What just happend?

So I took a few days off from playing the beta towards the end, feeling I had things pretty well planned out for release..and whammo! I check my reading list this morning and find the RMAH release has been postponed to a week after the game release and transaction and listing fees have been radically altered.

No matter. Part of the game is dealing with Blizzard changing the goal posts, so how will I be going about my business taking these changes into account?

Leveling up in the first week.
I don't intend to race to 60. This I foresee as being disastrous from a gold making point of view. The long standing threat of "YOU WILL DIE" hangs over us along with the repair bills, one of the biggest gold sinks in the game. One we as potential gold sellers need to avoid like the plague! SO what is the plan? Play though on normal, acquire gear, ideally with some magic find and main stat (Strenght since I'll be playing Barbarian). Then on completion of normal TURN AROUND and run through again!

Multiple Magic Find runs in Normal.
The chances of playing though Normal mode once and picking up a decent set of main stat and Magic Find gear in the first run are limited, however a second run though with the newly acquired set will be faster and yield more drops. This in turn allows for 2 things. Firstly a better set of stats prior to entry to Nightmare, and a large quantity of Subtle Essences from the stuff not worth anything to you or others. These can be used for crafting or selling directly on the gold AH to enable stockpiling of gold prior to the RMAH release. Rinse and repeat for Nightmare-Hell, and Hell-Inferno.

Farming the AH for salvageable items and gems.
With the stockpile of gold from re-runs I should be getting my artisans up to a level that corresponds to my characters. This will enable both salvaging and gem combining. Unlike WoW, where a single AH search with Auctioneer will allow you to gobble up every crafting item under a certain price threshold, AH farming in Diablo 3 will require more time investment to search multiple pages for salvageable items to bid, at the same time it is unlikely any one, or even combination of players will find and bid on every item, so there will always be items you can grab for a low cost, provided you are patient and set realistic thresholds. So before and after logging for the evening, or during breaks where you want to just grab a soda or a bite to eat browse and bid on everything you can salvage or gems you can combine. With luck you will also find an under priced item you can flip.

Crafting.
It is likely many players will be trying to craft something, sink a ton of gold into it, and be largely unimpressed with the resulting imperfect gear. Crafting is going to require investment of the gold, essences and teeth that have been farmed from multiple runs. A perfect or near perfect high DPS weapon or main stat + experience/magic/gold is going to be highly sought by those trying to win the 1-60 rat race, but I'll most likely wait to see what stats are selling. It doesn't have to be prefect, you can break even with 50% of the max stats available coming up on maybe 1 in 3 or 4 pieces as people will buy any improvement, but remember, without the ability to buy gold no-one will have the 500,000 gold you need to sell that prefect piece of armor for after it took 50 tries to get it.

After the first week:
Arbitrage
I'll have to rework my percentages somewhat, however come the end of that first week and the release of the RMAH there will be a turbulent time while the gold and item values stabilise.

Selling Gold
Once the RMAH is released we will see thousands of players who have horded 100's of thousands if not millions of gold with which to flood the AH almost instantly. Some players will be desperate at this point, knowing the RMAH is coming and those pants in the gold AH are 500,000 and they will be ready to buy some of that gold. But the long and short of it is that initial supply will outstrip demand so although prices will start high, maybe the $10 per thousand that has been steady on Beta, the undercutting will be intense, and within minutes the price could well be rock bottom, at a point where people stop listing. After a time though the bonce back and settle at a going rate. So there may be a chance to make a few bucks if you can determine the low point in that initial slump before the market recovers, and don't mind investing real money to buy that cheap gold.