This is a beginners guide for players interested in building wealth on D2JSP. Enjoy!
The advice in this guide assumes that you are playing legitimately and without any starting capital.
Foreword
The Diablo II JSP economy is very similar to real world economies. It is a capitalist system working off supply and demand - and just like real life, most people will stack up at the bottom of the wealth hierarchy.
You will hear a lot of people complaining that the economy is “ruined” by bots and dupes and so on. This is not true. The economy is actually extremely healthy - and learning to take advantage of the system will allow you to build up your forum gold quickly.
Part I: The Ladder Cycle
It is no secret that there is a great potential for profit at the ladder reset. You are likely to make more forum gold in the first week after the reset than you are in the next three weeks afterward. Similarly, you are likely to make more forum gold in the first month than the remainder of the season. This is your best opportunity to generate some investment capital. Join an 8 man ladder reset group and try to maximise your gaming time in the first few days of the ladder. You will be able to make thousands in a short space of time - even if you’re selling common items like pocketable bases or Spirit runes. If you are lucky and a GG item drops for you early in ladder - sell it.
There is also a smaller window of opportunity just before the conclusion of a ladder season. Many players will attempt to offload their ladder mules and it is possible to snag some bargains on Ladder-Only runewords and upped uniques. However, keep in mind that only some near-perfect rolls are easy to resell.
Part II: Bots (Supply)
While I don’t approve of bots, they are a fact of life in Diablo II - and will continue to be for the foreseeable future. There is a common perception that the economy is “ruined” because bots are responsible for the rapid depreciation of items each ladder season. However, the people who complain about this trend are not taking the relative purchasing power of their forum gold into account. While it is true that bots are flooding the market with items, they are simultaneously increasing the purchasing power of the gold you already have. In a world with no bots, perhaps a Ber rune can sell for 2000 FG throughout the season - but this would also mean that almost no players would ever acquire one. As prices drop, your FG gains value and allows you to buy more with less. The point is that the amount of value you accrue does not change as prices fluctuate.
As a legitimate player, do not attempt to monopolise the market for a specific item - you are highly unlikely to succeed. Also, try not to aggressively undercut your competitors in price. For highly sought after items, it is generally better to post the same price as other players because you will almost certainly receive an offer.
Part III: The “Meta” (Demand)
In order to be a successful investor, you will need to have a detailed knowledge of the Diablo II Character Meta for both PvP and PvM. Which are the most popular builds and what are the core items which go into those builds. Keep in mind that the Meta simply refers to the most popular and sought after items - it does not necessarily reflect what is best in slot. For instance, Chains of Honor and Ethereal Sandstorm Treks continue to be good trading options despite them being poor item choices. I won’t go into too much detail about items and pricing here. Suffice it to say that you want to do a significant amount of research into market trends and what people are looking for. Just remember that items which are used in many builds (Stone of Jordan, Heart of the Oak, Spirit, Griffon’s Eye, Shako, Fortitude, Grief, Ravenfrost etc.) are always easier to sell than specific ones (Dream, Ormus, Tomb Reaver, The Cat’s Eye, Griswold Set etc.)
After the ladder prices settle down, your main source of income will be through buying and reselling. You want to go bargain hunting for easy-to-sell items and resell at a higher price (approximately 20-30%). "Value packs" are generally terrible investments. Don't get fooled by the bunch of random prices and calculations that usually accompany these posts. 9 out of 10 times, a "value pack" is actually just one or two valuable items plus a bunch of chaff that will collect dust until they time out. It should also be noted that perfect items are actually easier to sell than low quality items which are in turn, easier to sell than midrange items. For instance, a Perfect 35/112/8 Spirit Shield is easier to sell than a low roll 28/108/5 Garbage Shield - and the most difficult to sell would be the midrange 33/112/7 version unless you sell at the same price as the garbage edition.
Part IV: The Realms
If you are primarily interested in turning over a profit, you should be playing ladder on the USEast Server. This server has the largest economy and potential for making gold. At the same time, if you want to spend FG making a GG PvP character, USWest Non-ladder is the cheapest option (although you may have difficulties finding an opponent). The price differential can be as much as 4x, especially for crafted items and there are a lot of sellers on West. That said - if you buy something pricey on USWest, it will be difficult to resell.
Part V: Muling
Less is more. When you are playing legit, you don’t want to be hoarding hundreds of accounts worth of junk. While everything in the game has a value, not everything you mule will sell. The types of items you keep should be appropriate to your wealth level. As a general rule, you should avoid having more than 2-3 accounts worth of mules. You don’t want to spend your time performing 1-2 FG micro-transactions if you have a net worth of 100K. Once you reach the 10K mark in net worth, you should consider investing into non-ladder items that are worth 2K+
Part VI: Inflation
I often have people ask me “Why would I waste FG on a Grief of Destruction when a normal Grief works just fine? Why would I pay thousands for a near perfect crafted amulet when Mara’s is just a few stats off?” The answer is because you want to get rich. Most regular items like Grief or Mara’s will either depreciate or stagnate in value after you acquire them - especially if you obtained it through an ISO. However, items which are no longer obtainable in the game such as Hybrid Runewords, Pre-patch Items and Zod-bugged Items are constantly gaining value (much like a term deposit or a piece of real estate). There is certainly a bit of risk involved - try not to get scammed with unperms - but also a potential to triple your investment within a year or two.
Part VII: Current Trends
I thought I would just add a bit of observational data that might be helpful for investing in the immediate future. In the last few months, Blizzard has implemented a few changes that have shaken up the JSP economy. Firstly, inactive characters are now being deleted approximately 2 weeks after the 90 day limit which resulted in thousands of mules worth of items being wiped out. The second change is the patching of public dupe methods. These changes have the following consequences:
*** High end rare jewels (and magic jewels to a lesser extent) have increased in value significantly. This is unlikely to be of any consequence to investors though. ***
*** Popular Hybrids and Prepatch items have seen a several-fold increase in price. For instance, Grief of Destruction was selling for approximately 4K on the EU server at this time last year but prices have spiked to 6-7K at present. On USEast, the price is even higher and is likely to continue increasing in the near future. (This is only true of some items - others such as 08 rare rings and LLD hybrids are holding steady) ***
*** Popular Unperms have spiked in price even more than perms. Now that duping has been removed (at least to our knowledge), unperms are slowly becoming extinct and may even become permanent once all other copies are lost. Items such as Wizardspike Gloves, Bug Belts and Bmana charms have been rising very rapidly in value and are also likely to continue increasing in the near future (time to invest!) ***
That’s it for now. I hope this was a helpful overview and I may add some other stuff later. Please feel free to leave comments and feedback!