Power Gamer Play Book

This great post by IXLNXS in the forum is absolutely the best intor to playing blogshares yet. I wish I had written it myself, but I didn't; but I can plagiarise it like hell.

So you are a Power Gamer. One who doesn't want to waste any time getting right into the thick of things and you want to know the quickest way. Well I've decided to cut my own throat and show you at my own expense. Because competition, and competition, makes it harder for me, the Non Premium Player, to get ahead. Moving on.

Cash. You need cash to get ahead in the game. You're going to need to buy artifacts to get the most out of share trading and even if they are now cheap they still aren't free. As such you need to gain cash the quickest way possible. You do that by gaining chips. One way to gain some easy chips is to post your user ID# here in the forums telling folks you're a newbie. The other way is by voting blogs into "categories they belong in". It is very important to vote correctly or it'll bite you in the butt later on. A very easy place to find new blogs to vote on is here. Vote often and correctly and you'll very soon amass a small fortune in chips that can be sold here. Once you've completed these steps you can move on to the art of buying artifacts.

Buying artifacts. As a Power Gamer you're devoted to getting rich quick not collecting the fancy artifacts. If they are too expensive and serve no purpose in share trading don't bother with them just yet. At a later date when you're filthy rich and have more cash than you know what to do with you can start blowing money on artifacts you'll hardly ever use. Until then look for cheap ones that have alot of blogs associated with them. You'll be using the English artifact alot. Politics is another good one. The more you play the more you'll find to use. Buy em up as needed. You'll need 10K to build and artifact so buy up the cheap ones in lumps first. Asia, Japan, Japanese, Computers, ect. They can be found at bought here. Learn how to use them in share trading to multiply your cash holdings quickly.

So you've got more than a few artifacts and are ready to start dealing in some real cash cow blogs. Here's where I cut my throat. Here is my portfolio. Everyone has one. You can make several folders within your main portfolio. May I suggest you do so. By looking at my Main portfolio page you'll see alot of blogs I own nothing in. There's a reason for that. By clicking the PE button at the top of the page I can sort the blogs there by the ones with very low PE's which usually means they are as cheap as they'll get. Example. Now they are sorted by lowest PE to highest. Look for blogs in the single digits. This list contains some of the best blogs that are traded quite often. Feel free to use it. Myself being a NonPremiumPlayer am limited to 21 transactions of normal play. So I always turn to shares worth selling that I have already acquired from the first list. If no one has come bought them up I move them to a new folder until I decide where they need to go. I've created several folders. One for shares not worth trading. Another for shares where people have sent me 1 share or I have bought 1 share as part of a sell order deal. Another folder for decent shares that I haven't yet bought all of. And yet another folder for shares I have bought all of and are worth selling. With still another folder for MSN blogs that have funny names. This makes it easier for me to run through my shares and see what has been bought or sold, which ones have high PE's and low. The lesson here is to make a few folders. They are a tool. Use it.

Now you have a few artifacts and have found a list of heavily traded expensive shares. What next? May I suggest you buy any and all shares you can afford with a PE around 1. Use those artifacts I was telling you about to Restructure and HTO. Try and save a bit so you can hit each purchase with a Hype. DO NOT get mad when someone takes shares back. Most often they buy them using the same tools at a profit to you. Getting mad that you bought at one and someone else bought back at 10 is silly. You've made a profit. Sure it'd be nice to run the share price all the way up to a 750 PE but that doesn't always happen. It'll happen more if you start building a few folders up with shares you've Restructured that people just forget about. Over time you'll have a very nice portfolio if you occasionally comb through here, finding PE's at 1 of blogs people forgot they even owned.

Using your portfolio instead of the TOP 100 list. The Top 100 list updates hourly, sometimes. Your portfolio updates almost instantly. As such once you've added a blog into your portfolio you'll be able to look back at it to see the most current price and PE. This allows you to grab expensive stocks at dirt cheap before others might. Learn to use your portfolio and it's abilities to your greater good. Place unowned stocks worth something into your main folder and do a quick scan of which ones have the lowest PE. Check the blogs against your artifacts and buy up the ones you can. IF no one comes along and buys them right up at a profit to you sell them when possible. If you can afford to wait 24 hours you'll also be able to use your artifacts to Hype the shares until they are worth selling. You can sell with the PE all the way up to 750. Anymore and you'll have to do a PRD or Industry Slump. Too much less and you're shooting yourself in the foot.

I hope this helps a few folks. Feel free to use my portfolio as a great jumping off place for share trading. Remember to toggle those buttons between Highest Total Price for selling, and Lowest PE for buying. And remember, even using this simple plan does not guarantee profit. Others may be Slumping or Buzzing their own holdings which have effects on yours. And sometimes there are those who come to simply trash your holdings for no other reason that to do it. Still yet there are others who can't stand allowing you to profit a nickle and will Slump your holdings so they can buy them up at your loss. You'll soon find out who they are and following this strategy ad nauseum will be able to retaliate.

25 November 2005- Black Friday

I remember waking up on the Saturday, getting ready to play and seeing this on the front page:

MAJOR PRICE FLUCTUATIONS SEEN IN IDEAS MARKET; TRADING SUSPENDED
After opening strong in early hours trading, major price fluctuations have begun to have an effect on the market. Investors have been selling strongly all morning in anticipation of a market crash. Idea values continue to plummet. The BlogShares Treasury Board has suspended all market trading effective immediately in an attempt to control the price drops. Developing...

My total value had been slashed by a factor of 10,000 and I lost all hope, dropped my ideas onto the market and was about to set sail and leave when I was given a bit of advice by Streetdogg. I bought a shit load of artefacts, got myself some shares and pulled myself back up again.

Honestly, the crash was the best thing that happened because it really levelled the playing field. I went from outside the top 200 to the top 15 in just over a month. All the old players who had got fat on hogging ideas crashed out and a lot of new, hungry players took the place by storm. I reckon they should do something like this every year or so, just to clear out the detritus.

Top 10!

Hahaha, I made it to the Top 10 list of Blogshares!

I had a pretty start after the crash in November, and I was almost ready to give up when I was encouraged by a few friends (notably StreetDogg) to start trading again. Within literally no time at all I had amassed a couple of hundred artefacts and was back in the race. December saw me reach the top 100 and then this week I had the nerve to tackle the biggest blog in the system (which was shortly afterwards to crash resoundingly back down to earth, more on this later). After a very nerve racking day of constantly checking to make sure I wasn't going to be taken over in a nasty struggle, I made more than B$700 billion after divvying up with Hanz Boer (who subsequently lost his shirt trading on the same blog the next day). That got me to the top 15. Receiving a gift from a very generous benefactor who is taking time off to spend time with his family (very commendable) boosted me 8 places into the top 10. Considering the fact that all the big cash cow blogs have pretty much disappeared from the game, this means that I will probably stay in the top 10 for some time to come.

So, what happened to the big blog? BlogSkins.com News had what they call a share discrepancy (basically more shares than were officially registered) due to a lot of trading and, quite probably, exploitation of a bug in the system. Each blog has 5000 shares, 1000 of which are reserved for the owner. The maximum share price allowed for selling is based on the number of shares officially listed. This means that additional 'faulty' shares are not taken into account. In all other counts, the shares are the same. This means that the price of the shares can be pushed to the limit and then sold for an enormous profit.

The problem is that you can't buy and sell the same shares within a six hour period, so it means waiting a long day to be able to cash in. Since everyone wants to get in on the action, it is also a very nerve-racking day, especially when I had an important meeting just before the time when I could sell (which is also the time that the most attacks occur apparently). In any case, I sold the shares and quite a few people made some money on the deal. I was going to trade on the same blog the next day, but they fixed all the discrepancies, leaving the blog almost worthless.

There are now no blogs which will earn the kind of money being earned on 'Skins', as it was affectionately known, and therefore the ranking is probably fixed for quite some time to come. I must say that playing skins was my most exciting day of playing blogshares and I shall miss the fear and the thrill of playing for such high stakes. Even if it only virtual money: I couldn't have been more involved if it were my own maoney at stake.

Daily Kos

Been struggling to grapple ownership of some shares in this blog today. This blog is in 15 industries and I have arte's for all of them. I hyped the price up to way above what the public would accept (740 p/e). Try again Monday and in the meantime ask PnP to go easy on the hostile takeovers.

Blogshares strategy

Wise words from PnP
Add 1-3 blogs to the index, or find existing ones; don't add 10-20, at once, as it will make it rather easy to loose the "ultra-rare" status; vote into that industry (it's legal to vote just into one, but I don't like it) reindex and collect. You may decide to vote into more, but remember, only the 5 at the top will have production from the blog. If you need, ask for help with votes into the industry you want to "milk" :-)

Keep the industry's link in a folder, so it will be easier to do it again next day: if possible, use "sleeping USA" time to reindex/collect. You will use it for a few days, and an industry can be ultra-rare till ~50k or 5 owners. After that point, you can keep it producing, add new blogs, but it will go into "rare" or common. The psychological attitude of the collector is to buy from an industry with a total of 300, not as fast or pricey if it produces 3k/day. If you see it producing too much, some strategical votes into other industries will decrease the flow :-)

Links of the day:
la petite liégeoise
Dany