on what to expect from ARs economy.

## Availability

Sources for items influence their availability and prices. The following sources are known:

### Real money store

the developers do need some income, so some things are only available in the real money store. While not of the pay-to-win variety, AR still has some things - like the loot collecting pets - that are very useful for a nice game experience. Others are merely cosmetic like skins for your character. One central element of AR is the enhancing of gear with shards and gems. Gems again can be enhanced by dust. While all these can be laboriously found within the game, shards and dust may also be bought at the real money shop, easing along the game of these rich kids. In consequence gear that has been enhanced by shards or dust is account bound and not tradable between players. As are most other things bought at the store. Otherwise this would create a black market. Please be aware that while bronze shards are cheap (and useless) high level shards do get expensive (~100€).

### Mining/Woodcutting/Fishing

Two option are available when selection a resource:

1. Do-it-yourself: on the plus side this means that you will also get experience in the relative skill. On the minus side you will have to spend some time with your character not fighting or running around but waiting. Usual tools (pick,hatchet,rod) will allow collection of 100 pieced of ore, wood or fish, taking about 5 to 15 seconds per piece. This is somewhat boring as you have to reissue the command to continue mining/cutting/fishing about every ten minutes. Higher skill levels allow for shorter waits and increase quality for woodcutting and fishing. Paying for superior tools in the real money store helps too.
2. Hire workers to get the resource: while this costs some money and allows for collection of up to 1000 pieces of the resource in one go it only is possible after you have learned the relevant skill to the necessary level. Elite workers may be payed extra credits to get some additional experience.

### Gathering

In contrast to ore/wood/fish plants are gathered while running around and clicking on the icons of the plants that are growing all over the country. Each plant has to be found, clicked on twice, run to and then gathered. This takes about 3-15 seconds depending on the plant and the area. There is no option to hire workers. Plants are the basis for lined armament for mages. To reach a skill of 80 in weaving to produce the higher level items it takes about 150000 pieces of cotton equivalent to about a week of non-stop gathering 24/7. In consequence plants fetch high prices at the market (see below) and are an easy way to make money for new players (and spend money for rich high-level mages).

### Loot

1. Mobs will drop a wide range of items when killed. The range might be seen by clicking on the question mark icon at a mob. They may be food, gems, shards, dust, jewelry, hides, feathers or a range of items that read "nothing useful, but perhaps a merchant will be interested in purchasing". In fact NPC merchants will buy anything, even burnt fish. Every shop will buy any item regardless of their own stock. Prices are the same at every shop and in addition this price is also the lowest allowed price at the market place. So you are not allowed to gift away valuable items.
2. Players in some circumstances also drop loot when killed, but never equipable or account-bound stuff. No loophole there.

### Production workbench

Connect to the skills in crafting there are places in the cities in AR where you can smelt ore, forge weapons and arms, cook fish, work wood, weave cloth, fletch arrows and tailor arms. According to your skill level and the materials new items can be produced. Production is again by workers, these are the same workers as can be hired for mining/woodcutting/fishing. Without paying monthly fee in the real money store you only have three workers, Please keep some things im mind to not be disheartened during the game:

* The item crafting tree in AR is rather small compared to other crafting oriented games.
* All items of a type are the same. There is nothing unique. Even your first lovingly crafted steel bow will just be called "steel bow", will have the same statistics as any other from the shop and will be indistinguishable from others of its kind in your inventory. On the plus side this allows for a low bandwidth online game (I guess).
* Production of high level items can be slow, taking several hours to finish a batch of 10 pieces.
* Some lower level items will also be available as loot. Be prepared to tailor a leather helmet after tanning the hide and using thread woven from cotton and metal ingots, molten from coal and ore, taking several hours to complete the process, and then meet your fellow adventurer who killed ten dozens of mobs in as many minutes and looted a small handful of helmets in the process.
* Even worse: for lower level items you might as well gather cotton for half a minute, sell it at the marketplace (see below) and buy the helmet at the shop.
* Crafting at lower levels is mainly for the experience gain in skill levels. Most items will be sold to NPC shops.

### Dismantle

It is possible to dismantle some items to get resources or repair parts.

### Quests and tasks

Quests sometimes and tasks nearly always do give items. Usually you will have to kill some mobs, find some items or deliver some of the "nothing useful" loot items. In exchange you will get a chest. The contents are randomized and increasing in value according to the difficulty of the task but always contain some credits (between 100 and about 200000 depending on the level ), gems, repair parts for arms and weapons, worker speedups, potions, fish, shards and tokens. No equipment or jewelry are given.

### Shops

Shops are distinguished by their wares. Some shops are unique while other shops may be found at different places. Regardless of their own wares you can sell anything at any shop. It is also possible to sell account bound items to NPCs at the shops.

1. Food, tools, capes, scrolls can be bought and sold at several shop. Prices are fixed. Purchase prices are 60% from sales prices.
2. Weapons and armament are sold at their respective shop type for the levels of bronze, iron and steel. Prices are fixed and there never is a shortage. Even if you can buy/sell an item it does not mean that you can use it, as there are level restriction. Black gear can only be looted and not produced. From Mithril onward gear cannot be bought at shops and Dianium can only be produced by players and traded at the market place to other players.
3. At the token shop the tokens from daily task can be exchanged for worker speedups, teleport scrolls, potions, items to change name and appearance and skin items. In addition you can exchange demonic blood which is needed in crafting of demonic gear. All there items, the tokens themselves and the chest they stem from are account bound and not tradable.

### Marketplace

The marketplace is often abbreviated to "mp"

Here players can trade items for credits. Account bound items cannot be traded. This is a sellers market in the way that is only possible to offer a selected amount of items for a price chosen by the seller. There no element of bidding or auctioning. When buying the whole stack must be bought. A 5% fee is collected by the market. The offer is valid for 48h or until retraced. If sold the seller has to go to the shop to claim his money.

Please be aware that the price at the market place is what the seller thinks he should be paid not the real value. High prices will be possible for items that are in high demand and/or low supply due to low drop chance as loot, especially some jewelry, or hard to get like plants and some skins.

Two restriction do influence the marketplace:

1. Each character has only five slots (unless he pays a monthly real money fee). This leads to only high-price items been traded in general. In addition prices are high, as players usually do not bother to trade at the mp when not for a significant gain.
2. The maximum number of items in a slot is regulated. For arms and weapons this is one, which is OK. But fish can only be traded up to 100 per slot, as can many of the crafting items.

At the market you will not find everything you need, as only items are available, that someone else wants to sell and had the slots available.

Additionally the marketplace is the only (sure) way to transfer items to other players or different alts of the same player. These transfers are usually very low priced and it is considered bad gameplay to buy (snipe) these items.

### Special occasions

Sometimes for events special items are infused into AR. Usually these events are Christmas and Halloween and the items include candies, presents, raffle tickets, capes, headgear and/or mounts. Presents and candies can be gained from monsters. Ticket will be found form opening presents while capes, headgear and mounts are exchanged for presents/tickets/candies. Presents and mounts cannot be sold at the mp but the other items are sold at mp/NPCs and fetch rather high prices depending on rarity. All items are only cosmetic in their value within the game mechanic.