[ Poll ] 500g + 48 days = 1 Million Gold? (Guide)

How did you get here?

From Gaia Guides & Resources		37.8%	[ 155 ]
A friend linked me.		13.9%	[ 57 ]
I searched some key words and found it.		8.8%	[ 36 ]
Redirection from Teh Hoarding Guild.		4.6%	[ 19 ]
Redirection from Solution to a Problem.		2.7%	[ 11 ]
By stalking Jace. (You can't pick this, Sayu.)		7.3%	[ 30 ]
I have no idea how I got here.		24.9%	[ 102 ]

Total Votes: 410

[Jace Quin]

New User Guide

Welcome to Gaia. If you’ve only been around for a few days, a few weeks, a few months, then this section may be especially helpful to you. As you may have already realized, not only do many people feel no pity for newbies but some veterans actively hate them. So here I have some tips for you on how not to act so new and blend in better, etc. This first post has the tips and the second and third posts have, respectively, a quick-ish guide to all of the things you can do to get gold around the site that are not Vending or Exchanging and a more in-depth explanation of the same. So, on to my tips.

• The first thing you have to save up for to not be so n00b-ish is hair. There are some very rich Gaians I know who keep their avatars with just the ugly gray underwear on them, but you can tell they aren’t n00bs because they don’t have the haircuts that are options when you sign up. So buy yourself a different haircut as soon as you can.
  
• The second thing is that veteran Gaians might dress up their avatars with the event items they just earned for a while, but you’re not going to see them wearing cheap christmas stuff in summer. You probably also wont see them wearing too many of the lame quest items long after they come out, either.
  
• Third, but possibly most important, never beg. Ever. Most Gaians work hard to earn their fake gold and pixelated items so they aren’t going to donate to you just because you are new and poor, especially not since nobody probably donated to them when they were new and poor. If you are looking for a donation (although you shouldn’t be, after reading my Guide because it’s here to teach you to make your own gold, after all) you should try the Charity & Quests subforum of the Exchange. Which you can get to by clicking here.
  
• The next thing is that if you don’t know something, do ask. Ask, not demand. And be polite. And be sure that you are asking in an appropriate place.
  I think that’s about it.

[Jace Quin]

Everything to do on Gaia to earn gold that isn’t Vending/Exchanging.

Freebies: I'm talking about the daily chance and the quests available and things like that.
Always collect the daily chance on each heading page (Home, My Gaia, Shops, Forums,
World, Games). The Daily Chance only gives out Commons (regular items) and gold but every
little bit counts. Every time Gaia has a promotional item (like for a movie or whatever) do the
quest, watch the trailer or whatever to earn the prize. Often you can do these quests multiple
times (usually three). Do so. Whenever Gaia has an event, collect all the free items they're
giving away. You never know, sometime in the future your free item may be worth thousands
or millions of gold.

Fishing: Always fish with the free bait the daily chance gives out because fish are worth
more than bait. Even if you only use the basic rod and fish at Bass'ken you can
earn gold from your fish and chat to make friends. Another note about fishing, you can trade in
your fish for fish-related equip-able items such as gills and helms. You can also sell your fish in
the Market Place, sometimes for more than Logan will buy it for, you can also do so with
the equip-able items as well as your trash.

Gambling: Yeah, you can gamble on Gaia. I reccomend you play Slots or Black Jack with the free
tokens the Daily Chance gives out. I find Black Jack is more profitable ticket-wise but if you
don't know how to play the game then Slots is just fine and sometimes you might get a huge
reward for spinning. Tickets are worth more than tokens. You can sell tickets in the Market Place
or use them to buy items from Prize & Joy and then sell the items on the Market Place for gold.

Games: Games are fun and give you gold for highscores (and low ones, too!).
So if you're bored you can do Jigsaws, play Pinball (and earn items as well as gold), play Word
Bump (and earn school credits as well as gold), or play Electric Love Factory which grants gold
and a couple of items for exceptionally high scores. I've already talked about the other games.
Jigsaw will sometimes give out random items for completing puzzles as well as gold. Difficulty in
puzzles counts toward how much gold you get so don't always go for easy puzzles. Pinball is
fun and you can earn items as well as gold. Word Bump you can earn gold and school credits.
School credits can be used to buy special items from Edmund at H & R Wesley. You can also
sell the school credits or the items you buy after earning them. Electric Love Factory can earn
you items as well as gold. Of course, the amount of gold you get for playing games goes down
the more times a day you play but it resets daily. And, as always, you can chat with other users
while you play games.

Towns: Towns are a place to 'physically' congregate with your Gaian friends. Your avatar
shows up and you can move it around as well as chat. You can also earn gold in towns. You can
earn gold by shaking trees, rocks, and bushes. You can also catch bugs and pick up trash. You
simply click on an item to collect it, but if you're too far away you might miss! Bugs and trash can
both be traded in. Bugs can be exchanged to Moira at Durem Depot for inks. (Inks, in turn can
be traded in for tattoos or to color boquettes.) It usually takes 50 bugs to make one ink but
sometimes you get rare bugs that make an ink by themselves. Trash can be exchanged at the
Gambino Hat Shop for equip-able items which you can use on your avatar or sell in the Market
Place. Another thing you can do in towns is pick flowers. You can make pretty boquettes at the
Flower Shoppe and equip them or sell them in the Market Place. You can also sell flowers.

zOMG: zOMG is Gaia’s recently-released MMORPG. It is in the Open Beta phase of
testing (which means that everyone signed up with Gaia can use it) so you will probably
encounter some glitches or errors or things that will change due to the developers tweaking. You
can still earn gold, ingredients, recipes, create items and more by playing. You can get gold
directly by completing quests or by killing monsters. You can also get gold by selling ingredients,
recipes and items created from recipes in the Market Place.

Bumping: You can earn gold bonuses by chatting in the forums. You can also earn gold
by not chatting in the forums, this is generally referred to as "bumping." The amount of gold per
post goes down the more times you do it a day but it resets everyday.

Polls: While you're chatting in the forums pause to answer some polls and earn gold
bonuses for doing so.

Voting: Go vote and comment in the Arena. You can earn gold bonuses for voting
and commenting. The amount of gold per comment/vote goes down the more times you do it in
a day but it resets daily.

Journaling: Go write in your journal. Your friends can see what's on your mind
and- guess what- you earn gold for posting in your journal. The more times you post daily the
less gold you get each time but, as with everything else, it resets daily.

Profiles: You can earn gold bonuses by commenting on people's profiles. However
"drive-by" commenting will probably make people mad at you. Try to keep your comments
meaningful and courteous.

Marketplace: I've talked about it a lot already but haven't even explained it. The Market Place
is an E-bay -esque place to buy and sell items. You can sell your items here (all of them, unlike
in the shops which don't buy non-shop or game items). You can also buy items. I suggest doing
this because you can usually save money on the shop price.

Selling Services: If you have a talent (such as drawing) exploit it. You can open a shop in
the Mini Shops section of the forum and sell drawings or banners or animations or whatever
for gold or items. You can also become employed by a bumping agency. I've never bothered
with this but I'm pretty sure it's something along the lines of, people pay the agency to bump and
you get paid for bumping for the people that paid the agency. (If anyone has more information
on this please PM me and I'll edit this section.)

Booty Grab: There are two ways to earn gold from Booty Grab. One way is to play. The
best place to look for games of Booty Grab is in the Aquariums forum. Go there, pick a thread,
and start checking out people's signatures. Pretty much everyone in the Aquariums forum has
their aquarium in their signatures, aquariums that display the words: "Booty Grab" inside the
tank instead of showing fish are available to play. Depending on the fish that have triggered
inside the tank you can earn from 50g-1,000g per game. Behind the words "Booty Grab" you
should be able to see some fish moving aroud in an abnormal fashion. These are the fish that
have triggered. If you see that the triggered fish are cuttlfish or some other common fish you
may want to look for a better-endowed tank. The other way, is to have people play your tank.
You must have it in your signature for this to happen. If you want to display it: Go to your
aquarium, click the gear in the upper right corner of the tank, and then select "Show in
Signature" and save. If you do not have expensive, high-trigger fish, don't expect to earn a lot of
gold from your tank. Buying "trigger-fish" may pay off over time but it requires a substantial
investment not only of gold, but also of time. Your tank has to be seen to get played, so you'll
have to post in the Aquarium forum a lot.

[Jace Quin]

More In-depth on the non-Vending/Exchanging gold makers.

Freebies: Other than the things I mentioned before there's also games in the Skittles World
that you can earn gold and items from. The easiest one is the wheel. You can spin it once daily
and get an item (usually a very cheap common). I wouldn't bother with the other games.

Fishing
Alright, the first step of making money at fishing is filtering your casts. Sometimes you'll get a
"bite " and you reel it in and it's trash. Which can be lame, in some people's opinion. So trash
can be pretty easy to get rid of if you know what to look for. I know that trash does not fight very
much at all and is easy to reel in. I have been told that it never pulls to the right but I'm not sure
if I'm observant to do more than speculate on this. So, if you get a bite and you realize it's trash
simply point your mouse way off to one side to deliberately lose whatever's caught on the line.
Another way to optimize fishing is to fish at "twilight" or "dawn" which happens pretty
frequently on Gaia time, which runs twice as fast as normal time. You get better fish at these
times of day, just like in real life.
Another thing to think about is switching lakes. Bass'ken lake has the easiest (and therefore
cheapest fish) to catch. Port D'Gambino has sort of medium fish and Durem Recclaimation
Facility has the hardest fish. If you want to fish anywhere other than Bass'ken you may want to
invest in a better fishing rod. I suggest buying one from the Market Place. I say this only if you're
good at or like fishing on Gaia. If you like fishing then it's a good investment.
Different fishing rods are better for different reasons. Basic fishing rod is kind of flexible,
casts okay, and has a reel in range that's straight and kind of narrow. Strength rod is not as
flexible and doesn't cast as far but it's harder for the fish to pull away from and the reel in range
kind of bells out at the bottom so it's harder to loose fish as you reel them in closer. Distance rod
is very flexible and easier for the fish to get away from, it has a long cast distance which can get
you better fish and the reel in range is funnel shaped but only gets as narrow as the basic rod
range gets. The performance rod is kind of the best of both worlds, it's flexible but not too
flexible, it casts fairly far and the reel in range bells out at the bottom and the top but not as
much as the Strength or Distance rod respectively. Plus rods are even better. To get a plus rod
you can trade in your current rod, plus far, far too much gold for a better rod. Or you can buy
one in the Market Place or Exchange forum.
I may as well talk about fishbait now. Grade F is the cheapest and worst. Grade D is second
cheapest and a little better than Grade F. Grade A is the most expensive and best. But most
expensive is not always the best financially. Better bait attracts better fish but wont help you
much if you're a terrible fisher so I guess you have to go on a case-by-case basis. Try it once
and if your haul is good enough to justify having bought it (the total amount you can sell the fish
for is greater than you bought the bait for) then it's right for you. If not, stick with the free Grade
F bait. When buying bait going to the Game Exchange or Market Place is not a bad idea.
When selling your fish and trash you may as well do it in the Market Place, you can get better
prices there than you can in the store. Especially since some people go to crazy lengths to get
5000 cans for a tin hat.
The next thing to maximize profits is to consider Exchanging your fish. You can exchange
them for other fish (not the best idea, believe me) or equipable items such as gills. These items
may be worth a lot more than the fish you make them out of. You can also exchange the trash
you collect from fishing.

Gambling
Gambling, there's not much more that I can tell you about gambling. Playing Black-Jack is
more time consuming but a better pay-off as far as I'm concerned. Slots has a small chance for
a large pay out but Black Jack has a good chance for many small pay-outs. The Black Jack
game Gaia has is pretty well explained but there are some things I can tell you. For example,
never hit on seventeen or above unless you think the computer has a better hand. I often don't
hit on 16 or above when playing Jinx or Cardbot because I noticed I tend to bust more when
playing against them. I also never, ever double-down. You're risking more because you double
your bet and you only get to hit once that hand.
Cheating. The dealers cheat. Russel Ace has the cheat "Pocket Ace", but he's not very smart
and I've noticed he wastes it on times when adding an ace wont let him beat you. Jinx has the
cheat "Fresh Start" but sometimes this isn't very helpful. Cardbot can use both of these skills.
Unlike when the dealers cheat you cannot affect your own hand. You can only affect the dealer's
hand. I recommend saving your rage for when they have a ten or an ace showing. I always do
the redraw option instead of peeking.
Beating the dealers is always cool. You get a bonus for beating each of them. Twenty-five
tickets for Russel Ace, fifty tickets for Jinx and one-hundred tickets for Cardbot.
The computer never hits on seventeen or over so if you have a twenty and they have say, ten
then they hit and get eighteen you win without them busting. The computer always hits under
seventeen though, even if they've already beat your hand. They lose by busting a lot.

Games
I've pretty much said everything there is to say about games. I'll add some links to specific
game-guides soon, though. If anyone is interested.

Towns
You can go and make gold by wandering around in towns. Shaking bushes, rocks, and trees
can get you a few gold. You can also pick flowers, catch bugs and pick up trash.
Flowers are possibly the most useless item in all of Gaia. They aren't worth that much.
Usually less than one gold each. You can turn them into boquetts and equip them but, again, not
worth that much when you sell them. I recommend not bothering to pick them at all.
Bugs are actually useful because you can turn them into ink. It usually takes fifty of the same
color bug to make into ink but sometimes you catch special bugs that may be worth one or more
inks by themselves. Consider carefully the prices of ink and what this bug may go for on the
marketplace before exchanging it, though.
Trash is also somewhat useful. It can be turned into paper hats. It can take fifty, a hundred,
or a hundred and fifty of one kind of paper to make a hat. Some hats are worth more than
others. Some trash is pretty much useless (newspaper), I recommend learning to recognize it
and not picking it up.

Bonus Gold
Concerning posting in Forums, voting in the Arenas, answering polls, Journaling, and
Commenting people's profiles: You can get more gold by spacing out these activities. The closer
together you post in forums for example, the less gold you'll get. But if you post many times a
day with significant amounts of time in between you'll get more gold for each post.

[Jace Quin]