- The average time to hit 55.
- Best proficiency to go with ( Goldwise )
- Is land a must in order to make allot of gold ( The answer on this one depends on the prof you guys will suggest )
- Do you have to spend mad time grinding for gear to be able to compete in pvp.
- The regrade chances on the private server are similar to the official or they'r higher like LP and xp etc.. ?
1. Depends what race you pick. Dwarfs (West) & Warborns (East) have highly increased experience from their main-questline. While all other races will be around Lv.28 by the end of it, the "new" races will be Lv. 45.
Early level labor exp is super bad, so do not fish starting from Lv1. Do your green quests to the point where you are without any left. At that point, you'd have to pick up new quests at Cinderstone Moor / Ynystere. You can skip all the "hunting quests". which you aquire from the Wooden Axe signs.
When you have finished the first part of your green questlines, you should have 50+ Gilda Stars. (that takes an hour if you're fast).
Buy a Cottage / Clipper / Aquafarm design with it and sell it on the auction house. It will give you some gold to start out with. You can buy worms & a fishing rod with it to afk level until Lv52. Make sure you use all possible exp potions given to you by the green chest that you can open up with a cooldown of like 10s, 14 times. Once 52, don't bother rushing to 55. Just figure out what to do, you'll level up as you spend your labor. I don't think you can go to 55 in a day either, because you won't have the required labor pool. Though I might be wrong on this.
2. You can make gold with anything, of course, some will get you more, some less. Generally, all the agricultural proficiencies should get you gold, as it generates basic mats every player needs. This either requires land, or a safe spot in the open that is well hidden from other players.
Alchemy & Cooking can make you some gold, but it's best if you aquire the mats for potions & food yourself to max. profit. Which again, requires you to have land.
Some people say larency is a good way, now that Mysterious Garden Powder is at 10+ gold. I'm not a larency guy so I can't say much about it.
I won't say more about the rest, as I don't want to ruin gold making for anyone. One thing you should keep in mind is that nobody will give you 100% information of what they do to make their gold (unless they just swipe), because the more people do the same task in this game, the less value you get out of it. Find a crack in the market and fill it, don't tell anyone about it and you're good to go.
3. Land is "required" to maximize your profit if you go the agricultural /alchemy & cooking or even crafting route (leather, wool etc). Some proficiencies simply have crafting receipes that require a lot of basic mats. Aquiring those yourself will help you get more gold of what you are trying to sell as a finished product. You can always do hidden farms in the open. All plants, trees etc. here have half the grow time they have on live. Chances someone harvests your stuff and stealing it is low with a decent spot, especially when you grow it at a time, where it finishes at a daytime, when the server population is down.
A wonderful method to make gold without land is: Starshard mining & aqua-farms. There's almost infinite free space to place an aqua-farm. They cost 20 Gilda and can net you very good gold as a beginner. Corals are required for crafting oils, used to make weapons & gear in general. So they are always in demand. By doing aqua-farms, you can also level harvesting & alchemy at once.
If you place your aqua-farm at the starshards, you can mine starshards, turn it into Ingots, and do your farm when most of your labor is gone. This way, you level up Mining, Metalwork, Alchemy & Gathering.
I myself started out with hidden farms. But i grew tired of it, and eventually left it behind me. Ever since then I've never had farms/houses to plant mats for profit. I have a house for storage and a farm for prestige experia farms only.
Land is NOT needed, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Theres ways of making gold with land, just like there are ways without it.
And which route is better is entirely dependant on what you do with it.
4. Depends on your class. Some classes take a ton of gear to be enjoyable (Archery, Mages). Melees are geared quickly, some other classes used to initiate in raids can be strong (or impactful rather) even at low gearscore, and noticable become stronger when geared, so you'll see improvement at any stage of gear. Archeage is a korean MMORPG, don't expect to be in top 100 in less than 3 months. Especially if you are new. It took me like 4-5 months ? to make it into top100. With the knowledge I have of the game right now, i'd probably be able to do it in 2.
Either way, there's plenty of casual guilds, people pirate the seas all the time, and most of them are below 5-6K gs from my experience.
They compensate their lack of gear by grouping up with friends and fighting together.
5. check sjinders reply.