How I went from MP3 to MP6

Lately my goals have changed from crushing the auction house for extra cash each month to learning new markets and investing my profits from Diablo 3 back into my character.  My idea is that when PVP and/or an expansion hit, I will have a high powered character to go along with my knowledge of both the gold auction house and the real money auction house.  Having a high powered character will allow me to farm high level content effectively, which at certain times may be just as profitable as spending time on the auction house (or a good use of time while waiting for auctions to sell).

Two days ago I was stuck grinding in MP3 doing key runs and getting into the occasional group for running ubers, where you need an infernal machine to access the high level bosses that drop items to make a Hellfire Ring (which I'm still working on).  I'm currently Paragon Level 11 and have yet to get a decent legendary drop while key farming.

Enter Gimmic Gaming's Class Guide.  Markco posted on his blog about Gimmic Gaming's new guide and gave it a thumbs up, so I decided that it would be worth a shot.  The guide contains extremely useful information about building your character and walks you through exactly how to spec to move up from whatever current Monster Power level you are farming.

I literally took the information in the guide and went from farming MP3 to MP6 by just changing my spec and investing a couple million into some new weapons.  

Check out the guide here

I only purchased one class guide (each class guide is $30) because I primarily play a barbarian.  That was all I needed and it was worth the $30 investment.  I learned more in 30 minutes of reading and watching videos about playing my Barbarian than I've learned in the hours and hours I've spent playing the game.

You can get a class guide for each class for less the $100.  If you play more than one class and want to learn go dominate with all of them, I highly recommend buying all of them for the reduced price.  If you specialize like me, try out the guide for your class first.  If I start playing another class, I'll be buying Gimmic's guide to that class before I even get started.  I'll be posting results of my upgraded farming runs soon!

Key Farming and Paragon Level Grinding

There are plenty of people making good money playing Diablo 3.  At this time, I am not one of them.  I've changed my outlook on playing Diablo 3, mostly due to a couple months of not spending as much time as I would have liked on the game.  Now, I'm making an effort to log in at least once a day and learn about the game, market, and put myself into a position to make a good amount of money consistently.

Here are the things that I am doing to invest in my account and learn.

1. Gold Auction House flipping/research.
1. I'm learning what markets are over saturated and what players are spending gold on.  Soon I will venture back into the real money auction house as well.
2. Reading Markco's site and gold guide.
1. Markco is updating his gold guide often and the forums are still bumping with valuable information.
3. Farming on Monster Power 2-3 for drops
4. Grinding Paragon levels
5. Farming for Keys of Destruction 

I'm able to accomplish 3-5 all at the same time, which is great.  I have a balance of gear on my barbarian that allows me to farm MP2-3 and also get a little bonus experience.  I have a ruby gem in my helm for 29% bonus and am planning on investing in a Leoric's signet ring soon.

I also am hoping to craft a Hellfire Ring for the added experience bonus, which will help me grind out a few more paragon levels as I'm farming.  The long term goal is to have a paragon level 100 character that will be able to farm high Monster Power levels, especially after players come back to the game with the PVP patch, which is on the horizon.

Right now I seem to be able to make around 3-5 million a day in a few markets that I have learned about by experimenting and also from advice from Markco's Gold Guide.  As I build up my gold stash, I plan on jumping into some higher end markets and hope to be making 5-10 million a day.

Status update:

Gold amount: About 30 million

Paragon level: 10

DPS: 54K

December Update

As Markco pointed out, I've been slacking a bit on the updates here at Diablo 3 Profits.  Part of that is because of the lack of time that I have been dedicating to blogging and playing Diablo 3 and part of it is the fact that I've honestly been pretty lazy.  If there are culprits other than myself in the case of the lack of updates, they would be the South Carolina Gamecocks football team and my four fantasy football leagues.

I've been hopping on Diablo 3 every few days and doing a bit of buying and selling and testing new markets. With the game changing as often as it has, without my daily log ins I've had difficulty keeping up with market trends.  The concepts that I've learned from Markco's Gold Guide and the forums still apply however, especially the idea of trading in markets that I myself am making purchases for my character.

The markets that I am still finding success are extremely low risk/reward at this time, and I'm only making a couple million with each round of buying and selling on the GAH.  I'm experimenting in some higher end markets, but so far it looks like volume would be my way to go if I would log in more often.  One possible solution would be to upgrade my work laptop and be able to log in more often during the day (lunch, sometime in the afternoon).  With the end of the year coming, maybe I'll get an equipment upgrade.

I'm only Paragon level 7 on my Barbarian, and I'd like to continue to grind out a few levels in between auction house sessions.  

Goals for December:

Paragon level 20

100 Million Gold in the bank

Make $50 in cashed out, real money.

Cheers!

Investing

When I logged into the game this morning, I had about 15 million gold.  I'd invested around 20 million in upgraded gear for my Barbarian so that I could hopefully complete the game on Inferno and start experimenting with farming using Monster Power.  My plan is to use the 15 million gold that I currently have in the bank and grow it every day by bidding on items and flipping them for a profit. 

I've spent a few hours getting back into the game and just doing searches on the Auction House, both Real Money and Gold, to find out what is selling and what specific markets are looking like.  So far I've found one market where I can buy items for between 100K and 250K and flip them for around 400K to 600K.  These items seem to sell slowly, but consistently.

This morning, I put up several items that I had won bids on last night in the one market that I had found.  I invested another few million in bids in my market and then invested the rest in several other markets that I wish to experiment in.  Right now, all of my gold is tied up in these bids, which means I'm free to farm for a while and work on finishing up the game and of course watch a few football games.  I have nearly 100 winning bids out there, so I am hoping to win around 40-50% of those bids and work on flipping the items this evening and tomorrow.

Even if I win some of these items and they never sell, I'm investing in knowledge of the current markets.  Spending a few million to find new markets is an investment that is worth making, you never know when you'll stumble on a market that no one else is playing and is extremely profitable. 

Current gameplay status:

Paragon level: 3

Inferno Act II Completed - working on Act III

Patch 1.05 and Me

Despite my last post saying that I was "back in the game," I basically took the last month off of writing and playing Diablo III.  Life gets busy, as all of you know, but with the resurgence of the Diablo 3 community, I've decided to jump back into the game and see how things have changed.

I hopped back on my Barbarian and noticed that I never finished the game on Inferno.  The furthest that I ever progressed was finishing Act 1.  I also never spent time grinding any Paragon levels, so I'm basically starting to experience the "end game" that is not the auction house. 

I had about 30 million gold left over from playing the auction house, so I invested about 10-12 million in upgraded gear for my Barbarian.  With the new Monster Levels, I'd like to clear the game and have the option of farming any Act that I want so that I can adapt to the changing environment and capitalize on the new markets out there.  I've started to explore both Auction houses again and will be posting about some of my markets and tactics that I will use, along with farming with my Barbarian.

This morning I ran through Act II on Inferno and started to play a little Act III.  My Barbarian dinged level 3 in Paragon levels, so I have a long way to go.

I've also checked back with the Diablo 3 Gold Secrets Guide and read up on the last months worth of articles, watched a bunch of new videos, and stopped back into the forums.  If you're serious about making money playing Diablo 3, I highly suggest you check out Markco's gold guide.

Back in the Game

I logged into Diablo 3 today for the first time in about two weeks. After patch 1.04 I didn't have a whole lot of incentive to keep playing the game, even though I had finally sold an item for 34 million gold and had a little currency to play with...basically I was burned out and disappointed with the game. I didn't see the fun/challenge in playing the game anymore and I honestly was just waiting for Guild Wars 2 to come out so I could spend some of my free time playing with my buddies. 

Then I realized that I was missing out on making extra money toward things that I want to do in my life like get ahead on bills, help pay down my student loan debt and my car loan, and take my girlfriend out to a nice dinner on occasion. When I logged back in today, I spent a few minutes looking up the "new" legendary and set items and seeing if I could spot any trends. I immediately picked a couple items and used my bidding strategy to invest some of my gold in trying to pick up some cheap set items to flip. I also picked up a few items to throw up on the RMAH. I'm going to do my best to rededicate myself to spending at least half an hour a day on the auction houses in Diablo 3 and try to make a few bucks each day. 

An extra $4 a day doesn't sound like much, but an extra $120 a month is halfway to my car payment. I also updated my goal bar on the side of this blog. I'm up around $100 profit from Diablo 3, which isn't all that spectacular but I think now that I have a little bankroll I will be able to consistently make a few dollars a day.

Good luck everyone and make sure to check out Markco's guide. He's keeping it very up to date and his people are STILL make hundreds of dollars playing Diablo 3.

34 Million for an Amulet

I posted about a high quality amulet drop that I got about a month ago on an Act 1 Inferno run.  At the time, I thought that I had found an item worth hundreds of dollars.  Here's a screenshot of my godly amulet.

 

I did quite a bit of research and asked for some pricing help on the Diablo 3 Gold Secrets Forums and found that this amulet was indeed "worth" a lot of money/gold.  For over a month, I tried listing this amulet on the gold auction for anywhere from 100,000,000 gold to 300,000,000 gold.  I never got any bites, so I tried listing it on the RMAH for around $75 a few times.  Still no action.

Finally, I decided to lower my expectations and start listing it for a more reasonable price on the GAH.  I put it up a couple times for a 50,000,000 buy out and a 40,000,000 bid.  When I logged in today, I saw that it had sold!  Someone had placed a bid at the 40,000,000 price point and when the auction closed, I had 34,000,000 waiting for me in my inbox.

I immediately put 10,000,000 up on the RMAH to sell and will be using the rest to flip higher cost items like rings and amulets for bigger profit margins.  I want to have a decent stash of gold for when the new legendary items come out to buy and flip on the RMAH for a profit.

Keeping Inventory

With the Diablo 3 markets slowing down and thousands of players leaving the game every day, it's been difficult to justify spending time in the game playing the auction house.  I've been making a couple million gold a day consistently for the last few weeks and selling off a bit, but I've even had gold that did not sell on the RMAH.  What I'm telling myself now is that the hard work I'm putting in to raise my gold balance and keep in touch with the market will help make me a pile of money when they finally release the PVP patch...which apparently isn't going to be for a while.

Patch 1.0.4 will not have PVP as far as we know.  They just released that they will be addressing legendary items, class mechanics, magic find, and a few other things.  I don't think that this patch will fix the game, but it will bring a few players back to try out the new mechanics.  I'm going to keep a close eye on how Magic Find changes.  That might be a solid market to invest in as more players will want to try out Magic Find after the patch.

For right now, I'm doing my best to always keep 10 auctions up and have as many bids in to keep my inventory of items up there.  Looking for items to buy out and flip is simply not viable for my play style as when I'm playing the game, most other players are sleeping and not farming.  However, I've got a routine down of checking 7-10 different markets for cheap items to bid on every day.  I'm keeping an inventory of 30-50 items to resell at any time and logging in every morning and every evening to put items up.  Right now I'm spending around an hour a day placing bids and auctions (I haven't killed a demon in weeks).

 

For those of you out there trying to make money playing Diablo 3, stay strong and keep plugging away.  It is entirely possible to make extra money in this game over the long run, as long as you continue to adapt to the market.

Auctions Picking Back Up

As I'm sure that you've heard, Diablo 3 is broken.  Players are quitting the game left and right, which has made it difficult for people like me to make any kind of consistent money playing Diablo 3.  A smaller player pool means less players spending money on items.  If you look in the Diablo 3 "Blog-o-sphere" you'll find several "I'm quitting this game" posts on blogs and blogs that haven't been updated in weeks or months.  I've admittedly slowed down on my posts as I've been a little discouraged, but I've learned a few things this week that have renewed my making money vigor.

• Fewer players playing the game means fewer players farming high level content

I've noticed that prices in many of the markets that I check on a daily basis are either staying strong or even increasing.  Quality items are starting to become scarce as there are not as many people farming content and finding these items, but there are still players who want to purchase upgrades.  There are also less players utilizing a bidding strategy, meaning that I'm picking up items for less than 10K and selling them for well over 100K consistently.

• Players are not buying elite items, but they are willing to spend a few million for an upgrade

I still haven't sold my bad ass amulet that I keep listing for around 100 million.  I think that I'm going to save it for the PVP patch, where it might be worth a lot due to the high vitality and resist to all (if resist to all even factors in to PVP).  Anyway, now that I have a little more gold to play with, I'm finding that I can make a profit a million or so at a time buying amulets and rings for between 400K and 800K and re-selling them for 1 million to 3 million.  If I can do 10 of these a day where I'm making about 500K each, that's 5 million a day or $9 real money per day, which equates to $270 a month.  I could live with making an extra $270 a month on Diablo 3.

• People are still reading about Diablo 3

Although several Diablo 3 bloggers are showing decreases in traffic, we are all still getting some traffic to our sites.  Meaning that there are still people out there playing the game.  I know that quite a few gamers are looking forward to the release of Guild Wars II, which will be coming out in a few weeks.  I expect to see a lot of players stop playing Diablo 3 at that time, but that just means that the markets will change.  Players will come back to Diablo 3, especially when the PVP patch comes through.  There are always going to be opportunities to make money playing this game, it's just a matter of finding the right markets.

Make Gold in Diablo 3

I just finished up another HubPages article on how to make gold playing Diablo 3.  For many of you who are experts by now, this article won't be anything mind blowing, but for anyone who is just getting started at trying to make a buck playing Diablo 3, this is a great place to start.

Make Gold in Diablo 3

To give you guys a quick update, things have been slowing down a lot for me in Diablo.  I traveled last week for work and my laptop can't load Diablo, so I missed a few days of playing the auction houses.  When I got home, I tried to knock out a few rounds of auctions and noticed that items were selling extremely slowly (or not at all).  I think my markets are starting to see the results of thousands and thousands of players quitting the game because they are bored.

My amulet that I posted about last week hasn't sold yet.  I've had it up a few times for pretty high amounts (250 million, 225 million) and recently for 100 million bid.  I may have to bite the bullet a bit and sell it for a reasonable price, buuuuuuuut.....

Right now, Blizzard is implementing a large patch.  The rumor is that it's a PVP patch...meaning that a ton of players are going to be coming back to the game.  I honestly think my amulet is going to be a hot item for players looking to do some PVP, so I'm hopeful that I'll be able to find a buyer.  Also, once this patch is released the auction house should liven back up.  

Keep a close eye on the markets and find out what stats people are going to want for PVP.  These items will sell for stupid high amounts over the next week while players are trying to become the best at PVP.  I'd suggest joining Markco's Diablo 3 Gold Secrets forums and reading up from experts who have made thousands of dollars playing Diablo 3.  I just renewed my subscription and am looking forward to reading what everyone has to say about the new patch!

Awesome Amulet Drop in Act 1 Inferno

Over the weekend, I spent one of my mornings playing the game and learning how to farm Act 1 Inferno efficiently.  Basically, I followed the advice of the guys from "Try Hard" on YouTube.  I'll add the video to the end of this post. 

My Barb is geared out to the point of being able to kill things fairly easily in Inferno Act 1 but I haven't progressed any further than that.  I have a magic find set that gets me over 200% MF with the Nephelam Valor buff, so I was hoping to get a decent drop over the weekend to build up my stash.

Boy did I ever.

By my third or fourth run, I hadn't found anything worth putting up on the AH.  I was getting a little discouraged...when I saw that I had an amulet drop.  I usually wait until the end of the run to identify everything, but I get antsy when I see rings or amulets.  So I cleared the mobs in my area and right clicked the ammy...

Holy #!!~#@~#!

I immediately hopped on to both auction houses and started looking for similar items so that I could price it out.  I couldn't find a single item like it...and immediately started seeing dollar signs. 

I finally found one item that was similar but didn't have any magic find.  It was listed for 300,000,000 gold.  So, I figured what the hell...I'll put it up for 300,000,000 gold and see what happens.  That's over $500 worth of gold if I sold it straight on the GAH at $.25 per million (after fees).  It hasn't sold yet, but we will see.  I've heard that high ticket items tend to take a while to sell, so the name of the game is to be patient.

I also posted this on Markco's Gold Forums and got some great advice on how to go about selling this item and what it might be worth.  The consensus is that it is probably worth over 100,000,000, but might take a while to sell. 

If I could sell this off for a hundred million or two, it would be an awesome way to get some money in the bank and work toward my goals.  Until it does sell, I'll be using my regular strategies to build up my gold and now I'll probably do at least one farming run each morning to try and get some more items like this one.

Gold Find Set

As I've said many times on this blog, there are countless ways of making money in Diablo 3.  For casual players like me, playing the auction house is the most efficient way to use time in the game to make a profit.  An hour a day can turn into millions of gold, which can turn into cash money.

However, as a gamer I also enjoy spending a little time actually playing the game and swinging a badass two handed axe like a giant baseball bat.

I decided to invest in another strategy for making gold that I read about in Markco's Gold Guide.  He suggested a farming run in Hell for players that do not quite have the gear to effectively farm Inferno Act 1.  The probability of finding an item that's really worth selling on either AH in Act III of Hell are slim to none, but with a decent gold find set you can make upwards of 400K per hour killing everything you can find.

The first step was to pick up a high DPS weapon.  I spent about half a million gold on a two hander with close to 1200 DPS.  The important thing is to be able to pretty much one shot as many mobs as possible, which my two hander does nicely in Hell Act III.

Then it was time to start combing the AH for Gold Find Gear.  I went slot by slot and looked at prices for the max gold find (which are extremely high) and then knocked off one or two percentage points from my search and picked up deals that had high Strength (for my Barb) and high gold find.  I'm not concerned about vitality or resist all at this point, I just need to kill fast.

For a few million, I outfitted my Barbarian is Gold Find gear that was not perfect, but pretty close.  Unbuffed, I have 289% GF and 364% with 5 stacks of Nephalem Valor.

GF Without any stacks of Nephalem Valor

GF With 5 stacks of Nephalem Valor

I also equipped my follower (Templar) with gold find gear.  You get a bonus to your gold and magic find from your follower, so if you put together a GF or MF set, make sure you don't forget your follower.  Templars are the best because they can equip a shield, which gives you an extra GF/MF slot.

Here's the build I use normally when farming Act III Hell for gold. 

Now that I have a gold farming set, whenever I have some extra time to play the game I can throw on this gear and run around Act III Hell and kill everything I see.  I've had mobs drop as much as 2,000 gold.  On average, white mobs will drop 200-500 gold a piece. 

Seeing huge amounts of gold drop from mobs is a lot of fun.  It's not the most efficient way to make money playing Diablo 3 and you won't get rich doing it, but it's extremely consistent.  I invest a lot of my capital on bidding on items and I only win about 15% of the items I bid on...which means I tie a lot of gold up in bids.  When my gold balance gets low, farming for gold like a Chinese Gold Farmer is a way for me to spend any extra time I have playing the game and still be helping my bottom line.

Thanks for reading and be on the lookout for a video of one of my Gold Find runs soon!

Finding My Style

Over the weekend I had quite a bit of time to play around in game.  My newly dinged level 60 Barbarian had some mediocre gear for a level 60, so I went ahead and spent some of the gold that I've been earning using my bidding strategy on upgrades.  After all, this is a game and I'm a gaming dork...I enjoy running around killing things.  I got a shiny new two hander with 1200+ DPS and a bunch of 100 Strength, 100 Vitality, + Resist to All gear to help me get through Inferno.  

Inferno is hard.

I can see why the developers didn't think that there would be a Diablo kill on Inferno for a little while.  After I died a few times in Act I Inferno, I switched out my bad ass two hander for a sword and board set that drastically lowered my DPS but allowed me to stay alive for most of Act I.  I didn't have a lot of Magic Find on my gear, but my goal for this weekend was to just enjoy the game and clear some content.  I progressed most of the way through Act I Inferno before I decided to start exploring some other options and get back to playing the AH.

At the time, I had about 5 or 6 million gold from playing the GAH.  My stash and a couple mule characters were full of items that I had won on the AH using my bidding strategy and I was just waiting for my GAH slots to open up to sell them.  I've found enough markets to keep a constant supply of cheap items, which is great...but because of the 10 auction limit I can only sell so many at a time.  This means that any other time I have in the game could be spent farming and making more gold.  To do that, I need a farming set.

I went back to Markco's Gold Secrets Guide (which has been updated a ton since my last read through) and picked up a few farming ideas.  One that sparked my interest was building a gold find set and farming lower level content for gold.  For this, I could definitely use my badass new two hander to mow down mobs and break open things.  I spent some time researching Markco's guide and also the Diablo 3 Gold Secret Forums (which you get 3 months free access to if you purchase Markco's guide for $24), and decided that I could make upwards of 500K gold in about 45 minutes if I built a gold find set.

Half an hour and a few million gold later, I had a set that gave me over 300% GF with the Nephalem Valor buff.   I'll write up a post soon about my Chinese gold farming imitation.

I also would like to be able to farm Inferno runs in between gold find runs.  I'm going to start building a Magic Find set that I will be able to use in Inferno Act 1 and quickly clear the content.  This will take a little while as the items with Magic Find, Resist to All, 100 Vitality, and 100 Strength cost upwards of a few million gold a piece.  The plan is to keep an eye out for deals on the AH and big on some bad ass items to build my set and get it for cheap.

I'm at a bit of a crossroads in my making money in Diablo 3 adventure.  I haven't made a whole lot yet as I've spent a lot of the gold that I've made by playing the GAH on buying gear upgrades and investing in my main to be able to farm and craft to make more gold.  Once I finish out my Inferno Act I MF set, I can really see myself starting to rake in the gold and then be able to start selling on the RMAH.  I want to build up to around 10 million gold and then anything above that will be sold or invested in items to sell.

This morning's post is a little longer than my normal ones, but there are just soooo many options at this point that it makes my head spin.  Thank you for reading and if you have any suggestions, comments, or questions feel free to leave a comment here or e-mail me at pbody5205@gmail.com.  I'm also on Twitter @KKrizan.  Cheers!

Make Money by Selling Set Items and Legendary Items

 

I just posted a new guide on my HubPages account about making money and gold selling set items and legendary items.  I've found a couple good arbitrage opportunities where I've made as much as $6 per million gold by buying set items on the gold auction house and selling them on the RMAH.  I'm working on finding a balance between flipping items on the gold auction house and investing some of my profits in items that will sell on the RMAH and also gearing up my Barbarian to be able to farm gold/rares.  Check out the new guide below and start making some cash!

Make Money in Diablo 3 Selling Legendary and Set Items

Weekend Warriors

The weekends are for buying.  I spent a lot of gold picking up cheap items that are going to sit in my stash until mid week when the prices level off and I can sell them for their "normal" prices.  I did however find one awesome deal that I flipped for over a million gold.

One of my markets is belts with Str, Vit, and Resist to All.  I was scanning the AH and came across this deal at the top of the GAH search page.  I was surprised that it was still there when I clicked buyout.  At first I thought I should just keep the belt for my Barb, but when I looked at the prices for similar stats I wanted to get it up on the AH and see if I could flip it for over a mill.

I put it up for 1,250,000 and it sold within twenty minutes for a cool 1 million profit.  That is why I love the weekends - players who don't know much about the AH find items and throw them up for any amount without doing research.  For players like you and me who know our markets, we can spot deals like this a mile away and capitalize on them for huge profit margins.  

I spent a lot of time this weekend reading the forums over at Diablo 3 Gold Secrets and learning about how other players are having success not only flipping items on the GAH like I am, but buying items on the GAH and selling them on the Real Money Auction House for cash.  I highly recommend that you go check out Markco's gold guide there and join the community of players who are serious about making money playing Diablo 3.  It's a literal gold mine of information.

Have a good week everyone and don't forget to put in some bids tomorrow for the server reset! 

Bidding Strategy Video

Instead of just writing about my experience making money playing Diablo 3, I wanted to show you guys one of my auction house strategies that makes me millions of gold through a video!  This is my first effort on putting together an instruction video but it won't be the last!  Check it out below.

Bidding Strategy Guide

I just put together a guide on HubPages for a bidding strategy that will allow you to make some decent money playing Diablo 3.  As stated in my short guide - understanding the gold auction house is the first step to understanding how to make money playing Diablo 3.  Gold has a value and an exchange rate (if you understand how to convert the gold that you've acquired to real money.  This guide will help you in one aspect of the gold auction house - bidding on items.

Make Money in Diablo 3 By Bidding on Items

Check it out and enjoy!

Ding! Level 60!

I've been in the leveling home stretch for about a week and I finally just sat down and pushed through over the weekend.  I have just over 40 hours played on my Barbarian (and a lot of that time has been spent playing the AH).  I probably spent 25 in game to get him leveled to level 60.

I dinged 60 in the middle of Act IV in Hell difficulty.  I didn't spend a whole lot of time farming anything as I leveled, I just concentrated on burning through the content.  Now that I'm level 60, I plan on jumping into Inferno and trying my hand on Act I.  I invested about 4 million gold in gear to hopefully get my resist all up a bit and also tacked on some additional gold find.  Looking at the screenshot above, I feel like I need to invest a few more thousand into dyes to make my Barb look less like a clown and more like a money making cash cow.

I'm still spending the first 20 minutes to half an hour of my in game time combing the AH for deals and bidding on a bunch of items.  I've really learned a few markets and have been trying to expand my horizons a bit, but I seem to keep coming back to the ones that I know.

My bidding strategy seems to work and give me a steady flow of items to flip.  Almost every time that I log in I have won at least 5 items that I can re-list for 100% or more profits.

Well, I'm off to give Inferno Act I a shot.  Wish me luck!

First RMAH Sale!

Finally!  I broke the damn RMAH ice and made a sale.  I was beginning to believe that no one actually bought items on the RMAH and that everyone who I've been talking to about making money in Diablo 3 had been playing a huge joke on me.  Now, I've got a renewed confidence in the game and am going to see how I can expand upon my one GIANT $1.99 sale. 

Here's what sold and how I sold it...

I've been experimenting in several markets on the gold auction house, primarily for Barbarian gear because that's the class that I know well.  I use a bidding strategy to try and scoop up deals for gear that I know will sell quickly if priced right - so I normally have a lot of gold tied up in bids.  What I'm trying to do is build up my gold supply so that occasionally I can invest in an item on the GAH to flip and sell on the RMAH.  I've heard of players getting as much as $20-$30 per million gold spent on the gold auction house in real money when they sell items on the RMAH - but I know that number is drastically dropping.

Right now my stash hovers between 2 and 4 million depending on how many bids I have going.  I'm spending a little bit of my gold investing in a long term strategy (that I'll write about once I figure out if it will actually work) and then I also have been keeping an eye out for items that I think would sell on the RMAH and are in my price range.  That's how I found the item that I sold last night.

I was looking through level 60 Barbarian shoulders with 100+ Vitality, 100+ Strength, and any Resist to All.  I found a low (ish) bid on a really nice piece with 150+ Vit, 140 Strength, 30 Resist All, and 16%  Magic Find.  I scooped it up for about 400K gold.  I tried to sell the item a few times on the RMAH for $10.00, then $5.00...then I dropped it to $1.99, which is where it sold.  Now, I know that the gold to money ratio isn't that great on it, but the concept that I learned from this sale is valuable - items with high quality stats will sell on the RMAH if the price is right. 

I had the money go to my Battle.net balance to avoid the high pay pal fee.  My idea is to build up a little balance in my Battle.net account and then use the money in that account to bid on/buy high cost items that I know will sell and re-sell them to cash out through Pay Pal.  I'd like to find a bunch of small markets where I can flip items like the shoulders and build up a nice little revenue stream.

For now - I'm working on getting to level 60 so that I can start building my farming set.  I'm level 55 and can just about taste it!  Now I've got about 45 minutes before I need to get ready for work - level 56 here I come!

Post Weekend - Bidding Strategy

On Saturday I posted that I was up to 1.4 million gold and was going to try out some new strategies for making money in Diablo 3.  Outside of the hour and a half I spent listening to podcasts from Markco about auction house strategies, I only spent a few hours this weekend playing the game.  Most of my time was spent combing the auction house for deals and learning how to flip items for a profit on the gold auction house.  I still have yet to make a sale on the Real Money Auction House (RMAH), which has been a little frustrating...but I did see a ton of success making gold this weekend.

My current gold balance shows around 400,000, but I have 8 auctions up that if they all sell will net me around 3 million gold.  I also have about 1.5 million tied up in bids - which is where I am seeing the most success in flipping items.  So even if only half of my auctions sell, I'll be up to around 2,000,000 gold and plus whatever gold I am refunded for my bids and the value of the items that I do win when the auctions end.

From my experience over the weekend, I found that bidding is where the biggest profit margins are.  Players that are buying upgrades are not going to bid on items and wait for the auction to end - they will sacrifice a few Vit points (and pay more gold) to be able to get an upgrade right now.  Here's the bidding strategy that I used this weekend to play the GAH.

1. Pick a niche. - I play a Barbarian, so I started looking at level 60 armor for Barbarians.  
2. Find items that you would purchase for your character. - My search criteria included: 100 Vit, 100 Strength, and I tried several other key stats like movement speed, attack speed, and resist all.  I picked one niche (belts) and decided to play in that space until I learned the price points and how to make a profit flipping items there.
3. See what the lowest buy outs for items with your search criteria are. - If you find a belt (or whatever other armor choice you pick) that has 100 vit, 100 main stat, and 40 resist all for a 50,000 gold bid with no buy out, check to see where similar items are priced at with buy outs.  If the lowest buy out for a similar item is 500,000, put in a bid for the item.
4. Bid on lots of items. - The easiest way to track items is to bid on a ton of items.  Once you bid on a item, it will show up under your auctions tab until it expires.  Right now I have 26 items that I've bid on and am following, but as I grow my gold and expand to other markets, I expect to be following hundreds of auctions.
5. Don't overbid. - Set a top price for each item that you are bidding on and stick to it.  You want to be able to sell the items you win for at least 2x the amount you paid for them to make it worth your while (and the auction slot). 

The first step to making money in Diablo 3 is having a handle on the gold auction house.  I feel like I'm getting there and learning, so I'm hoping that my first sale will come soon on the Real Money Auction House.  A huge thank you to the guys over at Diablo 3 Gold Secrets forums for continually posting and helping out guys like me who are struggling a bit!  Keep up the good work.

Podcasts

Last night after work I went to a birthday party for a friend who lives about two hours away.  Instead of cruising down the highway rocking out to Call Me Maybe, I hopped on my iPhone and listened to several podcasts that Markco from Diablo3GoldSecrets.com put out since the Real Money Auction House went live. 

Markco puts out some great content and helps his readers/listeners/subscribers understand what it takes to make money playing Diablo 3.  I listened to seven or eight podcasts - which are between 5 and 20 minutes each - and found myself driving faster so I could get home and try out some of the strategies that I had just learned.

Now, because its in the morning on a Saturday, there aren't a ton of people playing Diablo 3.  I basically invested a lot of my current gold stash in bidding on items and buying out some under priced items to flip and sell for a decent return.  I started the day with 1.4 million gold and plan on letting my auctions sit for a few hours and checking back later.  I'll make an update post either before I head out tonight (for another birthday party) or tomorrow afternoon and let you know how my auctions did. 

Ok... I lied a bit.  I may have turned on Call Me Maybe and blasted it with the windows down once...

Or twice.

1,00,000 Gold

In my quest to make money playing Diablo 3 (while still maintaining my "real life"), I have finally hit a memorable milestone.  

My gold holdings ran over into seven digits yesterday! 

 I logged in and found that every single one of my auctions sold - most of which were mid level legendaries that I have been flipping for decent profits.  With my limited amount of time in game, it's been difficult to keep up on the markets and find good deals to flip and make any sort of steady income.  The Diablo 3 market changes on a daily basis and there are soooooo many niches and markets out there that by the time any of them are "revealed" online through blogs or forums, all of the profitability has dried up.

For my last four or five sessions, instead of focusing on leveling my barbarian (who is now starting Hell and level 51), I spent about half of my session playing around in the Gold Auction House.  I decided that because I will be selling to mostly casual players, I would make an effort to truly learn the market for the one character class that I know - Barbarians.

Through some trial and error, I've found a few markets for legendary items that are popular for leveling barbarians.  One item in particular has been my bread and butter niche for the last week.  This item sells for around 130,000 to 150,000 gold quite quickly and will sometimes drop in price to around 100,000.  Each time I log in, I search for this legendary item specifically and see where the market is.  If the lowest buy out is high (140,000+),  I will put bids in on any listed items at 70,000.  If the buy out price is low, I'll buy up the few that are low enough for me to flip and make a decent profit re-selling them at 140,000+ each.  Pretty simple.

Now, I won't get rich just by using this little niche market.  I can only make so much gold from one item.  But the idea is that if I can continue to make gold each time I log in by quickly checking several markets like this one, I'll be able to maximize the short sessions that I have and make a decent amount of gold (which will eventually mean a decent amount of real money) each and every time I log in to the game.  Remember, the goal of this blog is show a profit from playing Diablo 3.  I know that many players out there are already making good money playing this game and that my progress bar on the side has yet to quiver - but trust me, I'll get there.

One resource that keeps me going is reading Markco's private forums.  There are dozens of players who post there every day who are making hundreds and thousands of dollars playing Diablo 3.  I highly recommend buying Markco's gold guide, which contains several strategies to help you get started making money playing Diablo 3, and the forums are a fantastic resource.

Post weekend

I'm moving at a much slower rate in Diablo 3 than originally planned...but I'm perfectly ok with it.  The entire concept of this blog was to be an extremely casual Diablo 3 player and attempt to make a little side cash from selling gold, items, and possibly characters in game.  I've stuck to my guns since the game came out and have only played the game when I've had extra free time or in my allotted time in the mornings before work.  I'm fairly proud of myself for not getting caught up in the game and not obsessing over it like I have done for pretty much any other project that I've undertaken.

I'm slowly learning where I can make money flipping items on the Gold Auction House.  I've used some tips and tricks that I've learned through forums and Markco's Gold Guide and I can now log in and spend about 5-10 minutes scanning the AH for deals.  I've amassed a decent chunk of gold through this and the level process (just under 1 million now) and also experimented with combining gems to make a decent income (with some success and some not so much).  If I were playing this game for 4-5 hours every day, I would have achieved this level of AH knowledge long ago - but then I wouldn't be a casual noob and this blog would be fairly pointless.

I've invested a lot of gold into my character as I'm leveling (currently level 49 and almost done with Nightmare) and also into my Jeweler, who is maxed out but still needs to get designs for the high level gems.  The real money on the GAH can be made from flipping items that sell for millions of gold - which requires millions of gold to invest.  Once I ding 60, I'll really have a chance to get after it and start seeing my account grow.

I still have yet to make a sale on the Real Money Auction House, but I haven't dabbled a ton there yet.  My guess is that not a lot of mid level items are selling on the RMAH and most of the money is to be made on level 60 items...but I'll dive deeper into that soon.   I'm going to do some research this week and find out when and if we will be able to sell gems on the RMAH, which I think will be an easy market to break into and make some serious cash.  Now that I've got a little capital, I'll be keeping an eye out for cheap designs that show up so that when gems are selling for RMAH, I won't be far behind.

Auction House Strategies

Over the last couple days I went back and re-read Markco's Gold Guide, which has been significantly updated since the last time I went through it.  I've been touting the Gold Forum, which you can get along with purchasing his guide, but the actual guide itself has grown to be a very valuable resource.  I've been applying some of the strategies to my time playing the Gold Auction House and have made some significant gold flipping items, combining gems, and finding items to salvage without spending too much time combing through pages upon pages of items in the AH.

With my play sessions being so short, I want to learn as many strategies that I can quickly utilize when I log in to the game.  The whole goal of treating Diablo 3 as a business is to make it a viable part time income where I spend my allotted hour to an hour and a half a day in the game making real money and then move on to the rest of my day.  Markco's Gold Guide has helped me discover a few potential strategies while still allowing me to get some leveling time in.

Yesterday I dinged level 41 on my Barbarian and am working my way through Nightmare.  I've got around 200K gold and have been investing in gems whenever I see a deal in preparation for the next patch where combining costs drops significantly.  I had a few auctions up that I didn't get a chance to check last night before the servers went down for maintenance, so I hope that when I log back in I'll have a nice pile of gold waiting for me.

Legendary Items

I still have yet to make a penny playing Diablo 3, but I am taking some steps toward investing my small amount of gold into items that I think will be able to sell on the Real Money Auction House.  As of right now, the only items that can be sold on the RMAH are equipment items.  Given my "industry opposite" schedule of playing the game in the mornings before work (a few hours after the normal gamer has gone to bed), I am trying out an Auction House strategy that I hope will pay some solid dividends and help me achieve my goal of making money playing Diablo 3.

The massive amount of players that are on each "server" allows for a huge amount of drops in the game.  There are thousands of Legendary level items showing up on the GAH and RMAH, meaning that some players are willing to let go of their once in a month drops for redonkulously low prices.  My strategy is to check the AH for Legendary items (right now I'm just checking for Barbarian items because that is the class that I know the best) and find auctions that have high buy outs but extremely low bids.  I've found several items that have buyouts upwards of 500,000 and bids as low as 1,000.  Because most players do not play in the mornings, if these auctions are ending in a short amount of time, I will put a bid on them and try to scoop a Legendary item for cheap.

I just started trying out this strategy yesterday and have already won several auctions.  I've put a couple items up on the RMAH for low prices (around $5), so we we will see if any of them sell over the next few days.  If this strategy works, I will continue to use it for Barbarian legendary items and eventually branch out into other markets as I have time to get to know and play other characters.

Update:  I'm slowly climbing the level ladder and dinged 37 last night.  I can't wait to get to 60 and start building my MF and GF sets, but I still have a ton of grinding to do.  Better get back to it!

Diablo Down!

I feel like I'm going at a snail's pace.  I finally dropped Diablo last night and finished my first play through of Normal mode.  It's not that the game has been difficult, it has just been difficult to find the time to play.  Now that the Real Money Auction House is live, there is a lot more motivation for me to get off my butt and grind out some levels.  I'm currently level 34 on my Barbarian and just purchased some new equipment to help me move a bit faster including a legendary weapon that allows me to run around swinging it like a baseball bat and blasting demons out of the park.

I've been keeping an eye on forums and articles about people making money selling items on the RMAH, which so far only supports gear sales, and Inferno level items are selling like hot cakes.  It looks like a lot of players are farming Inferno Act 1 and hoping for legendary set drops and perfect roll items.  I've invested a bit of money into my Jeweler to level him up, so I'm still hoping that high level gems will be valuable on the RMAH when they are supported...but we will see how that works out.  Its still looking like JC is going to just be a big gold sink, but with the value of gold dropping each day the gems might be a good investment.

One of my forum mates over at Marcko's forums recently sold a legendary item for over $200...if you're interested in seeing how he did it and where he got it, you can join the Gold Guide and Forum here.

Now, back to the grind!

New Look

As you might have noticed, I just put up a new logo for Diablo 3 Profits.  Props to my buddy Kyle for putting together a great look for me!  You can check out his design work at his website here.

I'm now back at home and starting to figure out my new routine with my new job, which means that I'll be able to get back into a routine of writing and playing Diablo 3.  The goal to make some extra cash while playing the game is always going to be in the background and I've been keeping up on Marcko's gold forums and blog to try and stay in the game.  Check out the link to the right if you are interested in tapping into Marcko's vast knowledge of the game and his predictions/experiments with the Real Money Auction House.  The guide and forum are worth the price!

For now, I'm at level 32 with my Barbarian and have almost completed Normal.  I may have some time to play tonight and if I do, I may give Nightmare a shot.  Until then, I'm going to do a little investing in level 8+ gems for when the RMAH goes live. 

Slowly But Shirley

Making money is Diablo 3 is at a bit of a stand still, both for me personally and for the rest of the players out there who intended to turn virtual goods and gold into cash.  The Real Money Auction House was delayed again, so only those who have sold items on third party sites or through other avenues like forums, trade channels, or to friends have actually made any money on their virtual investments. 

My "real life" has been crazy busy, and even though I'll be sitting in a hotel room for the next four nights, I won't be able to log in as my company laptop doesn't have the guts to run Diablo 3.  I was hoping to at least be able to log in to the game and do some playing on the gold auction house, but after spending all day downloading the client, I got the error message saying that my video card was not supported.

To give you an update on my progress, currently my barbarian is level 31 and in the middle of Act IV on normal.  He'll be staying there until next week when I will get back into a routine of doing some writing and getting in some game time in the mornings before work.  I think that having a max level character is the best strategy for me and my modest goals at this time, so whatever time that I have in the game will be spent on that until I am level 60.  

Commodities haven't been on the auction house for at least a week if not longer, so my original strategy of investing in gems hasn't really been an option  After I get back from "real life" I'll reevaluate the situation and see if that market is still something worth going after and spending a little time on. 

Current gold:  100,000

Post Vacation Leveling

Well, as much as I would have loved to play Diablo 3 all day, every day on my vacation, I decided to do things like chill at the beach, go to baseball games, and enjoy the company of good friends while I had some time off before starting my new job next week.  I'm going to be a bit behind most of the people who are trying to make money playing Diablo 3, but I never planned to be leading the pack.  I am a casual player and am planning on making a casual income from killing monsters in Diablo 3.  

Since the Real Money Auction House hasn't gone live yet, I've focused on leveling my Barbarian whenever I have had a chance to play.  This morning I played for a few hours and just dinged level 24.  I've spent a little more gold than I originally planned on, but I have gotten some great deals on the Gold Auction House and have some decent gear to level with.  Right now I'm focusing on getting as much +exp gear as possible so that I can quickly climb up the ladder in levels.  For those of you playing a Barb, here is a link to my current build.

Check out my level 24 Barbarian build

Basically, I'm focusing on killing as many mobs as fast as possible.  I've found the Ground Stomp with Wrenching Smash to be an awesome skill when combined with Cleave and Rupture.  My Barb draws all of the mobs in close, stuns then, takes a swing or two, then they all blow up and do more damage to the surrounding mobs.  It makes for quick and easy kills, which is what I'm going for when leveling.  

Another quick tip that I've found that a lot of players over look is the use of a follower.  I use the Templar and spec'ed him to heal me and to intervene if my health is getting low.  He doesn't do as much damage as the other two followers but I've found his skills to be very useful.  I picked up a cheap sword and shield for him on the GAH, which make him very useful and viable.

With the GAH commodities being down, I think the best advice for anyone working on making money playing Diablo 3 is to level as much as possible.  Invest in your character and get him/her to max level so that you can take advantage of the entire game.

I'm heading back into the game to see how much I can finish up today.  I'm starting a new job on Tuesday and I won't have much time to play, but I will try to keep up with what is going on through Marcko's Gold Forum.  If you haven't purchased his gold guide and forum access yet, I highly suggest you check it out. 

Day One (for me)

Talk about a long day.  I spent Launch Day for Diablo 3 flying around the country.  I got to airport at 5:30am and didn't get home until around 10:00pm.  As you an imagine, this afforded me very little time to even think about logging in to play Diablo 3.  It was however, a very productive day, so I can't complain much.

Day One for me was this morning.  My Diablo 3 routine is going to consist of playing for about an hour in the morning and then doing updates to this blog with my remaining time before work.  I have some time off in the next week or so, so I'll be doing a couple binge sessions to get things going and get my Barbarian leveled, but normally I'll only be playing for an hour or so a day.  I had pre-downloaded the client, but found that when I tried to fire it up this morning I had to re-install.  I got the process started and upgraded my video card driver at the same time (I know, noob...should have done that months ago) and then made breakfast and got ready for work. 

Once the game got to about 30% downloaded, I could log in and start playing.  I played my Barb to around level 3 before I the game shut down on me because the content hadn't downloaded.  Instead of pout about not being able to go any further, or heaven forbid go into work early (like that even crossed my mind), I did the best that I could to be productive with my time.  I know that eventually I'll need to have some mules* set up to store the massive amounts of items and commodities that I'll be selling on the GAH and RMAH, so I started running those characters to the shared stash in New Tristram. 

*A mule is a character that is used for extra storage space in its inventory.

I created one mule for each character class and (creatively) named them "PBody[Class Initials]mule."  So, my Witch Doctor mule's name is PBodyWDmule.  Names are a strong point in my writing ability... can't you tell?  I also created a Jeweler mule named "PBodyJCmule." 

I filled up most of my 10 allotted character slots with mules.  I don't plan on buying extra space in my stash for a little while until the price of gold drops, as I'm predicting that gold will be selling at a premium once the RMAH goes live.  For now, my army of PBody mules will suffice.

Week One Strategies

The day is almost here.  Tomorrow is May 15th and Diablo 3 will FINALLY launch, opening a whole new world of mob bashing, monster slaying, and money making.  Personally, I can't wait to play the game.  Outside of the money making aspect of the game, which has and will be my ultimate goal for Diablo 3, I am looking forward to the first play through and kicking some demon ass.  The one week (at least) delay of the Real Money Auction House is a blessing for players like me who want to really take a shot at making money playing Diablo 3.  It gives us a chance to be gamers and just play the game for what it is - one of the coolest games of our time.

Granted, I will not be slacking off and running around looking at all of the pretty (or dingy) landscapes and graphics...I plan on maximizing my time in the game and setting myself up to be able to make some serious cash once the RMAH goes live.  Even if I didn't plan on turning Diablo 3 into a business, I'd approach the game the same way.  I played WoW with the same mentality - have a goal and accomplish it the fastest and best way possible.  The goal of week one is to burn through content and amass an inventory of items and gold to sell on the RMAH.

Here's how I plan on accomplishing the week one goal.

1. Level - As I talked about in my Investing in Your Characters post, you need a max level character to have access to as many markets as possible.  Leveling quickly might require a little investment, like buying a high dps weapon or buying some gems early.  I'd rather spend a little gold in the beginning and have a level 45 barbarian at the end of week one than have a few extra thousand gold at the end of week one and only be level 30.
2. Level artisans - I will be focusing on the jeweler, but I plan on dumping a little gold into my blacksmith so that I can capitalize on a few of the lower level items that the blacksmith can make.  I'm planning on trying out the boot market and hoping to craft +movement speed items.  
3. Save 75% of the gold that I get and re-invest 25% - After each session, I will write down how much gold I made from auctions and farming and "set aside" 75% of it for re-sale later.  The other 25% I will re-invest in either my character or crafting materials.
4. Buy vitality gems.  Vitality will not be very important early in the game, meaning that low level vitality gems will be valued at a lower rate than other gems.  I plan on investing in these gems early and stock piling them so that I can combine them to create high level vitality gems for when players start to make it to Inferno.  I think that level 12+ Vit gems will sell for a decent amount on the RMAH, so if I can be one of the first Jewelcrafters to have a good inventory of high level Vit gems, I'll make a killing.

I actually will not be able to play until around day 3, because I will be traveling on May 15th and working both of my jobs on May 16th.  Poor planning, I know...but sometimes life happens and you have to roll with it.  However, I have May 18th off and will be playing a binge session then, so expect a status update on Friday.

Good luck to everyone who will be playing tonight at midnight and I will work on catching up with all of you later this week!

Investing in Your Characters

I just posted an article on HubPages about "investing" in your characters and account.  Basically, I am approaching Diablo 3 as a potential business rather than a game that I want to play just for the hell of it.  When I played WoW, the entire goal was to have fun.  I spent hours and hours exploring, searching for meaningless items like pets and mounts, and going after achievements that gave me nothing more than a little personal satisfaction.  Eventually, I learned that by using the skills that I learned by investing a ton of time into the game, I could make some extra money on the side by the excess gold that I was making through doing dailies and pwning the Jewelcrafting market on the AH.  As you can imagine, this only last a short time before I got my account banned and lost my account, along with all of my badass pets, mounts, and "meaningless" virtual items that I'd spent years acquiring. 

It wasn't worth the few hundred bucks.

Once May 15th hits (well, actually May 16th...I'll be on a plane all day on May 15th), I plan on approaching Diablo 3 with a more focused attitude than I did with WoW.  I plan on following a similar path - exploring, working on acquiring rare items - but with the overall goal in mind that I want to make money from the time I spend in the game.  With a limited amount of time to play the game, I need to be making the best use of the time that I do have.  Every minute that I'm logged in is an investment in the business that will be my Diablo 3 experience.

Would it be more fun to just play the game and have my only concern be getting my character to be epically more badass with each passing day?  Probably.  But, will it be even more fun to take the first $1,000 I make from playing Diablo 3 and go on a 5 day cruise to the Bahamas?  Hell yes.

You can read my HubPages article here.

Diablo 3: Invest in Your Character

  

Initial Gold and Money Making Strategies

With the recent announcement that the Real Money Auction House is going to be delayed at least a week at the launch of Diablo 3, many players who had thought up elaborate plans to make a pile of money during the first week after release on April 15 had to go back to the drawing board.  The basic strategy prior to the delayed RMAH was to play as much as possible during the first week and post as much gold to the RMAH as possible, as players who want to get ahead of the game will need large amounts of gold to level artisans, buy gear, buy and combine gems, and repair their gear once they start hitting a wall (probably near the end of Normal or a little into Nightmare).  The conventional theory is that gold would have sold for the highest price during the first week with the price steadily declining as players advance in the game and farming larger amounts of gold becomes easier and easier.

My personal thoughts were right in line with the above theory.  My plan was to try and make a little scratch at the beginning by selling nearly everything that my Barbarian picks up and hopefully come close to my first goal, which is to make $100 profit.  After reading the gold secrets forum over at Markco's blog, which is one of the best collection of entrepreneurial minds out there for people wanting to make money playing Diablo 3, I've cherry picked some of the best "new thinking" out there, combined it with my own ideas, and developed a strategy of my own for the first week.

Clear Content

With at least a week before the RMAH becomes available, we have time to explore the game and find out where the "choke points" are.  Choke points are where players who do not spend extra time leveling or invest in gear for their character start to die.  When players start to die, they realize that they need better gear to continue.  The easiest and fastest way for players to improve their characters is by going to auction house and spending the gold they have earned by killing mobs on better gear and gems.  They also have the option of crafting their own gear, but in the beginning they may not have the necessary gold or crafting supplies to craft enough gear to get them through the first choke point, meaning that they will turn to players like us who are posting the items they need on the gold auction house.

My plan in the early stages is first and foremost to find this choke point.  I will also be closely watching Markco's forum (included in his gold making guide, which is an investment that I highly recommend if you are serious about wanting to make money playing Diablo III) to see when and where other players are hitting the wall.  Once the first choke point in the game is established, I will be focusing on finding what items are most profitable to either craft, farm, or flip to help players get past the choke point.  We only get 10 slots to post items on the gold auction house, meaning that it is important to think critically about which items we decide to put up.

Stock Pile Gold

Just because the RMAH isn't there at launch doesn't mean that you should spend every dime you earn on your character.  I plan on figuring out a system for "saving" gold so that I have enough to post on the RMAH when it goes live so that I can start working toward my goals.  I envision my strategy to be something along the lines of "saving" 25% of all the gold that I earn and re-investing the rest.  So, if I earn 1,000,000 gold in the first week, I will have a pile of 250,000 that will be designated to sell when the RMAH goes live.  My percentage may be higher based on how the game goes, but I do not see it as being any lower than 25%.

Level Jewelcrafting

I am going to go the Jewelcrafting route (at least in the beginning) as my specialty for making gold and money.  I think that most players will be focusing on Blacksmithing in the beginning and there will be a market for a savvy Jeweler.  In World of Warcraft, I made millions of gold from Jewelcrafting.  The mechanics of Jewelcrafting between WoW and Diablo 3 are different but similar enough that I feel like I have an edge over the competition from the get go. 

In WoW, I would purchase popular designs early for ridiculous amounts of gold but then make my initial investment back in a weeks time just by buying uncut gems, cutting them, and re-listing for a huge mark up.  In Diablo III, I think there will be a similar market.  After a couple weeks of watching the AH, standard prices for different level gems will start to emerge.  Once these prices are established, it will be easy to log in and check the AH for gems selling below the average price, buy them, and either combine to create higher level gems and re-list for a profit, or simply hold on to the gems and re-list when the price goes back up.

Investing some of my gold into leveling Jewelcrafting early will give me a distinct advantage later in the game.  Just imagine the amount of gold that can be made once the first choke point is established.  Gems for gear at the choke point level will sell like crazy and people will be willing to over pay for them.

All in all, I am not disappointed that the RMAH is not going to be live at launch.  I think that it gives casual players like me a chance to learn about the game and find our niche in that first week or two before we can start selling items and gold for real money.  Make sure to check out Marcko's gold guide and forum if you want to get a leg up on the competition and have a community around you doing research.  Many hands make light work...and in this case, make you and me more money.

About Me

I am the definition of a "casual" gamer. I work two jobs (three if you include my blogs and other writing activities) and spend a lot of time with friends and with my wonderful girlfriend. I'm 25 years old and working in the nonprofit sector, meaning that my 2nd (and 3rd) job is a requirement to pay the bills that include some steep payments on my student loans. Long gone are the days of hardcore raiding in World of Warcraft or spending hours at a time pwning kids in Halo or Call of Duty. Even if I had the time to spend playing WoW, the game has lost its appeal to me and I would much rather spend a few hours grabbing a drink with friends or reading a good book. 

Now, that's not to say that my excitement for Diablo 3 is not an eight on the "geek out" scale. In 2000, when Diablo 2 came out, I was 13 years old and just getting into the world of RPGs and MMOs. I didn't even pick up Diablo 2 for a few years after it came out (when I was probably 15 or 16), but when I did I was hooked. Diablo 2 led to Ultima Online, which eventually led to World of Warcraft. Back in those days, when I had the time to devote to such endeavors, I became a semi-hardcore gamer. A few years later, I dove in head first and did the hardcore raiding thing in WoW throughout most of college and enjoyed being part of a leading progression guild on my server. I played a DPS warrior named Azezal and participated in everything from achievement farming to pet collecting on the side. I mastered the Jewelcrafting market on the AH and made hundreds of thousands of gold on the AH buying uncut gems, cutting them, and re-listing for a profit. I plan on looking into the similar gem market in Diablo 3 to make piles of gold, which I plan to convert to real money. 

This blog is meant to be entertaining and informative. I plan to turn my experience playing Diablo 3 into job number four and spend between 7 and 10 hours a week playing the game with the goal of making a real side income from the Real Money Auction House. I will be documenting my progress here on this blog and will share the strategies that even a casual gamer can apply to this game to make some real money. Like any other money making undertaking, you have to earn every penny. Diablo 3 will be no different. I do not plan on making thousands of dollars by playing the game a few hours a week, but I do plan to use the game to supplement my income while stepping back into the gaming world. Here are the first set of monetary goals that I will be working towards accomplishing (call them real life achievements). 

Make $100

Make $500 

Make $1,000 

Thank you for reading and if you want to follow my progress (once Diablo 3 goes live), you can follow me on Twitter or sign up for e-mail updates here.