Trade Packs & Commerce

Craft a regional specialty pack, haul it across the map on your back, and sell it to a distant trader for far more than it cost: this is the Commerce loop, and Larceny is the dark mirror that steals it.

Table of Contents

• What a Trade Pack Is
• Why Packs Are Not Auctionable
• The Commerce Vocation
• How to Craft a Pack
• The Specialty Workbench
• Pack Recipes and Reagents
• Carrying, Storing, and Delivering
• Trade Routes and Value
• Where to Sell: Specialty Traders
• Cargo Packs
• Larceny: Stealing Packs and Goods
• A Worked Example
• On Rookery Isles

What a Trade Pack Is

A trade pack (the game calls them Specialty items) is a heavy regional good you craft at a zone's workbench, then physically carry to a distant trader to sell. The further and riskier the journey, the more the buyer pays. Trade packs are the backbone of the overland and seafaring economy, and unlike almost everything else you make, they never touch the Auction House.

In the server data, every trade pack lives in the Specialty item category (category id 133). There are 347 specialty items in this build. Each one is stamped with an origin: the zone-group whose workbench produced it. 343 of the 347 carry a non-zero origin zone, which is what lets the game work out how far you have hauled it when you finally sell.

Here are a few verified examples straight from the database:

Most "basic" zone specialties share a 10,000 copper base value (255 of the 347 items sit at exactly that figure). Processed and higher-tier packs jump to 20,000 or 50,000. Auroria continent specialties leap to 170,857, and a handful of ruin and salvage items climb into the millions. The Delphinad Register is the single most valuable specialty in the build.

The key idea: the base value is only the floor. What you actually earn is decided by the route you run, not the item alone. See Trade Routes and Value.

Why Packs Are Not Auctionable

This is the single most important rule and the one most other guides get wrong: you cannot sell trade packs on the Auction House. There is no listing button, no buy order, no flipping. A pack is a thing you wear on your back and walk somewhere with.

The data backs this up cleanly. Across the whole item table, more than 21,000 items carry an Auction House category and can be listed. The carryable specialty packs you craft at workbenches do not: their auction category fields are zero. (A tiny handful of category-133 entries carry a stray category id, but the packs you make and run for profit are not among the auctionable set.) If you want to move a pack, you move it yourself.

That makes Commerce fundamentally different from the rest of the crafting economy. On the Auction House you list ore, ingots, fabric, and finished gear and let buyers come to you. With packs, you are the delivery system, and the profit you earn is paid for your time, your distance, and your exposure to ambush. For everything that DOES sell on the AH, read the Auction House guide.

The Commerce Vocation

Commerce is one of the 22 player vocations, sitting in the Misc. tab of your proficiency window alongside Larceny, Construction, Artistry, and Exploration. Crafting and running packs raises your Commerce proficiency, and proficiency ranks up through the standard ladder shared by every vocation:

Higher Commerce proficiency carries a real, in-game perk: a movement-speed buff while carrying a pack. The data contains two such buffs, "Commerce Speed Increases" and "Bound Commerce Speed Increases." The exact percentage at each rank is not exposed in the database (community-reported, not server-confirmed), but the direction is certain: the more you rank Commerce, the faster you move while loaded down. That speed is everything when a contested route is one ambush away from a total loss.

Commerce also has its own tool craft, "Making Commerce Tools" (25 Labor), mirroring how every gathering and crafting vocation makes its own tools. For the full proficiency, rank, and Labor system that all 22 vocations share, see Labor and Proficiency.

How to Craft a Pack

Crafting a pack is a single, cheap action at the right workbench. Three Commerce craft skills exist, and every character knows all three automatically. There is nothing to buy or unlock:

The basic pack craft (skill 16766) costs 50 Labor and takes about 6 seconds. The skill's own in-game description confirms it: it consumes 50 Labor to craft a regional specialty. That is the only Labor you spend to make a pack. Crafting one produces exactly one pack item.

Step by step:

• Step 1. Gather or buy the bulk ingredient for the zone you are standing in (an Acorn pile, Goose Meat, raw cloth, and so on). See Pack Recipes and Reagents.
• Step 2. Buy a Quality Certificate (the universal pack wrapper). One per pack.
• Step 3. Walk to that zone's Specialty Workbench.
• Step 4. Use the workbench's craft to spend 50 Labor and 6 seconds. You now have a pack on the ground or your back.
• Step 5. Pick it up, mount up or board a ship, and haul it to a distant trader.

No level gate. You may see a "recommended level 52" tag on the craft. Ignore it. That number is the default value stamped on more than 10,000 of the roughly 10,200 crafts in the entire database; it is a data artifact, not a real lock. The pack crafts carry no Commerce-proficiency minimum either, so a brand-new character can craft a basic pack on day one.

The Specialty Workbench

Each major zone has its own Specialty Workbench, and each workbench makes only that zone's two specialties. You cannot craft Gweonid's goods in Solzreed; you go where the recipe lives. This is what ties packs to geography and forces the long haul.

The verified per-zone workbenches in this build:

Two additional craft skills (35079 and 35290) feed special stations: a Fellowship Workbench and a Clan's Specialty Workbench, plus dedicated "Specialty Craftsman" stations in Two Crowns, White Arden, Perinoor Ruins, and Hasla. These guild and fellowship benches let organized groups produce packs together; see Guild System and Taxes.

Pack Recipes and Reagents

Every pack recipe follows the same shape: one Quality Certificate plus one bulk gathered or farmed ingredient. The certificate is the wrapper; the bulk ingredient is the actual cargo. Two verified recipes:

The Quality Certificate (item 4747) is the one constant across every pack you will ever make. It carries a base price of 5,000 copper and refunds 5,000 if you scrap a pack, so it holds its value. You buy it from a general-goods style vendor; the exact NPC is not pinned down in the structured data (treat the precise vendor as unconfirmed), but the certificate itself is cheap and always required.

The bulk ingredient is where your gathering professions pay off. Acorns, goose meat, fibers, ore, and produce all come from the gathering and farming vocations. Sourcing your own mats is what turns a pack run from break-even into pure profit:

• Crops and produce: Farming and Gathering herbs.
• Animal products (meat, wool, milk): Husbandry.
• Ore and stone for the metalwork and masonry packs: Mining.
• Lumber-based packs: Logging.

If you buy mats off the Auction House instead of gathering them, factor that cost against the route profit before you commit to a long haul.

Carrying, Storing, and Delivering

Once crafted, a pack is a backpack-style object your character wears. It is bulky and it slows you down, which is the entire balancing mechanic of the trade economy. The data exposes a full set of zero-Labor handling skills:

Two important mechanics ride along with carrying:

• Packs add weight. A dedicated weight effect loads you down while a pack is on your back, which is why the Commerce speed buff matters and why hauling on a mount, cart, or ship beats running on foot. See Mounts and Ships.
• Getting hit can knock the pack off. A "Remove Trade Pack on Hit" effect exists, so taking damage in contested territory risks losing your cargo to whoever is attacking you. This is the door that Larceny walks through.

You can load packs onto mounts, carts, and trade ships to move many at once, which is the only practical way to run high-volume routes or cross open water.

Trade Routes and Value

The real money is in the route, not the pack. The server stores a route value matrix of 2,237 entries, each pairing an origin zone with a destination and a profit figure (in copper) that drives what the buyer pays. A few rules emerge directly from that data:

• Selling in the same zone you crafted pays nothing. Local routes (origin equals destination) have a profit of zero. You must travel.
• Distance and danger pay. The highest-value destinations are open-water and contested hubs, not safe inland towns.
• A buyer must exist. Of the 2,237 routes, 316 have a confirmed trader NPC at the destination. The rest are unfixed.

The top of the route table is dominated by Auroria-origin packs sold into the Sunspeck Sea, a free-PvP ocean. The richest verified routes:

For a more grounded starting picture, here are the routes leaving Solzreed Peninsula, a safe Nuian starter zone:

An honest caveat about exact gold. The profit number is the design value, not a guaranteed payout. The amount you actually receive is adjusted at runtime by your Commerce proficiency, by demand and saturation at the destination (the classic effect where each pack sold to the same port pays a little less), by the pack's freshness, and by whether a fixed buyer exists. So treat these figures as a relative ranking of which routes are worth running, not as a promise of "this pays exactly X gold." The relationships are reliable: Auroria-to-Sunspeck beats Solzreed-to-Hasla, every time.

On safety: the best-paying routes end in lawless water. Auroria and every sea on this server are free-PvP, so the richest hauls are also the ones most likely to be intercepted. Plan escorts, run with a guild, or accept the risk. For where each zone sits on the danger map, see the World Atlas.

Where to Sell: Specialty Traders

You sell a pack to a specialty trader NPC at the destination, never on the Auction House. The server defines 62 such trader entries, each tied to a "bundle" describing which packs that trader buys and at what value. The bundle tables hold 5,768 individual purchase entries, which is how a single destination can pay different amounts for different packs.

Verified buyer NPCs in the data include Siraba, Yurila, Mire, Paru, Jula, and Shalara. When you reach a destination, look for the specialty trader, use the Sell Trade Pack action, and the game pays you according to that NPC's bundle and the live demand at that port.

Cargo Packs

Above the zone specialties sit Cargo Packs, the larger cross-continent trade tier built for carts and ships rather than a single runner's back. Four cargo pack items exist in the build:

| Cargo pack | |---| | Basic Cargo Pack | | Luxury Porcelain Cargo Pack | | Rare Wine Cargo Pack | | Ancient Literature Cargo Pack |

Each has its own drop skill, confirming they behave like oversized specialty packs. The full cargo economy (cargo merchant ports, the stabilizing reagents, and dedicated hauler ships) runs largely at the client and runtime level and is not fully described in the static tables, so treat the fine mechanics of cargo trading as community-reported rather than server-confirmed. What is certain: cargo packs are the high-volume, high-stakes end of Commerce, and they move by ship. See Mounts and Ships.

Larceny: Stealing Packs and Goods

Larceny is Commerce's shadow: the thieving vocation, sitting beside Commerce in the Misc. proficiency tab. Where Commerce builds and delivers, Larceny takes.

Theft is built as a set of discrete "Steal X" skills, each tied to a specific stealable object. Verified examples from the data:

Two things every player should understand:

• Open-world farming is stealable. If you plant crops or raise livestock on unclaimed open land instead of on a secured housing plot, other players can harvest them out from under you and earn Larceny proficiency for the theft. This is the single biggest reason new farmers lose their first harvest. The protection is to farm on owned land.
• Packs can be taken. Because getting hit can knock a pack off your back, and because dropped packs can be picked up, a thief can intercept a hauler, force the pack loose, and walk away with it. This is what makes the high-value contested routes genuinely dangerous and why escorts exist.

Larceny ranks up just like Commerce, through the same proficiency ladder, and carries its own perks: a "Larceny Speed" movement buff and a proficiency milestone reward, "Open the Larceny Proficiency Box." The classic "open enemy coinpurses and bags" framing is part of Larceny's flavor, but the exact loot rates and the criminal-point consequences of being caught run at the runtime level and are not exposed in the static data (community-reported, not server-confirmed). What is verifiable: Larceny grows by stealing crops, farm goods, and packs, and rewards you with speed and a milestone box.

A Worked Example

Putting it together, here is a clean basic run a new Commerce player can do:

• Step 1. In Solzreed Peninsula, gather 15 Acorns (free from the trees) and buy one Quality Certificate (about 5,000 copper).
• Step 2. At the Solzreed Peninsula Specialty Workbench, craft a Solzreed Acorn Jelly for 50 Labor.
• Step 3. Hoist the pack, mount up, and ride or sail toward a distant destination. Selling it back in Solzreed pays nothing; selling it in Windscour Savannah is worth a 9,000 profit on the route table, and pushing into the Arcadian Sea or Sunspeck Sea pays 10,500.
• Step 4. Find the specialty trader at the destination and use Sell Trade Pack.
• Step 5. Your gross is the pack's base value plus the route profit, adjusted by your Commerce rank and the port's demand. Your costs were one Quality Certificate, 50 Labor, and the travel time. The wider the gap between those, the better the run.

Scale that up: gather your own bulk mats, batch-craft several packs, load them onto a cart or ship, and run a long Auroria-to-Sunspeck route where each pack carries a 50,000 to 70,000 profit. That is the endgame of Commerce, and it is also where Larceny is waiting.

On Rookery Isles

A few server-specific truths for ArcheAge 3.0 (Revelation) on Rookery Isles:

• No level gate on crafting packs. The "recommended level 52" label on pack crafts is an upstream data default on more than 10,000 recipes, not a real lock. You can craft a basic pack from Level 1. (This is the same fork-wide level-52 artifact that Rookery patched out for gathering; see Labor and Proficiency.)
• Crafting a pack costs 50 Labor (basic) or 60 Labor. Ignore any guide claiming a route "uses 600 to 800 Labor per pack." The only verified Labor cost is the craft itself.
• Trade packs are not auctionable. The carryable specialty packs you make at workbenches cannot be listed on the Auction House. Anyone telling you to "flip trade packs on the AH" is describing a mechanic that does not exist here. AH flipping is for ore, ingots, fabric, and gear, not packs.
• There is no "Unidentified Auroran Ore" in trade packs. That item does not exist in this build. Auroria specialties like Exeloch Organic Gems are crafted from ordinary gathered mats plus a Quality Certificate.
• The richest routes end in lawless seas. Auroria and every ocean are free-PvP. The top of the profit table is also the top of the risk table.

See also

• The Marketplace (Credit Cash Shop)
• Auction House & Player Economy
• Currencies & Vendors
• Labor Points & Proficiency
• Crafting & Gathering Overview
• Mounts, Pets, Vehicles & Ships
• The Realm: Houses, Guilds & Taxes
• World Atlas: Zones & Continents
• Dailies & Endgame Progression