Hello, im writing this as a basic help guide and because im bored waiting for my stamina and energy to recharge.

When you start there are a number of things you can do to help get you started. The first thing you should do is to get a bit of cash on hand. When it comes to getting cash you are spoilt for choice. You can commit crimes, search the yard, mug another player, play a mini-game or earn cash from a job/interest from bank. Now at the start you will want to avoid attacking/mugging because you will be weak and the chances are that you will lose most of the time or you may become the victim of continuous attacks. Getting a job is your best bet for earning cash because you dont gain any experience so you wont level up. To get the job you must first meet the stat requirements, and to increase your stats you have to train at the gym. When you get a job you will be paid after 24 hours each day and you wont have to do anything except from login.When you get the money from the job it will be given to you in your hand. This means that it is vulnerable to being stolen from you. You will therefore need to keep it safe and the only way to do that is to open a bank account and to deposit all your money on hand into the bank. Now that you have money in the bank you will gain interest as well as money from your job.

When you have money you will likely be the target of other players as they will want your money. So, to prevent them from successfully  attacking/mugging you, you will need to be stronger than them. You can become stronger by training at the gym. What you need to train is a full energy and stamina bar which can be located at the top right of the page. When either of the two bars depletes you will have to wait for them to recharge or charge them with stamina and energy raising items. These items can be found or bought on the market. You will need to train to be strong and to be the strongest means you are untouchable. You can improve the quality of your training by having amenities which are items for your cell. They can be bought from the warden or from the market. You need to remember to only attack and mug when necessary as any extra attack makes you weaker in the short term. Of course with higher stats it also means you are able to improve pay on a job or be able to get better jobs. Beware that over use of some times can cause you to to be temporarily put in hospital.

I will write more after.

i appreciate what you're trying to do here Artix, but it's spoken like someone that hasn't been a new player in over 3 years. I don't know what it was like for you, but getting cash when you start is worthless. Look at the top crime list all time for new jersey, what is it, like $56,000? that will buy you about 40 chocolates to train with, which is pointless because you couldn't afford the waters to go with it. and getting amenities? forget it, you're never going to have 2million+ cash unless someone gives it to you, and nobody's going to do that.

Honestly, your best bet is to vote every day, buy your amenities from the warden, get a bigger cell when you can, and have A LOT of patience, don't bother trying to get cash because you'll lose it before you can spend it. You can make a very small amount of profit buying items in new jersey and selling in san quentin (but i'm talking 10-20k a day), and you'll get mugged for it just for the crime of being a level 4 in san quentin. If you're not patient, like i'm not, the only option is to open your wallet and buy favors. That's not a bad thing, it's just the way things are here.

yeh newbs shud be given sumthin 2 begin the game with cus new gamers aint stickin about cus they cant get anything although amens have neve been so chea its still not easy as they is so much 2 get and u need 2 extend the cells etc its eitha use cash o be shit and i think that its unbalanced ive seen loads come and go when i wudve liked 2 see them stay

well i did start with a few things, a couple items, and i think like 10 favors, but honestly it was all gone in about 5 minutes. what do you do once that's gone? i did spend money, trained fast, and now 4 weeks later, other than voting i only play 1 or 2 days a week, because why bother just to make 5 or 6 thousand an hour playing games and buy 1 energy drink?

it's easier than ever to get GOOD amens nowadays. if you're on more than 1 or 2 days a week, you will more than likely catch joe or adam especially in the lower prisons where they stick around much longer. you can flip the amens u get from them for more favs, items, or gamecash

that is absolutely true, but as a new player you need 75 favors to buy a dvd and two amenities, then you need more favors to sell them, because forget having $200,000 or more to sell for cash, and that's assuming you get something worth more than you paid for it. sorry, i don't mean to seem argumentative, just playing devil's advocate (so to speak)

old toilets go about 10m each how can any new guy get on with the game with nothing and not being able 2 buy anything its unbalanced thas why we dnt get many new guys and even less that make it 2 sd

and there are some amenities, toilet paper for example, that actually get cheaper from the warden the higher prison you're in. it's not a good feeling to spend 22 favors each, then go to the next prison and see that they're only 15 favors. seriously i really enjoy the game, but it is designed to keep new players from getting into it, unless they want to spend money. all those expenses should come once you've gone as far as you can, not when you're still looking around.

and look now, the cheapest amenity on the market is 8 million, i don't know if half the people in South Dakota could get that much

i could never afford that. the most iv had is 1mill