If you have VIP, leveling isn't so bad. You will run out of SS though, and be unable to afford to buy NG SS from the game vendors since adena drops are so low. Dunno what level you and your friends are, but if you're still below 25, might as well go to the Dark Elf village and get the Spider quest (sweetest venom, from Astaron, behind the Grovery building. Run that quest until 25 or longer. The quest text says the reward is 1k adena, but it is really 3.2k.
The best No Grade weapons cost 292k, while the best D-grade weapons cost 2m+, the lowest D-grade is 490k... but you won't be buying D-grade SS from players, keep that in mind. At 25 you can do a quest to get a set of D-grade armor (you'll get a prompt when you hit 25). I would just farm the spider quest until they go dark blue, there are 3 types of spiders in the area for the quest; Prowlers (lowest), Giant Venomous, and Arachnid Tracker (highest, but they spam poison). Try to buy that top NG weapon, then go farm for a D-grade weapon somewhere.
Biggest dick move by NCsoft is locking your VIP status to the server you spend coin on, so your characters on other servers will not have VIP unless you spend more coin there.