Commodities does have a huge potential. But it is only about half-complete, something I mentioned to GM Adera- and she agrees.

I don't know anyone that really makes a profit with them: I use contracts for my bread and butter. But it would be a huge advantage to not having a deadline to make deliveries.

The mind behind...


Sometimes the key to happiness is not assuming it is locked in the first place- Ziggy

A journey of a thousand SMILES begins with a single step- Ziggy

I used commodities exclusively upon hitting 2nd Circle, and made a good 50 or 100 platinum from them before going back to contracts because of lack of time to devote to the commodity system. Also there was some little change in there that made my numbers a bit... odd, so it was more difficult to track my P/L. Commodities can be lucrative, but it takes time, research, a lot of thought, and sometimes running willy-nilly between pits before purchasing anything. I probably won't try much with them again until the system gets ironed out to better follow laws of supply and demand, and the like.

Killing you softly with his song,
- Stormsinger Shavay, and a Trader.

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Madness does not always howl. Sometimes, it is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, "Hey, is there room in your head for one more?"

I traded commodities from about 5th to 30th circle, getting around three quarters of my trading experience from this.
After 30th (probably even around 25th) commodites are not worth it except for two things. First, a few quick runs where you can get in a fwew good trades for decent money and a little experience. Secondly, when running interprov contracts to gain a little extra experience.

Now a few things for those who want to use the system. Yes, you can buy as much as you can of that one item with a huge difference in prices between outpost for that big pay. This is not really the best way to trade commodities though. Prices will stay fairly stable over the length of time that you can trade commodities, with the exception of those 'run' things that happens where a price at one pit drops or rises really quickly. Half the time you find that these runs change before you can cash in on them, so hit and miss.

The best way to trade is to grab as many of a commodity that will sell for the price that is at the cap limit for experience for you. What I mean by this is that there is a cap on how much experience you can gain on any one sale based on your circle (or might be trading experience). So, if the max for you 1 gold, selling 1 plat of diamonds is not going to get you learning any more than 1 gold of apples. What are the levels, well I'm not positive since it has been awhile, but I think its around a 3-5 silver around 5th scaling to around 5 gold for 30th. So, the best thing to do is buy as many different commodities, buying quanities that will sell for your max. This way you do not buy out a commodity to soon and can run the routes more often.

Now, on buy commodities. Of course you want to buy low and sell high. But how much of a difference does there need to be? Well, that is determined by the price of the commodity. The higher the price, the great the cut that the guild is giong to take. So for apples example, you can make a profit with as little as a 3 spread in price (not much, but shouldn't lose money), but with diamonds you are going to need around a 75 spread.

Now on supply and demand. Not all commodities are made equal. Surplus for things like diamonds and gold is around 100, but for charcoal it is 700. So why it may not be good to buy to many if diamonds are at good stores, it can be safe to buy 100 charcoal (not that I have ever found charcoal to be profitable). Somewhere out there is a site where someone made a really good (not perfect but really helpful) listing the amount for each commodites for each state. Maybe if someone doesn't beat me to it I'll get ambitious and find it.

A couple other things:

I'm mostly positive that distance has no bearing on experience. It is just selling price if I remember my tests correctly.

Ignore my advice on keeping at your experience cap when you see a big kill. When there is a 300 difference in price in diamonds, buy them out and make that 2.5 plat profit.

I always trade commodities when I'm in the Zoluren area. I always make a profit with them too. Sometimes I may have to hold onto a commodity for a really long time before I make a profit with it, but I always make a profit. There is a bug with commodities when returning from a crash though. Every time I get a caravan returned after a crash, I always have a ton of extra commodities; often times beyond what I'm supposed to be capable of having, and I have to sell off like crazy before I can buy any more.


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Gnomes Rule!

>Does anyone activeley do this?

After a bit more study you wonder if you have made 161585 kronars, 129268 lirums, or 116599 dokoras working the commodity market.

I think I stopped commodity trading around 10th circle.

1st circle was hard because I was still new to DR and had nothing to my name, but as soon as I hit second I turned things around in the pits. I was able to make five plats my first week doing commodities, enough money to last me for weeks of lavish living. It wasn't until I ran into Apu that I learned about better trading opportunities in the south and packed up and moved on.

While I will always have a soft spot in my heart for commodities I never was able to find a good groove for trading them once I grew up and got bigger. Day trading only pays off so much, after that you need to invest a lot of time and a bit of money to really make the market pay off in the end.

That all rambled, you have my admiration for pulling in 1.5k plats on the market.

- Bedan, the limbless trader.