WARNING: Wall of text ahead.

We learned a lot about this over the past week, and heres a lit of things that I think is going to help us out in the money department:

1. Dont sell everything!
This may sound contrary to the goal of making money, but I can assure you that it isnt. Crafting is a huge part of the game. It takes GARGANTUAN amounts of time and money to do, but ultimately is ridiculously profitable. Even from low levels, the items you gather and get from drops are going to be important to people. For example:

-Aria, which is the first thing you gather, is a crucial ingredient for making potions. Its not hard to gather, but it is time consuming. So imagine how far ahead of the game our player who has taken up the alchemy craft (potion/scroll making) is going to be when he doesnt have to go spend 2 hours at a time gathering to make potions for us because we all saved out low level harvests.

-Iron ore, which is the first metal you harvest, is critical for making chain and plate armor all the way up to level 20. Now sure, you can get armor from drops, which is semi-rare, or you can buy it from the shop. However, having been the resident armorsmith in open beta and combed through every recipe for gear and the stats it turns out, I can tell you that even the most basic armor that can be crafted (non-special) has better stats than most of the dropped/bought armor. If we had 10 people save up 100 iron ore by the time they reach level 20, our armorsmith could make a complete set of armor for all 10 people, and still have enough left over to craft 10-15 extra pieces, sell them, and put some money in the legion bank.

-Fluxes are a key component to making EVERYTHING you wear. Doesnt matter what type of armor, what type of jewelery, what type of weapon. Everything requires fluxes. These start dropping from level 10 mobs and up. This was another problem we had. Nobody took up crafting until we hit 20 or so, so we had sold all of our fluxes along the way. So this meant that when we needed them, we had to go farm for them, which took precious time away from being able to quest, pvp and do other fun things. Had we saved them the whole time, we would have saved hours and hours of time, not to mention all the money we spent on buying them from the market when we didnt have time to farm.

2. Always ask people before selling
This is a two part deal. First, someone might need it, and we're here to help each other out. Second, someone might know more about it than you do. So say you get a drop and appraise it at the store for 500 kinah. Then you ask around and one of us tells you "that sells on the trade broker for 50k." How bad would you be kicking yourself if you had sold it for 1/100th the money you could have actually made? We all did that lots during the beta and it bit us in the backside a lot.

3. Know the ropes.
Keep certain things in mind:

-Sure, you can fly from one end of the map to the other in 30 seconds, but it costs you money. Do you need that money, or will you later on? Is it worth the trade for a two minute walk? Are there quests along the way you could do that would make walking more profitable?

-Taking up a craft is EXPENSIVE. I got armorsmithing up to 175 skill points (maximum is 400) and it cost me over 500,000 kinah in materials and took me over 8 SOLID hours of grinding it. To master a skill (get it to 400) costs approximately 5 million kinah in materials. And its not fun. You stand there and repeat the same process literally a thousand times before you even reach a 50 skill level. Theres little to no interaction. You just buy the materials, click the "craft all" button and wait until its done. Rinse and repeat endlessly.

-AionArmory is your friend. This valuable web based asset has every quest, every mob, every drop, every recipe and every location in the game current to 1.5. Use it.
-Dont waste time if you dont have to. It's fun exploring, and have at it. What I'm referring to is when you're questing and you arent sure of what to do, follow the simple steps:

• Open your quest journal and read the quest dialogue.
• If you're confused as to where to find a mob, location or NPC for a quest, you'll notice that it's name is underlined and in blue lettering on the quest description. Clicking on any of these will bring you to a sub-screen that has a "locate" button on it. 90% of the time, you'll get an indicator on your map and radar telling you where to go. This is especially for quest-mob farming as the indicator on your radar shifts after each one you kill to show the next closest quest-related mob target of the same kind.
• Ask us. Most of us have been through at least the 1-25 level progression 3-5 times. Most of us know the quests like the back of our hands. Rei even knows the in-game time that a lot of the quest mobs spawn at! Our depth of knowledge is pretty severe, and putting it to good use is going to save you loads of time.
• Slow down. Not everything has to be done at a lightning pace, and youll often find that when you try to play that way, you miss crucial steps and then have to go back and waste time.

3. Play the market.
This is simple and we were doing it like pros during the beta. So you're selling an item on the market and want to know how to price it? Two things to ask:
-How many are there already there?
-How much money do I have?

Both equally important. Take the level 25 Stigma Stone "inescapable justice" for templars. This was selling for anywhere from 200k-400k on the market and wasnt fluctuating because its so rare. Every once in a while, some poor soul would toss one up for 50 or 100 grand and we'd buy it up and sell it for 200+ (usually in less than an hour too). Instant profit of 100-150k. Not too shabby if you have the spare coin for the initial buy. The other method is undercutting the competition. Need the money fast? Price it less than the competition on the market. Yours will sell first and then you can invest the money in other things.

4. Crafting
Ah, the good stuff. Crafting is essential for any legion to really thrive in Aion. People need good armor. People need good weapons. People need good potions and buffs. Crafting gives you these things and more. As I said earlier, its expensive, but it can make you a lot of money in the end. I chose armorsmithing for my profession, and heres the basic breakdown:

To craft anything, you need the following:
-Base materials, which are bought from the market, gathered, or gained from drops.
-Refining materials, which are bought from your specific crafting store.
-Recipes, which are bought from your crafting store, the market, or gained from drops.
-Appropriate skill level.
-Time.

I'll give you an example.
A full set of level 23 titanium plate armor, which consists of 6 parts (gloves, boots, pants, chestpiece, helmet, pauldrons) requires me to gather 82 titanium pieces, which then have to be refined into titanium ignots using charcoal at 383 kinah each (do the math, its expensive). The ignots are then crafted, using titanium acid at 294 kinah each, into titanium plates of 3 sizes and titanium wire. The plates and wire are then combined with 13 armor flux and 4 accessory flux (which are drop/market bought items) and 40 aether crystals (which I also have to harvest) to produce the 6 pieces of armor.

Oh yeah, and your armorsmithing skill level has to be a minimum of 150 for that set, but realistically 170+ if you want to guarantee success on every piece (yes, crafting can fail on ANYTHING if you dont have well over the skill required to do it. general rule of thumb is this: base required level=50% failure chance. base level+10 levels=10% failure chance. base level+20 levels=100% success rate.). It also requres a gathering skill of over 100 for the titanium gathering and an aether gathering skill of over 100 to gather crystals. (total time to grind all of those skills to appropriate levels: 20 hours of play time)

Each of these pieces has a 30% chance of going to an advanced state, making the piece that much better and more valuable (the levels are as such: white is basic, non-special drops. green is boosted stats, one bonus stat and one extra manastone slot. blue is double boosted stats, two bonus stats and two extra manastone slots. gold is triple stats, 3 bonus stats and 3 extra manastone slots). So if im crafting a white item, it can go green. If im crafting a green item, it can go blue, etc. Only one transition is possible though, so you cant start with a white item and have a gold one at the end, the best you're getting is green.

So that whole process takes approximately 40 minutes from start to finish, not counting the materials gathering time, which can take HOURS without help. It also costs roughly 80,000 kinah. So why would I waste that much time? Easy: a regular piece of armor can sell for 50k. a green piece can sell for 80-100k. So even if i dont pop any greens (which is just unlucky, but it happens), I sell the whole set for 300k, making a net profit of 220k. This means that 5 sets of armor could buy us a level 3 legion. It also means that as I make craploads of money, I dont have to spend as much time farming and can just buy materials off the market, making it easier and faster for me to churn out new equipment for my legion-mates as we progress.

That brings me to my final point about crafting: if you're going to craft for profit, do it on the market. Dont try and make money off of your legion mates. It's not cool and causes problems in the long run. Take it in trade. I made meatwad a badass set of armor, which cost me at least 100k and god knows how much time. But I didnt take a penny for it. Instead, I gathered materials he needed to pay me back by making me potions. I did the same thing for Unload, and in return he used his armorsmithing to craft me a supremely deadly polearm.

If we start charging each other, eventually someone is going to get vindictive and we dont need that. Also, put your own people first when you can. Not all the time, but if you can afford to make two sets of armor (one intended for a legion mate and one for the market) and you wind up with green pieces, give them to the legion first. It may not make you as much money, but you're sure going to be glad when the gladiator in the blue armor you made him runs up and saves you from getting ganked because hes got top quality gear.

So thats a big chunk of it. I'm sure theres plenty I left out, but thats why I wasnt the only one playing the beta.