Why do people sell unidentified items?

Is it that they are willing to take a chance on what it is? I had a purple item that i id'd and it had a rune on it which i managed to get. Why might someone want to buy that item before i Id'd it?

I'd like to know because as i'm nearing level 14 for the first time I don't want to lose out on getting a drop on which i could maximise revenue by not id'ing it.

Thanks

buying Unid stuff is like gambling, you might buy something realy good, but it might be very crap too.

as for Unid weapons : it's widely know that you can test them to get an idea of what mods are on them, so i doubt anyone will buy Unid weapons, unless they're realy rare skinwise

as for Unid runes : you can salvage an Unid armor and get an unid "rune" from it, showing you what it is. then you can go and sell an "unid superior vigor" or an "unid superior necro rune" (cause the symbol gives away what it is). This is worth more than a regular rune for people that still need to unlock stuff...

my advice : ID every weapon, and every blue/purple armor. Expert salvage gold armors and see what it is, then either ID it (if you can use the unlock or the rune) or sell it Unid. I, myself, ID anything anyway, i don't sell unid stuff, i hate selling, and unid stuff sells even worse

What I don't understand is who would BUY an unid weapon? I see people asking 20K for unid gold stuff. I don't think I ever picked up a gold item that was worth that much, so what are the chances of an unid being valuable?

PVP Unlock

- unlocks
- gamble for valuable mods

*nod* indeed.
A number of these people are probably hoping to unlock something for pvp.
And while a fair number of people test there items before trying to hock them off unid'd, i really don't think the majority does.

I know that i'm too lazy to test meself, and would feel bad if i tried to sell something unid'd knowing full well what it was. So i'd never test meself, i doubt i'm the only one.

You take a risk, and when you're filthy stinking rich and are willing to take that risk, you may jsut come out ahead.

What about Shields? There's nothing to unlock in them, so suppose it's purely gambling.. And it's preeetty easy to test it out for HP mods atleast, and with some trouble possible dmg reductions..

Most farmers that get max dmg golds with decent req's are serious about how they go about things.

They just ID and go with any like..req 13s..or non max dmgs.

They go to Isle of the Nameless and test for easy to reconize mods. Like:
Vampiric
Zealous
Forititude (or Hale)
An Estimate on the Dmg mod if there is one
etc

If nothing comes up appealing - They just sell it UNID (some skins can get very good prices at low req unid). If something catches their eye - They ID it.


The risk of losing something good is minimal this way (About all they'd lose out on is if the Dmg mod came up something good that wasnt ^50, or one of the 20% vs. w/e suffixes).

One of the few remaining positive things I can say about Diablo - items magic power wouldn't work until id'd. Seems to me like it was an oversight in commonsense that items do work unid in GW. Meh, I'll chalk this one up to laziness this time...but it really should be changed. While I personally don't like the gamble on unid items, I don't see anything wrong with the practice per se, as long as it doesn't offer the potential scamming that it does now.

-Jessyi

I wholeheartedly disagree. Yes, you can test for the very obvious attachments to a weapon (i.e. fortitude/vampiric/zealous mods), but it is a relative pain in the arse to check for the inherent mod for a weapon (e.g. is it +12% damage over 50% health, or is it 15%???). The true value of a weapon (believe me, I do PC's all the time) is the inherent mod.

There is a very viable market in buying and selling unidentified weapons. Just check out Lions Arch District 1 or Droknar's District 1 if you doubt me. You can almost guarantee that if you're buying one it won't have a +30 health mod on it, but your real gamble is to get the inherent mod and not that add on.

I will buy (cheap) unid stuff, there is a lot of stuff I have to unlock still.
I don't buy weapons from the gambling perspective, I use collector items for my "uber" stuff.

er, what does unlock mean?

Once you ID a Modifer on a weapon, or a rune in armor, that item then becomes "unlocked" to your account, and when you make a PvP only character - that item is avialable to put on the characters stuff from the start.

To use any item/skill in PvP play, you need to first 'unlock' it for usage on your PvP characters.

For example, when you start out, you can't put say .. a +30 fortitude mod on your swords when you make a PvP character, because you haven't bought the ability to unlock(use) it.

To unlock it, you can either buy it with faction (gained from doing well in PvP matches), or, identify it from a item in the PvE portion of the game.
For example, if you had a unidentified sword, identified it yourself and it had a +30 health mod .. you would then have unlocked it, allowing you to put it on your swords you make in PvP play.