How to Trade as a Lower-Level, Single-Class Character, and Alone - By Lanval
The real difficulty with trading isn't the mob factions. They are
easily defeated with a little patience. All one must do is sit still as a
corpse and wait for them to leave. Then, a simple survey of the
horizon reveals the nearest altar. A simple typing of the word "freight"
reveals where precisely the dislodged covered wagon sits patiently.
Horses do not wander far from the original place, either. A moment spent
searching for a horse can save one minutes on the road later on.
The wand of invisibility is also easy enough to acquire, even for
single class players of low level. Shadow cloaks appear on auction now and
again. These are both very acceptable options. Perhaps some
preparation is required, but the moment spent is a few hundred moments saved
later on.
The problem of movement points, with a little patience is also no great
concern. Even people who aren't clerics can tether their freight,
stretch their legs and enjoy the pleasant weather.
Speaking of weather, this problem is also easily solved by a little
patience. Simply paying attention to the weather warns one of imminent
peril from the heavens. Hop off into MedLink before it hits, and viola.
A little patience and the problem goes away by itself.
Evil dragons are also easily disposed with the help of a friendly, good
dragon -- who, like all good beings, is not totally free of greed. If
one is close to a river of water, and levitated, one can also take a
brief sojourn down the lovely and refreshing river until the evil dragon
-- who, like cats, do not enjoy water; perhaps in their sniffing out of
the trail, the water flies up their evil noses and endangers their
inner fires.
Other mobs, like Gnashers and Ogres and such can be annoying and
troublesome, but with some patience, one will resurrect at the nearest altar,
don their shadow cloak, return to the comfort of invisibility, and
continue their sojourn, perhaps treading lighter and faster after such a
harsh lesson.
Yet, despite the ease of avoiding all of these dangerous situations,
for low level, single class players, the thought of a solo trade run is
laughable, and nearly impossible. Patience is the ingredient to
success, and such low level players require VASTLY more patience then the
level 124 Heroes, who hop from Gdangus to the Temple of Thanos as casually
as the rest of us hop to the corner store for a midnight snack of
fudge-covered Oreos. (Don't plead innocent! You know you do it! Blood
runs through your veins and you eat Oreos after midnight and hide the
unfinished from your family and roommates in the freezer behind peas!) In
my own experience, I have noticed that some particular stretches of
road, even without factions, require thirty or forty minutes of intense
frustration thanks to the ever-helpful Phantoms and Deft Highwaymen who
are particularly adept at reminding me that I am in fact a lower level,
single class character who is not cool, not hip, and not any good at
anything but bleeding.
After such informative lessons in humility, I took it upon myself to
find a new way of trading that didn't require... well, patience. I have
a life outside of Medievia that does not really care if my freight is
just slightly far off from my final destination, and valued at 27383 a
unit.
Thus, after some experimentation, I have discovered precisely how a low
level character can trade successfully without tossing their monitor
from the window in frustration. I have taken it upon myself to share
these insights into trading with you. These secrets are quite useless for
high-level multi-class players. They have clans to trade in groups.
They have good equipment, and good experiences trading alone to draw
upon. My article will focus on assisting those players who are frustrated
with trading, at the lower levels, where money matters not only for
equipment and dragon crystals, but for leveling.
About myself, I am a cleric. I am currently level 23. I have
purchased two dragon crystals off auction for over five million coins each.
All of my spells are practiced to superb, because I have figured out how
to make money as a low level, single class player and alone. You can
do this, too. All you have to do is take these words of advice to
heart.
There are three rules you must apply to your trading to succeed as a
low-level, single-class player who prefers to have trade runs that take
less then twelve hours.
First, never get greedy. Remember that mules and packhorses are not
attacked by mob factions when they travel off the roads, and they can
travel overland much faster than a covered wagon can travel on a road. In
the time it takes one to make a single massive run with a covered wagon
from New Ashton to Derah, one can also take a mule from Vanlarra to New
Genesia and back again without mob factions facing, at worst, a baenlyr
or a sunsprite. A mule can travel frighteningly quickly from Riverton
to the Ranger Cabin and back. In the time you do that three times, you
can make more money than if you go for the big haul at De'rah Villedom
which will cost you seven mob factions, some very bad weather, and
gnarly normal mobs. In less then fifteen minutes you can succeed where it
would take you over an hour going for the large haul.
The question I posit here with this rule is this. In solo XP'ing,
players go to a zone that has many mobs that are quickly and easily
vanquished. They don't seek the "large haul" of very powerful foes who might
kill you and will take lots of time and passes to defeat.
Why is trade running different? When you are a low-level, single-class
player and alone, you cannot XP in Thanos. When you are a low-level,
single-class player and alone, you cannot trade from Trellor to Thanos,
either. Do not get greedy. You will make more money -- and have more
fun -- doing shorter trade runs that you can complete quickly, and
repeat, or move on from, with a mule. Even if you die and get sick of
trading, you made more money doing a shorter run, or shorter series of runs
-- having made some money about every five-ten minutes -- then if you
got sick of trading and abandoned your covered wagon with hundreds of
thousands of gold coins invested in it.
You are a low level, and you are alone. You should really consider
taking that mule for your cross-country journey. If you travel along any
road at all, a mob faction might pop, and you will die and might lose
your freight. If you purchase a mule, you can abandon the dangerous
roads for the forests and deserts and mountains. While doing this, one
discovers that traveling as the crow flies leads to vastly lessened
travel times, which helps me as I have little patience for long runs, and
prefer making my money on a series of short runs.
Try this for an experimental starter. Take a dragon to Vanlarra. Get
a steed in the Vanlarra stables. Purchase a mule in Vanlarra and fill
it with something -- anything. Go to Mystara just a hop north. Sell
half the things in your mule. Buy something else for your mule in
Mystara. Travel to Riverton. Sell half of everything in your mule. Buy
some more things. Go to the Ranger Cabin. Sell everything. If you have
been calculating this run, you will notice that in the same amount of
time it took you to slog through mob factions and ogres on your way to
Karlisna from Medievia on the roads, you have made a respectable chunk
of coins. Perhaps you could have made more on a larger run. Yet, you
took less of a risk with this run since the worst mobs you face are
Baenlyrs and the occasional Sunsprite (who, and I cannot stress this point
enough, are not after your freight!). You did not get greedy. Since
you didn't spend half an hour waiting out a Troll mob faction, you even
probably had time left to continue playing the fun game that Vryce has
so miraculously provided us with. Don't get greedy. If you don't, you
can trade run a little every time you play successfully, and it will
add up to more than the few long hauls you can pull off in three arduous
hours that you can't repeat but once every couple weeks when your
dragon-calling money runs low.
Second rule you must obey: look at Nykaul and Ozymandias' lovely map.
Since we have discussed exactly why one should abandon covered wagons
completely as a low-level, single-class character and alone, one is
going to need a map. Nykaul and Ozymandias have provided us with a
wonderful map on the Medievia web page. One should download it. When one
takes one's mule overland the discovery of how wonderful the map really
is, with every clan town, trade post, and zone on it, will emerge like a
choir of angels from your modem. One can also find most of the altars,
and make out the ever-important river crossings. Notice also where the
NPK areas are on that map. Remember that a mule will refuse to follow
in NPK areas, but a packhorse will follow as happily as ever before.
Third, remember the economy of Medievia. The people behind the counter
at trade shops do not like to have to part with eight-thousand books
from Karlisna. How much would you like to try to sell eight-thousand
books from Karlisna to a tiny little town like Sea's End? The player who
sells the eight-thousand and first box of books from Karlisna to the
trade shop at Sea's End will not make as much money as the person who
sells the first illuminating codice.
For the reasons behind this, I urge all of my gentle readers to seek
out other articles on trading located through the Mudslinger search
command. I shall not go into them here. I will, however, reveal how they
apply to our particular situation as low-level, single-class players,
and alone.
The Ranger Cabin and the Elven Marketplace are two very popular
destinations from Medievia because they are close, and the odds of mob
factions on your trade run popping is greatly lessened by the fact that such
little time is spent traveling. However, how many people do you know go
from the Elven Marketplace, pass Medievia, and then travel to the
Ranger Cabin? Remember, even if you don't take a moment to Value, that the
economy of Medievia operates on supply and demand. I suspect that
Medievia has more cords of timber than every Home Depot in the real world
combined. I don't know where the Town Crier stores all those cords of
timber. Perhaps Scruff chews on them, or they are used to generate the
ever-dying janitor in some mystical, trans-substantial spell. I just
know that taking timber to Medievia will not make me nearly as much
money as taking it one more step outward, to the Wizard's Grove, or to the
Elven Marketplace. It also takes such a small investment of time and
patience to do so. Another thing I know from experience, is how easily
one can hop over a river from Riverton to the Ranger Cabin in a mule.
Cords of timber are too large for a mule. However, in the time it
takes me to take my cord of timber to Medievia, I can go from the Ranger
Cabin to Riverton with a mule three or four times, at approximately
forty-thousand coins each time, with no danger of mob factions since I'm
totally off-road. I also have a river close at hand with which to lose
evil dragons. As such, I make more money in less time.
That makes me a happy low-level, single-class player, who has no one to
share his knowledge with because he is alone.
Also, as I mentioned under rule number one, if at any time I die or
tire of trade running, I can stop at almost time after the first sale and
abandon my freight and go do something else while still having made
coins. It takes such little time to make the run from Crystal Lake to
Riverton ala mule, that I can do it every time I log on, two or three
times, and still have time to join an XP form in Thanos, or turn down
another clan in Medlink who think that pulling me into Medlink while I'm
busy having fun is a sure way to get me to join.
Of course, this is all beside the point. The point I came here to make
is that it is completely possible to succeed as a low-level,
single-class character on trade runs, alone. All one must do is obey my three
simple rules, and approach trading just as one would approach XP'ing.
Yes, it is vastly more efficient and successful to get in a group of
powerful people and hack through Thanos than it is to, once-again, run the
Preserve. However, when left to our own devices, which the nature of
the game insists upon us often, we must approach all the game's
activities differently. Let me repeat the rules again, for your own benefit,
gentle reader, because we are obviously newbies, in need of repetition.
Don't get greedy. Just make a little money every time you log on with
a small run, or a series of small runs that can be abandoned at any
time while remaining in the proverbial black. Mules travel so much faster
than covered wagons because you can travel directly overland, and you
will not die twelve times facing another frustrating mob faction.
Furthermore, send Nykaul and Ozymandias our deep, and heartfelt prayers
of Thanksgiving for providing us low-level, single-class players, who
are alone, with his resource: the Map of Medievia. Thank you Nykaul and
Ozymandias! Now it is not only possible to abandon the dangerous roads
where mob factions will take our freight and head overland where mobs
leave us alone, but we have a map to make it feasible.
And, if you really think about it, even if you don't take time to value
(which I don't since I trade based on speed, not preparation, and I
hate spending money on a dragon to make money on a run that will not be a
large haul) you can deduce the runs that are likely to be over-used.
The most popular trade runs in Medievia usually end at Medievia,
especially for us lower levels who often attempt to take our covered wagons
down the road (like we're actually trying our best to help the Trolls and
Bandits take over Medievia). Thus, we must do such short runs, which
have so many powerful and helpful players within shouting range to save
us from Demons who send their hellhounds upon us to eat our timber.
Therefore, taking timber to Medievia will not be nearly as lucrative as
less-dangerous, shorter runs with mules repeated.
After ingesting Lanval's three simple rules for successful low-level,
single-class trading, while alone, you are ready to compete with me as I
purchase every Dragon Crystal and piece of swank equipment that I can
find on Auction while I am online.
Now, go, my fellow low-level, single-class players who are alone! Get
your trading points! Outbid Heroes for Dragon Crystals! You, too, can
purchase two of them off auction without any help from outside sources
before you join a clan!
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