Earlier this week I decided to test a Hypothesis. The hypothesis is that people only check the blackmarket if their faction broker doesn't have the item for a reasonable price, and that items for classes not part of your faction go for much less.
I have to say that this experiment has been a bigger success than I imagined. Here is what I did:
-My main character is of good alignment in Qeynos. I made an alternate character in Freeport and got off the newbie isle.
-I parked my Freeport alt next to the broker in East Freeport. I would check for class skill books for classes exclusive to Freeport. For instance, I would check for skill books lvl 20-30 for Brigands, Defilers, Shadowknights etc.
-After writing down the choice prices I would log on my Qeynos character and check the prices of the skillbooks for the same classes. I bought all that were signifigantly cheaper.
-Now here comes the trick. I would log in my Freeport char and camp him at the blackmarket seller in East Freeport. I would then log in my Qeynos character and put all of the items up for sale in my vault for 10cp each. Then I would log the Freeport character back on and buy up all the items I just listed. There is a small danger that someone else could buy it before you can, but I've never had that happen yet. We are talking about a 30 second window here.
-The 40% increase ontop of 10cp is nothing so you aren't losing any money in the transaction. I would then go and sell the items with my freeport character for a reasonable amount.
This may sound like a lot of work, but I made 6pp in 3 days, which isn't bad for a lvl 20 character. The reason it works is because people don't check the blackmarket if they can find an item for a reasonable price on their own broker, and even if they do check it, by exploiting the blackmarket system you can come in cheaper than the 40% markup and still make a profit. In essence you become your own importer/exporter.
The only hard part is getting the money back to your Qeynos character. You need to trust a third party for this, or just do what I do and make a mega Freeport twink. Nothing like having a 10p horse at lvl 10!
As an example, here is what I did last night:
-Checked the freeport broker for Rake, Ruse, Cut Throat, Assasin's Mark, Revulsion and Lifetap.
-I noticed that Ruse, Revulsion and Lifetap weren't even on the broker. The rest were selling in the 2-5g range for Adept 1's.
-I logged in my Qeynos character and bought Rake, Ruse, Lifetap, and Cut Throat for a combined total of 2g.
-I listed each of the above for 10cp each, logged in my Freeport char and bought all of my own books.
-I put each of the books up for sale at around 2g each. Within 1 hour I had made 6g profit (8g for the sale - 2g in expenses).
I have to say that this experiment has been a bigger success than I imagined. Here is what I did:
-My main character is of good alignment in Qeynos. I made an alternate character in Freeport and got off the newbie isle.
-I parked my Freeport alt next to the broker in East Freeport. I would check for class skill books for classes exclusive to Freeport. For instance, I would check for skill books lvl 20-30 for Brigands, Defilers, Shadowknights etc.
-After writing down the choice prices I would log on my Qeynos character and check the prices of the skillbooks for the same classes. I bought all that were signifigantly cheaper.
-Now here comes the trick. I would log in my Freeport char and camp him at the blackmarket seller in East Freeport. I would then log in my Qeynos character and put all of the items up for sale in my vault for 10cp each. Then I would log the Freeport character back on and buy up all the items I just listed. There is a small danger that someone else could buy it before you can, but I've never had that happen yet. We are talking about a 30 second window here.
-The 40% increase ontop of 10cp is nothing so you aren't losing any money in the transaction. I would then go and sell the items with my freeport character for a reasonable amount.
This may sound like a lot of work, but I made 6pp in 3 days, which isn't bad for a lvl 20 character. The reason it works is because people don't check the blackmarket if they can find an item for a reasonable price on their own broker, and even if they do check it, by exploiting the blackmarket system you can come in cheaper than the 40% markup and still make a profit. In essence you become your own importer/exporter.
The only hard part is getting the money back to your Qeynos character. You need to trust a third party for this, or just do what I do and make a mega Freeport twink. Nothing like having a 10p horse at lvl 10!
As an example, here is what I did last night:
-Checked the freeport broker for Rake, Ruse, Cut Throat, Assasin's Mark, Revulsion and Lifetap.
-I noticed that Ruse, Revulsion and Lifetap weren't even on the broker. The rest were selling in the 2-5g range for Adept 1's.
-I logged in my Qeynos character and bought Rake, Ruse, Lifetap, and Cut Throat for a combined total of 2g.
-I listed each of the above for 10cp each, logged in my Freeport char and bought all of my own books.
-I put each of the books up for sale at around 2g each. Within 1 hour I had made 6g profit (8g for the sale - 2g in expenses).
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