_{Source: KlingAI}

I'm not going to beat around the bush here. If you haven't already, install RavenQuest now, and read this while it's installing. This scrappy Web3 upstart is breaking records and taking names, and it's what Web3 gamers have been asking for since the inception of the thing:

Game first. Tokenomics second

That's their messaging, and it's one I can super get behind.

And judging by the massive turnout for the TGE launch party I'm not the only one.

_{Source: Game Client}

This event was on a Wednesday at 10am PST, and even then they still they had to make frantic calls to add additional servers as the event wore on and thousand of users jumped in.

RavenQuest is what Gods Unchain't

I've long lamented that Gods Unchained could be a hit if they spent a lot more time and energy on polishing the game instead of trying to introduce new features and tech. From the beginning, it has seemed more like they take their cues from crypto projects, not video gamees, and IMHO the game suffers for that.

RavenQuest (which like GU, uses IMX Passport) doesn't have that issue for one simple reason: it already existed as a game and has only now moved into the Web3 realm with the addition of the $QUEST token and ImmutableX integration.

Down the road I'll probably delve into the that aspect more and run some numbers with an eye towards comparing GU and RQ Play-to-Earn potential, but for today I just wanted to highlight a few things that I learned the hard way, that I spent way too long trying to sort out or that I just plain missed that will help you get going way faster than I did.

Before I get started I also want to point out three resources:

👉 RavenQuest Whitepaper: A breakdown on how the Web3 stuff is supposed to work.

👉 RavenQuest Wiki: Great if you already know what you're looking for. Not on Fandom, no ads is fantastic.

👉 RavenQuest Complete Beginner's Guide: Best text resource by far on all aspects of the game.

My purpose is not to rehash any of the information from those links, rather these are some more meta observations to save new folks time with easy answers to questions that aren't really covered above.

1️⃣ RavenQuest is RavenDawn. Sort of.

I'm not going to pretend to understand WTF is going on over at /r/RavenDawn now, but from what I gather RavenDawn is and was a game that has existed for a year or so that has forked into RavenQuest.

RavenDawn appears to be still going separately, but for our purposes one thing is crucial:

Most videos and guides for "RavenDawn" still apply to "RavenQuest".

Things about the economy might be a little suspect or outdated, but if you're having trouble finding a specific NPC or Quest Item or Enemy, just know this: if the YT video says RavenDawn it will still almost certainly help.

2️⃣ Vend it like Venkman.

Early on in the storyline it introduces you to Xeniad, the 'Collector'. It informs you that he will buy your 'Creature Products' off you. It even ensures you have some on hand at the time for you to sell to him.

What it omits is this one simple time saving fact:

Anything the the Collector can buy has no other use in the game.

_{Source: RavenQuest wiki}

After a few missions I had a pretty full inventory with no idea of what I could safely sell and what to keep. Now we know the Easy answer: if an item has a price in silver listed on it, it is considered a Creature Product and its only purpose it to be sold to these vendors.

3️⃣ Use the Community Garden Immediately.

Some time around Level 6, you will be introduced to the Community Garden via a quest and given some free plants that are harvestable right away. After you finish that mission you have access to the Community Garden plot.

As I was not really sure what path I wanted to take in the game (I fancied myself to be a warrior mage with no time for farming), I actually ignored this aspect for maybe the first thirty hours. Big mistake!

Right from the get go, you should immediately plant all potatoes. They are super cheap, they take one hour to grow, and each harvest nets you nearly enough silver for a full $QUEST token. So even if you want to mostly ignore them, collecting 4000 silver every time you have to go back to town is not really something you want to skip. For context, the first helmet you will probably spend money on will cost around 5000 silver.

A typical enemy rewards around 8 silver.

So yeah. Don't be me. At least not if you don't want to spend your first 3 days in Level 1 armor.

It should be noted that you will not have access to the Marketplace until you achieve 1000 reputation, in the meantime stockpile these in your inventory -- people buy them in lots of 2-500 so you can never have too many.

4️⃣ Beware of Overhangs.

I spent forever looking for Brumnar, the Dwarf Commander guy on like the third mission after you leave the city proper. In fact I gave up and moved on through the quests before eventually coming back and discovering him.

_{Source: Game Client, via my phone, because as of today screenshots are disabled in game to prevent bots. Good thing I started this a week ago!}

See how the horizontal edge goes super flat there? Yeah that's a passage. He's in there. So if you're looking for something and it's not where it says it is, see if you can find a perfectly straight line like that -- that marks a passage with tiles rendered over top of it.

5️⃣ Here's a Fishing Rod. But you can't fish here.

This one really messed me up. Around Level 15 you'll get a Fishing Rod during a mission. Once you have that, you can participate in Fishing which is very lucrative both in early game from the shoreline, and later from your boat.

But here's the thing.

When it walks you through the Fishing mini-game during the mission, what it doesn't explain is that Fishing spots appear somewhat randomly and then disappear when they're fished out. The one that it presents you with only works one time during the Fishing intro quest, then it sits there taunting you forever.

After trying it several times, and coming back to it every now and then, I eventually gave up. It wasn't until Level 24 that I actually discovered a proper Fishing spawn and started fishing... I had assumed that there was some other aspect I was missing, another quest or something.

But yeah, if you're not a dumbass like me, once you get the Rod and Hook you're good to go. If you go back to Ravencrest and then pass through the Slums up to where you were first shipwrecked, you've got a pretty good shot at finding one -- there's at least 5 spawns that I've found just on that path. If none are active, just do a loop through the slums cutting wood and then check again. The wood/fish loop there is a pretty solid early game grind to get a jump on Rod and Hook upgrades -- unlike the similarly-tiered Weapons and Armor, these have no Level Limit. And they apply to both shoreline and boat fishing so you can buy with confidence knowing they won't be obsoleted later.

6️⃣ If it Ain't Soulbound, Sell it.

Especially Infusions. You'll get tons of Soulbound ones you can use for yourself, but the fact is that Infusing is astronomically expensive, especially in the early game.

For MMORPGs neophytes, Soulbound items refer to items that are untradable, and only usable by your character. In RavenQuest these are marked with an Infinity symbol in the top left corner.

Since almost all creatures can drop tradable Infusions, you'll be rolling in them right away. The simple 20xp Warband Infusions can go for anywhere between 25 and 45 silver each. If you constantly list your stacks of them at 40 each then they'll eventually get bought. If you ever need to replace 'em just buy 'em when they drop to 25 or even 20.

And that's the key point here. If you don't have an immediate use for it, for anything, sell it. You can always buy it back. But the fact is, you don't actually need 90% of the stuff you drop and the name of the game is to accumulate as much silver as possible -- either for upgrades, or to eventually cash out as $QUEST tokens.

The one exception to this is items that have 100s of listings at 20 (the minimum price you can set for an item is 20 silver).

These will almost never sell and you'll eventually have to deal with them being returned. The Bank (across from the Market) has plenty of storage space to hold 'em until either they become worth something or you need 'em. For the most part these are related to cosmetic items: if you see an NPC mention something in square brackets like [Lucky Hat] it means they want you to collect a bunch of items, in the case of Lucky Hat he wants a measly 45 Poisonous Sacs. Since these drop pretty commonly from Frogs, and you can't sell the Hat, there's never going to be much of a market for them.

Wrapping up

Hopefully that gets you off to a good head start, and well on your way to saving up the ~265000 silver you're going to need to upgrade your first Boat to a Galleon, so you don't get instantly murdered while on the open sea. And while the initial combat can feel a little sluggish, it gets better pretty quickly; once you start unlocking some higher level powers and figure out your rotations the cludgey, clunky and somewhat basic combat encounters turn into relatively decent real-time tactical combat encounters.

_{Source: KlingAI}

As far as the Play-to-Earn stuff goes, I find the idea fascinating and I've gotten quite a few nice paydays from playing Gods Unchained over the past few years. I'm looking forward to digging in more here. If a game is fun enough that you can sink some serious leisure hours into it, it's pretty neat to be able to cash out a bit every once in a while too.

You wouldn't quit your day job for it. But angling to make the most silver per hour is always going to be a fun challenge. It was fun in Path Of Exile when it was called 'divines per hour', and it's just as fun here, but with the added bonus that you can actually turn it into real money after.

And in the words of the great Dax Sheppard in Idiocracy: "I like money."