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.