Archeage is a complex game and can seem daunting when you first start out. Because of that, I decided to pool together an assortment of tips and tricks for beginners which would have helped me to know from the start. This is a work in process so expect this list to grow over time. If you are searching for a more general Archeage beginner guide, you should read that page instead.
Don’t Throw Away Your Starter Gear
The gear you get from doing the story quests can be upgraded as your level increases and will eventually become what is called Hiram gear. Hiram gear is considered the third-best end-game gear, so you should work on upgrading it with the infusions and awakening scrolls you also get from completing the story quests. If you have already thrown them away, you can get replacements from the armor and weapon merchants. More on how to upgrade your story quest gear here.
Do NOT Throw Away The Story Quest Infusions and Awakening Scrolls
While you can get the starter gear back, you cannot get the story quest infusions and awakening scrolls back if you trash them. Do not throw them away. This is a huge flaw in the game at the moment and will hopefully be addressed in future updates.
There is no Specific Auction House
You can access the auction house wherever you are. You don’t need to find a specific NPC. To open the auction house, just press the P button. In there you can browse the goods and also list those you have in your inventory for sale. If you buy things from the auction house, you must collect them in the in-game mail. This is not the same mail as the Marketplace mail, it’s the mail system you access when interacting with the owl sitting on a sphere next to the warehouse manager NPC.
How to Get Tax Certificates Before Owning Land.s
If you want to place a house and you don’t have any tax certificates, you can use any other player-owned building you see to make some for yourself. Just walk up to the building, press the “G” button when the option presents itself, and make yourself a Bound Tax Certificate.
You Can Teleport Between Locations
If you look at your quick slots, you will see an icon there called “Teleport Book”. This item allows you to teleport between specific locations. To be able to use it you need to have Hereafter stones in your inventory. You can read more about teleporting here.
You Can Use Your House as a Small Farm.
Not everyone knows this, but you can use the small amount of land within the house boundaries outside your house to safely place crops. This area is usually too small to fit lumber trees, but it’s fine for seed planting and some fruit-giving trees.
You Can Use Beds to Get More Labor.
If you have a house, you can place a bed in it and use it to “sleep.” This will restore from 50 to 80 labor points each day. While this is subpar on its own, you can buy sleeping pajamas with vocational points to get up to +200 labor points on top of that. You get the pajamas from a vocation badge merchant.
You can also sleep in a bed at any community center. It will give you 100 labor points, but it costs 2 Gilda stars, so it’s debatable if it’s worth it.
PvP Regions and How They Work
Every region with monsters from level 30 and onward is PvP active, meaning that players of the other faction (and your own) can kill you. These regions undergo a cycle of unrest, conflict, war, and peace. PvP is possible with different limitations and modifiers during unrest, conflict, and war. However, during peace (which is a short window), PvP is inactive, meaning players from different factions cannot attack one another. So, if you have an aversion to PvP, this is the time to do the quests in these regions.
Going Through the First 30 Levels
For the first 30 levels, you can just run through the story quest (the quest with the big green square). This should give you enough experience to be at an appropriate level for each region you travel through. During the course of these quests, you will get infusions and awakening scrolls to upgrade your starter gear, as mentioned above.
These side quests vary between each playable race, but the key here is to notice when the tutorial opens up, telling you about specific items and actions. When that happens, it is usually because a side quest nearby will hand out a reward related to the tutorial tip. For example, when you follow the story quest and come to a location where the tutorial tips you about gliders, you should see an NPC close by that has a quest (or chain of quests) that ends with you getting a glider.
Doing the side quests in level 1-30 regions wastes time if your goal is to reach the end game ASAP. However, I recommend doing at least some of the side quests, as they can reward you with useful stuff like mounts, gliders, boats, and more.
Of course, if you’re just enjoying the ride, then by all means, do all the side quests. Some of them are even fun.
The Blue Salt Brotherhood Quest Chain
Speaking of Level 30. You should do the Blue Salt Brotherhood Quests if you plan to do anything that is not pure PvP during the end game. These quests that start at level 30 are the quests that reward you with an 8×8 scarecrow farm, a farm cart design, they get your alchemy up to over 10.000 points for almost no labor, a house design, a bed, and more.
The NPCs offering them have a rather noticeable green leaf symbol above their heads, so they should be hard to miss. You should find the first quest of the longest chain at Solisa in Halcyon. After level 30, you can generally do the Blue Salt Brotherhood quests in tandem with your story quests.
The Rider’s Escapee Skill
Speaking of a farm cart. These vehicles have a tendency to get stuck. If that happens to you, don’t panic. In your basic proficiency skill tab (Press K) is a skill called Rider’s Escapee. Using that skill will teleport your vehicle by 20 meters and, hopefully, get you unstuck.
So that’s it for now. I will add to this list as I discover more useful tips and tricks while playing. If you found them useful, then, by all means, share them with your friends and allies in Archeage. You might also find some of these guides useful.