Guide to Earning Mesos

Introduction

Welcome to Anonymous's Guide to Money Making in MapleStory! This guide is not called Anonymous's Guide for nothing - even though MapleWiki's staff probably know who created this page, I will not say who I am, who my MapleWiki username is, who my MapleStory characters are, and so on. That cleared up, I'll get straight to the point. Mesos. Everyone who plays MapleStory, and probably everyone who is reading this guide, knows what Mesos are. Mesos = Money in MapleStory. And as nearly everyone (particularly the newbies) knows, millions of Mesos are not easy to make within a month. In fact, even with this guide, you still probably won't get to making millions a month. So how do you get that fantastic piece of equipment on sale for 4,455,555 Mesos at the Free Market before it sells out? Well, this guide won't guarantee that you get that item (in fact, there's probably a cheaper copy of the same item in another store), but it will help you make some Mesos to spend so that you can spend them on that item when you see it. Now, you probably want to see how you can do that, so...

Beware of Scams

This is not a method to make mesos, but the first, basic rule you should be aware of when dealing with your money. In a phrase, this rule will help you keep your mesos safe. In fact, you most probably already know this rule. If you don't, read Scams. The name is self-explanatory.

Scams can happen with pretty much anything you own. You could be scammed out of your money, your equipment, your fame, anything, everything. Even your account, if you're unlucky. Scams don't just take place in MapleStory, though that's what we're focusing on. No, I'm not talking about real-life scams, but MapleStory scams on the internet - like the famous Meso Generator. Anybody fooled by that could lose your account. In fact, they probably would - unless the scammer thinks that your account is useless because you only have low-levelled characters. Back onto scams taking place in the actual game itself, they can happen quite often. Never drop your guard to these scams. If you do, you're taking the quick road to losing all your belongings. Because there is no actual way to detect a scam before it happens. Unless it's like that case where someone thought I was a stupid and tried to scam my items out of me in a trade ("i teach you a trick to duplicate ur items" "drop all ur rare stuff on the trade").

These scams are easily detected by people forewarned against them. Most often, this type of "Cheat Trick" scams happen with newbies, because new players are often ignorant (however this type of scam also betrays their own stupidity; new players rarely have any equipment worth scamming).

If you have a high-levelled character and are reading this, you probably already know about this kind of scam. There are other types of scams, but I won't list them on this page. Just bear in mind that if the scammer actually is smart, there is little you can do to avoid scams short of not trading at all. Of course, if you discover you've been scammed, you can always try reporting him to a Gamemaster. The trouble is that the scammer often flees to other channel after completing their scam. Sometimes you will successfully report them before they escape, but such cases are rare. Scams most often happen when dealing with Fame.

Read more about scams here.

Always Check The Market

This is the second rule you should follow to help you save money when buying or selling. This rule is fairly simple as well. When purchasing items from the free market and you see something that you like, DON'T buy it on the spot. Check through the other shops in the market and see if they have the same thing for a cheaper price. Once, a found a stall selling the same item as the shop next to it nearly five times cheaper. And you shouldn't just go to the stalls in the same map. Search every stall in the entire market. You should still find another of the item you saw. If it is more expensive, then you know either that what you saw before was a good deal or that this is person was just an idiot by selling the item so cheaply. If you didn't find anything else at all like it, then you can consider buying it.

Generally, it is better to buy items by going to Channel 1 Free Market and speaking to the jostling crowd than going into the stalls. This is because stalls generally sell items at a higher price, and there is no way you can bargain down the price when buying in stalls. When you can, you should always make offers to bring the price down. Even if it is only by 10,000 mesos. 10,000 Mesos is alot to the lower-levelled (levels 1-20) characters, and by saving 10,000 mesos every transaction, it will eventually stack up and you'll find yourself with a lot more mesos than if you'd not bargained down the price.

Keep A Space In Your Inventory

Again, this rule is self explanatory. If you're fighting a monster, and a drops a rare item after it dies, you'll want it. Whether to sell or use for your own purposes, you'll want it. But it won't be yours until it is in your inventory. And it can't be in your inventory unless there is a space for it. Even in the case of Etc. items. There isn't much space in your inventory, and there are plenty of Etc items begging for a space, so you should always keep a free space in there for the odd ore or other item you find. If this a weapon or armour, it is even more vital. Equips DO NOT stack, and so you need free space for all new pieces of equipments.

An especially frustrating scenario is when you are trying to free a space in your inventory, and someone else comes along. By the time a space is free, the ten-second limit is up and the other player has walked away with your item.

This often happens in crowded areas, but even in non-crowded spots, you should be careful. Someone may still chance on you. By now, you're probably tired from reading rules that don't actually help you make any money, but don't worry. Here they are.

Making Mesos

Below are small tips and tricks to help you earn, or save more Mesos. Do not look down on them, even if the method seems to give you few mesos, things add up, and you'll soon realize you have more mesos than most others.

Monsters

Of all the methods there are to help you make mesos, this is the simplest. The simplest, the easiest, the most obvious. You have probably already killed a monster and picked up it's drops. This is what this method uses - monsters. Monsters, you and a weapon. This is very easy to do. Equip the weapon, walk up to the monster, press the button you assigned to "attack". Keep pressing until the monster is dead. Well, maybe not quite as simple as that if you don't want to get hurt or you want to use skills, but that's the basis. Just kill monsters for money.

The best side effect of using this method is that you earn EXP in the process, too. Of course, some may be bored by this, as it is repetitive work, and in the case of the Bowman and Thief, may be less productive in the way of money due to the cost of training.

However, Monsters sometimes also drop equipments which can be sold off at the Free Market or to individual players, although it is a rare occurance. If you wish to gain many mesos by using this method, train on monsters that drop valuable items. For example, some train on Red Drakes so you can sell Steelies that you might get. Just remember that you will need to factor in the cost of training, so pick your monsters wisely! That just about covers this entire strategy. Onto the next one:

Faming

Fame. Most will find that this is very popular with high-levelled characters who wish to be at the top of the Fame rankings on the MapleStory website. Some want fame so much that they will even go as far as to buy it. And that is where this method comes in. Fame can be bought, and it can also be sold. Usually, people buy fame for around 100,000 Mesos. Sometimes, they will go so far as to buy it for 1,000,000 Mesos.

But the rules of selling fame are a little different from buying fame. When selling, you want customers. And not many customers can pay 100,000 Mesos for fame they weren't even thinking of getting before you said you were selling it. So lower the price. But not so low as, say, 1000. A good price to set the fame at is 10,000 Mesos (depending on world that you are playing in).

This method does comes with downsides. You will have to be on the look out for scammers. There is no safe way to trade fame between characters, or to trade fame with mesos. Thus when selling/buying fame there has to be trust between both parties, because after recieving the fame/mesos the other character can simply logoff and run away with the fame/mesos. You may only sell fame once a day, so the income you generate from this method is, in a sense, capped.

Read more about fame here.

Trading

The Free Market is a great place to make money in. What I said earlier about checking the Free Market applies double here. What you have to do is find the cheapest rare item or equipment you can afford and buy it. Then sell it to another person for a higher amount. If you do it right, you can get double the amount you paid for, or sometimes even more. Don't try selling it back on the Free Market. With so many people there, it's unlikely anyone will notice you. Even in one of the areas, there will be enough stalls to prevent people from seeing you. Go outside or change channels. With some luck, and enough advertising, you'll get a customer to buy what you've got. The best items to try this with is equipments, since nobody can know where you got it (and trace it back to the free market, where there still might be multiple copies of that cheap equip).

While new players generally do not have alot of money, some still come with a reasonable amount and it is idea to sell them rare items, as there is a good chance they will not know the item's average worth.

Patience and time are required to gain significant mesos. Do not give up. Even if the price seems low enough, always look for people selling it cheaper. Visiting forums will give you a good gauge on the value of an item, as well as the Basil Market website. Buy low sell high is the key to success here.

Events

Try taking advantage of events to gain money. Event items are special, and after that event is over, can go for huge amounts. For example, during the 2006 Valentine's Day event, monsters were programmed to drop Valentine's Roses. While the Yellow Rose was extremely cheap during that time (average price was 1000 Mesos), being the weakest rose, at Christmas, the price would go up. On a another note, during that event, monsters were also programmed to drop Wish Tickets and Red Envelopes. Red Envelopes could be cashed in at a special NPC called "Mr. Moneybags" for a minimum of 1000 Mesos and a maximum of 10,000,000 Mesos. Wish Tickets could also be sold to other players for around 2.5K each during that time, as they could be similarly cashed in at Amoria to Mr. Sandman for various items and equipments.

MapleStory Anniversary events are also to be taken advantage of, as Maple Equips are worth hundreds of thousands of mesos on the Free Market, even if merely Maple Flags. So never underestimate the worth of event items. The simple reason is this: supply stops, demand remains the same, therefore price rises.

Different Classes, Different Strategies

This section lists tips that are specific to different classes.

Beginner

Beginners - well, there aren't any really easy ways to do this, unless you are training to be a Warrior - You will be able to kill Orange Mushrooms with ease around lvl 8-10, which you can find on Maple Island, where you probably are. If you are on Victoria Island, and are still a Beginner, then advance to your class as fast as possible so you can take advantage of some of the other strategies. If you are planning to be Perma-Beginner, try the methods up top.

Warrior

Swordsman (1st job) You deal great damage, so take advantage of it, and kill Orange Mushrooms while others are stuck to Slimes. They will give you more mesos than killing Slimes. In fact, if you have a good enough Swordsman, you can even try slaughtering the monsters around Perion. It's quite possible, with a good enough weapon and well-built character. Though Dark and Dark Axe Stumps are a big step up from Orange Mushrooms and Slimes, it is still possible to kill them with a good level 10+ Swordsman. The monsters around Perion give around 30-50 Mesos and enough experience to boost you into the level 20s.

And when you're at levels 20-25, kill Blue Mushroom and Horny Mushrooms. You should be able to get more mesos than other monsters and you can selling the Blue Mushroom Caps to other players who are doing the quest "Pia and the Blue Mushroom". A suggested selling price is around 100 mesos each, to make a good profit.

• There are other ways to get money as a Swordman. Try to max out Slash Blast early, so you can hit more than 1 enemy at once. This allows you to gain mesos more quicky, if you jump into a group of enemies and SB them to death. Also try to kill something that drops equips that you can use, to avoid having to spend money of buying them. Note that Slash Blast takes HP to use, so you should prepare to pay for the cost of healing items or you should put some points into the Warrior's basic healing skills if you want to avoid paying.

Magician

Although there's not too much you can do at the lower levels, at lvl 20-30 you should be the strongest class of all, oweing to your ranged magical attacks (many monsters don't have high Magic Defence) and able to slaughter enemies others wouldn't be able until they're at level 30+. This can be taken advantage of by allowing you to kill the more powerful enemies and claim their plentiful mesos, which should be more than the weaker creatures most other classes are confined to should drop. Also, like with the Warrior, try to kill something that drops equips that you can use, to spare you having to spend the mesos to buy them, though, like all the other classes, if you DO chance upon a rare equip you can't use, you can sell it off for a profit to those who can. Note from an I/L: When you're level 35+, you can kill Sakura Cellions efficiently with your Cold Beam and make a lot of money from the mesos they drop, and either npc or fm the equips they drop.

Bowman

With this class, it is somewhat more difficult to make mesos than others. This is because Bowmen don't have overly high strength, don't have skills monsters are weak against, and can't become temporarily immortal, like Thieves. What's more, Bowmen actually consume mesos by needing to spend money for arrows, unless you were lucky and found a Stiff Feather and some Tree Branches or Firewood to take to Vicious to make some arrows with.

Or if you're level 30+, you can use the Soul Arrow: Bow or Soul Arrow: Crossbow to save arrows. The skill will substitute magic for arrows, so you can go training without having any arrows (although you should bring 1 space of arrows just in case). However, if you do decide to go training without any arrows, you have to use this spell constantly, so when you do decide to go without arrows, you should have this skill at level 4 (2 minutes) at least. A few drawbacks about this skill is that it can use some mana (15 or 20 mana each time) and that if you die or if you forget to use this skill again and it no longer has an effect, you could end up trying to kill a monster, but you just hit air with your bow and the monster goes up to you and hits you (if you didn't bring any arrows).

The one thing Bowmen are good at is ranged attacking, however, so that is what you can take advantage of. Find a map you can snipe high levelled enemies at. The map north of Henesys has snipable Blue Mushrooms, and they give good money as well as exp. If you were lucky like me, you may even find they drop a few equips (around level 20 equips) to sell to higher-levelled players.

The Henesys Hunting Grounds on Channel 1 are an excellent place to earn some lazy money. There are plenty of high-levelled grinders there who just kill the monsters and leave the drops (some of the higher-levelled people even leave the ores). While lower-levelled players occasionally pick up dropped equipment, the mesos are the one thing usually left on the ground. You can just speed through and collect up the mesos left behind by players. Just be careful of Item Vacuum Hackers.

Korean Fan

When you are level 30 and above go kill Fire Boars. When one of them drops a Korean Fan take it. No kidding. Sell it to someone for around 600,000 mesos! You get experience too.

CPQ

This isn't worth as much as Korean Fan, especially since Korean Fan can't be bought or gained on a quest. But you can get 150k for selling a Gephart gained on CPQing to an NPC, or you can save 50 coins for a Spiegelmann's necklace and sell it for around 1-2 million mesos.