Items

One of the unique (and sometimes frustrating) aspects of Guild Wars is that, for a good bulk of your character’s early life, you’re going to be finding virtually nothing of worth on the enemies that you kill. If you’re used to upgrading your items from enemy drops in games like World of Warcraft or Diablo II, then this system can be frustrating, as you’re going to have to wait a while and invest a goodly number of hours in the game before you can start to really get the good loot that’s often the point of these games. Enemies don’t start to drop rare items until you’re into the teen levels, and early magical items (which are represented by blue names when they drop) are often only marginally better than their vendor trash counterparts.

Collectors

Early-game items are going to be best obtained through running quests, and by hitting collectors. In pre-Searing Ascalon, the only way to obtain armor will be to run and find the various collectors that dwell outside the towns. These collectors will ask for a certain number of a certain item, and let you know what they’ll give you in return when you first approach them. For instance, Brownlow, who’s just outside the walls of Ascalon, will request that you bring him five Skale Fins, which drop off of the River Skales and River Skale Tads in the river south of his location. When you return, he’ll offer you a Belt Pouch, which will give you five extra inventory slots.

By the time you actually find some of the crafters, you'll already have better equipment than what they offer.

There are many collectors scattered throughout the lands, sometimes in difficult-to-reach places (although most of them are pretty easy to reach before the Searing). The key thing to remember here is that collectors are initially the only way to upgrade your armor, so if you’re intent on getting away from the initial armor sets, you might want to try tracking down some of the collectors and upgrading your look. If you don't want to worry about upgrading your armor before the Searing, then don't; it's relatively easy to make the initial armor upgrades in Ascalon City post-Searing, which are going to be better than the stuff the collectors offer you for a good long while. Unfortunately, in post-Searing Ascalon, the collectors will generally give you fairly underwhelming stuff, but you may still want to check their offerings and see what they have available for you. Also note that the offerings of collectors will change based on your primary profession in most situations.

(One notable collector in post-Searing Ascalon is Innis the White in Old Ascalon, near Ambassador Zain. If you bring him four Singed Gargoyle Skulls (found on the many Gargoyles in the area), he'll offer up a War Hammer that does 11-17 damage, with a massive +25 damage bonus to Charr enemies. Most Warriors will want to pick one of these up for the many missions that will pit you against Charr forces.)

Crafting

In addition to collectors, you can also try your hand at crafting new items when you get past the searing and wind up in the ruined portion of Ascalon City. Crafting before you encounter the Searing is a bit of a pain, and isn’t very rewarding, but immediately after the Searing you should be able to effect some pretty big defensive improvements by hitting up the armorers in Ascalon City and using them to make some new armor.

In order to craft armor, you’re going to need to have a goodly amount of gold (150 per piece is the going rate, it seems), but you’ll also need to have crafting materials, such as Wood Planks, Bolts of Cloth, and so on. (If an item can be used in crafting, it’ll say so in it’s mouse-over description.) Some of these will drop naturally off of enemies, but for the most part, you’re going to have to make your own crafting items by using a Salvage kit on other items that drop. For instance, as you run around killing things, you’ll be picking up plenty of crappy hammers, swords, and pieces of unusable armor off of your enemies. When you buy a Salvage Kit and use it on these pieces of vendor trash, it’ll be converted into some kind of crafting item. (Usually, anyway; some items can’t be salvaged and can only be sold.)

When you have a bunch of crafting items stored away, hit the armorers and see what you need for a certain piece of armor. Most classes will need something corresponding to the type of armor that they wear, so Warriors will need Iron Ingots and the like to construct their chainmail, while less-armorific classes will have to make do with Leather Squares or Bolts of Cloth. Anyway, when you have the required number of crafting items to make an item, you can drag them to the armorer and pay him to put the thing together for you, and voila, a new piece of armor.