Where'd you make your money?

[HSB]

While I guess this is directed to the big-money types, I'm really curious... where do people accumulate their large bankrolls? I have a few thoughts on the subject, and I really don't intend to be asking the "OMG where can I make tons of money script-hunting" question here. But I would love to move up into the higher echelon of sales in GS. Trading high-end items, owning a few of the 'well-known' items, and have enough coins in the bank to realistically be able to bid on items that come up for sale that enthrall me.

Instead, I linger with a mill or so in the bank from hunting, plus selling the odd cool enhancive I find. I also usually spend that mill (or however much), but I try and do it on items that are really a decent value, or that I need to make my main character more viable (and therefore able to earn more coins, in theory).

To me, it seems like there is a lot of "old money" in GS. People who have had tens of millions of coins that they earned back when enchanting was faster and rarer. Or people who have been around forever saving up their coins. Or people who run three capped characters around all day every day pulling and opening boxes. Then there are people (like myself) who have purchased coins for RL dollars. Does anyone get coin-rich any more?

So... where'd you make your fortune? I'm more curious than anything. I don't want your uber-hunting script (today). I don't want to poach on your hunting grounds (yet). I'm just curious, and think it'd be interesting to know.

[Inspire]

Train in first aid and you won't need to ask where the money is! (Yes, everyone who's told you to train in it before was right.)

[Methais]

Go back in time before 2002 or 2003 and abuse the hell out of Charge Item and Mana Leech in Shadow Valley and make 47832094723984 40 rub ruby amulets and blue crystals per hour.

That's how I made my money.

[The Ponzzz]

When I played Prime, my money came from both hunting and dedicating time to events. I can't do events like I did when I was younger. But if you can pull a high end item win at an event, you make the bank.

I also would buy cheap and sell high. Mystery packs back in the day were where it was at to make money slowly. WUlfhen and I use to do some damage on the amunet all the time. Before the enchant changes, I use to fire out 7x enchants every few months as well.

[Tolwynn]

Enchanting's still viable, though at this point you're looking at 'only' 1.5-3m per month if you're willing to forgo enchanting for yourself.

[Sylvan Dreams]

I don't resell the higher end things I buy, so I don't make money there. I make most of my money reselling festival things in playershops. It doesn't give the huge profit of trading in the expensive items, but it's a steady flow of silvers. I like running the shops, too.

Purifying gems and then using a gem chisel on them also makes for an increase in gains from hunting. Better skinning helps, too.

[The Ponzzz]

Oh yeah... Playershops. I make about 25mil a year on those.

[Sean of the Thread]

Stealing Tsin's boxes.

[Kuyuk]

yeah, I made some money when I imploded his boxes.


I suggest everyone do this for a quick cash run.

K.

[Sean of the Thread]

Me and Omens invented the profiteering.

Welcome back OMENS! You still spell and probably smell like shit.

[Swami71]

How I made my millions....

A. Capped character
B. Hunt tons
C. Trading ranks/with a race that gets a bonus for the town
D. Bought me a locksmith that has paid for himself (uses a script to pick so its not more work)

I'll have to check out skinning. I just always think it would slow me down for a 1k skin every now and then.

EDIT: Also some of the best stuff I own I paid cash for. I justify it by selling silver. :shrug:

[Kitsun]

Capped MA power hunting. Stocking up on decent items from events and reselling here and in playershops. I never actually cashed in my 3 biggest grand raffle wins.

[Jessaril]

I use to make a fortune stealing both from people and from the few merchants it was possible and probable. I had a ton of those stupid veniom-hilted falchions, or whatever the 5x dmg weighted ones were before they wised up and put a stop to it. The rest I made from picking boxes, hunting and my unique ability to buy something and unintentionally forget about it in my locker until it's worth way more.

Other people paid for most of my 10x enchants though.

Sadly stealing kind of sucks now, which is both good and bad. The community size being what it is, it's really not worth it anymore for me.

[Sean]

I used to make a lot out of buying and selling on the amunet. But I gave away/squandered all of that. When I came back I just hunted A LOT. Also the money in the game I found is kind of upside down. Later in the game I make a lot more than anywhere else. In my 80s the rate at which I was selling gem bundles to DieThx was a bit ridiculous.

[Allereli]

I whored out my half-krolvin to Starkly

getting lucky in a Skank raffle was the fastest cash I ever made

[droit]

I was poor until the AG came out. Since it has, I've sold 8 or 9 fixskill potions for between 8 and 10 mil a piece. I also made a bunch right after the new treasure system release, when enhancives were being dropped left and right.

That being said, I'm still pretty poor in the grand scheme of things.

[Jorddyn]

My characters were always poor. Except for the 8 mil win on Let it ride (which I realize is not tons of money to most of you).

[Sylvan Dreams]

I whored out my half-krolvin to Starkly

getting lucky in a Skank raffle was the fastest cash I ever made

:rofl:

[Donquix]

I use to make a fortune stealing both from people and from the few merchants it was possible and probable. I had a ton of those stupid veniom-hilted falchions, or whatever the 5x dmg weighted ones were before they wised up and put a stop to it. The rest I made from picking boxes, hunting and my unique ability to buy something and unintentionally forget about it in my locker until it's worth way more.

Other people paid for most of my 10x enchants though.

Sadly stealing kind of sucks now, which is both good and bad. The community size being what it is, it's really not worth it anymore for me.

stealing used to be crazy fun, especially during the 2k+ pop boom when AOL went unlimited. Got bored one week and a friend and I made new rogues and leveled them up to level 10 or 12 real quick, went around stealing in hobgoblins and such around town.

I wanna say we made 200-300k just doing that nonstop for like a week. It was some obscene number, to us.

What made it even more enjoyable was having our character names very similar and looks identical, and if one got caught stealing in hobgoblins the other would establish an alibi by being someplace else. Crazy funny when your just sitting at the well in town minding your own business and all the sudden someone comes up and starts swinging a drake falchion at you calling you a thief.

[droit]

What made it even more enjoyable was having our character names very similar and looks identical, and if one got caught stealing in hobgoblins the other would establish an alibi by being someplace else. Crazy funny when your just sitting at the well in town minding your own business and all the sudden someone comes up and starts swinging a drake falchion at you calling you a thief.

Hah! That's awesome.

[Soulpieced]

Buying and selling on the amunet.
Getting hand-me-downs from people "leaving the lands".
Treasure from hunting.

[Stunseed]

Pre GS4, I skinned my ass off. With that money, I began to flip items. By the time I had a respectable stash, I used people's greed against them when they wanted THE NEWEST HOTTEST THING. I lose alot of money buying "toys", using them, then selling them to friends. I enjoy seeing the items I liked in hands of people that use it.

[BriarFox]

I started out by buying low and selling high on the amulet in the landing with my first character, then went on to festival items, more expensive ones, and so on. The trick is to know what things are worth to whom, and to snatch up bargains whenever you have the chance. I sold most of my stuff for cash last fall when I wanted to pay off my credit cards and so on, but I've still got a few things squirreled away. I figure I'm only worth about 100m in items these days, though, which isn't really all that much.

I've never had a windfall festival win, unless you count the merchant enchant I won and used to enchant the greater Iasha maul to 7x. I've made all my money in game, with the exception of a time or two I've bought a handful of silvers because I needed pocket change. I've sold way more than I've ever bought, though, and I've made more money OFF Gemstone than I've ever paid to play Gemstone. To me, that's a good balance.

To reinforce the point - information is the name of the game. Know the value of things, know who wants them and where to sell them. Know when you should be patient and when you shouldn't.

[Sean]

Pre GS4, I skinned my ass off. With that money, I began to flip items. By the time I had a respectable stash, I used people's greed against them when they wanted THE NEWEST HOTTEST THING. I lose alot of money buying "toys", using them, then selling them to friends. I enjoy seeing the items I liked in hands of people that use it.

You can still skin your ass off now. A big part of it now is just finding secluded hunting areas that drop a lot of boxes. Very very few people hunt zul logoth and if you're anti social like me you can make a ton in the 20-30s range in grutik. I went back there the other day with my ranger who's 35 but can't effectively learn there anymore (can't get past clear) and I still cleaned up with a special shield, tons of armor pieces, jewelry, etc.

[Warriorbird]

Krag dwellers and Bard, pre nerf.

Trading cash in from DR.

[StrayRogue]

Skinning.

[Jessaril]

stealing used to be crazy fun, especially during the 2k+ pop boom when AOL went unlimited. Got bored one week and a friend and I made new rogues and leveled them up to level 10 or 12 real quick, went around stealing in hobgoblins and such around town.

I wanna say we made 200-300k just doing that nonstop for like a week. It was some obscene number, to us.

What made it even more enjoyable was having our character names very similar and looks identical, and if one got caught stealing in hobgoblins the other would establish an alibi by being someplace else. Crazy funny when your just sitting at the well in town minding your own business and all the sudden someone comes up and starts swinging a drake falchion at you calling you a thief.

I kept (ridiculously) detailed notes about targets. Who would hunt and AFK, who never closed their bags, who had caught me stealing, etc. I colored the suckers green since it seemed fitting.

I kept all that stuff for along time but I lost if in a random-bought-of-anger-harddrive-reformat a few years ago. Wish I still had it.

[waywardgs]

buy low sell high. Farming is time consuming and tedious. Merchanting is the way to go, but you have to know the markets well, especially with the smaller population.

[Kitsun]

Heh. Hunting is only tedious if you don't enjoy it and time consumption is exactly what I like my hobby to do.

[Xaerve]

Selling my holes in the jungle room.

[Belnia]

Somali piracy.

[Androidpk]

87?

[Ardwen]

Heh I made money making money, the truly good merchants literally can make money just standing around. bought and sold something like 4 and a half billion in gear, both for me and for people that hate selling.

[Methais]

I make a Mill - Mill and a half a day off boxes/gems. + whatever items (normaly one or two a day) that drop. I only MA 3 accounts. I'm not crazy like Sabreon, Dffaren or Tsin is/was.

I dunno how someone can hunt 87 characters at once.

How many hours do you put in on an average day outta curiosity?

[kookiegod]

I made this post in another thread, but gonna reformat it for this thread with some advice for today's GS market....

Old stuff...old days...

1) longevity - longer you played , more you generally have

2) inflation (relates to #1) - items bought over a decade ago have more value.

3) and going to merchants over a decade ago where padding wasn't limited to one slot of vhcp, weighting was routinely offered, and auction items were truly epic (not that there aren't today, but there are much more restrictions and rules

4) Enchanting - old days - My group routinely did several 10x's a MONTH both for ourselves and for sale. I used mine to increase my silver and make strategic trades for items I still have today.

5) Buying items that have good appreciation and making the best choices in an auction

6) old Repel and cloud spells , old GS3 system before things were changed. I could routinely make a million or more over a weekend in mares/steeds/nightmares

2009 GemStone 4

1) merchanting ability - go to more merchants, utilize playershops (and playershops.com to its max, some people make some silly pricing decisions, snatch em and resell them in your own shop)

2) Enchanting - having a decent level wizard is an easy way to make 'free' coin. Its not a lot of work, and you can make several million a month if your aggressive at it.

3) Attend festivals/auctions.

4) Buying items that have good appreciation and making the best choices in an auction

5) Skinning - easy coins, spend the TPs, carry a dagger, skin everything in sight thats dead.

6) Boxes - always have a disk. Pick up boxes people left behind. As someone mentioned, have a pick available. You never what could be in that box, might just be coins and gems, might be something worth 10m or more.

7) Secondary skills - of the artisan skills, only forging is worth anything monetarily, but for those willing to commit, few million a month banging out perfects.

7a) For warriors, the new ARMOR skill, for rangers, resistances. Paladins and rogues wont make much off their new ARMOR skills.

7b) Jury is still out on alchemy, but is some money to be made there.

8) Scavenge - at the end of a hunt, pick of what isn't set to poof as far as armor and weapons and fill your disk and packs and haul it back to the pawn, even if its 1000-1500 coins, if you do that 10 times a day, thats 15000 coins a day, say you play 15 days a month, thats 3.6 million a year.

9) Inflation - still true today, buy old stuff if you see it for sale cheap, buy whats nifty at merchants and events and locker it away, chances are, with GM turnover, you generally don't see it again, so it will gain in value for people who missed the event.

10) Lighten/deepen even standard items, your 20000 lightening a set of 5x armor you bought cheap can make you some extra coin on resale.

Ok, lots of ideas, but most importantly, learn what people value, what makes money, learn the history of items, whats out there, and what people will pay for and what the town shops will pay for. And never leave anything behind when in the field.

~Paul

[joehollywood]

Oh and steal stuff from former GM's ^^^^

Mwa ha ha ha!

[LMingrone]

I haven't played in a while. But my first characters made me massive amounts stocking up on 3 items, holding onto them for a while, and then reselling:

Sharp Vultite falchions
Steel spoons
Black Tower shields

Must have over 100mil selling just those.

[Sean of the Thread]

I got lucky also and had a shit load of those crit weighted axes in my locker for years and forgot about them.

And a few black tower shields.

*and a bunch of fishspines back in the day.

[Asha]

What's train for skinning again?

[Asha]

Oh, yeah buy and sell chars.

[NocturnalRob]

What's train for skinning again?
first aid and survival

[Asha]

Word, Rob. Word.

[Khariz]

I started out by buying low and selling high on the amulet in the landing with my first character, then went on to festival items, more expensive ones, and so on. The trick is to know what things are worth to whom, and to snatch up bargains whenever you have the chance. I sold most of my stuff for cash last fall when I wanted to pay off my credit cards and so on, but I've still got a few things squirreled away. I figure I'm only worth about 100m in items these days, though, which isn't really all that much.

I've never had a windfall festival win, unless you count the merchant enchant I won and used to enchant the greater Iasha maul to 7x. I've made all my money in game, with the exception of a time or two I've bought a handful of silvers because I needed pocket change. I've sold way more than I've ever bought, though, and I've made more money OFF Gemstone than I've ever paid to play Gemstone. To me, that's a good balance.

To reinforce the point - information is the name of the game. Know the value of things, know who wants them and where to sell them. Know when you should be patient and when you shouldn't.

Yes, that.

[whiteflash]

Pre GS4 days I know a several of us 'older' characters made 10's of millions from glacei when they dropped 2-3k gems per kill before they nerfed em, small area and super easy script hunting (esp with my wizard). Once you reach those upper levels of items you start trading around in those items and make money that way. Now it just seems so simple to buy the coin outright (that's what my brother and I did when we came back).

[wizgem3]

Back in 98 i used to make like 1 mil a day skinning Myklian.

[DoctorUnne]

Sellin crack to the kids

[Bhuryn]

Back in 98 i used to make like 1 mil a day skinning Myklian.

I originally made my empath for this reason specifically. Never got high enough to abuse them though.

[Jahira]

Last time I was there (2 years ago maybe?) mykalians spawn rate was terrible.

[Allereli]

myklians are great to farm. they drop the belly scales too which sell well at the alchemist

[Bhuryn]

Last time I was there (2 years ago maybe?) mykalians spawn rate was terrible.

Most of the moon is now since no one hunts there really. I was talkin about back when seeing 2k people wasn't uncommon =).

[NocturnalRob]

Sellin crack to the kids
i gotta get paid

[TheRoseLady]

I hunted areas that dropped good treasure. My character was/is married to a rogue so boxes were a great source.

I used to buy the good stuff at merchants. I'd find out what had extra deep pockets, were very lightweight, unusually large pockets for the slot, stockings, corsets, Nalea gowns, Berandt (sp?) wigs...basically stuff that I knew would sell out of player shops.

(I will never forgive Paul for the forced change on the neckpouches. Fortunately I had dyed several so they weren't forced to a smaller size.) If you find an item that is exceptional, dye it right away so it can't be violated by the likes of Paul types. ;) )

My best friend was/is Ardwen, that tended to make some high end items more accessible to me.

[Stretch]

It was a lot easier to merchant 5-6 years ago- I wouldn't even try now. Playershops and Psinet did a pretty thorough job of killing the amunet.

I was averaging around 300k an hour just from gems / coins / jewels raping Nelemar with a pure bard and leaving the rogue instance open with a pickbot script running. People also pay retarded amounts of silver for enhancives, and I could usually count on one decent enhancive every week or two.

[AnticorRifling]

I'd pick up and sell everything. I was never part of the 100m+ club but I had enough to buy some decent armor/weapons.

Having a good reputation goes a long way towards getting deals, being able to sell shit easily, etc.

Also group hunting and pooling coin towards purchasing worked for me and Celember. We could clear faster and upgrade our gear faster buy spending coins towards a weapon for him, then armor for me, etc.

[Methais]

I'd masturbate in town square and people would tip me.

[Back]

I'd pick up and sell everything.

Amazing what you find at empty tables in the landing.

[Drew]

I specialized in one specific area to buy and sell and became an expert in it.

[Rocktar]

(I will never forgive Paul for the forced change on the neckpouches. Fortunately I had dyed several so they weren't forced to a smaller size.) If you find an item that is exceptional, dye it right away so it can't be violated by the likes of Paul types. ;) )

Yeah, I lost a lot of silver in that nerf. And the screw up where they released mithril claids at Ebons, I was one of the first to find them, bought a bunch and bingo, nerfaroo, got the coin back, but sheesh, really, how terrible would it have been to release 20 of em or something? Really? Let each person with a stockpile keep one functional one. Was my first real find at a merchant.

I made what money I have by buying some, merchanting some, and simply being around. Sell off a pile of PP after the large amounts became more rare and I did ok. Too bad people missed out on my sale of the last large pile I could have sold. Some people were interested, I even droped my price and people never got back to me before the chance was gone.

[AKOE!]

Treat your spouse like everyday is his birthday. :yes:

[Asha]

Treat your spouse like everyday is his birthday. :yes:

:heart:
I love when a women knows her shit.

[Dwarven Empath]

I'd pick up and sell everything. I was never part of the 100m+ club but I had enough to buy some decent armor/weapons.

Having a good reputation goes a long way towards getting deals, being able to sell shit easily, etc.

Also group hunting and pooling coin towards purchasing worked for me and Celember. We could clear faster and upgrade our gear faster buy spending coins towards a weapon for him, then armor for me, etc.


We made alot of coins hunting the furballs. That was fun.