Associations are a type of quest that can be completed once a week. There are other quests that may be daily but Association quests give players a large sum of money per week allowing you to pay for basic needs without needing to go into more time consuming money making options.

Trade packs require you to gather resources then bundle them up and travel across the map to give them to needy NPCs. The goal with trade packs is to give you a secondary way to make money off gathering resources and being able to sell excess items you do not need.