MAKING MONEY BY HELPING OTHER PLAYERS-4.1Selling Unidentified Items For Unlocking

This section of the guide offers two basic strategies for making gold by helping other players out. The first is a specific form of item selling; the other is the infamous “runner” job, helping players unlock towns or outposts in exchange for gold.
4.1 Selling Unidentified Items For Unlocking
Many Guild Wars players enjoy experimenting with “PvP Only” characters, but in order for those characters to be maximally effective, the person making them will need to “unlock” runes and weapon upgrades to attach to their armor during character creation. Since the simplest way to unlock runes or upgrades is to identify an item containing them using a role-playing character, PvP enthusiasts often will pay well for the right to identify a rune or upgrade for unlocking.
To profit from this market, you’ll need some unidentified salvage items or weapons. Gold salvage items will contain a Minor, Major, or Superior rune; purple will contain a Minor or Major rune; blue will contain a Minor Rune or be “highly salvageable.” Unidentified weapons are much harder to generalize, but usually only purple and gold weapons have a decent chance of containing an unlockable upgrade.
Some players are willing to purchase unidentified salvage items and weapons as they are, without any additional work on your part. Unfortunately, such buyers often will not pay very much because they won’t have any idea what type of rune or upgrade they might get when they purchase the item.
You can increase your asking price by expert salvaging the item first, looking at the unidentified rune or upgrade you get from it (if you get one), and determining what sort of rune or upgrade it is. For example, suppose you have expert salvaged a piece of armor and received a rune. If you take that rune to a rune trader, you can compare its graphic with the runes on sale to tell whether it’s a minor, major, or superior rune, as well as what class it comes from (though you won’t

be able to tell exactly which attribute). In addition, if you are very lucky and have found an “Absorption” or “Vigor” rune, you will be able to recognize exactly what type and level it is because of its unique graphic. Once you know what kind of rune you’re holding, you should be able to sell it for a higher price – or in the case of a Rune of Superior Vigor or Absorption, a very high price indeed.
Salvaging and then selling weapon upgrades for unlocking works basically the same way, except it often wastes expert salvage kit uses (because many colored weapons do not contain runes). Furthermore, since you won’t be able to tell one upgrade apart from any other of its type without identifying it first, you probably won’t be able to advertise them as highly as you would runes. For that reason, it’s usually better just to sell the unidentified weapons as they are, rather than wasting precious charges from an expert kit.
Tip: As with most sales to other players in Guild Wars, it’s not very efficient to dwell on selling unidentified runes for long periods at a time. Whenever you happen to go to a town or outpost, mention in the Trade channel what types of unidentified runes or upgrades you are carrying, and see if someone sends you a whisper within thirty seconds or so. If no one does, go on and do whatever else you were planning to do, and then repeat your auction the next time you come to a town. This way, you won’t waste your time if you happen to be selling when no one is buying. Alternatively, you can use the “District Hopping” auction method described in section 4.1.