This Guide was completely made by Absolute Brilliance after competing in "From Rags to Riches" and earning over 4Million Gold in 7days without the use of Gaia Cash or friends.Absolute Brilliance's guide to getting from 0 to 4mil in a week (with no outside assistance): For anyone unaware, I'm writing this to explain my success in a competition called Rags to Riches. The goal of the contest was to make as much money as possible in exactly 7 days.
Day 1:I began the contest with Booty Grab. This requires going to the Aquarium forum and looking through all the latest bumped threads for glowing fishtanks. When looking through the latest bumped threads, I always prioritize certain fish. Airsharks > Dolphins > Stone Coatls in my opinion. With those three, before the countdown begins, you need to spam click the center of the screen as fast as possible to get all the fish to the center of the screen. This always ensures a significant increase in the amount of money you get per game. My highest score so far was 5,550 with dolphins but that was an exceptional game. I also find that I lag least (and therefore get the best results) when I click on a direct link to their tank rather than opening it up in a new window.
I've found that with Booty Grab, for me at least, the best time to do a lot of it is 10AM-2PM EST (do the math to fit your time zone). Before that it isn't quite active enough, and after that it's so active that every good game is full so you can't play. There's nothing more frustrating than seeing a tank full of 17 airsharks glowing, ready for you to milk it for thousands of free gold, and then "SRYLOL TANK FULL!!!" (Actually, there are probably a lot of things more frustrating now that I think about it, but none of those things tend to happen while you're in a booty grabbing frenzy.)
After I'd made about 50,000 gold booty grabbing, which took about 45 minutes maximum I'd imagine, I began going back and forth with vending and booty grab. I would go spend all my money vending (usually buying things like wild armors for 9,999 to resell for 17,000 or anything cheap that I could resell for ~5k profit). That way the money I'd made so far would be in my store waiting to make me extra profit while I was booty grabbing and making more. Every time I got more than 50k I'd go back and vend again.
I invested quite a few hours into this and by the end of the day I was sitting on about 400,000 gold in items waiting to be sold on the marketplace. The key to this quick gain was definitely the combination of vending and booty grabbing. With purely booty grabbing I think I only would have made about 250,000. I just can't keep going and going with that crap. It's mindless and fun and all that, but after 20 games in a row I need to take breaks or I just get distracted.
Once I had most of my money back, I began exchanging. When you exchange you should always have the exchange forum open in one window and the marketplace open in another window. I hunt for threads with less replies, but since I've started I've noticed that the amount of posts in threads don't really matter. If they're on the first page chances are they're selling something. Lately a lot of people on the exchange expect to get near LMP for their items...which is really stupid and annoying. Then, we have exchangers who will buy these items for like a 5k profit because they "don't want to have to struggle to win", which may be even more stupid because it encourages stingy sellers to expect near LMP for their items. So don't be either of those people I described or you're going to ruin everything for everyone and I'm going to hate you forever. That's a lot of regret to hold on your shoulders.
So, you click on threads and see what's for sale. You see if people have offered on the items. If you're curious and would like to offer, you go to the marketplace window you have open and search for the item. There are three key factors to keep in mind. 1) how frequently it sells per day. In my opinion the more frequently an item sells, the better, because you get your money/profit quicker and can reinvest it, but usually the faster an item sells the less profit you can expect because more people will be offering on it in the exchange, 2) what the LMP (lowest market price) is. 3) What the ABP (average buy price) is. If the LMP is way higher than the ABP, it's going to be very difficult to buy the items for a profitable price. As you get more experienced with the exchange you'll get a feel for when it's safe to buy inflated items and hope for a profit. Ideally you want to buy it low enough to make a profit even if the item drops down to the initial price, or at least to have the smallest losses possible.
If an item sells less than 10 times per day it's riskier because you'll have to deal with undercutters and if some idiot undercuts you by a good amount but not enough to sell instantly, the price of the item can quickly plummet. (Say you're selling for 250k. Idiot A undercuts you for 230k. Idiot B undercuts him for 225k. Idiot C undercuts him for 215k.) Before you know it, if you plan to sell your item any time soon, you have to settle for a huge loss. It SUCKS. I don't know about you guys but I like to sell items ASAP. The sooner the better. So when an undercut war begins and I see my potential profits turn into "oh god please don't make me lose anymore on this item" I rage. This is why I avoid items that don't sell frequently.
I don't remember exactly how much I had at the end of the 2nd day, but it was probably between 750k and 1mil. The exchange is magical if you know how to work it.
Day 2:The next day I was done with vending and booty grabbing and just stuck to the exchange. I got a couple of good buys. I find late generation EIs can be goldmines if you're able to talk people into selling them for cheap (which is fair, because they can be a real pain to sell at times). Just be careful with that. Some EIs are really crappy, never sell, and the only way they'd be worth buying are if you get them for like 200k cheap. The appeal of late generation EIs, to buyers, is that they're less expensive than the 1st gen. So that's all they have going for them tbh. In that respect, you have to compare every late gen to every other late gen. Unless they have different evolutions, if gen 13 is worth 500k and gen 8 is worth 350k, gen 13 is worth 350k. Get it? Got it? Good. Unfortunately many sellers don't understand this and will be like "BUT DUDE GEN 13 IS WORTH 500K IN THE MP UR LOWBALL ME" and they're often too greedy to reason with. That day I was able to get two late gen Hidden Aces for about 120k off the LMP, it was very lucky and from a generous person.
Day 3:My third day I kept exchanging. Nothing extra special happened, I just got usual good deals. Don't lowball, offer comfortably. Don't offer your "max" price at first, either. You never know when someone will be willing to go lower. Always try to get it for less. Every bit of profit counts. Just don't be a noob about it. You're a businessman now, not a beggar. Fit the role.
Day 4:My fourth day, more exchanging. Average buys with profits between 20k-70k per item are what I get on a daily basis when I exchange. (The more expensive the item, the more profit you should haggle for. Please remember to consider the 2% loss from selling on the MP when offering.) You'll go through a few crap threads until you find one where someone is selling something worthwhile. Don't give up. It's all worth it when you find that profitable item and make yourself a decent profit.
Day 5:On my fifth day I did a misprice and lost 200k. I think I had been around 2,500,000 and ended up going back down to 2,300,000. I was really upset and took a few hours off. I came back and got a lucky streak of good buys on the exchange and ended up with about 2,800,000. Once you have over 2mil you have enough to invest in 10 profitable items at a time.
Oh, by the way, if someone is selling multiples of an item buy all of them and ask for a significant discount.
Day 6:On my 6th day I found a really generous person who sold me a Metal's Last Hope for 1,325,000, a Winter Rose for 180,000, and some other item that I forgot. I sold the Last Hope for 1,675,000 and the Winter Rose for something like 220k. I made good profit on the third item as well. Besides that I made good on various other offers.
Day 7:My best deals on day 7 involved the new rapid EI Lumiere Noire. I bought quite a few of them for really cheap and sold them for something like 80k profit each, and that's counting the 2% tax.
In Conclusion:My secret to success was the exchange forum. Learn prices, learn how to haggle, and learn what items are your favorite to buy and sell. Don't offer too high, always have your maximum profit in mind, and be sneaky if you have to. You know, like if you don't want to bump their thread because they have a really good deal going and you don't want it to be snatched by some idiot who offers 50k+ what they were gonna sell it for (happened to me like 3x over that week...), communicate with them over PMs.
NEVER be afraid to take risks. Chances are the amount you'll lose is way less than the amount you could potentially gain. And even if you do lose, the experience you gain from having gone through the process is more valuable than the small amount you lost. But, that said, ALWAYS trust your gut. If you're taking a risk and just have a gut feeling it isn't going to pay off, trust it. Cancel the trade, tell the person you aren't interested, and move on. Don't feel rushed or pressured to purchase an item just because you offered highest. If you're not comfortable, don't do it.
Good luck guys.
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