4.2 is rapidly approaching, and I'm sure most of you are well on your way in stockpiling everything you'll need to get rich. Nearly every gold-blog out there has touched on what you should be stockpiling, and for the most part it's all solid advice. However, in my cursory glances at everyones' suggestions, I'm seeing something missing that I assumed would be a quite obvious money-maker. In fact, this market is the one I'm sinking a good 90% of my stockpiling recourses in to, and I believe it will pay off handsomely.
What is this mysterious market that a good majority of bloggers seem to be neglecting? Why, PvP gear, of course! Come 4.2, all current PvP gear recipes will automatically be upgraded in our spell books. No new recipes to get, just a free upgrade! Even better, the mats will stay the exact same. And in case you have forgotten what those costs are, WoWHead has made a very convinient page summarizing the mats for all the new craftable gear in 4.2. Just find the set, and it'll tell you what you need total to buy the recipes and what a full set will take to make. Makes stockpiling a sinch. I'm hoping to make five to ten full sets of each to sell throughout the week.
Of course, blind stockpiling is rarely a good idea, so here's why I think this will be a solid investment. First, iLvl cheaters. New PvP gear has an iLvl of 358, more than enough to get you in to H ZG/ZA. It ought to even be decent enough to let you run through normal Heroics without being a drain on your team too. Mainly though, it'll be great for new people looking to get in to PvP without being stomped by those who have already played through last season. This gear is better than current honor gear (sans sockets and with a bit less resil, however), so people who never got around to doing arenas or rated bgs will likely want to upgrade. The majority of consumers will likely be people new to PvP, however. And if they're even remotely serious about trying it out, they'll want to get on this gear in order to stay competitive.
So there you have it. My scheme to get even more gold in 4.2. I haven't even mentioned the new PvP relics / rings / cloaks, mainly because those are bits of PvP gear others have already covered. Of course you should be stockpiling for those as well, as they'll sell well for the same reason the regular gear will: new players, or casual PvPers, looking to stay competitive in the new season.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Musings Post-Cap: Gold-Making Universal Truths
So it's been over a month since I hit 1mil, and just about a month since I wrote for my blog. You may have been wondering where the hell I went. Well, aside from exams, journal write-on, and starting an internship, I've just really had nothing to write about.
I more or less stopped the gold making grind after the cap. There wasn't much point to it. After basking in the glow from that huge mount of gold, I went to work spending it. Bought all the vendor mounts for my main, and a Traveler's Tundra for my lvl 40 druid. Started working on the pet achieves too, which cost a fair amount of gold to do. Almost have all the Argent Tourney pets, on both sides, as well as the rather rare Hyacinth Macaw, Disgusting Oozeling, and Firefly pets. Still keeping an eye out for the whelplings, but haven't seen many. Gave away a ton of the shiny stuff too, to various people for various reasons.
On the gold making aspect, I've done little else than glyphs, which I now love for their relative ease. I have a huge stockpile of glyphs and inks that I'm working through. Also selling off some some random items on my main bank alt that I got either pre-cata, or through snatch lists. I am, however, gearing up for 4.2, which I'll likely write about in a few days. I've been largely silent because, as you can see, I haven't been doing much gold making myself. I like to write about what I do, and my thoughts on such, so if I'm not really doing anything, there's not anything to write about.
I have, however, been thinking a lot about making somewhat of a meta gold making post. Just a few observations on making gold that I've come across on my way to the cap. So here they are, the universal truths about gold making:
Making Gold is Really Easy
Some may argue with me on this, but they're wrong. Making gold is easy, making tons of it is a little harder (and will segue in to the next universal truth). When people ask how I do it, I always condense my answer in to this little sentence: "I buy stuff, do something to it, then sell it for more." That's all we do. That's the very essence of gold-making. We take stuff from the AH (or vendors, or players, or from farming, but that's less likely), run it through our professions, and then sell the completed product for more than the sum of its parts. Nowhere is this principle more easily illustrated than with Jewelcrafting. JC was the reason I got in to gold making, and it's still my favorite. The easiest way to make gold from JC is to buy a raw gem, cut it, and sell it for more. Doing that is how I got my start. None of the silly "shuffle," just going in to the AH with auctionator, checking the prices of raw gems, checking the prices of cut gems, buying the raw gems, and making profitable cuts to sell. It was absurdly easy gold. And it still can be. JC is the perfect example because it's so obvious how it works. Barely takes any math at all, just a simple understanding of which of two numbers is higher. Any other profession is really just a slightly more complicated version of this with a few extra steps. What they all come down to is taking something, making something new, and selling the new thing for more. Easy as that. If you can sell the finished product for more than the sum of its parts, you've made gold. It's as simple as that.
Now, you can make it more complicated by trying to squeeze out extra coppers. Buying from suppliers instead of the AH. Watching trends to buy when supply is abundant and sell when it's low. Selling on raid nights, buying on the weekends. Dealing with competitors. Etc. But again, in the end it's all about selling for more than you paid. If you can do that, you can make gold and reach the gold cap.
It Takes Money to Make Money
I think this is the most important thing to realize. Like I noted earlier, making gold is easy, but making tons of gold is a little harder. A week or so ago, a guy on the Consortium Forums made a post lamenting his inability to rake in thousands of gold a day like some of us could. He was doing everything right (aka, selling for more than he paid, see supra), so why wasn't he fabulously wealthy? Well, because he only had about 20k to work with. The thing is, the only reason some of us can pull thousands from our mail each day is because we're spending thousands in the first place. I could make thousands a day from JC, but I'd likely have to first spend many thousands on ore or raw gems. If you don't have that kind of gold to invest, you're not going to see that kind of return. Rather than focus on the raw numbers, you should be looking at your percent return of investment (ROI). Myself and our friend could have a 50% ROI, but he might not make the same as I can simply because he's not spending as much as I can. For example, we can buy widgets at 100g each and sell them as gidgets for 150g each. He can only buy ten of them (spending 1k), but I can buy a hundred (spending 10k). He'll make 500g, I'll make 5000g. But we both made the exact same 50% ROI. The sole reason I made more was because I spent more. Not because I'm "better" not because he's doing something wrong, but because I had more I was willing to spend. And hey, now I can buy more, and make even more! But so can he!
So how do you get to the point where you can make thousands in a day? By starting out making a few hundred a day. Again, it takes money to make money. That could easily be amended to say, it takes more money to make more money. You're not likely to make thousands daily if you're just starting out. You have to build your way up. Focus on one market, start a steady income, then start expanding. As long as you're getting decent ROI, you'll start to see more and more gold come in each week. The more you have, the more you can spend, and the more you can get back. Simple as that, which leads to the last universal truth.
Gold Making Takes Time
It's very very unlikely that you'll become a millionaire overnight. But it's not an impossible dream by any measure. It'll largely depend on how much time you're willing to put in. Not just in having enough toons to have a huge crafting army, or time spend leveling those skills, but in how much time you want to spend playing the AH. Things like milling and prospecting are time consuming, but the more time you spend on them the more you'll make. This is tied in to "it takes money to make money." If 10 stacks of ore nets you 500g, 100 stacks should net you 5000g. But you have to do the rather tedious shuffle to get through it in the most cost effective manner. There's also dealing with the AH itself. If you're able to spend tons of time babying your auctions and almost always being the cheapest seller, always replenishing your stock, you'll likely make a lot more than those who set and forget. But you'll also spend a lot more time to do so.
The time factor isn't just about the day-to-day AH activities, it's also about how long you've been at it. Back to "it takes money to make money," if you start out small, you can only make so much in a day. But as the days go by, you'll be able to make more and more as you keep reinvesting your profits. Eventually, you'll find a nice nexus between time spent earning, and gold earned. After that, you can basically calculate exactly when you'll hit the gold cap, barring unforeseen circumstances.
In Conclusion...
That's pretty much it. All gold making is is selling for more than you paid, but it takes time (and gold) to start raking in the big bucks. Just find something profitable, start small and work big, keep doing it, don't get frustrated, and eventually you'll start pulling in thousands and hit the cap.
I more or less stopped the gold making grind after the cap. There wasn't much point to it. After basking in the glow from that huge mount of gold, I went to work spending it. Bought all the vendor mounts for my main, and a Traveler's Tundra for my lvl 40 druid. Started working on the pet achieves too, which cost a fair amount of gold to do. Almost have all the Argent Tourney pets, on both sides, as well as the rather rare Hyacinth Macaw, Disgusting Oozeling, and Firefly pets. Still keeping an eye out for the whelplings, but haven't seen many. Gave away a ton of the shiny stuff too, to various people for various reasons.
On the gold making aspect, I've done little else than glyphs, which I now love for their relative ease. I have a huge stockpile of glyphs and inks that I'm working through. Also selling off some some random items on my main bank alt that I got either pre-cata, or through snatch lists. I am, however, gearing up for 4.2, which I'll likely write about in a few days. I've been largely silent because, as you can see, I haven't been doing much gold making myself. I like to write about what I do, and my thoughts on such, so if I'm not really doing anything, there's not anything to write about.
I have, however, been thinking a lot about making somewhat of a meta gold making post. Just a few observations on making gold that I've come across on my way to the cap. So here they are, the universal truths about gold making:
Making Gold is Really Easy
Some may argue with me on this, but they're wrong. Making gold is easy, making tons of it is a little harder (and will segue in to the next universal truth). When people ask how I do it, I always condense my answer in to this little sentence: "I buy stuff, do something to it, then sell it for more." That's all we do. That's the very essence of gold-making. We take stuff from the AH (or vendors, or players, or from farming, but that's less likely), run it through our professions, and then sell the completed product for more than the sum of its parts. Nowhere is this principle more easily illustrated than with Jewelcrafting. JC was the reason I got in to gold making, and it's still my favorite. The easiest way to make gold from JC is to buy a raw gem, cut it, and sell it for more. Doing that is how I got my start. None of the silly "shuffle," just going in to the AH with auctionator, checking the prices of raw gems, checking the prices of cut gems, buying the raw gems, and making profitable cuts to sell. It was absurdly easy gold. And it still can be. JC is the perfect example because it's so obvious how it works. Barely takes any math at all, just a simple understanding of which of two numbers is higher. Any other profession is really just a slightly more complicated version of this with a few extra steps. What they all come down to is taking something, making something new, and selling the new thing for more. Easy as that. If you can sell the finished product for more than the sum of its parts, you've made gold. It's as simple as that.
Now, you can make it more complicated by trying to squeeze out extra coppers. Buying from suppliers instead of the AH. Watching trends to buy when supply is abundant and sell when it's low. Selling on raid nights, buying on the weekends. Dealing with competitors. Etc. But again, in the end it's all about selling for more than you paid. If you can do that, you can make gold and reach the gold cap.
It Takes Money to Make Money
I think this is the most important thing to realize. Like I noted earlier, making gold is easy, but making tons of gold is a little harder. A week or so ago, a guy on the Consortium Forums made a post lamenting his inability to rake in thousands of gold a day like some of us could. He was doing everything right (aka, selling for more than he paid, see supra), so why wasn't he fabulously wealthy? Well, because he only had about 20k to work with. The thing is, the only reason some of us can pull thousands from our mail each day is because we're spending thousands in the first place. I could make thousands a day from JC, but I'd likely have to first spend many thousands on ore or raw gems. If you don't have that kind of gold to invest, you're not going to see that kind of return. Rather than focus on the raw numbers, you should be looking at your percent return of investment (ROI). Myself and our friend could have a 50% ROI, but he might not make the same as I can simply because he's not spending as much as I can. For example, we can buy widgets at 100g each and sell them as gidgets for 150g each. He can only buy ten of them (spending 1k), but I can buy a hundred (spending 10k). He'll make 500g, I'll make 5000g. But we both made the exact same 50% ROI. The sole reason I made more was because I spent more. Not because I'm "better" not because he's doing something wrong, but because I had more I was willing to spend. And hey, now I can buy more, and make even more! But so can he!
So how do you get to the point where you can make thousands in a day? By starting out making a few hundred a day. Again, it takes money to make money. That could easily be amended to say, it takes more money to make more money. You're not likely to make thousands daily if you're just starting out. You have to build your way up. Focus on one market, start a steady income, then start expanding. As long as you're getting decent ROI, you'll start to see more and more gold come in each week. The more you have, the more you can spend, and the more you can get back. Simple as that, which leads to the last universal truth.
Gold Making Takes Time
It's very very unlikely that you'll become a millionaire overnight. But it's not an impossible dream by any measure. It'll largely depend on how much time you're willing to put in. Not just in having enough toons to have a huge crafting army, or time spend leveling those skills, but in how much time you want to spend playing the AH. Things like milling and prospecting are time consuming, but the more time you spend on them the more you'll make. This is tied in to "it takes money to make money." If 10 stacks of ore nets you 500g, 100 stacks should net you 5000g. But you have to do the rather tedious shuffle to get through it in the most cost effective manner. There's also dealing with the AH itself. If you're able to spend tons of time babying your auctions and almost always being the cheapest seller, always replenishing your stock, you'll likely make a lot more than those who set and forget. But you'll also spend a lot more time to do so.
The time factor isn't just about the day-to-day AH activities, it's also about how long you've been at it. Back to "it takes money to make money," if you start out small, you can only make so much in a day. But as the days go by, you'll be able to make more and more as you keep reinvesting your profits. Eventually, you'll find a nice nexus between time spent earning, and gold earned. After that, you can basically calculate exactly when you'll hit the gold cap, barring unforeseen circumstances.
In Conclusion...
That's pretty much it. All gold making is is selling for more than you paid, but it takes time (and gold) to start raking in the big bucks. Just find something profitable, start small and work big, keep doing it, don't get frustrated, and eventually you'll start pulling in thousands and hit the cap.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Millionaire!
Last Sunday, at approximately 5:30 PM EST, I collected the last bit of gold from my mailbox to hit the elusive one million gold!
Here are some screens from my MS stats to show you more or less how I did it. I haven't cleared MS since I installed it mid-January, so this is basically all of what I've sold.
Sorted by Number Sold:
Sorted by Money Made:
Sorted by Money per Sale
So yeah! That's kinda it. I think what pushed me past the cap was a few days of really great glyph sales. The market had more or less reset after my little experiment, and the insane amount of cheap herbs meant my profits were huge. And having my main competitor who seemed to pretty much camp the AH go MIA meant I basically controlled glyphs for a few days. I kinda slowed down on gems, mostly because I had prospecting (but milling's alright for some reason...). But I've been getting more and more in to the twink scroll market. Charging about 1k per scroll for the BiS weapon chants, and they sell. Cheap Maelstrom Crystals means cheaper to produce Landslide enchants, so I've been messing with that a bit too. Other than what you see on these screen caps, I can't think of anything particularly important.
Where do I go from here? Not really sure right now. I'm kinda done with the whole gold making stuff for now. I've more than I really know what to do with, and it's been getting more and more tedious to keep up with things. I'm thinking of slowly going through my stock, not buying anything more, just using what I have, and then retiring to a fancy island off of Azshara. Though I'm sure the goblin in me will bounce back around 4.2 to capitalize on new PvP gear.
The dilemma I'm facing now though, is whether or not to actually start spending all this gold! On the one hand, I'd like to get all the vendor mounts now, but on the other, I don't really want to go back below one million. Doesn't make much sense, that's for sure. What's the point in having all this gold if you don't spend it? I'm assuming once the initial novelty of being a WoW millionaire wears off I'll start dropping gold left and right. But for now I think I'll just revel in it.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Flipping Rare Weapons
Hiya friends! I'm using this study break to bring y'all a random tip that you might find useful. Something I've recently taken up on my odds'n'ends bank alt is flipping rare weapons. Pretty simple tactic to do, and tends to bring in a semi-decent amount of gold. A nice supplement for established goblins, and a great way to earn some extra coin if you're just starting out.
So what to do? Just go to your local AH, go to the default search UI, limit the search to "rare" quality weapons level 70 and below, hit search, and sort by lowest bid amount! I'll usually buy any weapon that's listed at 20g or below, and bid on anything with a 10g bid or lower (if it's not within my buying threshold, of course). I've set up a little TSM group for all the weapons I snatch too. 48hr post, 100g fallback, ~30g or something threshold (not sure on that, rarely matters anyway). As vendor prices on most sub-60 weapons are pretty low, you're not losing much in deposit costs. The 100g default is a pretty fair price too, as that's a pittance for most players right now, and you're mainly catering to people leveling alts who want some nice blue gear.
I was a bit skeptical that this would work when I first started it. After all, doesn't everyone have BoA weapons now? Well, apparently not! I'd say I sell ~5 weapons a week. Not a huge amount, but certainly worth the negligible time and effort it takes to do this! You'd be surprised at how many people sell world drop rares for next to nothing, or even better, don't understand how to price the bid (I often find weapons with a 50g+ buyout, and a 4g bid). You can also do this for epic weapons (I'll buy almost anything for 100g, post for 500g minimum), though they move a lot slower and the deposit costs are higher.
So what to do? Just go to your local AH, go to the default search UI, limit the search to "rare" quality weapons level 70 and below, hit search, and sort by lowest bid amount! I'll usually buy any weapon that's listed at 20g or below, and bid on anything with a 10g bid or lower (if it's not within my buying threshold, of course). I've set up a little TSM group for all the weapons I snatch too. 48hr post, 100g fallback, ~30g or something threshold (not sure on that, rarely matters anyway). As vendor prices on most sub-60 weapons are pretty low, you're not losing much in deposit costs. The 100g default is a pretty fair price too, as that's a pittance for most players right now, and you're mainly catering to people leveling alts who want some nice blue gear.
I was a bit skeptical that this would work when I first started it. After all, doesn't everyone have BoA weapons now? Well, apparently not! I'd say I sell ~5 weapons a week. Not a huge amount, but certainly worth the negligible time and effort it takes to do this! You'd be surprised at how many people sell world drop rares for next to nothing, or even better, don't understand how to price the bid (I often find weapons with a 50g+ buyout, and a 4g bid). You can also do this for epic weapons (I'll buy almost anything for 100g, post for 500g minimum), though they move a lot slower and the deposit costs are higher.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
All Sorts of Goodies Datamined on Wowhead!
Short, but sweet, update for today. Exams start next week, no time for lengthy posts!
If you don't obsessively check Wowhead for the latest news, you might not have noticed nearly a thousand new additions to their PTR database. Mostly just a bunch of new armor sets, but there are some spectacular gold making opportunities buried within.
Most notable are the new entry level PvP armor sets. I'd expect great sales from these at the start of next season as new players try to catch up their gear. A very interesting new addition is the availability of crafted PvP rings, cloaks, necks, and relics. Oddly enough, these accessories are listed as BoP. I don't see the logic in this, so hopefully they'll become BoE by the time the patch rolls around (not like Scribes and JCs need MORE ways to make gold). Material costs for the new garb don't seem any different than the current gear, so plan accordingly. The costs for the new accessories are fairly low too (a few rare gems and some volatiles for the jewelry, for example).
There are also new BoE epics, though for the casual auctioneer they're likely to be out of reach. Each take eight Living Embers which presumably drop off 4.2 raid bosses and might be purchasable by VP (note that current VP are likely to become JP next patch, so hoarding them won't help). Though that doesn't seem too bad (just buy them off the AH or other players!), each piece requires 3 Chaos Orbs or 8 Dream Cloth for tailors, which still seem to be BoP.
And finally, we have new bags! Best of all, there's a 36 slot JC bag! Less exciting, a 36 slot Inscription bag and a 36 slot Mining bag. Tailors can make the JC and Scribe back for 3 Dreamcloth, so stockpiling a few will probably be worth it. The mining bag costs two Pristine Hides and twenty Volatile Earth. Personally, I don't think the mining bag will get much love, but I'd expect the JC bags to sell like crazy and the Scribe bags to be up there too.
Suspiciously absent is any indication of Epic Gems.
If you don't obsessively check Wowhead for the latest news, you might not have noticed nearly a thousand new additions to their PTR database. Mostly just a bunch of new armor sets, but there are some spectacular gold making opportunities buried within.
Most notable are the new entry level PvP armor sets. I'd expect great sales from these at the start of next season as new players try to catch up their gear. A very interesting new addition is the availability of crafted PvP rings, cloaks, necks, and relics. Oddly enough, these accessories are listed as BoP. I don't see the logic in this, so hopefully they'll become BoE by the time the patch rolls around (not like Scribes and JCs need MORE ways to make gold). Material costs for the new garb don't seem any different than the current gear, so plan accordingly. The costs for the new accessories are fairly low too (a few rare gems and some volatiles for the jewelry, for example).
There are also new BoE epics, though for the casual auctioneer they're likely to be out of reach. Each take eight Living Embers which presumably drop off 4.2 raid bosses and might be purchasable by VP (note that current VP are likely to become JP next patch, so hoarding them won't help). Though that doesn't seem too bad (just buy them off the AH or other players!), each piece requires 3 Chaos Orbs or 8 Dream Cloth for tailors, which still seem to be BoP.
And finally, we have new bags! Best of all, there's a 36 slot JC bag! Less exciting, a 36 slot Inscription bag and a 36 slot Mining bag. Tailors can make the JC and Scribe back for 3 Dreamcloth, so stockpiling a few will probably be worth it. The mining bag costs two Pristine Hides and twenty Volatile Earth. Personally, I don't think the mining bag will get much love, but I'd expect the JC bags to sell like crazy and the Scribe bags to be up there too.
Suspiciously absent is any indication of Epic Gems.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Warcraft Econ Hall of Fame!
My interview with WacraftEcon went up today, go check it out!
Nothing else really new and exciting going on as far as gold making is concerned. With exams coming up, I haven't been on as much lately, so I haven't been making as much as usual. Still up over 750k as of now, and hopefully I can rake in a lot of gold tonight. I will, of course, update as I find interesting things to write about.
Nothing else really new and exciting going on as far as gold making is concerned. With exams coming up, I haven't been on as much lately, so I haven't been making as much as usual. Still up over 750k as of now, and hopefully I can rake in a lot of gold tonight. I will, of course, update as I find interesting things to write about.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Messing with Glyphs
About a week ago I finally followed through on my threats to crash the glyph market. It was something I had wanted to do for quite some time, but never really got around to doing. So after a few weeks of stockpiling cheap inks, I sat down to craft a boatload of glyphs.
I will admit, I got cold feet at first and started posting at normal undercuts for a few days. Interestingly enough, it was actually profitable. I stalked my competition through The Undermine Journal, saw that most of them didn't post early in the morning when I woke up for classes, and took advantage of that window of opportunity. I made a decent amount of sales for a few days, but quickly grew tired of it all. So I crashed the market.
I will admit, I got cold feet at first and started posting at normal undercuts for a few days. Interestingly enough, it was actually profitable. I stalked my competition through The Undermine Journal, saw that most of them didn't post early in the morning when I woke up for classes, and took advantage of that window of opportunity. I made a decent amount of sales for a few days, but quickly grew tired of it all. So I crashed the market.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
My First Piece of Hatemail!
As some of you may know, I've always wanted my own in-game hatemail from an upset competitor. As the old goblin saying goes, "if you're pissing someone off, you're doing something right." Well by that logic, I've been doing everything wrong! Until this morning, apparently, when I got this great gem:
(Please excuse his french)
Now there's a bit of a funny back story to this. Yesterday, while going about my glyphing, I decided to throw up a couple of Inferno Inks just to see if people were buying. I have a decent amount (though not quite enough for cards) stocked up that I'm not sure what to do with just yet, but if I can sell them off at decent prices I'd be happy. After tossing up two of them, I get a whisper from some guy asking me if Inferno Inks actually sold. I reply that I'm not sure, but I have a bunch if he wants to buy. He says that he was curious since I had just undercut him, and he wanted to know if the market was active. I simply say, sorry, no idea, I'm testing out the market myself. Five minutes later I see "A buyer has been found for your auction of Inferno Ink" x2. So I immediately run and throw twenty up in singles. And as I do from time to time, I go to the auction window to see who bought my Inks. It's the guy who moments ago had asked me if people were buying. And this morning, I get the aforementioned lovely message from him for undercutting him more. (Funny thing is, fairly certain I did only undercut by a few silver...)
Moral of this story? Isn't one really, just felt like sharing an amusing anecdote!
(Please excuse his french)
Now there's a bit of a funny back story to this. Yesterday, while going about my glyphing, I decided to throw up a couple of Inferno Inks just to see if people were buying. I have a decent amount (though not quite enough for cards) stocked up that I'm not sure what to do with just yet, but if I can sell them off at decent prices I'd be happy. After tossing up two of them, I get a whisper from some guy asking me if Inferno Inks actually sold. I reply that I'm not sure, but I have a bunch if he wants to buy. He says that he was curious since I had just undercut him, and he wanted to know if the market was active. I simply say, sorry, no idea, I'm testing out the market myself. Five minutes later I see "A buyer has been found for your auction of Inferno Ink" x2. So I immediately run and throw twenty up in singles. And as I do from time to time, I go to the auction window to see who bought my Inks. It's the guy who moments ago had asked me if people were buying. And this morning, I get the aforementioned lovely message from him for undercutting him more. (Funny thing is, fairly certain I did only undercut by a few silver...)
Moral of this story? Isn't one really, just felt like sharing an amusing anecdote!
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Why I'm Not Worried About the Shuffle Change
Just about every blogger has wrote about the datamined change to cut uncommon Cata gems (going from 9g to 75s). And most of them seem to take a doomsday-the-sky-is-falling approach to this new. I'm not convinced that this change heralds the end of the shuffle. Will it affect the economy? Certainly. Will it crash the economy? Probably not. Shuffling will still be useful and profitable, it's just going to take more thought than the current lolshuffle.
First off, I've never seen the 9g vendor value as anything more than a safety-net; If all goes wrong, you could always cut and vendor. But shuffling specifically to cut and vendor has never been a part of my plan. It's also a handy way to figure out what's profitable. With such a high vendor value, all our calculations have been based on whether or not it's more profitable to shuffle, or to cut and vendor. Even if it's more profitable to cut and vendor, that wasn't always the default option. Sometimes you could just wait it out. And rarely have I been put in a position where cutting and vendoring was my only option. Basically, that 54g floor price for Obsidium was just a comfort in the back of my mind. I knew that I could buy below that, and be guaranteed profit one way or another.
Well, if this change makes it live, that safety net will be abruptly removed. Think of it this way: you're a tightrope walker and that 54g floor is the net. You know that if you mess up, that net is there to catch you. Now, without that net, you're just going to have to be extra careful not to mess up. Now, we're going to need to do a little more market research before we go wantonly throwing gold after cheap ore. But I don't think the markets are going to come crashing down around us.
I think two scenarios are likely to occur if this change hits live servers. First, scared by the lack of a safety net, JCs stop snatching up cheap ore. Bots/people continue to farm, supply overwhelms demand and Ore prices crash. Meanwhile, because people aren't shuffling as much, mats that come from it start to dwindle. Less rare gems/dusts/essences are on the market, driving those prices back up. Suddenly, shuffling becomes profitable again! All that cheap ore can easily be shuffled in to profits. Demand for ore and supply reach a happy medium, dictated by the profits gained from the other markets. Scenario two pretty much ends up the same way. Bots get scared off, ore prices rise. Put off by high ore prices, JCs don't buy ore. No shuffling decreases mat supply, prices rise, they continue to rise until shuffling is profitable again.
Think back to the beginning of Cata. Back then, the floor price seemed merely conceptual. Prices of ore were at around 100g a stack, and still we were profiting. Cutting to vendor seemed like a total waste in light of what else could be done. I know I never expected the floor price to be reached, or at the very least for JCs to snatch up anything below, keeping the prices constantly just above the floor. I also remember when people started reporting ore dropping below the floor, and how luck we thought those people were. And then it happened to everyone. And keeping up with that supply became impossible. And prices dropped further. With that influx of super cheap ore, we saw all the other markets crashing. All that elementium prospecting in to all those rares crated huge supply, further dropping the prices on cut and uncut rares. Dusts and essences dropped past the point where crafting jewelry to DE was profitable, and we would rather just cut and vendor. Huge supplies of gems even made selling on the dailys tricky, as so many people were posting that the prices quickly dropped to the vendor value anyway.
Right now, when buying ore our options are shuffle for profit, or cut and vendor for profit. Once cutting and vendoring for profit go out the window, our option is simply shuffle for profit. If shuffling isn't profitable, we don't do anything and just wait for it to be profitable. The thing is, enchanting mats and gems (the rare ones at least) will always be needed and there will always be a demand for them. Dropping the vendor price for uncommon gems will have absolutely zero effect on the demand for things like enchants and cut gems. How could it? Are people going to think, hey, uncommon gems vendor for less, so I should totally (not) gem/chant my gear now? No. When people get new gear, they're going to need new enchants and new gems. Demand for those is dictated by the rate at which people acquire gear, not at what price uncommon gems vendor for. As long as we can sell chants/cut gems for more than the mat prices, those markets will be profitable.
One of the reasons shuffling ore was so profitable and so alluring was because it allowed us to acquire mats for less than their AH prices, and thus increase our profit margins on things like scrolls and cut gems (or simply selling the raw mats back at profit). Again, I don't think people were drawn to prospecting simply to cut and vendor (though this may certainly have been the case for some). The reason we do it is because all the other markets were still profitable. As long as those other markets are profitable, I see no reason to stop shuffling.
I also don't see how this change in vendor value will make the related markets less profitable. Just because the "base" cost to craft a Jasper Ring becomes 1g95s (with exalted discount for the setting) does not mean the dust market will decrease accordingly. Why on earth should it? That market's prices depend on supply and demand, just like every other market. The only way prices would drop that low is if there is an overwhelming supply. But, from what I've been gathering, shuffling is something we should probably shy away from, meaning we'll see a decrease in the supply of related mats! If we stop shuffling, prices on the mats that come from it aren't going to magically decrease to reflect the changes to the vendor values. They will still be affected by supply and demand just like everything else.
The one way I could see this change dropping prices across the board would be from lack of other alternatives (i.e. vendoring). So now, if you get stacks of Obsidium at 40g each, you're almost forced to craft to DE in order to get profits. And if everyone's doing that, supply could very well overwhelm demand and drop prices on dusts/essences quite low. Alternatively, transmuting could be your only outlet, again dropping prices.
But I still don't think it will come to such drastic measures. The simplest way to put what the changes will do is this. Before, we thought, "is it more profitable to shuffle or to vendor?" Now, we'll think, "is it profitable to shuffle?"
Monday, April 4, 2011
Point of Diminishing Returns
The point of Diminishing Returns is an economic concept that, like opportunity cost, has facinated me for quite some time. The simplest explanation I can give for it is that at some point, additional input won't really change the output in any meaningful way. To illustrate, think of workers making widgets (I still have no idea what a "widget" is, so good luck actually visualizing this). Say it takes one worker 30 minutes to make one widget, two workers 15 minutes, three workers 10 minutes, four 7.5 minutes, and so on. At some point, adding one more worker doesn't substantially change how quickly widgets are made. Certainly the difference between one worker and two is huge (30min compared to 15min), but the difference between ten and eleven is quite small (3min compared to 2.73min). And of course, there's no guarantee that this model will hold true for each worker you add. There's probably some point where the widget just can't be made any faster, and adding workers will do absolutely nothing. The actual "point" where the returns start diminishing is going to be somewhat subjective. Shaving .27 min off the time it takes to make a widget will add up if you're making thousands of them and certainly be worth the cost of the extra worker, but there's going to be a point where the cost of that extra worker just won't justify what little time you'll save.
So what on earth does this have to do with gold making?
Saturday, April 2, 2011
You'll Feel Right as Rain!
I was poking around on WoWhead looking at the latest additions to the PTR, and found an interesting little gem that could provide a nice income boost. "You'll Feel Right as Rain" is a new achievement that requires you to eat 91 Chocolate Cookies. Chocolate Cookies are made by cooks and it takes one Simple Flour (buyable from vendors for a negligible amount) and one Cocoa Beans (also buyable from vendors for next to nothing). So how is one to make money off of this? Simply by making a mess of cookies, throwing them on the AH, and barking in trade! Anyone remember Second That Emotion? People were paying pretty good money to complete this achievement when it was released. Though there are some discrepancies (Second That Emotion was required for the cooking meta, and took a bit more effort to make), I can imagine that the novelty factor of a new achievement should push a few sales. I'll probably try to make a few sets to sell for ~200g each. Expect to get a lot of competition if sales are decent and people start learning how easy they are to make, so this'll probably only make you gold during a very short window.
Thoughts on this?
EDIT: Apparently Cocoa Beans aren't buyable from vendors in the normal sense (despite what WoWhead lead me to believe), but they are contained in Imported Supplies. Imported Supplies will cost you one daily token, and has about 40 Cocoa Beans. So while this does limit the amount you can get to some degree, as any toon with the cooking skill can do the daily you can get about 2 stacks of Cocoa Beans per toon per day. So if trying to make gold off of this is appealing to you, start stockpiling some tokens!
Thoughts on this?
EDIT: Apparently Cocoa Beans aren't buyable from vendors in the normal sense (despite what WoWhead lead me to believe), but they are contained in Imported Supplies. Imported Supplies will cost you one daily token, and has about 40 Cocoa Beans. So while this does limit the amount you can get to some degree, as any toon with the cooking skill can do the daily you can get about 2 stacks of Cocoa Beans per toon per day. So if trying to make gold off of this is appealing to you, start stockpiling some tokens!
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Why You Can't Afford NOT to Stockpile Pyrite
So I feel like I may be stepping on Alto's toes, or just being unoriginal, posting about the "Pyrite Stockpile" right after he did a rather excellent write up (see, Epic Gems in Cataclysm), but I believe I have a unique view on the whole debate that I would like to share in the hope I can bring people over to the stockpiling side.
The gold making community is divided between those of us who think epics will come from Pyrite ore, and those who think Blizz will take a unique route. There are excellent points on both sides of the debate; some argue Blizz will go with the tried and true method of prospecting for epics, as that ensures JCs will be able to get them, others say that there's no real precedence for prospecting as you couldn't do so in BC, so Blizz might decide to go with a third, wholly unique option on how to get the gems. Honestly, I think these arguments are irrelevant.
The gold making community is divided between those of us who think epics will come from Pyrite ore, and those who think Blizz will take a unique route. There are excellent points on both sides of the debate; some argue Blizz will go with the tried and true method of prospecting for epics, as that ensures JCs will be able to get them, others say that there's no real precedence for prospecting as you couldn't do so in BC, so Blizz might decide to go with a third, wholly unique option on how to get the gems. Honestly, I think these arguments are irrelevant.
Monday, March 14, 2011
500k!
So just a few minutes ago I broke the half-million barrier!
Here are a few follow up screens of my MySales stats if anyone's curious as to what I've been selling. Note that this is overall data since I installed MS probably around two months ago, because I can't get the "weekly / daily" feature to work for some reason, despite setting it to that constantly...
Most Sales
Most Gold per Sale
Biggest Earners
And just for fun, here's how much gold I've actually earned since installing MS:
Almost 1mill! But I only have 500k?! So where'd it all go? Well, aside from the very true saying, "you have to spend gold to earn gold," I have splurged on mounts and gear for my toons and my friends, so that definitely took out a large chunk of my capital. But still, pretty sweet to know I've actually "made" that much, even if I don't "have" that much.
Since I just finished writing a 16 page appellate brief, that's going to be all for now. Look for a much more lengthy post on the WoW Econ Hall of Fame in the next few days, once I muster the brain power to write again.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Is the Obsidium Shuffle Still Worth It?
Fluxdada has a great post up over at his blog, PowerWord:Gold, on the classic Obsidium Shuffle and whether it's "Heating up, or Winding Down?" First off, if you my read blog, but not his, shame on you. Go read it now, he's got some really great stuff up there.
His post on the shuffle really got me thinking, so I wanted to do a bit of an "extended commentary" with my thoughts on the matter. On most servers, bots are back in full force and are driving the prices down on ore like never before. It used to be that seeing a stack of Obsidium below the 54g "floor price" was cause for celebration, and I'd snatch it up without hesitating. Now, it's getting hard to find Obsidium above the floor price! You'd think this would be even better, but as Fluxdada points out, the regular shuffle isn't as profitable as it once was. Dust prices are dropping like a rock too, meaning disenchanting Jasper Rings or Alicite Pendants will actually lose you money compared to what you'd get just vendoring the cuts. Transmuting isn't always worth it either, as many Rare quality gems can be bought on the AH for less than 27g (what you'd make cutting and vendoring three of the Green quality gems, and that's not including the varying price of herbs). Even the daily doesn't seem to bring solace (for me at least), as so many people have caught on to this strategy and there's so many of the gems that the competition is absurd. I used to be able to go through stacks on the dailies for absurd mark-ups, but now I'm lucky to sell ten at seemingly normal posts. Just for a quick comparison, go read my post I linked above (the Obsidium Shuffle one) that I wrote when the shuffle was at it's heyday, and compare that to what's going on on your server right now. If you're lucky, that post is still relevant. But I'm willing to bet that it's completely off the mark now.
So what option do we have now, if shuffling just isn't worth it? Well, there's always the fall-back of vendoring! But, is that really such a great option? To quote Fluxdada, "while this may bring in SOME profit it is an incredibly laborious process and I may have to start evaluating if the time spent is worth the profit gained." And he's quite right. Last night, I saw about 240 stacks of obsidium ore at 40g a stack. Some quick math puts me at about 3, 360g profit if I just prospect, cut and vendor (54g "floor" - 40g/stack = 14g profit/stack X 240 stacks, ignoring Rare quality gems). 3k profit is nothing to shrug off, but will the time commitment really be worth it? Prospecting has a 2 second cast time, so adding in an extra second for "looting" and reaction time I'd say it takes about 3s to do one full prospect. Since you can prospect four times per stack, that comes out to 12s to prospect an entire stack. That doesn't seem too bad, but let's do that for 240 stacks. Now that's going to take 2,880 seconds, or FOURTY-EIGHT MINUTES! Ok, well, 48min for over 3k gold doesn't seem too bad, does it? Well, we still haven't cut or vendored anything! Cutting a gem takes 3s and you can AFK this, only returning when your bags are full. But, after all that prospecting you now have 6 X 240 gems, for a grand total of 1,440 gems that still need to be cut and vendored. How long is this going to take? 1,440 gems X 3s per cut / 60s in a minute, or an additional 72 minutes! Though a decent amount of this can be done AFK, you still have to baby it and come back when your bags are full. And this doesn't include the time it takes to actually vendor everything! I use an auto-vendor addon for this, and even then it can take it a few seconds to vendor a bag full of cut gems. So right now we're looking at 112 minutes purely devoted to prospecting and cutting. I'd say adding an extra 8min for miscellaneous time-sinks (retrieving the ore, storing the gems, actually selling them, etc.) is reasonable, so we're now looking at 2 whole hours devoted to this process.
Although that still comes out to a respectable 1,680g / hr, at this point what we're doing isn't that much different from farming! The whole point of playing the AH game (at least to me), is that we can make this much gold with just a fraction of the time and effort invested! Just as it is with farming, the problem is if you're doing this one thing, you're not doing something else! The harshness is somewhat mitigated by the semi-AFK factor (I'll usually blindly mash my prospecting macro while reading cases for class), but this is still a rather substantial amount of time sunk in to the shuffle.
So is it worth it? For me, not so much in all honestly. Even if I can read while doing this, or listen to podcasts or whatnot, it's beginning to seem a little too much like farming for my comfort.
His post on the shuffle really got me thinking, so I wanted to do a bit of an "extended commentary" with my thoughts on the matter. On most servers, bots are back in full force and are driving the prices down on ore like never before. It used to be that seeing a stack of Obsidium below the 54g "floor price" was cause for celebration, and I'd snatch it up without hesitating. Now, it's getting hard to find Obsidium above the floor price! You'd think this would be even better, but as Fluxdada points out, the regular shuffle isn't as profitable as it once was. Dust prices are dropping like a rock too, meaning disenchanting Jasper Rings or Alicite Pendants will actually lose you money compared to what you'd get just vendoring the cuts. Transmuting isn't always worth it either, as many Rare quality gems can be bought on the AH for less than 27g (what you'd make cutting and vendoring three of the Green quality gems, and that's not including the varying price of herbs). Even the daily doesn't seem to bring solace (for me at least), as so many people have caught on to this strategy and there's so many of the gems that the competition is absurd. I used to be able to go through stacks on the dailies for absurd mark-ups, but now I'm lucky to sell ten at seemingly normal posts. Just for a quick comparison, go read my post I linked above (the Obsidium Shuffle one) that I wrote when the shuffle was at it's heyday, and compare that to what's going on on your server right now. If you're lucky, that post is still relevant. But I'm willing to bet that it's completely off the mark now.
So what option do we have now, if shuffling just isn't worth it? Well, there's always the fall-back of vendoring! But, is that really such a great option? To quote Fluxdada, "while this may bring in SOME profit it is an incredibly laborious process and I may have to start evaluating if the time spent is worth the profit gained." And he's quite right. Last night, I saw about 240 stacks of obsidium ore at 40g a stack. Some quick math puts me at about 3, 360g profit if I just prospect, cut and vendor (54g "floor" - 40g/stack = 14g profit/stack X 240 stacks, ignoring Rare quality gems). 3k profit is nothing to shrug off, but will the time commitment really be worth it? Prospecting has a 2 second cast time, so adding in an extra second for "looting" and reaction time I'd say it takes about 3s to do one full prospect. Since you can prospect four times per stack, that comes out to 12s to prospect an entire stack. That doesn't seem too bad, but let's do that for 240 stacks. Now that's going to take 2,880 seconds, or FOURTY-EIGHT MINUTES! Ok, well, 48min for over 3k gold doesn't seem too bad, does it? Well, we still haven't cut or vendored anything! Cutting a gem takes 3s and you can AFK this, only returning when your bags are full. But, after all that prospecting you now have 6 X 240 gems, for a grand total of 1,440 gems that still need to be cut and vendored. How long is this going to take? 1,440 gems X 3s per cut / 60s in a minute, or an additional 72 minutes! Though a decent amount of this can be done AFK, you still have to baby it and come back when your bags are full. And this doesn't include the time it takes to actually vendor everything! I use an auto-vendor addon for this, and even then it can take it a few seconds to vendor a bag full of cut gems. So right now we're looking at 112 minutes purely devoted to prospecting and cutting. I'd say adding an extra 8min for miscellaneous time-sinks (retrieving the ore, storing the gems, actually selling them, etc.) is reasonable, so we're now looking at 2 whole hours devoted to this process.
Although that still comes out to a respectable 1,680g / hr, at this point what we're doing isn't that much different from farming! The whole point of playing the AH game (at least to me), is that we can make this much gold with just a fraction of the time and effort invested! Just as it is with farming, the problem is if you're doing this one thing, you're not doing something else! The harshness is somewhat mitigated by the semi-AFK factor (I'll usually blindly mash my prospecting macro while reading cases for class), but this is still a rather substantial amount of time sunk in to the shuffle.
So is it worth it? For me, not so much in all honestly. Even if I can read while doing this, or listen to podcasts or whatnot, it's beginning to seem a little too much like farming for my comfort.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Blacksmithing!
Last weekend, partially in anticipation of the Darkmoon Faire Dense Stone turn in (see Mageshadow's and Cold's posts for more details, and be sure to check out the awesome Consortium Forums thread on the subject), and partially because I wanted to get in to the Ebonsteel Belt Buckle market, I power-leveled blacksmithing on my rogue. Thankfully I had almost all of the mats required to get to about 425 stockpiled from when I leveled mining on my pally in anticipation of Cata, so it only ended up costing me a few thousand to level. But I highly doubt anyone came here to read about the grueling process of power-levling a profession from scratch. Rather, I'd like to share a few little insights on how to make gold with blacksmithing!
Thursday, March 3, 2011
From Rags to Riches: My Adventures In Auctioneering
Today's post is an entry for Cold's Gold Factory Blogging Carnival. This month's prompt is, when and what was that "light bulb" moment that made you into the greedy goblin you are today?
First off, I'd like to say how awesome I think this topic is. Sometimes, amid our piles and piles of gold, it's easy to forget our humble beginnings, when scraping together enough gold for riding training, a mount, or even the repair bill was a grueling process. Though I shudder to think of those days, reflecting on your roots can be quite enlightening. I hope that this carnival will inspire any would-be goblins that may be discouraged by seemingly futile efforts to earn gold when compared to those of us who blog about it. I have heard many times that some think we're just preaching to the choir, that our advice only works if you're already established, have capital to work with, and an army of alts at your service. Well, we were there too at one point, struggling with gold, and hopefully insight into our journeys will prove useful to anyone in a similar position.
Without further ado, I present to the tale of Slyvaliss, the undead female rogue, who started with naught but some tattered rags and a lone dagger...
First off, I'd like to say how awesome I think this topic is. Sometimes, amid our piles and piles of gold, it's easy to forget our humble beginnings, when scraping together enough gold for riding training, a mount, or even the repair bill was a grueling process. Though I shudder to think of those days, reflecting on your roots can be quite enlightening. I hope that this carnival will inspire any would-be goblins that may be discouraged by seemingly futile efforts to earn gold when compared to those of us who blog about it. I have heard many times that some think we're just preaching to the choir, that our advice only works if you're already established, have capital to work with, and an army of alts at your service. Well, we were there too at one point, struggling with gold, and hopefully insight into our journeys will prove useful to anyone in a similar position.
Without further ado, I present to the tale of Slyvaliss, the undead female rogue, who started with naught but some tattered rags and a lone dagger...
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Specialize or Diversify?
This is my entry for the Just My Two Copper Blogging Carnival. The topic this month is whether it is better to focus on one market, controlling it completely, or to spread yourself over multiple markets, always ensuring you have your hand in something. The obvious and easy answer is, of course, "both!" But obvious and easy answers are rarely much fun. So instead, I'll try to break them down, and figure out which choice is best under what circumstances.
For me, specializing in a market (your "niche" market) means complete and utter domination of that market. You not only control how many items are up and at what price, you also control the markets that supply your niche. Diversification, on the other hand, is a lot less about dominating and a lot more about ensuring you always have something profitable going on. You have so many options available to you, that if one market becomes unprofitable, you can simply ignore it and move on to the next. So at first glance, niche markets seem to be a lot more work, however, successful diversity does mean you need access to a lot of different professions, which in itself can be quite a investment in money and time.
For me, specializing in a market (your "niche" market) means complete and utter domination of that market. You not only control how many items are up and at what price, you also control the markets that supply your niche. Diversification, on the other hand, is a lot less about dominating and a lot more about ensuring you always have something profitable going on. You have so many options available to you, that if one market becomes unprofitable, you can simply ignore it and move on to the next. So at first glance, niche markets seem to be a lot more work, however, successful diversity does mean you need access to a lot of different professions, which in itself can be quite a investment in money and time.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Patch 4.1 Enchanting Speculation
Alright! So, on the off chance you haven't heard by now, patch 4.1 is now on the PTR! Check out Wowhead for a list of everything going on in this new patch. I will just be discussing my thoughts on Enchanting and how it will be affected by 4.1.
There's really not much in the notes that directly lends itself to gold making. Nothing about Pyrite prospecting in to Epic gems, no new glyphs, no new crafted BoEs, nothing particularly obvious. However, what will definitely have an effect on the market is the new 5-man dungeons, which will be dropping Epic level gear! As Faids pointed out yesterday Maelstorm Crystal prices will drop as a direct result of people being able to disenchant the epics that will be obtained through the new dungeons. She wisely suggests that now would be a good time to start moving any stockpiles you might have left. But I want to go a bit more in-depth on exactly how much the prices will drop, and how that will affect the enchanting market at large.
There's really not much in the notes that directly lends itself to gold making. Nothing about Pyrite prospecting in to Epic gems, no new glyphs, no new crafted BoEs, nothing particularly obvious. However, what will definitely have an effect on the market is the new 5-man dungeons, which will be dropping Epic level gear! As Faids pointed out yesterday Maelstorm Crystal prices will drop as a direct result of people being able to disenchant the epics that will be obtained through the new dungeons. She wisely suggests that now would be a good time to start moving any stockpiles you might have left. But I want to go a bit more in-depth on exactly how much the prices will drop, and how that will affect the enchanting market at large.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Leatherworking!
So over the weekend I added a new profession to my repertoire! I am now the proud owner of max leatherworking, and already it's been making me some good money. Hopefully this will give me something else to blog about that's not jewelcrafting updates.
So first things first, I'd like to mention a few triumphs and hitches I ran in to while leveling LW. Unless you really want to power level your way up to max, it's not a bad idea to make stuff that actually sells or that you can profit off of. When I first started leveling LW, DEing the greens I made wasn't really viable, but depending on the cost of savage leather on your server, that is certainly something to look in to. Also, making Savage Leather from Savage Leather Scraps will work all the way to 450. This is probably the most cost effective way to get from 425 - 450, as you will be using that Savage Leather for other things. Other items you should make until green or even grey are the Blue quality Leg Armors. You can start making Scorched Leg Armor at 475, and Twilight Leg Armor at 480. Obviously this will be server dependent, but I can generally sell Twilight Leg Armor for well above the cost of mats. SLA turns green at 490, grey at 495, TLA turns green at 495, grey at 500. You can also make Heavy Savage Leather from 485 to 490 if you want to cut costs down a bit. At 500 skill, you hit a snag where all you can really make are the two cloaks, Cloak of Beasts and Cloak of War. Of course, this could be awesome if your server actually shells out money for these, but from what I've seen, they rarely sell for more than the cost of mats. You could do your Draconic Embossment from 500 - 505, but it does start out green. On the plus side, it only costs two Volatiles to do, so while you won't make any gold, you might loose a lot less than if you just made cloaks.
At 510 is when the fun starts, and you can start buying PvP gear (if you've unlocked the vendors in Twilight Higlands). Simply buy whichever piece sells best, and make them up to 525! And with that, I'll explain a bit about what pieces I've found sell well, even in the short time I've been in the PvP gear market.
So first things first, I'd like to mention a few triumphs and hitches I ran in to while leveling LW. Unless you really want to power level your way up to max, it's not a bad idea to make stuff that actually sells or that you can profit off of. When I first started leveling LW, DEing the greens I made wasn't really viable, but depending on the cost of savage leather on your server, that is certainly something to look in to. Also, making Savage Leather from Savage Leather Scraps will work all the way to 450. This is probably the most cost effective way to get from 425 - 450, as you will be using that Savage Leather for other things. Other items you should make until green or even grey are the Blue quality Leg Armors. You can start making Scorched Leg Armor at 475, and Twilight Leg Armor at 480. Obviously this will be server dependent, but I can generally sell Twilight Leg Armor for well above the cost of mats. SLA turns green at 490, grey at 495, TLA turns green at 495, grey at 500. You can also make Heavy Savage Leather from 485 to 490 if you want to cut costs down a bit. At 500 skill, you hit a snag where all you can really make are the two cloaks, Cloak of Beasts and Cloak of War. Of course, this could be awesome if your server actually shells out money for these, but from what I've seen, they rarely sell for more than the cost of mats. You could do your Draconic Embossment from 500 - 505, but it does start out green. On the plus side, it only costs two Volatiles to do, so while you won't make any gold, you might loose a lot less than if you just made cloaks.
At 510 is when the fun starts, and you can start buying PvP gear (if you've unlocked the vendors in Twilight Higlands). Simply buy whichever piece sells best, and make them up to 525! And with that, I'll explain a bit about what pieces I've found sell well, even in the short time I've been in the PvP gear market.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
How to Put a Little Extra Gold in Your Pocket
Just a forewarning, this is a Horde-only tip, though there may be something similar for the Alliance.
So quite a few blogs have talked about the wonders of flipping vendor recipes. People are either lazy, or don't know better, and will often buy recipes worth a few silver for a fair bit of gold. This is an excellent way to add some passive income, though it's something I don't often do. For much the same reason people will buy them from the AH, I don't bother getting them from the vendors to flip on the AH: a lot of them are just too out of the way. Except for one.
So quite a few blogs have talked about the wonders of flipping vendor recipes. People are either lazy, or don't know better, and will often buy recipes worth a few silver for a fair bit of gold. This is an excellent way to add some passive income, though it's something I don't often do. For much the same reason people will buy them from the AH, I don't bother getting them from the vendors to flip on the AH: a lot of them are just too out of the way. Except for one.
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