The Diablo 3 Ruby Pump'n'Dump - How I lost 10 million gold in 2 hours

Diablo 3 is a game full of economic opportunity. There are always money to be made if you know what you're doing.
There's also a crap ton of money to be lost if you don't and you try to get in on a wild wave of commodity pricing speculation.


Incidentally, it is the latter of the two options that I amused myself with yesterday evening after having read the Blizzard post about the Paragon system that we'll get in the upcoming patch...

Free Gold just waiting for me to pick up?! Throw in some magic beans and you have a deal, good sir!

Basically the Paragon system is going to be a way of alternate leveling that will increase your base stats and, more importantly, boost your gold and magic find to an eventual point where magic find and gold find on gear because completely irrelevant.

The Paragon levels will be gained through normal XP and this is the critical part.

3 Reasons Diablo 3 Gems show us the "Real" value of your Gold

It's been a few weeks since Blizzard gave us Diablo 3 players a chance to sell our piles of virtual dosh for some real world cash.

A lot more cash than what I have managed to earn selling Diablo 3 gold..

I've personally used this to unload 10 million gold for 25 Euro, which I was quite stoked about.
But when I tried repeating this success with another batch of 10 million gold I found that my auction did not sell, even after posting it three times in a row.

Naturally this is a direct consequence of Blizzard's institution of a minimum price on gold.
You are not allowed to sell your gold for any less than 2,5 Euro per million, which effectively prevents the normal mechanisms of supply and demand from working efficiently.

Charts make everything look more professional!

What is happening is that Blizzard has set a minimum price that is apparently higher than what the market is generally willing to pay compared to the massive amount of supply that is being offered at this price.
The result is that sellers throw their piles of gold in an increasingly bulging pile, while the buyers come in once in a while and take a few pieces from the heap.

But if 2,5 Euro per million Diablo 3 gold is not the "real" market value how can we find out what people are actually willing to pay?

This is where the gem market comes into play. Here are the reasons that gems are such a great tool for finding out what the "correct" value of gold is:

3 Risk Free Methods of Making Gold on the Diablo 3 Auction House

There are many ways to make your fortune in the dark world of Diablo 3.
Playing the auction house is a nice way to earn piles of shiny gold without stooping to such lows as actually killing monsters or looting chests.

It's also a nice way to completely piss away all your hard earned virtual yellows if you don't know what you are doing.
There are thousands of AH sharks out there that are all seeing to continue growing their wealth by snapping up every good deal they see, so it takes more than a casual interest if you want to really make the big score on the AH.

Flipping items on the Diablo 3 AH require a bit of finesse..

However, what if you don't need to make those multi-million gold wins that the big fish are all going for?
What if you are happy making 10-50.000 gold per deal and prefer not to risk the money you've already worked hard to accumulate?

Well, in that case there are several niches on the AH that will allow you to score a small profit without very much risk on your part.

For all three of these methods the thing to keep in mind is that everyone loves a free lunch.
The reason that these methods of earning money are almost risk free is because they have a very steady market price and high market demand.

Therefore there are a lot of people that compete for these same items, so don't expect to just walk through piles of easy gold ready to be picked up.
Basically you are getting low risk for your investment but will also have to contend with a market that's also full of other bargain hunters.

Diablo 3 Auction House Money Making - Back Into the Grind

When Diablo 3 released I was ready to try to recreate my usual gold earning routine that I most recently used with some success on the auction house market in Star Wars: The Old Republic, which you can read about in my articles about making money in SWTOR.

All for me! All for me!

Now was the time to get into the gritty world of Diablo 3 and make some gold in the auction house, diving into the buffet of great money making deals with all the enthusiasm of a starving Frenchman at an all you can eat frog legs buffet.

Of course the real cherry on top of the pile of steaming hot frog legs (that's a thing, right?), is that Diablo 3 gives you a chance to turn all that sweet sweet virtual gold into some real life digital coin, through the use of the real money auction house (RMAH).
So not only do you get the chance to cackle like a madman as you rake in those fictional pieces of yellow coinage, you also get to earn a little cash from playing a game!

Well, if that is not the best offer since low priced buffets then I don't know what is.

But of course the big question is, now that I've had a chance to take part in this feast of buying low and selling high that is the Diablo 3 experience, have I actually been any good at it?

Well, both yes and no I would say.

Blizzard apparently still tinkering on Diablo 3

While we did not get a chance to play Diablo 3 in time for the 2011 Holidays there was a wide spread hope/belief that Blizzard was onto the last little bit of tweaking and that the game would be out in early 2012.

Now this post on the official Diablo 3 website makes this seems like a very unlikely prospect indeed.
Apparently Blizzard still have their hands deep down the proverbial bowels of the game and are currently changing and cutting several significant game mechanics.

"Actually, could we make it a FPS instead? Or maybe try a Sci-Fi setting!"

For example, the post details that Blizzard is currently reviewing the core stats and the benefits that they provide to player characters, which seems like something you would/should not be doing if you are planning to ship your game within the next few months.

Additionally this quote from Jay Wilson, Game Director for Diablo 3 does not exactly inspire much hope that we'll be clicking our ways through hellish hordes any time soon:

"There’s a lot of work left to be done, though. We’re constantly tuning and making balance changes; it’s a massive task. Some of these changes can be seen in the beta, like changes to item rarity, the levels at which we introduce affixes, and how many affixes enemies can roll up. Some you can’t see in the beta, like balancing the difficulty of the entire game for four different difficulty levels, adding tons of new affixes, creating legendary items, filling out crafting recipes and itemization, working on achievements, and implementing Battle.net features. We’re also working on a number of other large systems changes -- specifically with the skill and rune systems. We're not quite ready to share what those are just yet, but we look forward to being able to do so in the near future."


Oh dear... I don't want you to "share changes" with us in the near future. I want to *play the goddamn game in the near future!*

Oh well, I guess Blizzard will be Blizzard but I guess this means that we should probably not expect Diablo 3 any sooner than Q4 2012. I'll be happy if it just doesn't slip into 2013.



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Deciding on your Diablo 3 class - Swords, Toads and Great Balls of Fire

Even though the hope of getting Diablo 3 before the end of the year has been mercilessly crushed by Blizzard, the game is still on track for an early 2012 release. And if you're the kind of person that like to over analyze stuff, like me, then it's really time to start thinking about what class you're going to be playing.

Difficult choices to be made

After thinking long and hard about it, I think I've finally been able to reach a decision.
Read on for my thoughts on the different classes and hopefully get some inspiration for your own class choice.

No Diablo 3 in 2011. A million voices cry out in pain

So Blizzard has now officially stated that we will not get our grubby hands on the finished version of Diablo 3 this year, dashing my previous hopes to the contrary.

My reaction to this is:

But since an official release date was never really announced I guess we cant really be too upset (So put those pitchforks away, people)

Oh well, good things are worth waiting for I guess..

You can check out the full story here at Blues News: Diablo 3 in early 2012

Diablo 3 closed beta begins

Okay, so it's not exactly a sci-fi videogame but as I do have the original Diablo on my all time top 10 video games list I will go ahead and make a post about it anyway, 'cause frankly I am looking forward to this the way Greece is looking forward to fiscal stability.

Starting yesterday the closed beta testing for Diablo 3 is now underway.
Sadly I am not one of those lucky enough to have gotten a beta invitation but here's to hoping I'll get one at some point.

If you *really* only like sci-fi themed games just squint at the screenshot and pretend the wizard is shooting a laser beam. *zzzap!*

The real reason I am excited about this is because it shows that the game is getting pretty close to release (probably 3-5 months if previous Blizzard beta periods are anything to go by).
With a little luck we might even get a diabolical little christmas present with release in 2011.

That would be awesome, although I am getting a little tired of using my planned christmas vacation to play Blizzard games, like I did with Cataclysm and Wrath of the Lich King before that...

Unlike most betas, but *like* most Blizzard betas, there is no NDA in effect for the Diablo 3 beta, so expect people everywhere flashing screens and videos on the internet and smothering us with the pixellated goodness of the game.

To anyone lucky enough to have already gotten a beta invite I wish you happy beta testing and to all the rest of us who are crossing our fingers I wish good luck. Mostly for myself of course.