Also, the game's economy is fucked; you basically need bartering and pickpocketing. A lot of the complaints people have on the forums is due to never being able to gear up properly due to lack of funding.
Utterly incorrect. I wrote a post spcifically how to get a whole bunch of money in alpha. Its a method available from lv 1 and does not require investing a single point in thievery, (but will generate more if you do).
If you are interested the thread is called "how to steal fort joy". Just because you have not been able to get money does not mean its not possible to get money.
