Q1.) Why is it important to buy gold from the gold market early on?

Q2.) Why is it important to gather stone early on?

Q3.) Why is it important to gather the resources necessary to craft my weapon, even if I don't want to be a crafter?

Q4.) Why is it better to specialize my character skills rather than being a jack of all trades?

Q5.) Why is it important to progress from the safe zones into more risky areas, including the red and black zones?

Q6.) Why is it important to play during a beta when you know a wipe is imminent?

Q7.) What are some tips to avoid being killed while gathering?

Make sure you are using the fastest horse for your level that you possibly can. A fast horse with gallop is very hard to stop



Ensure that your skills on your weapons and armor are the most mobile skills possible. This is to ensure that you can outrun your opponent should the need arise to run



Do not gather casually in a red or black zone. Ensure that you are alert at all times looking around your screen for red names that may pop up as well as listening to sounds of horses that may be approaching. Ensure that you are ready to leave the scene as soon as possible



Join a guild that gathers in groups so that you can protect each other and potentially kill your aggressors. Gather in groups in general whether you have a guild or not



Weapon and armor combinations that are good for gathering include items with mobility spells on the weapons and movement speed on the items. Additionally if you can slow or stun an aggressor you increase the likelihood of being able to escape and mount up on your horse



While gathering, ensure that you always have your mount clickable so that you can mount right up at the first sign of trouble



Always use the food called Pie's which increase your carrying and gathering speed and capacity to ensure you can hold the maximum amount of weight



Ensure you have healing potions equipped so that you can pop a healing potion if you need it



If someone does kill you, remember their name and make it your mission to kill him! Don't get discouraged, the more you do this, the better your tolerance and chances of escape will be and one day, you might even kill them!



Q8.) Why is it important to join a guild? What are the costs and benefits of doing so?

Guilds are a great way to enhance your experience through having access to additional content in the game, from dungeons, to PVP, GVG, and most importantly, friendships that are made via the guild-mates



Guilds often have members that can craft items for their guild-mates thus reducing the personal cost to buy the items off the auction house



If you have any questions, good guilds are there to decrease the learning curve of how to do things in the game



Guilds also are able to provide guild islands or territories that reduce or completely eliminate the cost of crafting and refining your own resources instead of having to use the vendors in the cities which could cost an arm and a leg



Guilds can protect you while you gather in the open world so that your chance of death is decreased overall



Guilds charge their members a tax rate that in some cases may become excessive



Larger guilds sometimes favor certain members over others, resulting in a communistic approach to the guild



Sometimes there is an over reliance on key members of a guild (such as the guild master) to always come up with the content for everyone, leading to a lot of downtime just waiting on people to start doing things



If you are a solo player in general, you might feel left out of many of the guild happenings



A1.) Early in a wipe and presumably upon release, gold will be very inexpensive to buy with silver on the gold currency exchange. Those individuals who invest their money early in the gold market, will likely be able to afford their premium service for multiple characters for many months, and even years, if they play their cards rightA2.) Stone is the basic building block of structures in the game. Whether you are trying to build something on your personal island, a guild island, or a city plot / territory, stone is one of the rarest and most sought after resources in the game. If you focus on this early on, you will be able to build money making structures on your islands that will result in economic self sufficiencyA3.) Weapons usually require two resources to craft. As such, they tend to be the most expensive items on sale in the auction house. Whether you want to craft your weapons for yourself, or simply give the resources to someone else to craft it for you, by gathering you enable yourself to never be in a position where you can't afford to re-gear yourself after losing your itemsA4.) Overtime, you can certainly be a jack of all trades, but if you want to remain competitive early on, specializing your character allows you to progress much faster than someone who does not. Specifically, the premium service in the game awards premium users with 20 learning points per day (as of 1/20/17) which can be used to unlock skills or tiers within the destiny board faster. Someone who does not specialize will be using their learning points on anything and everything, always resulting in a shortage of learning points available for their primary weapons / armor / profession. Since the game allows users to have 3 characters, it is best to choose which characters will play the role of PVE/PVP, Gathering, and Crafting, and spread your usage of learning points in a more specialized mannerA5.) Albion Online is a game of Risk vs. Reward. Those who venture out into the more risky areas where full loot PVP is enabled will reap additional rewards in the form of higher tier resources, better PVE content, and robust PVP content. There is a large portion of the Albion population which never wants to risk anything in their quest to gather, craft, and PVE. It is my opinion that these individuals are depriving themselves of everything that Albion Online has to offer, specifically the challenge of trying to succeed in a dangerous world in the Red / Black zone regions. Look at risk as a game in itself, and find a way to survive and thrive in a risky environment, and only then can you say that you mastered the game of Albion OnlineA6.) Consider the beta period "Albion Online University" where you can make mistakes and try out different skills, abilities, and crafts without any real consequence. Most of the players who play in a beta know a wipe is coming, but they use this period to theory craft and ultimately come up with a strategy that they can use upon release. Just because a wipe happens, doesn't mean that the fun stops. It's your chance to learn everything you need in this game and have a knowledge advantage over other people who never played in the beta.A7.) This is a great question that many people have worries over, specifically when they are gathering in a red or black zone. The following list is the way you can prepare yourself to be most ready for an unwanted attack to either kill your enemy or escape unscathed:A8.) There are many pro's and con's about joining a guild that we can go over here in detail.First the Pro's:Now the Con's: