MONEY GUIDE ODLICAN******************************************************************************DEAD ISLANDA Money Making FAQ/Walkthrough by Ice_ShieldVersion 0.8E-mail xMarineSnowx@gmail.com*******************************************************************************0. Version History & Contact1. Introduction2. Getting Started3. Items Involved 3A. Brand Champagne & Diamonds 3B. Alcohol & Molotovs 3C. Cellphones 3D. Oleander & EXP 3E. Safes and Cash Registers4. Money Making/Farming Tactics 4A. Act 1 4A1. Hotel 4B. Act 2 4B1. Warehouse 4B2. Supermarket 4B3. Mayor's Office 4B4. Abandoned House 4C. Act 3 4C1. Gun Shop 4D. Act 4 4D1. Laboratory5. Q&A6. Credits*******************************************************************************0. VERSION & CONTACT*******************************************************************************=====Version History=====Version 0.8 (Sept 16th, 2011): + Updated Money Making/Farming Tactics with a money scale + Added Gun Shop to Act 3 and Hotel to Act 1 + Added on Square option to LaboratoryVersion 0.7 (Sept 14th, 2011): + Created FAQ + Created Version History & Contact + Created Introduction + Created Getting Started + Created Items Involved and all subparts + Created Money Making/Farming Tactics and all subparts + Created Q&A + Created Credits=====Contact=====If you spot any errors, have additional information to give me or just wannasay hey, you can email me at xMarineSnowx@gmail.comIf you wish to have this hosted on your site, please also send me an email.This FAQ is only to be used by GameFAQs.Please don't sell it or all of that other crap, although I don't know anyonestupid enough to buy a user written FAQ.*******************************************************************************1. INTRODUCTION*******************************************************************************So I wrote this guide after being on the GameFAQs forums and realizing that themajority of players either (A) Didn't have enough money to enjoy the game,(B) Duped all of their inventory to make money or (C) Didn't do A or B. I'veseen people come up with ideas on how to make money in the game, and some ofthem are good while others can be improved a lot. I've come up with my own wayof making money in the game and it's pretty wonderful, so I decided to makethis guide, to make a compendium of money making techniques. So, here it is!I am going to assume that you, as a player, already know how Dead Island works.I'm not going to explain how items are repaired or any other gameplay knowledgethat does not deal with money making. If you need help with these things youare looking in the wrong FAQ.*******************************************************************************2. GETTING STARTED********************************************************************************THIS FAQ WILL NOT DEAL WITH DUPLICATING ITEMS!Anyone who suggests to me that you can duplicate items, tells me that this FAQis pointless, or insists that I am "ignoring" item duplication will be ignored.If you want to duplicate items, go ahead, but I will not tell you how nor postways to duplicate items/money/weapons/whatever. DON'T ASK!Some of these ways to make money will revolve around being at a certain part ofthe game. That being said, there will be ways someone in Act 1 cannot take partin because you need to be at Act 4. The farther you are along in the game, thebetter it is to make money, due to the many different ways you can choose. Notethat this is not always the case, since some ways will change due to storylineand may increase or decrease the "payoff" of the area.A key note to also remember is that money dropped is related to character leveland skill points distributed. If the player has a skill that increases totalmoney found, they will obviously work better in situations where you pick upmore money as opposed to finding items and selling them. Likewise, a person ofa low level will find less money, so a situation where items are found and soldprove to be the best.Finally, some ways to find money that are listed involve randomosity. Thismeans that you could get lucky and find rare items constantly, or that youcould go for a long while without finding any rare items. The ways listed willalways be the best ways to help you beat out that randomosity.*******************************************************************************3. ITEMS INVOLVED*******************************************************************************Some of these ways to make money will involve looting places in hopes offinding certain items. Here I'll be listing items which are key to making moneyand the reasons why they're "worth it".================================3A. Brand Champagne & Diamonds =================================Brand Champagne: A semi-event drop (meaning it can only be found in certain locations) that can be traded in to an NPC (Svetlana) for 100xp and 1 Diamonds.Diamonds: A rare event drop (meaning it can only be found through an event or in a container that is programmed to only drop Diamonds.Champagne and Diamonds are famous in the game because they can only be found incertain locations, they're worth a lot, they revolve around certain quests, andfinally they're needed to create certain weapons. Champagne can only be foundin certain fridges that are sporadically located around the game map, mostly inareas that hard to access. Diamonds can only be found in one container and therest must be traded from Svetlana.Svetlana is located on the Resort area (the beach, Act 1) of the game and canbe found at the very far left corner of the map. More specifically, she's inthe very last bungalow at the top right of the map. She will activate acontinuous quest in which you'll have to bring her Champagne. For each bottleof Brand Champagne she'll give you Diamonds and 100xp. So, Champagne istheoretically worth $1500.=========================3B. Alcohol & Molotov's ==========================Bottles of Alcohol can be found all around the island. There are about fourquests in the game which use Alcohol to complete, and I'm not talking onebottle for each, I'm talking copious amounts. There's one quest that requires15 Alcohol to complete! There are also at least three quests that involvetrading in Alcohol for explosives. These quests are continuous so you cancomplete them multiple times.Now the reason I'm talking about Molotov's is because for every three bottlesof Alcohol you collect, you can get 1 Molotov from a continuous quest, whichmeans that in total you can collect a crapton of Molotov's. Molotov's are worthupwards of $400 each, so it's nice to collect alcohol whenever you can. Besideshaving extra Molotovs is never, ever a bad thing.================3C. Cellphones =================Cellphones aren't something you're going to spend time hunting; you're going tofind them all over the island, all of the time. Each Cellphone is worth $42 andyou can easily find ten in a minute if you're looking through a bunch ofluggage. Since they're so easy to be found (especially in Act 1) and you don'treally need them, they should be one of your first sources of income if you'restrapped for cash.====================3D. Oleander & EXP =====================Now while this isn't really for money, it's more for EXP, and it's one of theeasiest and fastest ways to make a lot of EXP. Right after you meet the NPCnamed Ope you will start a quest which involves you to gather 5 Oleander inexchange for some money and 1000xp. The money is only $1, so don't get tooexcited. However, this is an NPC that sells Oleander. In fact, it's $112 foreach Oleander. So, 5 Oleander comes up to $660. Mathematically, thit means thateach $660 is worth 1000xp, and that each $2 will gain you about 3 exp.You have $20,000? That's worth 30,000 exp! So, if you really wanted to, youcould call this guide a Money Making / EXP Farming Guide if you wanted too,considering money directly equals EXP. That's why I've included this.==============================3E. Safes and Cash Registers ===============================Throughout the game you'll find Cash Registers lying around. In the beginningof the game you'll find your first one right next to the first workbench youencounter in the game. You probably opened it up and found around $300. That'sabout 30x what you'll find on a zombie at the beginning of the game!Later on in the game you'll find a safe. Safes are never locked and can beopened by anyone. There's a chance you'll find a wristwatch, or light fluid,but most of the time you'll find money. How much money? Well, at least $2k.Remember that higher levels will make you find more money. Around level 30 Iwas finding about $3-4.5k per safe (that contained money, which was 80% of thetime). *******************************************************************************4. MONEY MAKING/FARMING TACTICS*******************************************************************************Now it's time for the good stuff. I've broken it down to different Acts, andwhile you may be in Act 2, you might not be far enough into Act 2 to be able todo it correctly. That being said, I'll make notes (as good as I can) to theearliest you can achieve these methods in each act. Also, remember, itemduplication will not be mentioned.I will grade each tactic by a couple parameters;Profits : How much money you can gainDifficulty: How difficult it is to completeLuck Base : How much the tactic relies on "luck" on things like looting itemsRepetitive: How quickly and often you'll complete the same actionsI've created the following list on the best ways to make money on a scale.You can use the find codes (ctrl+f) after each to quick find.Per Hour Act Area LocatedFCode$310,000 (Act 4) Laboratory(4D1)$90,000(Act 2) Supermarket (4B2)$70,000(Act 3) Gunshop (4C1)$65,000(Act 1) Hotel (4A1)$48,000(Act 2) Warehouse (4B1)$30,000(Act 2) Abandoned House (4B4)$24,000(Act 2) Mayor's Office(4B3)Remember that money may vary depending on your level so someone level 40 willfind items and money that is higher value than someone who is level 10. Some ofthese ways are also very luck-based, so I took the lowest and highest value youcould find in an hour and averaged it.From the scale, you can obviously see that Act 4 has the best way. Since that'splenty of hours into the game, the earliest way is the Hotel at $65k an hour.Act 2 also has the second highest with the Supermarket at 90k an hour.===========4A. Act 1 ============Starting off in Act 1, you should first play out the game and get a "feel" forhow you'll need money. Normally I wouldn't post things like how to make moneyso early in the game, but I found Act 1 to be the one place where I NEEDEDmoney. I'd suggest doing a few of the main quests to "open up" the game.=====4A1. Hotel=====Profits : $7-$15k per trip (10m), $42-$90k per hourDifficulty: 2.5/5Luck Base : 3/5Repetitive: 2/5Eventually through the questline you'll get access to the hotel. Once insideyou will find a few cash registers (and zombies) in the first area. Loot theregisters to find about 1k per register (there are three or four registers).Now you can exit this part of the hotel and pick one of two ways. If you'refeeling lucky you can run along the right hand side of the hotel and loot bagsand hope for large sums of cash or rare items, or you can go back into thehotel and reloot the cash registers. You may have some luck with the bags butI find that the registers work just fine.Is it worth it? So early in the game I would say yes if you need money. I don'tknow why you would need to farm more than 10k or so but itdefinitely helps to go farming when you need it.===========4B. Act 2 ============In Act 2 you'll start in the city. The first thing you should do is completequests that lead up to unlocking the Church and the Warehouse, in which theWarehouse is located south/southeast of the Church, which should be surroundedby zombies as indicated on your mini map.=====4B1. Warehouse=====Profits : $400 per trip (30s), $48k per hourDifficulty: 1/5Luck Base : 0/5Repetitive: 5/5Starting at the Warehouse, loot all of the weapons you can find. You shouldfind a hammer, a baseball bat, and a knife all in the warehouse. Now FastTravel to the Church and sell the items. Fast Travel back to the Warehouse andthe weapons should reappear.This is the easiest way to make money in the game because it requires fightingno zombies, relies on no luck because the items will always be there, and canbe done faster than any other way. The downside of this is that it's very, verymonotonous and the reward isn't that great per trip. Yes, $400 every 30 secondsmay seem nice especially when you don't have to fight zombies, but you'll startgetting sick of this method before you even earn $10k. Is it worth it? No, but if you're in a pinch or don't like doing monotonoustasks, sure.=====4B2. Supermarket=====Profits : $5-$10k per trip (5m), $60-120k per hourDifficulty: 2/5Luck Base : 4/5Repetitive: 2/5As you proceed through Act 2 you will come across a quest that involves youraiding a Supermarket. The Supermarket will be FULL of gun-wielding humans,which gives it the 2/5 difficulty rating, but you only have to kill them offonce, which is why it's a low rating.Inside the Supermarket you'll come across a bunch of cash registers (5 or sooff the top of my head) and a bunch of coolers which can contain Champagne (andI mean a LOT of coolers). The goal here is to run in, grab what's in the cashregisters and coolers (hoping for Champagne) and then run out of the place.Then you go back in and repeat the process. Since each trip takes a good fiveminutes, it takes quite a few runs for it to start getting annoying, but bythat time you'll have raked in a bunch of cash and a few champagnes.Is it worth it? Yes, if you're at that point of the story, but you have to gothrough the Sewers to get there. If you know your way there, gofor it, but if not you might want to stick to another tactic.=====4B3. Mayor's Office=====Profits : $2k per run (5m), $24k per hourDifficulty: 2.5/5Luck Base : 0/5Repetitive: 3/5Along your questline you'll receive a quest to go meet the Mayor. After thisquest you'll have another quest to go back to meet him again. After you arriveback at the Mayor's Office you'll find it to be quite different than before(keeping it spoiler free). In the Mayor's room you'll find a briefcasecontaining Diamonds. This is one of the only places in the game where you canfind Diamonds to loot, let alone that it's programmed to always be dropped.What's even better is that when you Load Last Checkpoint the Diamonds willreappear in the briefcase!You'll have to fight off some Walkers, Infected and one Suicider in the path tothe Mayor's Office, but you'll always get the Diamonds. There are a few bagshere and there to check through so you can rake in an extra $500 per run. Itdoes get a little repetitive after you do it a couple of times.Is it worth it? If you need Diamonds, yes. This is the only sure-fire way toget diamonds in the game. If you're looking for money insteadof diamonds, go with other methods as they're quicker, easierand involve less fighting.=====4B4. Abandoned House=====Profits : ~$1k per run (2m), $30k per hourDifficulty: 2/5Luck Base : 5/5Repetitive: 3/5As soon as you get into the Church you can start a sidequest where a man wantsyou to put his wife and child "out of their pain". You then have to go off andfind their Abandonded House (which is actually somewhat of an apartment) andkill off his family (that's what the quest tells you from the beginning). Onceyou get into the house and kill his family you'll find the true treasure; twocoolers which can be full of beautiful Champagne. They're in the rooms with thewife and child. When you're finished just walk out and back into the place andyou'll be able to reloot the coolers.Your first run through you'll be greeted with a dozen or so zombies, includinga few Infected, but it isn't that bad. With every run-through thereafter you'llonly have to fight off around 4 zombies, so it's not that difficult. Sincethere are two coolers that can contain Champagne you'll be making on averageabout $1000 per run (or two champagne every three runs).Is it worth it? If you need Diamonds, yes. If not, somewhat, because it doesrely on luck. If you're feeling lucky then go for it. If not, Iwould stick to another method.===========4C. Act 3 ============Act 3 for me seemed so quick that I don't really know if it's worth it to farmfor money. It would probably be better to just go finish the Act and start onAct 4 for the Lab. This Act took me no more than an hour and a half to finish.Nonetheless, if you need to farm money, you can take a look at this trick.=====4C1. Gun Shop=====Profits : $2-5k per trip (3m), $40-$100k per hourDifficulty: 1.5/5Luck Base : 5/5Repetitive: 4/5Technically this is in the city, but you must be in Act 3 in order for this towork, so I've included it here. Go around the city and to the south you shouldsee a building with a bunch of people trying to get inside. You should havegone by this place when doing the Cerberus quests.Once inside you'll get a Fast Travel location called "Square". Once there, headoutside and go west/northwest until you see the Travel to Sewers portal. On thenext block to the left is the Gun Shop. You may need to do a quest to getaccess to it.As you go into the gun shop there'll be a back hallway containing one metalchest and a cash register. Simply loot the contents and walk back out. Repeat.If you manage to see a weapon worth keeping or worth a lot of money in themetal chest, keep it.Is it worth it? Somewhat. The ability to always find a metal chest is great ifyou're looking for weapons. If not, you can make a chunk ofchange this way, but you're better off waiting until the Lab inAct 4 to get the big moolah.===========4D. Act 4 ============Act 4 has the BEST way to make money in the game. It's BY FAR the mostprofitable and there's no reason to do any other ways once you get to the Lab.=====4D1. Laboratory=====Profits : $8.5-$12k per run (2m), $255-$360k per hourDifficulty: 1.5/5Luck Base : 3/5Repetitive: 2/5NOTE: I have received a few emails that starting in the Abandoned House named"Square" makes more money than Jungle River. Since I don't have my game on meat the moment I can't check out the claim. I've been told that Square containstwo fridges in which you can get more champagne from. It is up to you if youwant to choose Square or Jungle River. If hype lives up to Square, it wouldmore than likely add on at least $50k per hour. Credits go to PhoenixAssassinand White Knight 01 for the information.This is the end-all be-all techniques to making money. You not only profitmoney per run, you're also getting Champagne (Diamonds) and a crapload ofAlcohol (which means Molotovs). Not to mention that there's an NPC that sellsOleander, which is involved in a continuous quest to where you gain 1k exp per5 Oleanders. So, you can take your profits from this and get tons of EXP.To do this you need to complete the first couple of quests in the laboratorywhere you'll gain access to the other half of the laboratory. Once you gainaccess to the second part of the lab (where you save a guy from like threezombies) you can do this whenever you like. Please take note that it may takeyou a couple trips to get down the "feel" of the run.Start off by storing all of your weapons except for one with Jin. Travel to theJungle River. Pick up the two bottles of alcohol and now travel to the Lab.When the loading screen goes away you'll instantly be attacked by an Infectedliterally right behind you. The good thing is that the game is programmed togive you a few seconds before damage starts getting taken off so you can takehim down with a hit or two.Once the infected is down run into the lab. Go into the room with the Workbenchand to the left of it you'll see a Safe. Open it up and grab the cash if it'sin there. Once that's done, run past the janitor named Joel Dirt and grab thetwo bottles of alcohol in the room directly behind him. When this is done runinto the lab on your right, then into the next door on your left with the NPC.In here you'll find two fridges which will either contain nothing, lemon juice,alcohol or Champagne. Hope for Champagne. When this is done, get out back tothe hallway you were just in and run across into the second part of the lab(past the double doors) and go into the first room on your right. In this roomyou'll find a Safe against the back wall. Hope for money. Exit this room andgo into the room immediately on your right. In here you'll find another Safeand another fridge. Hope for Champagne and money. If you've completed a couplemore quests you can additionally go into the "quarantined" room on your leftwhich will contain another bottle of alcohol. When this is all done run back tothe map and travel back to Jungle River. Repeat the process.It sounds like a lot, I know, but once you get in there you'll realize what toget and where to go. It goes like this;Start at Jungle River+Alcohol+AlcoholTravel to Lab+Kill Infected+Safe+Alcohol+Alcohol+Fridge+Fridge+Safe+Safe+Fridge+AlcoholRepeat back at Jungle RiverIn the end you'll get:+5 Alcohol (4 if you do not have access to the "quarantine" room)+3 Safes+3 Fridges which can contain Champagne or AlcoholI was averaging around 3.5k per safe and about two safes had money in them perrun. For every three runs I got about four champagne. I also got about oneextra alcohol per run from the fridges. In three runs that's 21k cash, 18alcohol and four Champagne/Diamonds.Do this as many times as you want. When you're finished go back to the Resortarea (the beach) and trade in your Champagne at Svetlana for Diamonds and yourAlcohol for Molotov's from Harlan. I suggest Harlan since he only requires 3Alcohol per Molotov while other NPC's require 5.Why Jungle River? Because you get two alcohol right after arriving. All otherplaces didn't have anything right off the get go.Why Molotovs? Since Alcohol is received anyway, there's no point to keeping it(unless you're Logan) so you might as well make some Molotov's off of it.Now, if you want to turn that money into EXP, listen. The Janitor Joel Dirt inthe Lab will sell Oleander for $112 a piece. Later in the Act you'll findsomeone to trade that Oleander (5 of them) for 1000 EXP (and $1). Since you'llbe making about 10k per run, that's 15,000EXP per run!NOTE: If you continue with the quests in Act 4 you will complete an escortmission. After this mission is over all NPCs will vanish in the Lab which meansyou can no longer buy Oleander from Joel. I am unsure if other NPCs sellOleander so you may want to hold off on that quest. Also, all doors will vanishin the Lab after this escort quest, which will make running through this loopa lot easier.Is it worth it? Yes. Yes yes yes. If you convert all of the money into EXP,including the diamonds to money to EXP, you'll be makingroughly 500,000 exp per hour. Level 47 is 2m EXP and level 50is 3m EXP, which means in four hours you can level from 1 to 47with almost no zombie fighting whatsoever.*******************************************************************************5. Q&A*******************************************************************************Q. I have a better way to farm money!A. Does it deal with duplicating items? If so, no. If not, feel free to email me, but if it isn't any better than any other technique in that Act, it's not worth adding. If it is I'll credit you!Q. Why don't you just duplicate? Lolol.A. Duplicating isn't something I like. I like being able to look at the resources in a game and play it how it was intended, not how it wasn't. If you have such a big hatred of people working for their gaming satisfaction because they won't cheat, you seriously need to prioritize your time.Q. Something you listed is incorrect.A. It could be that the game was patched to fix whatever got changed. I would assume that the Oleander quest will get patched to 100exp instead of 1000 pretty soon. If you do notice anything incorrect, send me an email and I will update it with a credit going out to you.Q. Champagne? Diamonds? Svetlana?A. Svetlana can be found in the top left bungalow on the Resort Area (beach) of the game, in Act 1. She is literally the last thing you'll find at the north east part of the map. Literally last thing. She'll give you Diamonds for every Champagne you give her.Q. I can't find Champagne!A. I've noticed places have different payout rates for Champagne. For example, the Supermarket gives less Champagne than the Lab does for some reason. I can almost always find one Champagne in the three fridges at the Lab but I can do three trips at the Supermarket and not find one Champagne in all of the freezers. Must just be my luck.Q. Why do you need all that money anyways?A. Repairing legendary weapons costs thousands and thousands of dollars. Fixing or creating a Developer weapon costs 10,000 and 10 Diamonds. And as listed you can exchange money to EXP at a 1:1.5 ratio.Q. Why don't you have any ways listed for Act 5?A. Once you're in Act 5 you can't go back, so I felt no reason why anyone should pick a "point of no return" point to start farming money. As for Act 1 and Act 3, I don't have my game on me so I don't know any specifics for those areas. They'll come in an update later in the week.Q. My game corrupted after I listened to you!A. Game Corruption may have a link to having an excess amount of items in your inventory. For this reason, if you do decide to trade the Oleander for EXP you should follow some precautions; never buy more than 99 Oleander in one sitting. Never turn off your game when the "Oleander taken" text is on the left side of your screen. Always save the game by exiting to the main menu. If you are not trading in the Oleander for EXP, nothing in this guide will make your game corrupt; NOTHING.*******************************************************************************6. CREDITS*******************************************************************************Basilmarket - Just letting you know that HolyMythos is awesome ;)GameFAQs - For their site, which would leave me so much less of a gamer withoutDead Island Board on GameFAQs - For being awesome and helping me with the game when I needed itPhantasy Star Online Episode 1 & 2 Board - Just so that I can say "Hollah" and that this FAQ has it written in document that I am the owner of the Knack. Hell, it was on a fortune cookie! I am the rightful owner.In closing, I'd like to thank you for reading my FAQ. If you have any questionsremember to contact me at xMarineSnowx@gmail.com