Diablo 3 Auction House: Times To Buy And Sell

When Diablo 3 launches there will be players (perhaps myself included) who will play for hours and hours, days even on end. It’s the kind of game that generates this kind of excitement. For those of us who are looking at those early days as times of potentially great profit in gold per thousand and commodities on the Diablo 3 RMAH and gold auction house, it will be important to have plans in place before the game goes live. Particularly a plan that helps us decide when to buy and when to sell.

Realistically though, I’ll have other things to do. Other commitments and work. I’m working towards a more flexible lifestyle myself but others won’t be able or willing to escape the 9-5 Monday to Friday grind.

This means the Diablo 3 economy will be an economic sea filled with tides of supply and demand.  The wise sailor gets to know these tides. We’ll have to be wise sailors.

I’ve been re-working an older blog post, Diablo 3 Gold Guide: Stack Sizes Matter, and I felt a new article where I looked at stack sales would be beneficial – given that so much has changed since I last wrote about commodity stacks.

I’ve adjusted the sample scenario I cooked up in my first ‘Stack Sizes Matter’ post. Before I get into that, let’s remind ourselves how Blizzard have described the commodities on the Diablo 3 auction house so far:

Working from this and the new information contained in yesterday’s post, Diablo 3 Auction House Beta Patch 13: Gold & Subtle Essences, here’s my adapted scenario swapping essences for gold (this change was made because the GAH has no price floor and will behave much more like selling in World of Warcraft. Once essences are flooded at a market value of, say, 100g each no serious auctioneer will list any. Anyone who does list will find them snapped up… That is, if they’re priced 15% below the market value – unless a buyer feels confident they can make more than the 15% loss from the sale back):

Say there’s 100,000 gold on a theoretical Diablo 3 RMAH. All stacks of 1,000 listed at $1.00 a piece. The sellers are selling these thousands in stack sizes broken down as follows:

1 @ 50,000;

2 @ 10,000;

3 @ 5,000;

5 @ 2,000; and

5 @ 1,000

Jim wants to buy gold. He’s done some calculating on how much he needs. He requires 32,000. He checks our theoretical auction house and as a buyer sees that 32,000 is averaging $1.00 per 1,000 and he’ll have to pay $32.00. He buys 32,000 in moments and his transaction is complete. Simple and painless for Jim but what happened behind the scenes? There are several possibilities. Let’s focus on the auctioneer selling 50,000 gold.

1. Perhaps the sellers stack of 50,000 gold will be broken up by the system into 50 x 1,000. Then if Jim wants just 32,000, those 50 X 1,000 listings are in a lottery with the other 50 X 1,000 listings belonging to the other players.  This seems a bit complex and perhaps unfair to some with the random element (but I cannot rule it out).

2. It’s possible that each stack size is vital. In this case – Jim wanting 32,000 – the stack size of 50,000 might never sell. The 2 stacks of 10,000 together with 2 stacks of 5,000 and then a stack of 2,000 seems like the simplest possible combination.

If there were a stack of 32,000 that would be the simplest and that would be chosen above the smaller constituents above. If there were 32 single listings of 1,000 and then 4 stacks of 33,000 I think 32 single listings would be used rather than one of the stacks of 33,000 being ‘shaved’ by 1,000. This theory would probably be the simplest.

3. It’s possible that TIME is key. In other words – each auction of gold were placed on the auction house at a different time. Auctions that are cheapest are sold first. When prices are the equally cheap, the earlier auctions are favoured.

Let’s examine possibility 3 by ordering the stacks with simple timestamps (in reality we’d be looking at seconds and milliseconds difference and a complex arrangement of times) as follows:

Tues 9pm 10,000 -> 5,000 -> 2,000 -> 2,000
Tues 10pm 2,000 -> 1,000 -> 1,000 -> 5,000
Tues 11pm 2,000 -> 2,000 -> 1,000 -> 50,000
Wed 12am 1,000 -> 10,000 -> 5,000 -> 1,000

In this example, Jim’s 32,000 would be taken from Tues 9pm listings (in order) then the Tues 10pm  listings (in order) and finally Tues 11pm in order up to the bold 2,000. This seems simple enough. But what if the auction order was subtly different?

Tues 9pm 10,000 -> 5,000 -> 2,000 -> 2,000
Tues 10pm 2,000 -> 1,000 -> 1,000 -> 5,000
Tues 11pm 2,000 -> 50,000-> 1,000 -> 2,000
Wed 12am 1,000 -> 10,000 -> 5,000 -> 1,000

In this example, the first 30,000 would be taken exactly the same as the previous example. But previously in the Tues 11pm slot where 2,000 sat, there’s now 50,000…  Now we’re back to something like the original problem:

Would it skip this stack in favour of the only 2,000 left in Tues 11pm?

Would it split the 50,000 and keep a record that the stack is ‘part sold’, then when the auction completes return $2.00 (minus fees) and 48,000 back (if he sold no more)?

Would it split the stack 50,000 stack and return $2.00 minus fees immediately and adjust the sellers stack to 48,000?

In the article series (there were 2 parts, Diablo III Gold Guide – Stack Sizes Matter II being the 2nd) I leaned towards stack size being the deciding factor when prices were equal. I felt that hedging your bets by listing multiple stacks was a solid approach.

Beta Patch 13 has given me something more to think about  - mainly because we’re limited to 10 per AH! But also because the time based possibility came to mind.

This isn’t an RMAH only problem. Even without a $1.00 fixed price floor we’ll have lots of stacks at the same price. Subtle Essences might be listed in their thousands at 100g (if that’s the average market value) but we’re more likely to see 10 stacks at 105g, then 100 at 110g, then 10 at 111g or something like that – depending on how much people undercut.

For each price point where there are multiple sellers and choices for the automated system to make, will the decision be based on time or stack size? Even if time is a factor, will stacks be split or skipped based on stack size?

At this point I don’t know. But I’ll keep pondering the problem. In any case, IF TIME is a factor then WHEN to sell is even more important.

Predicting demand spiking above supply will be key in selling your stacked gold or [insert crafting material here] at the appropriate price AND before the rest of the stacks at your price point. In other words, the right time will = more sales and more $ on the Diablo 3 auction houses.

What do you folks think? Maybe I’m overlooking something – enlighten me!

Ray

Tagged as: Diablo 3 Buy and Sell, Diablo 3 Gold Auction House, diablo 3 gold guide, Diablo 3 RMAH, Diablo III Auction House, Diablo III Auction Strategy