How Has the Garrison Gold Influx Affected Your Numbers?

The expansion has not ended, not even close to doing so, but when talking about numbers with people the other day when someone complained "I can't make any gold" and we tried to explain how easy it is to make gold this expansion it made me wonder, where is everyone with gold.

This expansion more than ever before has proved to me that while we all play the same game, we are not all playing the same game.

What I mean by that is I see the wide range of people in my guild alone, one small sampling of the world we play in.  There are people that were always broke that are still always broke.  There are people that would have problems with gold that get by just fine now without really trying.  There are people that always made gold that now no longer even try because they do not need it.  And there are people that used to love making gold that now sleep in a castle built from gold with an ear to ear smile on a daily basis from how they are raking it in hand over fist.  And then there are various people in between those examples I gave.

We said to the person that while the garrisons no longer gives the massive gold influx they did at the start of the expansion they are still constant money making machines.  With the right set of buildings you can maximize your intake and even without all the perfect gold making buildings you can still do quite well for yourself.

Side note:  Salvage yard (level 3) for crates.  Jewel Crafting building (level 3 with worker) for daily. Bunker/Mill (level 3) do the daily for the weapon upgrade, sell all upgrades.  Inn/taven (level 3) for the treasure hunter missions and recruiting treasure hunters. Trading Post (any level really) to trade extra garrison resources for materials.  Mine and Garden (level 3 if you wish) to sell mats, not as lucrative any longer, but still something.  And then make sure to do any and all missions all the time.  Each time you do a mission it allows others to pop up.  Think of all gear missions, follower upgrade item missions, etc, as gold missions as all that stuff sells.  Remember, gold missions are not just from gold missions, it is from any mission that gives you something you can vendor.  And with that, even after it has been heavily nerfed, you could still make upwards of 10K a month even if you only log in a two or three times a week, per character.  Does not sound like a lot, but for such little effort, it really is money for nothing.

When it comes to the types I mentioned I fit into the one were I always made gold and no longer try.  Basically because I do not have to. Garrisons have made me lazy using the outline I mentioned above.  Not just partly lazy.  Completely and totally lazy.  I used to make gold the old fashioned way, I earned it, now I just sit around and collect it.  Yeap, 100% lazy now and I admit it.

When I talk about earning gold, for example, in cataclysm I would buy ore for 40 gold or less per stack from the auction house, or farm it if I were in the mood, I would then prospect it all, cut the good gems into whatever sold well and then turned all the others into rings and necks, passed them to my enchanter to disenchant, and then cut and vendor off any remaining gems. 

The enchanting materials sold for a very high number at the start and the crated lesser gems vendored for 9 gold a pop.  This basically meant that for each 40 gold I spent I would get, at least, 54 gold in the worst case, which never really happened, and at best around 600 gold.  If I spent an hour processing I could easily make upwards of 20K gold on a bad day. 

That is what I mean working for gold, but it could be anything, even something as simple as selling gear you craft or putting up glyphs for sale or potions and flask.  You were working for your gold.  I used to do things like that all the time when I needed some gold and I made good gold doing it, but now I basically just bounce from garrison to garrison and click on a few things like in a facebook game and collect gold for doing so.

Note: That no longer works.  The medium gems no longer have a market, the enchanting materials don't either. Not to mention they hard nerfed the cut gem vendor prices to near nothing, which was the key to making money with this scheme.

The thing is, even becoming flat out lazy, and admittedly so, I have more gold than I ever had before.  Sure, I could have quadruple the gold I do now if I actively tried to make gold this expansion, but in my mind once you have a couple of million, you really do not need more gold do you?

But all that is beside the point, as I said, while we all play the same game, we are not playing the same game.  Just as I changed, many others have as well.  There were people that never had gold that now do, people that used to make decent gold that somehow can't (as mainstays like crafting materials are now worthless over all) and then people that somehow still can not make gold even with the cash machine as their home base in warlords.  Why is that so I might ask, and answer at the end, if you will indulge me.

So I tried to remember what it looked like for me at the end of every expansion I played in gold wise.  It is entirely possible I could be remembering some things slightly off but I will try to be as accurate as I can.  There are some things I do recall, which help me remember where I was at when the time came.

At the end of BC.  I did not even have a mount, because I did not having riding.  I could not afford it.  Yeah, don't judge, lol.  I was not much of a player back then.  Noob would be an understatement.  I quit before the end of BC and did not return until wrath was out of a couple of months.

At the end of wrath.  My main was around 40K gold and my bank alt was more than that, my alts had some gold, but not much at all.  If my alts had at much as 4K I think that would be over estimating.

At the end of cataclysm.  I think my main was sitting at the 200K range and I had at least 2 alts over 100K.  Most of my characters were sitting around roughly 20K-25K with the exception of my least played characters.  One I recall spot on, because it spent 10K gold near the end, was my rogue who started the legendary quest line then never really did much after he started it.  When he started he had 11K on him, so I spent nearly every cent I had starting it and he was my lowest max level, gold wise.  A few  max level alts on other servers were sitting at 20K and one was in the 60K range.  So over all I would say my average character had at least 20K, if I had to judge looking back.  Of course my main and bank alt being the only major outsiders to that average.

At the end of mists.  I had many characters over 100K, multiple hunters, my Dk, my priest, my shaman, my mage, and more.  My lesser played characters were not as lucky, my rogue never quite made it back up to far, I am sure he ended mists at 24K because I joked thinking he was the only max level I had who I would not be able to instantly upgrade the entire garrison with, as doing all upgrades would cost 36K.  Over all I passed 1M for a single server in mists for the first time.  I believe when warlords started, because I spent some cash, I was just shy of 1M on that server, something like 988K.  I'd say my average characters had roughly 50K if I played it even once in a while and all my more played characters had at least 80K while the newest max level ones had considerably less.  This was also the expansion of the alt for me as I had more max level characters in it than any other.

Now warlords is not over, but where I stand now, and what started this conversation, was when I said, I noticed that most of my characters, except the newest ones to hit 100, are all sitting at, at least, 160K.  I have multiple characters with over 400K sitting on them too.  Even my rogue, who never had money and was always behind since he started the dagger quest that almost made him broke, is sitting at 180K just from being one of the earlier characters I got to 100 so he really had a lot of the early garrison income.  Even some alts on other servers are over that average 160K mark.  Most characters I log into, at most, once per week.  So I am not making any effort to make gold and I have been freely spending it too, and I still have more than doubled what I came into the expansion with and we still have 6-8 months to go.  I don't know where I will end but I would say it is safe to guess my average max level character will be over 200K by then if I keep up at this rate.

So lets break this down to average numbers, removing the top (mostly my main and banker) and bottom numbers for the expansion averages.  And not even counting BC when I could not even ride around on a mount.

Wrath: 4K
Cata: 20K
Mists: 50K
Warlords: 200K

Now I am just one player, so you can not judge from me.  But it actually looks somewhat reasonable in terms of increase per expansion.  Cata I had 5 times the amount I did in wrath.  Mists I had 2 1/2 over cata, but i also had more characters than I ever had before, more than double, so that really works out to 5 times too when you consider I did double the max level characters.  And mists to warlords it is 4 times as much.  But remember, I am only estimating, I could easily be somewhere around 250K which once again would be 5 times the amount I had in mists.

So looking at it that way, percentage wise, inflation is not really worse than it has ever been.  It is actually pretty steady, for me at least.  Albeit I could have made a lot more money if I made an effort to this expansion, but the fact remains, with what I did decide to do, the game steadily advanced at the same pace it always does.

So looking at it that way, how has the garrison gold influx affected your numbers?

Are you in a better position, worse position, how has it treated you, and you can't just look at the numbers.  Until I thought of it like this I thought I was making bank this expansion but now I see I am just moving at the standard pace I always have been.  I am not getting rich, I am just increasing at the same steady rate I always have been.

I will have to look at it again when the expansion ends and see where I really end at, but inflation doesn't seem as bad now, to me, looking at it this way.  It is just steadily increasing at the same rate it always has.  So maybe the people who have changed how much they have in terms of gold have changed the way they played and that is why the broke people are still broke even if there is a lot of gold to be made, they did not change.  They were never the type that made gold to begin with.  So maybe they do have 5 times as much as they used to, but that 5 times as much still does not buy what they wanted just like it did not buy what they wanted before.

Do You Consider Crafting as Spending?

I find the above question to be an interesting one because it really can be read in different ways.  I think a persons perspective on it would change based on where they are coming from in game and maybe even in real life as well.

Someone in my guild mentioned something about the price of flasks on the auction house and I replied, I never worry about the price because I make my own.  This is completely true. 

Ever since I first started the game, even before I had a max level character, my intention was to be self sufficient.  I wanted to make sure I never needed to buy something that I would be capable of making it on my own.  Sure I would then need to invest time instead of gold but to me that is what playing the game was all about, investing time.

You either invest the time trying to make gold so you can buy the things you need or you invest the time to build up your personal network so you do not need to buy them at market prices and can make it yourself.  No matter how you look at it, making gold or making items, you are still investing time to get the item.

They then asked a follow up question, why don't I make extra flask to sell, and that is what got me thinking.  I really don't make extra to sell because I am not actually in need of gold.  I never, or should I say rarely, ever set out specifically to make gold because I feel I have enough for what I want.  But sometimes when I hear things are going for outrageously stupid prices I will make a few extra to sell because why the hell not.

If I were to think about it as "what if I bought" the stuff I made for myself instead of investing my time, what would it cost me?  Lets just take the other night.  I got a new cloak, which the enchant for it sells at 6K, I made it myself.  I used two flasks that night which cost 200 gold each on the auction house, I made those myself.  I used maybe a stack of healing tonics which go for about 5 gold each meaning 100 gold, which I made for myself and a stack of potions, which go for 30 gold each which means 600 gold, and I made them myself as well.  So if I actually went out and spent money for the night I would have spent over 7,000 gold for one nights raiding and it cost me nothing.  Nothing but time of course.

It made me think about the people that do not have their own enchanter, their own alchemist, and their own first aid leveled.  They would be out of their pocket over 7K for the night whereas I spent nothing.

I have been so self sufficient for so long and I do not mind the time it takes to level the professions and make sure I have the materials because to me that is just part of playing the game.  I actually like leveling professions and knowing that I can make anything I ever need for myself.  I am never going out of my way to get these things, they just come to me during my general playing of the game.  But being I have been so self sufficient for so long I think I lost touch with how expensive this game has become for those that are not.

I never know what the prices for enchants are on the market because if I need one I make it.  I never know what the prices are for gems on the market because if I need one I make it.  Even with the new 30 slot bags when a friend told me they are 12K on the market I said, are you kidding me, I just made one for my hunter today, it only takes a few days to make one, how can they be so expensive.

Then he said, effectively you just spent 12K on that bag.  I said, no I didn't, I made it with materials I had anyway as I leveled tailoring and I was not using them for anything else so if I did not make something with them it would have gone to waste.  And that is where we differed and I wonder which side of the line people think on in regards to things like this.

He said if I sold it I would have made 12K.  So by using it that means it is the same as if I spent 12K on it.  He does have some logic to his thinking.  If I sold it I could have sold it for 12K, then waiting 3 months and when the market is flooded with them buy 4 for the price I sold the one for.  But like I said, if I did that it would thinking of making gold, and I rarely think that way.  I thought more along the lines of, oh my god I need more bag space.

So do you think of it as spending money when you craft something for yourself?

Using the bag as an example, if you used the bag would you consider it as spending 12K?

New topic, or call it a tip if you will.

A couple of weeks ago before the raids opened when a guild mate mentioned he was going to craft some gear for himself I gave him a tip.  Don't craft gear for yourself.  Sell everything instead and wait for the raid to open up.

He had multiple barns running, some crafters, and other support characters running.  He took my advice.  He started selling savage bloods, some crafted pieces, anything he could sell.

Now he has purchased every single 665 BoE, 670 BoE and 676 BoE that he can get his hands on from the market and is still making gold hand over fist selling the savage bloods instead of using them to upgrade the crafted gear he never made, on my advice to ignore it.

He said thank you for the tip and is now much better geared than if he has crafted the gear for himself.

The thing is, this tip still works, but the market is drying up for it.  Do not craft yourself crappy gear and then spend a million and one resources to upgrade it.  Craft the base 640 / 630 stuff, sell it cheap, and sell all those savage bloods and sorcerous elements to the people that want to upgrade a 640 to a 655 and use their gold to buy a 676 instead.  Trust me, you will be the winner in the end.

There is a time to craft for yourself to save money, and a time to sell everything and buy later.  Blizzard, with the excessive amount of materials needed for crafted gear and the much better item level BoEs out there, basically made the decision for you.  Sell low level items, buy high level ones.  Enjoy.

Like Assembling Groups? Get Paid as a Raid Planner.

I few weeks ago I was on vent on a sunday afternoon when someone popped on and asked me what I was doing.  I said nothing much.  I mentioned I wanted to do an heirloom run on one of my alts but I did not feel like trying to pick up a group because I had some bad groups this week and I was not in the mood to assemble one myself.  I basically had set myself up for not getting an heirloom run on that character that week because I was just burnt out on finding and/or assembling groups.

It was then that he said to me that he needed a run as well and would be willing to assemble one.  I said, jokingly but serious, that I would be willing to pay him to do that.  He sent me an invite and I declined saing that I was going to farm some frogs while he was doing that and being you can not loot while in a raid group to not invite me now.  I asked him to save me a space and let me know when the raid was ready to go and then invite me last.

I told him I would give him one thousand gold to do this.  To me that was nothing really, heck I made over 20K this weekend alone just clearing out my bags some, not even trying to make money, just make bag space, but for some people that are not good at making money, like him, it was well worth it.

I said I would raid lead, I just did not want to go through the hassle of assembling.  So basically I was paying him to weed out the players that were not worth an invite.  I was paying him to deal with people coming and going while assembling.  I was paying him to sit there talking to people, check their armory, find the best that were available, and then just give me a shout when we were ready to pull.

If you ever read my blog you should know this is very much me.  I hate wasting time.  Assembling a pug is nothing but wasted time.  Even if it goes well you are going to spend 10 to 20 minutes to get everyone invited and in the raid.  That is 10 or 20 minutes that could be better spent doing other things than sitting in a group waiting for it to fill out, in my opinion.

He filled out, invited me last, we pulled, wiped a couple of times, but I got my kill without having to seek out a group or assemble a group.  Basically I paid him to make the group come to me.

Then the idea popped into my mind, why is this not a service that people offer in game?  Seriously, why isn't it.  I would pay every single week for a service like this.

A decent player that is knowledgeable can easily sell their ability to assemble groups.  I've had no luck with challenge mode groups and if someone came to me right now and said I will assemble the group that will get you gold for 1000 per dungeon I would jump on it like a fly on... well you know. It is not buying a carry, a carry would mean you need others to do the work for you, this is buying the ease of not having to assemble the people yourself.  It is like hiring a head hunter to get my employees.  In this case the employees are the people I will be running with.  No carry needed, heck I can carry them, and I a hunter, but I just need a group.

Admittedly me offering 1K to do it is rather cheap but I can really see something like this being huge, something people could sell.  Kind of like a professional wedding planner, or bachelor party assembler.  There are many things in real life that people could do themselves but they pay someone else to do it for them.  Heck, you can even think maid or drop off laundry service.  You could clean your own house and do your own laundry, but if you can afford to pay someone else to do it, why not. 

It is one of the privileges of having money isn't it?  To pay other people to do the things you would rather not do.  If I have the gold in wow I can basically have the privilege of not having to seek a group and pay someone to do it for me.   I can pay for the privilege of not needing to stand in a group doing nothing while it is being assembled.  I can basically come in just at the last moment when the boss is ready to be pulled and get my kill and be done with it.  In my opinion that is easily worth 1K gold, don't you think?

I was thinking with next expansion, and the ability to kill the same bosses again (unless they changed that, but I've read nothing on it) so you could do the same raid a dozen times a week if you wanted to but just would not get loot from it, the person that does not mind assembling groups can easily sell their services to assemble groups for people.

And if they can lead the groups too they can even charge more.  They can offer full service raid catering services.  With flasks, potions, food, assembly, and leading.  All for the low low price of 10K, or whatever they decide.

Mind you I would not go for something like this on current content or while content is still new.  But this late in the expansion where normal SoO is trivial for most actual raiders I have no issues with paying someone to assemble the group for it.

Do you think there is a future in warcraft for a raid planner, like a wedding planner.  The type of person that just assembles the groups and does all the leg work for you.  They pick out the best tanks, (cake) the best healer (invitations), the best damage dealers (the location) and then you just get to walk in when it is all ready for the rewards of their efforts.

I can see this being a way for the real entrepreneur to make a little gold in game and if they are the type of person that likes to assemble groups even more power to them, they can make gold selling a service doing something they like to do.

And as a kicker, once they get a solid customer base, if they do it correctly, they can basically get 5, 6 or even 16 people to pay them to assemble the same group.  And if they are charging even 1K each that is making a fair deal of gold to assemble a raid you were going to raid anyway.  They can collect names of the better players in the pugs so they know who to reinvite.  Maybe even collect an entire network where they share the gold.

Not sure about you, but I think this could be an excellent way to make money and I wonder why no one has ever actually created a service in game for this.  I could see someone making a network over the servers for paid group assembly programs.  Not groups that will carry, but groups that will help knowledgable players find other like skilled players without needing to pug and get bad players, bad people, and bad attitudes.

I know if something like this was around I would most definitely partake in their services.  No longer would my alts end up in dead end groups, waiting forever to fill, or wipes on trash only to disband groups.  Hell yes, I would easily pay 1K, 2K and maybe even 5K depending, just so I do not have to go through the trouble of assembling a group myself.

Has anyone ever even considered this idea?  Use your skills assembling groups, maybe even leading them, and turn it into a gold making service.  Sounds like a solid plan to me.

If you start a business like this, let me know, I will be your first costumer and I have 20 90s at the moment that would love to get their guaranteed heirloom once 6.0 comes out without having the hassle of assembling the groups myself or having to find one that will not disband on trash.

Just to clarify, because I know some people might misunderstand.  I am not talking about the carrying services we see listed all the time, they already exist and are way to pricy to even be considered as a group finder option..  I am talking about a group finder option, a raid planner if you will, where someone assembles a group for you with people of like skill to make pugging less painful.  I love this idea.   Just thinking about it brings a tear to my eye.

Plus or Minus: Cross Faction Auction House

As it seems from a recent post by a blue in response to a question asked concerning the auction house, it was suggested that next expansion the auction house will be a singular one.   This would mean all auction houses would be tied together for your server sort of like the goblin ones have always been so you can trade between factions.

The question is if this will end up being a good move or a bad move and I would guess your opinion on that might come from where you stand.  I can certainly see why some people would not be too thrilled with the change but in the same breath I can see why others would be ecstatic.

As the blue mentioned, one of the reasons they are doing this is for servers that have a major faction imbalance and as having a few characters on servers like that where I am on the wrong end of the imbalance I can surely see how that would be a huge plus.

On one of my servers I was recently looking for some trillium bars so I could move along with the legendary quest line.  They were 300 gold each on my auction house which just so happened to be the 20% faction on an 80/20 server.  There was no way in hell I was about to sped 12,000 gold to move along with my legendary quest line on this alt.  So instead I did the smart thing, something anyone would a brain would have done.  I bought the ore for spirits that I was not using for anything else and asked in trade for someone to smelt them for me and threw them a tip of 400 gold for doing so.

So, with that said, once the auction houses are merged I can say with absolute certainty that the price of 300 gold for a trillium bar is going to go down, a lot.  And that is part of the reason they are doing this change.  I hope I do not need to replace my meta gem on that character until this change comes about because when raw gems are 2K each on that server buying five to replace your meta is a huge undertaking.  Being on the short end of an imbalanced server can really hurt, even more when you only have a solo character on it and can not find an active guild to help you.

As you can see, from a buyers standpoint I think this change is fantastic.  It gives the people on the short end more reasonable prices and what is there not to like about that.

But what about the goblins that were selling those trillium bars for 300, meta gems for 2000, and glyphs for over 500?  Guess they will not be the fat cats any longer, they will actually have to play the game once again and not just run the market.  Competition is coming and I can see a lot of these goblins being very upset with that.

So it is not going to be good news for all.  The profiteers taking advantage of having little or no competition are in for a rude awakening.  I am not really sure, outside of that, what other reasons people might consider this a bad move for.  Well, except for one, one really small and odd reason that you know someone out there will complain about, any maybe it is with good reason.

Immersion.  A single word we hear a lot of lately mostly when talking about the flying topic and the lack of it in warlords but it fits here to some extent too.  Horde and alliance are enemies, they are at odds, they are fighting each other as well as a common enemy.  Even with that common enemy they are not exactly working together as a team so why would they help each other by allowing trade between factions?

In war would you offer ore to build weapons to your mortal enemy even if you had a common enemy at the moment.  You might be willing to put the bloodshed aside and both attack the same enemy instead of each other but as soon as that enemy is defeated or if you meet somewhere on the field of battle were it is just you versus them you would be drawing on each other and you do not really want the blade your enemy is holding to have been made with the ore you supplied him so he could make it.

From an immersion factor a shared auction house does not fit.  It does not even come close to fitting.  It is immersion breaking to sell your enemy materials so they can make weapons of war to use again you.  The goblin auction houses made sense.  They were few and far between, never had much on them, and were run by a neutral race with a motive of profit and profit only.  But for all auction houses to work like that really is immersion breaking.  It just does not fit the game.

For this elf however I will gladly accept this immersion breaking factor for purely selfish reasons that I do not wish to spend outrageous amounts of gold for simple things I need because I am on the short end of the balance stick.

So having just talked about an against, immersion, that many people might not think about lets talk about a for that many people might not think about.  Third party web sites that sell items and gold.

A shared auction house could greatly limit the desire of people to use such sites.  I know when I was looking at those 300 gold trillium bars it popped into my mind that maybe I would just be better buying them from some web site than waste 12K gold on the 40 I needed.  A quick look online and I could get everything I need for 20 dollars and when you are talking 20 dollars in real life vs 12,000 gold in game there is no contest, 20 dollars in real life wins.

I could, while at work, surf the net, find a place to buy it and place the order in an amount of time that would have earned me 20 dollars, as I am at work getting paid while doing this, and get what I needed or I could spend countless hours in game earning the gold on an alt I rarely play to begin with.

Sure, I went the in game route using a smarter way to do it, but that is because I am an experienced and knowledgeable player to some extent, but for many people they would have spent the 20 dollar in real life instead of the 12,000 gold in game without even blinking an eye.  It is pricing like this that fuels the out of game web sites and there are many people that use them because of this exact reason.

With the joined auction houses there would no longer, or less likely at least, be outrageous prices like that and as such there would be less reason for someone to look outside of the game for cheaper and more reasonable options to get what they need.

The reason there is a market for gold sellers and item sellers is because of sky high prices in game.  Having a shared auction house will help combat those sky high prices and as such will help combat people who go outside of the game to buy things.  For that, I think this is a good move.

From where I stand, this is not huge news.  I am not a goblin, I do not work the auction house trying to make money, so it does not effect me there.  On my main server I have more gold than I can ever spend, so it will not effect me there.  But on some alt servers, like the one with 2K meta gems, this will be a nice little change and I appreciate it for that reason, but even if it never happened it would mean nothing to me.  If I need something I will find a way to get it because that is what I refer to as playing the game and it is why I am here right?

Do you think the cross faction auction house will be a plus or a minus?

Over all I would have to say it is a plus for the game.  Decreasing gold and item buying outside of the game while making prices more reasonable across the board.  To me that greatly out weights the loss of immersion that comes from selling your enemy materials and the fact that it would give the goblins more competition.   If anything, shouldn't the goblins having more competition make their game better because the auction house mini game is their game and this will just step up the competition meaning it becomes more challenging?  Hey, what do I know, I am not a goblin, I'm an elf.

What do you think about it?

Disenchanting Old Raid BoEs? Stop it!

I am not going to make some guarantee that you will make a lot of gold, or any for that matter, with this gold making tip.  At least not like the one I gave when pet battle weres announced and I told people to keep all their extras and to sell them on other servers as a way to transfer gold between servers.  This tip will not be that huge, but it is a tip just as much as any other.

With the new expansion coming we don't know exactly what to expect from the stat squish.  All we know for a fact about it is that it is coming.  How stats will be squished are still a mystery and that is where this tip for making gold comes from.

If you have the extra bag space to hold on to some of those raid level BoEs from older expansions, like the 264 ones that seem to drop like candy if you do an ICC run, hold on to them for a little bit.  You can always disenchant them later, no harm no foul.

The idea is this.  We do not know anything about the stat squish.  Some of those BoEs that we take for granted and just disenchant can become best in slot for a twink.  If you have ever sold twink gear before on the auction house you will know that it sometimes sells better than transmog gear.  While a lot of those BoEs that drop from raids have little to no transmog value and that is why most people disenchant them they might turn out having some twink value.

Sure there are not as many twinks as their used to be but some 60, 70, 80 and 85 BoE gear can turn into the golden goose of the next expansion.  Sure they will be easily farmed (if the ability to solo stays true as we have been told it will) but people will want things now.  It is just human nature.  So they might be willing to pay big gold to get it the second the stats change when they see how great it is for them instead of farming it for themselves later.

Like I said, I make no guarantee this will be a huge gold maker, for but the cost of a few bag slots to hold on to them just in case they do suddenly end up having a lot of value added to them after the squish might be worth it.  Just like the extra giant sewer rats and other duplicate pets I had sitting in my bank for a long time sold for huge gold as soon as pet battles came out.  Sometimes holding on to some things we think are worthless end up being wrong because when things change, like with the squish, value can come from a place you least expected.  If it doesn't, you can always disenchant it later.

Timeless Treasure Trove

The timeless island has been a gold making machine for many people in the game already.  Those that are on the island killing things and collecting things even while there are still easily hundreds of thousands of people there doing the same are making money selling anything that is not nailed down.

The thing is if it is so profitable now you need to think how much more profitable it will be once the next expansion comes out.  Does anyone out there remember the argent tournament pets?  I know I do.  In wrath they sold okay and were a good source of gold and you could get a new pet every few days which was kind of nice.  When cataclysm came out and the argent tournament was now old content those pets went up in value and on most servers they were around 3K gold each and if you managed to get one across faction lines you could easily find yourself selling them for upwards of 10K on most server.  All this before pet battles where introduced to the game and made pet collecting an even more popular thing.

In basic terms, stuff from old content sells well.  In more advanced terms, stuff from old content that requires some sort of luck and grind sells even better.  If the argent pets were selling for 3K - 10K depending on which one you had and they were easy to get because there was no RNG involved what do you think the timeless pets will be like when they require luck, lots of time, and now benefit from many more people collecting them due to the addition of pet battles to the game.

But it is not just all about pets here, it is about a lot of stuff on the island that can be a nice way to make some gold come the next expansion.  Sure you can make some gold now, but you can make more gold later when there are not hundreds of thousands of people running around collecting these things to keep the auction house filled with them.

I've decided to make a little list of things to look out for on the island that might be worth holding on to, if you are no in need of the gold now, because next expansion they will, or could be, worth so much more.

Pets: (Note:  Pets that can not be caged are not listed)

Ashleaf Spriteling : This pet drops off the rare mob named Leafmender.

Azure Crane Chick : This pet can be picked up from egg nests around the island.

Dandelion Frolicker : This pet drops off angry sprites during the solo nice sprite triggered event.

Death Adder Hatchling : This pet drops off the rare mob named imperial python which is a rare spawn that only spawns after many death adders have been killed.

Gulp Froglet : This pet drops off the rare mob named bufo.

Ominous Flame : This pet drops off the standard elite mob named foreboding flame.

Jadefire Spirit : This pet drops off the rare mob named spirit of jadefire.

Jademist Dancer : This pet drops off the standard elite mob surprisingly named jademist dancer.

Ruby Droplet : This pet drops off the rare mob named garnia.

Skunky Alemental : This pet drops off the rare mob named zhu-gin the sour that appears during an event in old piju village.

Spineclaw Crab : This pet drops off the rare mob named monstrous spineclaw which is a rare spawn that only spawns after many ancient spineclaws have been killed.

Swarmling of Gu'chi : This pet drops off the rare mob named gu'chi.

All the above listed pets have a (usually) less than 5% chance to drop off the mentioned mob.  Most are less than 2% and if you are like me, whom it took 94 kills to get the garnia pet, it could even be less than 1%.  So luck is a huge factor and you can use that to your advantage.

If someone really wants these pets next expansion and are not exactly what we would call thrilled to be hanging out camping old spawns for hours and days and maybe even weeks on end hoping to get a rare drop they will spend a fair deal of gold for it on the auction house.  Even the ones like the spineclaw and python which you can get to spawn by killing spineclaws and pythons will not be attractive to grind because if there is anyone else on the island, being they can spawn anywhere, even if you get it to spawn there is no guarantee you will even get to kill the rare spawn when it does spawn.  So you are not only competing with a 1% drop rate, but other people and lots of work grinding.

Once this is older content that no one, or very few, is visiting the availability of these pets on the market will dry up.  Do not think because you always see from 3 to 12 on the market now that a year from now there will ever be a large supply of them around.  If anything, these will become rare as time goes on and fewer people are getting more to add to the market.

Should any of these pets become a pet that is extremely powerful against a new grand master pet fight daily come the next expansion and these pets are few and far between, the sky is the limit on how much gold pet battlers will be willing to pay for it.  These pets are without a doubt a future treasure trove.

But it is not all about pets, there are other items on the island that will be worth collecting and selling next expansion.  Some more than others, but all worth mentioning as part of our timeless treasure trove.

Transformation Items :

Savory Deviate Delight :  While you can this yourself and it has been a great seller for a long time, it is worth stopping to kill the rare mob named stinkbraid whenever you see him for some free delights.  I've been stockpiling them myself, they might be flooding the market now that the island is full and everyone is getting it with each kill but next expansion it will be like it used to be, few and far between for 400 gold per stack compared to the 40 gold per stack they are going for on my server now.

Spectral Grog : This is a transformation item, one time use, that turns someone into a ghost pirate.  They drop off normal mobs so they can be farmed.  The rattling mariners only appear during the rattleskew event but the spectral pirates are there to kill whenever you want, spawn timer permitting however.  Do not loot the treasure chest around the spectral pirates if you want to farm them however, for some odd reason they become friendly until the next weeks reset if you steal their treasure, if that makes any sense.

Inscription Techniques : (Note: Not listing BoP ones.)

Technique: Glyph of Condensation : Teaches a minor mage glyph.  Dropped by the rare mobs named zesqua only.

Technique: Glyph of Evaporation : Teaches a minor mage glyph.  Dropped by jademist dancers only.

Technique: Glyph of Headhunting : Teaches a minor rogue glyph.  Dropped by burning berserkers only.

Technique of Impaling Throws : Teaches a major warrior glyph.  Dropped by eternal kilnmasters only.

Technique: Glyph of Inspired Hymns : Teaches a minor priest glyph.  Dropped by windfeather nestkeepers only.

Technique: Glyph of Lean Pack : Teaches a major hunter glyph.  Dropped by crag stalkers or primal stalkers.

Technique: Glyph of Lingering Ancestors : Teaches a minor shaman glyph.  Dropped from the spectral pandas near old piju.

Technique: Glyph of Loud Horn : Teaches a major death knight glyph.  Dropped from ordon candlekeeper only.

Technique: Glyph of One with Nature : Teaches a minor druid glyph.  Dropped from ashleaf sprites or the rare mob named leafmender.

Technique: Glyph of Pillar of Light : Teaches a minor paladin glyph.  Dropped by foreboding flames or the rare mob named spirit of jadefire.

Technique: Glyph of Rain of Frogs : Teaches a minor shaman glyph.  Dropped by gulp frogs or the rare mob named bufo.

Technique: Glyph of Regenerative Magic : Teaches a major death knight glyph.  Dropped by damp shamblers or the rare mob named rock moss.

Technique: Glyph of Shifted Appearance : Teaches a minor priest glyph.  This can only be purchased for 4000 timeless coins from the rare spawn vendor named whizzig.  Stock up, I already have.

Technique: Glyph of Skeleton : Teaches a minor death knight glyph.  Dropped from the rare mob named rattleskew only.

Technique: Glyph of the Watchful Eye : Teaches a minor warrior glyph.  Dropped by ordon oathguards only.

Technique: Glyph of the Weaponmaster : Teaches a minor warrior glyph.  Dropped from the rare mob named jakur of ordon only.

There are also 24 BoP techniques that can be dropped on the island meaning you must be a scribe in order to loot them and learn them.  So there are effectively two ways you can work this part of the treasure trove.

You can hunt the patterns listed that are not bound and sell them.  They are currently anywhere between 20 gold and 500 gold on most servers but once we move to the next expansion and the area is not being as heavily farmed as it is now the supply will eventually dry up and never put the desire to know every pattern past people.  There will always be a market for them and at a higher, possibly much higher, rate than 20 gold to 500 gold.

If you are a scribe you can hunt the inscription only ones and learn them and make the glyphs.  Just like I said do not put it past people to want to know every pattern, do not put it past people to want to know every glyph.  Once the next expansion comes out people will either need to go back to hope for a lucky drop for these patterns to make it themselves or they will need to buy them off the market from someone that already knows them.  While the market might be on the upper end of flooded with these new glyphs now, come next expansion many scribes will forget about them.  Out of sight, out of mind.  If you remember to make them, they will sell, and they can sell very handsomely as not as many people will have them or want to go back to farm them just so they can make them.

With all that said, we never know if blizzard might just delete the glyphs as they have done before or if these glyphs will ever be capable of being learned through research.  But hoping they are not learned through research and not removed, this is a very solid market for a very select group of scribes that farmed all of the 24 BoP patterns as well as the ones that are not bound.

There is a lot of gold to be made from the timeless treasure trove and most of it comes next expansion when there are no longer hundreds of thousands of people on the island daily if you are willing to wait it out.  Will you hold on to them to increase your profit?  Will you stock up for later sales?  I'd say it is worth it.  Come WoD everything mentioned here will just go up in price.  A lot.

Can Blizzard Do Something to Help the Economy?

Making gold has never been easier in the game.  I have alts with over 100K when I have done nothing to make gold.  It just, happens.  Sell the extra junk you get at the current prices and out of nowhere, you have tons of gold.

One character, an herbalist and alchemist, leveled up and then used all those herbs he got while leveling to make flasks.  I list them on tuesdays - thursdays, once in a while.  Not every week because I always forget.  But that character has 170K on him now when he started the expansion with only 50K or so on him.

See, it is not hard to make gold.  However, I do believe it is the fact I know what to do that makes it easy for me.  I could just as easily list things whenever and make money but when I do get in the mood to list things, I do it when I know I can profit a lot from them.  Meta gems routinely sell for 1500 during the week but are in the 800 range on weekend so guess when I list them?

And guess what someone in my guild does when I pointed that out to him?  Yes, he buys them on the weekend and sells them during the week.  I did warn him that the market will fall as time goes on for the cut ones, but the raw ones, and needing 5 of them for the legendary gem each time you change it, will keep going up and up.

But all this talk about how easy it is to make gold means nothing.  I could make a post with 101 ways to get gold capped in a month the way the game is now.  Sounds good right?  No, it is not.  It means nothing.

The reason it is so easy to make gold now is because the economy is out of hand.  People, 100K gold is not what it used to be.  It is not a lot any more.

I wonder if there is anything blizzard can do about it.  For the majority of players willing to put in the effort it is no big deal.  We make it as fast as we can spend it and it is a lot on both ends, but for the others, the lazy players as some call them, these prices are just insane and look to be impossible from the outside looking in.

Even if I am capable of making money, I am still cheap when it comes to spending it.  I refuse to buy things at the prices they are on the market thanks to inflation.

Just taking a quick scan the other day when my monk hit 90 to see if there was anything worth buying I said screw it and crafted a few pieces for myself.  9K for 476 items?  What the hell are people smoking if they are paying that.  9K for a disposable item?  900 maybe but not 9000, I think there is one 0 too many there.  496 gear?  Forget about it.  Would you pay 27K for a 496 piece?  I could have 2.7 billion gold and I would still not pay 27K for it.  It is a matter of principle.  It is disposable gear.  Sure, probably the least disposable you will find on the market.  Most of my characters are still sporting a few 496 pieces, so they still have life.  But 27K is out of line.

Even the low level PvP gear which is nice to fill in that super weak spot left over from leveling at 3K a pop just do not seem worth it in my opinion.  Some slots you might be lucky enough to pay 1.5K for but lets get real for a second.  It will be replaced by the first piece of PvE gear you run across.  463, 476, 483, 489, 496, 502, or 522 and lets not forget heroic mode options.  So many places along your journey that you will have a chance to replace that piece of gear.  Why pay 3K for something?

Call me cheap, I call me a realist.  It just does not make sense to pay that much for someone so insignificant.

It is not only gear, it is everything.  250 gold for flasks.  50 gold for food, and I am not talking feasts.  I can sell the 300 agility or strength food all day long every day for 50 gold each.  Nice to make money, but telling that the economy has gone to crap.

I decided to craft some of the boots for my hunter when the patch came out.  50K for a haunting spirit.  Crap that is insane.  I would be better off spending 20 dollars each from one of the gold selling sites that sell them.  It would actually be cheaper that way.  And that is where I am going with this post.

The economy has gone so insane that the idea of paying real money to one of those sites is more attractive than the alternative of buying the items in game.

I eventually got my boots, I paid 5K per spirit for the spirits.  They were duped.  I know they were duped.  100% absolutely positive.  My server has only 3 guilds that have finished ToT and only 6 guilds that have more than 1 boss on farm.  Nope, not kidding.  So there is no way in hell that there is some level 1 in stormwind with 100s of them for sale selling them for 5K each when you buy a stack of 20 unless they are duped.  When they are still in the 30K range on the AH selling for 5K each screams at you as loud as can be saying "I am duped".

Blizzard does nothing about it, they don't care.  So I bought a stack and made my boots and the leather helm and sold the extra on the auction house for 25K each.  I made my money back and basically got the boots and helm for free, thanks to the dupers.

It is almost as if blizzard wants us to go that route.  I am making those new bags for myself, once in a while as I keep forgetting to do the daily cloth on the character that has the pattern and my other tailor does not have the required reputation yet to make it and most likely never will until I get some AC tokens to drop from some warbringers or scouts.  Buying them on the AH is out of the question.  5K for a bag is just not something I would ever consider.  Not in a million years and not even if I had endless pockets with unlimited gold.  Again, on principle.

But looking at those websites and seeing them selling the bags for 11 dollars each does seem like a really attractive option.  Those 9K 476 items?  12 dollars on those sites.  Those 27K 496s, 19 dollars on those sites.  I am being tempted.  They are so cheap on those sites and the economy is really screwed up that it makes it seem as if the only reasonable price on these items is to buy them with real money.

I have not gone that route yet and not sure I would.  But what if I get to 90 on another server with an alt that I want to play and would like to have a quick catch up.  I would not have the amount of gold I have on my main server or the fleet of alts to make things for me.  Buying them from one of those sites really seems like the only reasonable option.

So between there being no quick catch up mechanic in game for gear, and the economy being so out of control it is crazy I just have to ask.

Is there anything blizzard can do about it?
or
Do they just want us to buy the items from one of those sites?

I hate to say it, but more and more, I am tempted to spend 11 dollars a bag instead of having to wait days and days and days to make one or grind AC reputation on another character so I can wait days and days and days on that one too.  And even if I can make money hand over fist easy enough, I would be more willing to spend 12 dollars on a 476 than I would spend 9K gold on it.

If only the in game prices were more reasonable I would buy them there.  But now I look at things one of two ways.  I either craft it for myself or I don't get it.  The third option of buying it seems more attractive all the time.  Blizzard needs to do something to control things or more people will be buying their next set of gear off a website instead of the AH.

PS:  Based on comments I would like to amend something.  Inflation might not be the appropriate word I was looking for.   Balance would be better.  Because, as mentioned, basic materials like herbs and ore are actually selling lower than they ever have before while crafted items and BoEs are selling for higher, often insane amounts that seem out of line.

Sell it All: Confessions of a Hoarder

Hello, my name is grumpy, and I am a hoarder.

There, I did it, I admitted I have a problem.  But I rationalize it by trying to say at least I have everything I will need if I level another character on that server.

I have enough enchanting materials to level two enchanters from 1-525 instantly.  I have enough herbs to level an alchemist and enough inks to level two scribes.  I have enough ore and bars to make blacksmith leveling a joke.  You get the idea.

But it does not end there.  I have patterns for everything. I have some rare ones that do not drop any more and have ones that still drop all the time.  While I can surely rationalize the ones that do not drop any more are worth keeping why am I keeping the ones that seem to drop all the time.  They are worthless aren't they?

I have so many coilfang armaments, bog lord tendrils, unidentified plant parts and other things I don't think I could use them all if I wanted to.  I have enough relics of ulduar to build on very own version of ulduar.  If there is a quest type item that can stack and is trade-able I have it, in large quantities.

What it all comes down to is that I am out of space because of this. So out of space that I am actually considering making a second guild bank just to hold my various good and that is when it occurred to me.  Where does it stop?

I have to start letting go but where do I start?  Sometimes it can be really hard to just let go but from leveling some alts recently where I sell everything, due to lack of space and need for gold as they are on new servers, it has shown me that letting go can be a good thing.

So I need to make a line for myself and draw it and decide what is worth saving and what is not.

First things first when doing something like this is to have a general knowledge of what I might need in the future and what is required to get it.

For example, those patterns I mentioned.  The ones that are no longer in game are a keeper for sure.  The longer I hold on to them the rarer they become, so they are worth holding on to.  Right?  Or am I rationalizing again?  But the pattens that seem to drop all the time are not worth holding on to so it is time to let them go.  If they can sell on the auction house, sell them, if they can't, vendor them.  Yes, vendor them.  If they are really that easy to get than there is no use wasting space on them any longer.

That is what I need to consider when I decide what to keep.  How much effort would be involved in getting it if I did not have it?  Something like peacebloom, do I really need to hold on to 8 stacks?  I could pop right outside of any major city and fly around for a little bit and get all the peacebloom I will need.  To replace it would be a short bit of time, to sell it would mean a huge amount of space.  Even if I purchased it off the auction house when the time came that I needed it, it is cheap, so holding on to it means I am wasting one valuable space for something I can replace for 5 gold or less.  I make more than that on one quest.  So why keep it?

Is it worth the time to gather it again to free up that space?  I think so.
It is cheaper to buy it when I need it than to clog up a space something with actual value could be filling?  I think so.

My new rule for all gathering items, save a few, will be the one stack rule.  I will keep one stack of everything.  If I have 21 I will sell the twenty and start a new stack with only one.  Anything past that one space in my bank now falls into the sell it all category.

Same should go for gems, enchanting materials, bars, ore, leather, etc.  One stack is enough.  Perhaps I can extend it for some things that I have found take longer to gather like illusion dust or huge emeralds.  If I am going to use more then one space on any crafting item I am going to make sure it is something that takes longer to gather up or costs a lot that is it not worth buying.

If it is something that is easy or cheap to replace... sell it all.

Certain things that I save in case I need them while leveling I never need.  I've leveled a few leatherworkers and never once used any of the dragon scale colors or scorpid scale or turtle scale so if I want to power level another leatherworker I really won't need them will I?  I guess it is time to ditch them all, there are some people that make mogging gear that will surely love me for selling them.  I am just hoarding them anyway and they are taking up way to much space being they do not stack that high.

If I do not see myself using it... sell it all.

Some things make sense to keep from time to time like I said.  Illusion dust does seem to be the hardest dust to gather up.  So might as well hold on to it so when a guild mate needs some I can give it to them instead of them having to pay 20g a pop on the auction house.  Another thing I will keep are inks.  Being all inks are always usable even at max level, have to love that design, it makes sense to have a nice stock of them at all times.  Whenever someone needs a glyph you will have the materials ready to go and lets not forget all those new monks that will be needing glyphs.  So it is worth holding on to some of those inks for sure.

But even in those cases when is enough enough?  I have over 500 ink of the sea and even if I want to make sure to have some stock to make glyphs for people in the guild that is a little much.  I could never use that many if I tried unless I wanted to get into the glyph making business on the market and quite honestly I can't be bothered.  Just playing the game makes enough money to buy everything I will ever need, so there is no need for me to go out and make more unless I am bored and looking for something to do. 

So with that in mind, I have two options.  Use the ink to make glyphs or sell the ink straight out.  Keep 100, 5 stacks, that is more than ample for something that might have a somewhat normal use.  It might even be too much to hold on to, but cut me some slack here, at least I am trying.  A hoarder is a hoarder and I am working on it.

Even the harder to get stuff you do not need to keep tons of... sell it all.

Those reputation items, even more so the ones from BC being that seemed to have tons of them.  Things for scryers and aldor to get rep and switch rep can really stack up.  If I am not planning on getting the rep or switching the rep there is really absolutely no need to hold on to them at all.  There are always people looking to grind rep for them or stacking up to switch rep so they can get one of the rarer still attainable feats of strength, hero of shattrath.  So get rid of them and let those people trying for the achievements fill your purse instead of keeping them and filling your bank.

Some of those BC things it might be worth holding one stack of.  Unidentified plant parts, glowcap, bog lord tendril, they are all quest items you can send to a new character to get the quest done instantly, so one stack space for them is no big deal but you can live without it.  All that stuff is really easily attainable and I've noticed even if I had it in my guild bank I still usually get it all myself and don't send it over anyway.  Guess what that means?

All those reputation items, unless you are saving them to get the rep yourself... sell it all.

All those oddball things you are holding on to like preserved holly you need to ask yourself why did you save it?  To sell it.  So why are you still holding on to it?  All us hoarders have tons of stuff like that from holidays that we stocked up on because we thought maybe I can sell this later for some gold.  Guess what, now is later isn't it?  Sell all those oddball holiday things at the half way point.  No need to save them forever.  You will get tons more next time the event comes around.  No need to keep collecting them.  Even as a hoarder, you are only hoarding things like this so you can sell them later.

Now is later as soon as the holiday is 3 months past... sell them all.

It is not easy and quite honestly it is the nature of the RPG player.  Anyone that has any history in playing these type of games is a hoarder in one way or another even if they do not know it.  For some it is worse, like me trying to have massive amounts of everything just in case I need it some day.  Well guess what, I can get it again if I need it some day.  Over 600 arcane dusts and 2000 infinite dusts are better off sold because I can get them again in no time.  If anything, why do I have so many of both, because it was easy for me to gather them.  I never went out of my way to get them, they just magically appeared in my bags so to speak so if I need more later I am sure I can make them magically appear there again.

Anything that you can easily get... sell it all.

Space is limited so decisions need to be made on what to clean out, even for a hoarder like myself.

Next thing I would like to work on is my mains bags but I just can't get rid of that stuff.  All my goodies collected over the years.  Fun stuff, removed stuff, odd stuff, you name it.  I still have an extra copy of the quest item that started the epic hunter bow quest, how could I throw that away?  I still have my scepter from the scepter of the shifting sands quest line along with dr weivals diary, how could I throw those away? 

I saved the letter from the oracle orphan I got four years ago because I thought it was the cutest and saddest thing in the game all at once, how could I throw that way? All those archaeology items so I can make wind chimes and turn myself into amber and have a mirror image of myself and all those other things I will probably never use but how could I just throw them away? 

The item that turns me into a wolvar, the one that turns me into a wisp, the one that turns me into a furbolg, the one that turns me into a vrykyl, the one that turns me into..., oh hell, I love things that turn me into other stuff, they are fun, how could I just throw them away?

I'll admit it, I am a hoarder and I am trying to address it by selling off a lot of stuff, but those goodies.  Sorry, I have to draw the line somewhere, I am not ready to give up that side of my hoarder personality just yet.

The other stuff, yeah, I will just sell off of it.  In the end, gold takes up a lot less bag space and I can replace the stuff I plan to sell with a little effort.  Heck, it might even give me something to do in game for those down times when I am bored as opposed to just popping over to my bank character and having everything always.

So that is the bottom line.  If it is something you can easily get again... sell it all.

I am a hoarder, always will be, but I am trying to get better by selling anything that isn't nailed down.

Tips and Tricks: Making Gold Without Professions

I am always being asked how to make money.  I've turned people in my guild from paupers to princes by teaching them how to turn over ore with jewelcrafting, alchemy and enchanting.  I've taught them the time investment only way of gathering to those without crafting professions.  I've helped a lot of people make money but some people just do not have professions so they can't do any of those things.

I know what you are going to say, how can someone not have professions.  Some people just don't level them.  While it makes no sense to some for others it is how they roll.  So for them, I am going to give a few tips on how they can make money with a little work and even without professions they can make a little gold to get by.

1) Daily Quests

Yes, it is as simple as that.  Quest.  Do dailies and you will make money.  Not only do the dailies give you gold for completing them but by doing the dailies you can also get drops.  You will always get cloth and greens but there is the rare chance to get some blue or even purple drops.  I know a few lucky people that hit the jackpot with drops at the beginning of the expansion and made a mini mint with purple drops.

Doing daily quests can bring nothing but good.  Even if the best thing you ever get is cloth, it sells well enough to make a little extra gold and cloth is one of those things that there is always a demand for and you don't need a profession to gather.

2) Loremaster Quests

Go get yourself loremaster.  The quests will be super simple for a max level character and you will not only get some sort of monetary reward for doing them even if it is low but you get items to sell as well.  Always pick the most expensive item and sell it.  Even if that is all you ever do you can easily make upwards of 30K, perhaps even more if you did not quest a lot while leveling.

Add to that all the things you will get while questing.  Boar meat, wool cloth, essence of air, anything that has an after market can be sold.  Some of these things sell for a lot.  Most meats on most servers, even the low level ones, can sell for 20 gold a stack to people power leveling their cooking.  So sell everything you get while going for your loremaster.  At the end you have an achievement not many have and a lot more gold.  Not all that bad for someone with no professions.

3) Cooking recipes

There are a few places where picking up cooking recipes and reselling can make you a nice little sum of cash.

Visit Vivianna (A) or Sheendra (H) in Feralas for a few recipes that people seem to like to buy.  Feralas is one of those areas that neither horde or alliance seem to visit all that much which means these cooking recipes get over looked.  Unless you have a few recipe sellers on your server you can make a good living on these. 

Some servers have people that buy and sell recipes to make money and they do it all the time.  There must be a reason right?  Yes there is and the reason is that you can make a fair deal of cash on them.  For things that will usually cost you less than 2 gold you can sell them for 30g-80g easily depending on server economy.

Another great place is in BC content.  People seem to want to get in and out of there so quick they forget that there are recipes to be had there and they sell nicely.  Visit Dopa, Sid and Mills alliance side and Gambarinka, Cookie and Grilka on horde side for some recipes.  Juno Dufrain sells to both sides with one very good money maker too.  Blackened Trout and Blackened Sporefish seems to sell the best of all of them, probably because those fish is always super cheap on the AH house so it makes it a great option for people leveling up cooking.  It also means they are willing to pay a fair deal for it being the fish is dirt cheap.  Don't get me wrong however, they all sell well.

Also, there are a few recipes that are only available to one side or the other.  Check the list here at wowwiki instead of me doing the work digging it up myself.  Buy these and sell them on the neutral auction house.  Depending on your server economy you could easily sell these for upwards of 200 gold each.  Even on bad servers 50 gold is not unheard of for them.

A bonus for alliance only mostly is the Vendor-Tron 1000 in Desolace.  He sells a nice selection of horde only recipes as well as one that can only be purchased from him on either side.  One bad thing is he has a limited stock of 1 each.  Good luck getting it and finding him.  He moves around all the time.

4) Argent Tournament & Other Pets

Okay, I could have put this under quests because of the need to do quests for the pets but it deserved its own area for what it does and what else it could teach you.

Doing three days worth of dailies, which at 85 is super easy and super fast, not only gets you a nice little sum of gold but enough champion seals to buy a pet.  You can then sell that pet on your side, usually between 1K-5K depending on server, so lets call it 3K average or you can sell it at a neutral auction house so the other side can get it and that could net you from 6K-15K depending on server, so lets call it 10K average.

Depending on where you sell it you could make yourself 3K or 10K every three days.  Not bad for someone with absolutely no professions don't you think?  With the new pet battles coming expect those numbers to be closer to 30K and 100K every three days, depending on how well that part of the game takes off. 

At the start, I can see the prices being slightly higher, so if you start collecting them now and sell them at the start of mists you could very well gold cap all 10 characters on one server in less than a day.  Screw not bad for someone with no professions, how about freaking awesome for someone with no professions.  Gold capping in one day with no professions?  Impossible they say.  I say collect AT pets and sell them when mists comes out and you will gold cap in day one with no professions.  Nice right?

Now lets take a note from the whole pet thing and see if you figured it out on your own.

Ready for a hint now?  Faction specific pets, things like owls for alliance and snakes for horde.  Buy them and sell them on a neutral auction house.  More so, sell them as soon as mists comes and instead of putting them on for 50g each you could be putting them on for 5000g each.  Okay, that might be wishful thinking but they will surely be a fair deal more than 50g.

5) Auction House Flipping.

Buy low and sell high.  Simple as that.

But is it really?  I've given that advice to a million people it seems and while all understood what I meant none of those people could figure out how to do it and what to do it with.  For the people that know, saying buy low and sell high is common sense.  For those that know how to do it it does not need explaining but for those that don't I might as well be speaking greek saying that.

I could, and might, make a post just explaining how to do it for those that don't understand it.  I will try to give some simple examples on how you do that, for the people that do not know better.

First is you need to watch your own market, not all servers are the same.  If I say buy cloth on weekends and sell on weekdays I would be wrong.  Your server might be different.

On my main server a stack of mageweave cloth goes for roughtly 4-6g per stack during the week but on weekends it could be upwards of 20-25g per stack while on another server I am on I can buy mageweave on the weekends at 7g a stack and during the week it goes for 50g a stack.  The same item, in the same quantities, two totally and completely different sales patterns.

That is the problem with giving people blanket advice on how to buy low and sell high.  You need to teach people to watch their own market first and teach them how to read it.  Buy low and sell high is a concept but how it is handled will be different on every server.

So seeing that information to do the buy low sell high thing what we would do, after looking at the trends, is on my main server I would buy for 4g during the week and sell for 20g on the weekends and on the other server I would buy for 7g on the weekends and sell for 50g during the week.

That is the concept of buy low and sell high.  Track the trends of popular items, things that are used often, like crafting materials, enchants, gems, flasks and the such.  Once you see the trend, bend it to work to your advantage.

On my server you can buy flask of the winds for around 80g all day long on the weekend and on tuesday nights it sells for 180g.  Even by thursday it is still selling for 120g.  That is flipping.  That is buy low and sell high.

A good trick to the buy low and sell high is to keep track of the game as well.  If you could buy out the AH of the top enchants and gems the week before a patch it released you can make a fortune.  Before 4.3 came out the chest enchant was selling for 150g, the week after, 2500g.  Before 4.3 came out red raw gems where selling for 75g, the week after, 600g.  That is an example of flipping.

There is also the new beauty of the flipping market, the darkmoon faire.  You can get the quest items for a song the week before the faire.  The three PvP items will usually always be 20g or less before the faire but the day the fair starts, 250-350g is the norm for them. 

You have to be quick however, because by the third day of the faire they are usually back to a more reasonable price and your profit margin drops.  The people that buy them that high do it to get the stuff done that first day, so you need to have yours listed that first day.  Even for someone with no professions you could easily make a nice sum of money just dealing in the PvP based quest items alone for darkmoon faire.  The others usually stay a little higher, but there is still money to be made with them, but the PvP ones will always be dirt cheap during the off weeks.  There you go, another case of flipping.

Well, that is all for now.  Have some fun and go make some money.  There will be a lot of things you will want to buy come mists.

Blizzard to Players: Buy Gold NOW!

Warning:  This post is a tin foil hat edition

Please take it with a grain of salt

Blizzard has finally made their stance on gold buying public.  They support it.  Even more than support it, they have decided to make a reason for you to buy gold and they spent time, effort and development money to create the perfect place to spend the gold you are buying.   Enter the Black Market Auction House (BMAH).

It has been a long held belief around some in the community that blizzard doesn't really mind the gold sellers being out there.  Anyone that has ever reported one of the susan express gold sellers posting in trade can tell you that.  Even more so, someone that did not report the susan express gold sellers could tell you better.

If you do not report them their future messages will not be blocked, so you will see them in all their gold selling glory.  All... Day... Long... You will also see that they keep going for hours and hours on end.

I've seen days where one susan express person was in trade all day long on the weekend.  Were the GMs letting them post or does no one work on weekends?  That is a full day of people reporting for spam.  That is a full day of any GMs possibly logging into the game and seeing trade.  That is a full day of no one playing the game that does not see it at least once.  Yet they are not banned.  They are not even silenced in trade.  Blizzard wants them to get some solid sell time before they pretend like that give a crap.

The common tin foil hat belief about gold sellers is as follows.

1) Gold seller creates an account.
2) Gold seller sells gold for some time quietly.
3) After a long time operating, blizzard gives them a short ban.
4) They come back and shift their stock to another account that just sells quietly and has not been banned yet so it is not lost.
5) They change that account to just an advertising account and spam trade until they are banned.
6) Go back to step one.

The reason for this approach is simple.  They want the gold sellers to feel as if they are getting away with something.  If they ban them as soon as they find them they might stop making new accounts because it is not profitable for the gold seller.  The gold sellers need to sell product to make it worthwhile to keep getting new accounts, blizzard has to allow them to make money to keep the flow going.  So they let them make money, enough to feel it is worth having accounts to do this, and then ban them for a short time, to let them know a permanent ban is coming.

This allows them to send all their stuff to another account so it is not lost when they come back and then they spam trade with that account until they get the permanent ban they knew would be coming shortly thanks to blizzard giving them the nice little warning.  Now this forces them to buy a new account and some game time, making money for blizzard.  Even if they only buy one new game, the base one, it is still a product sold for blizzard and it is still an additional subscriber for their numbers.

This is how gold sellers are handled.  They let them get away with it just enough so it is worth them continually buying new accounts, thus buffing up the companies bottom line.

The introduction of the BMAH is just pushing it to a whole new level.  More people will be needing gold to buy stuff on the market, which means more gold sellers.

More gold sellers means more people to ban and make buy new accounts. New accounts mean more income.  New accounts mean more people that they can label as active players for the stock holders meeting.

By creating a market that offers items that can not be attained any other way in the game, like offering T3 sets, they are saying you have to buy this, you can not earn it in game in any other way.  It is pay gold or you don't get it.

This will create a much larger market for gold sellers meaning they can ban gold sellers more often, as they are making a lot more real money, which means they will buy more accounts more often.  It is a full circle.  They create more demand for gold, so gold sellers make more money, which means they can ban them more often.

When people are not buying a lot of gold they can not ban them often.  It might reach a point where it is not worth them making new accounts all the time.  But if they are making a lot of money, they can ban them much more often.  This means it is worth them making more accounts which makes blizzard more money and looks like they are getting a nice subscriber boost.

This tin foil hat is on fire now.  It burns.  It burns because as wild as it sounds, it does sound... possible?

But could there be any truth to it behind the scenes?

People might say that blizzard does not want gold sellers around because that means hackers too and that makes more work for them.  There could be some truth to that but you also need to remember that they offer everyone in the game the perfect way to protect their accounts.

They do not want people getting hacked, that just creates work for them.  So they offer a free authenticator, just pay shipping and handling, so you can protect your account.

So basically anyone that says that the hackers causing them more work is proof they do not support gold selling is wrong.  It is an unfortunate side effect that they have created a way to beat, instead of banning the gold sellers and account hackers to begin with they just tell people, protect yourself and let the gold sellers do their thing, here is the item to protect yourself.

For things like Ashes, you could still farm it if you want to in game, or you can buy it with gold.  So that could be a flip of the coin in wondering if they support gold sellers by creating the BMAH.  However, by offering things that can only be attained through the BMAH they are basically saying they want people to have a lot of gold.

Being we live in the x-box generation of instant gratification, and they know that, people will not grind to make money.  The grinder generation is mine, not the ones playing the game now.  The x-box generation will just go out and buy the gold and blizzard is 100% fine with that.

Blizzard has been working on ways to drive up subscribers ever since they released the patch they passed off as an expansion called cataclysm that they charged us for and they scared away a fair portion of their customer base with.  The annual pass was a subscriber grab, and it worked.  The scroll of resurrection was a subscriber grab, and it worked.  The BMAH is a subscriber grab, and it will work too.

The thing is, it is a back handed subscriber grab.  They want gold sellers buying new accounts, selling gold, getting banned and then starting all over again by buying another account.  This way their subscriber numbers will go up while their player base gets happier because they feel like they are getting away with something and getting hard or impossible to get items.

It is win/win for blizzard on many levels.  For those that know how to make money, there is more reason for them to stay in game playing.  For people that are not good at making money, there is even more reason for them to stay in game to grind money.  For people that buy gold they get to feel like they are getting away with something.  For the gold sellers they will be more likely to continue to make new accounts no matter how often they are banned because they are making money hand over fist.

It is all good for blizzard, as long as hacking does not increase.  So expect a new push for people to get an authenticator so they can let the gold sellers do their thing while they have less hacking worries.  Don't be surprised if an authenticator is included with the new mists box, just so they can let the gold sellers do their thing with less hacking going around.

This might very well be completely tin foil hat but you have to wonder what are their true intentions.  There are a lot of questions we can ask them and I wonder what the answers would be.

Is it really just a gold sink or just a sign they are out of ideas?

If they are really trying to get away from grindy content for the x-box generation why create something that would require people to grind gold?

If they want people out in the world why stop them from making TK groups every week to get the ashes mount when they can sit in their home town and buy it?

If it is just about making money, why not sell T3 at a cash shop like they do the mounts?

How is creating the BMAH good for the game?

Are they going back to the concept of whoever has to most time to play has all the best toys?

Do they have a plan to stop people from cheating (buying gold) to get stuff over others that actually worked for their gold?

This might be a tin foil hat edition but something inside of me read the announcement of the BMAH as blizzard putting up a huge sign in blinking neon lights over Org and SW that read "Buy gold NOW!" in huge letters going blink, blink, blinkity blink.

Making Money Is Easy While Leveling

I decided to play on my Mage yesterday, one of the characters I have yet to level through Cataclysm.  My Mage is an elixir master and herbalist.  My Alchemy was already maxed out because I had so many extra herbs from my Hunter leveling first that it was enough to max out my Scribe and my other Alchemist without ever leaving Stormwind.

I did nothing special at all.  Just leveled and picked herbs while I was doing my quests.  During that time I picked enough herbs to make roughly 100 flasks.  Each flask sells for between 120g (strength one) to 220g (intellect one).  The strength one was the one I made the most of, their herbs seem to be all over the place.  Either way, in about 6 hours of leveling I gained a level and a half and had to make trips back to Stormwind 4 times to empty my herb bag out.

Each time in Stormwind I would make what I could and list it on the market.  I made 3K nearly instantly.  Made another 5K when I checked before logging out.  Made another 3K this morning when I checked before heading to work.  All that and I still have about 40 flasks left.

That is 11K made selling flasks that I made from just picking herbs while leveling.  I did not even need to go out of my way for them.  No farming was involved.  Just picking them as I passed them and I would do that even if I were not making money.  Heck, it is great experience and they are materials I could use for myself.

It makes me wonder how people can get to level 85 and complain they are broke.  One person in my guild, with an 85, was telling someone else that they have never even seen 15K after they had bought a chopper for 15K gold.

Do people really neglect their professions that badly?  Admittedly the Alchemy/Herbalism combo right now is a powerful money maker but any profession can be a potential windfall of cash if done correctly.

I did some mail box cleaning this weekend and relisted all the unsold enchants I made while leveling my enchanter and that character made 2K just selling junk enchants made from leveling.  No quality enchants there.  Just junk.

A guild mate got one of those new meta gem patterns and gave it to me for free saying the guild would get use out of it instead of having to pay 500 per gem.  I told them when the time comes I will deck them out in gems for free as payment.  They are a part time player now, they don't like Cataclysm much so they only play once a week now, I can relate, it seems there are more and more of those types now.  People that where hardcore raiders that now barely ever play.

I made a whole mess of the strength meta gems and put them on the market.  Spent 2K on ores, prospected the ores, sent the gems to my transmute master, made the shadowspirit raws, cut them, sold 12 of the 18 I had already for 650 gold each.  Still have 6 more to sell and that is not to mention the extra uncommon gems I got and the 19 rare gems I got in the process, 5 of which here rubies, which are 120g each on my server.  So for 2K gold I spent I've already made over 7K from it and still have lots of materials left over.  It's not exactly rocket science is it?

Mind you, I do not make any effort to make money what so ever.  I am not into the money making game.  It is fun sometimes but it is rather boring and way to easy to find as fun most of the time.  Not to mention, I know when there is something I want to buy I can spend an hour bouncing through characters and using my professions to make as much money as I need in no time.

Getting another of those jewelcrafting recipes was my inspiration for leveling my Mage this weekend.  I was hoping for a drop so I could get the agility one that my hunter who so desperately needs.  See, for each and every gem I sell for 600g I would never pay that much for one myself.

Anyone that pays 600g for a gem is either buying gold from a gold seller or has no friends that can make it or is really impatient.  I make the strength gems for my guild mates now, no charge what so ever.  I would not pay 600g for a gem even if you offered to pay the 600g for me.  I consider it wasted money and I would not let you waste your money that way.  I'll wait until someone is advertising in trade that has it and tip them 50g to make it for me.  Hell, for a 50g tip I would have them make 30 for me and sell them for a massive profit.

Maybe that is why I always have so much gold.  I do not waste it and I look at everything as a chance to make money, not a chance to spell money.

Pro Tip:
Creating a new character?  Take herbalist and mining.  You can always switch your professions later.  Both herbalism and mining offer two things that will help you.  Experience and gold.  The money you will make off of them while leveling will easily pay to power level any profession you might want later when you reach max level and the experience is something you can not over looked.  One node offers at least equal to the amount you get from killing a mob.  So selling what you gather while leveling is like getting paid to level.  Can't beat that.

Strange Events on the AH

There are some standard ways of making money.  They are tried and true.  No matter what is hot and what is not there are always some ways to make cash.

Jewelcrafting is one of those no brainers.  Buy gems, cut them, list them, count gold.

I call jewelcrafting a license to print money. Having a JC is one of those reasons I never got into the making money game as a full time thing.  When I needed money I would pop on my JC and the next day I would have gold overflowing in my mailbox.  It takes no skill to make money, just some time investment and a tiny bit of knowledge.

Making flasks and potions and transmutes where always like that as well.  Not as high of a profit margin as JC but you buy the mats, make, list, collect gold.

There are many things like that.  It basically comes down to you taking 3 seconds out of your life to make something and that is what you are getting paid for.

Something odd has been going on with the auction market lately however on my server and I must say I am a bit baffled as to why it is happening.  Everything is backwards.

I routinely would buy ore on the market for when I needed gems and I would prospect the ore.  I don't really waste time farming unless I am bored or waiting on something on one of my miners.  Whenever I need some gems because I am running low I buy about 4K worth of ore and prospect.

When all is said and done I end up with a ton of uncommons, a whole mess of rares and I head back to the market. 

The gems that are used for a JC daily I never list unless it is that dailies day.  For example, jasper on my server normally sells for 12g.  On the day the JC daily needs it I would get 75g each.  It is just a matter of not being stupid selling it on off days. 

Either way, the point is, I list all the uncommons that are not JC daily required and I do not need for my prisms, uncut of course, they sell for more then cut.  That is normal, those cuts are usually people just leveling so they are dumped really cheap.  I cut some of rares into popular gems and list them and keep the rest of the rares for making gems for myself and my guild and the next morning I come on to roughly 8K in my mailbox and a whole mess a gems still left over for my own personal use.  I get material I need for dailies and gems for my characters and make a little profit along the way.  That has always been what I did.  Can't beat that with a stick. Double your money and get all the gems you will ever need.

I can't seem to do that now.  The price of ore on the market is almost as high as it was the week the game came out when every one was price fixing.

It was timeless nightstone day and I was running a bit low on nightstone so it was time for me to do my little buy, prospect, process, sell routine to restock my gems.  The same thing I always do except I can't do it now, at least not like I had been doing.

The price of ore is 95g-120g per stack.  I was paying 30g-40g a stack last time I did it.  Why the heck has the price gone up?  It does not do that.  This is the first time I have seen this trend on my server.  Sure, I see it go to 50g-60g sometimes, but not this high.  Not triple it's normal price.

The price of common gems on the market, like nightstone for example is up to 120g.
The price of rares is higher for the uncut then for the cuts now too.

While I have seen that before I can't see why it would be like that now at this stage in the game.  Usually that is something you see after every person has every pattern and price cutting is running rampant.

I could easily buy stacks for 95g-120g and still make a hefty profit but I am not taking that risk until I can see if this high price jump is going to stay for a while.  The last thing anyone wants to do it buy a ton and lose money because the price has gone back up.  It has only been like this for about 4 or 5 days.  If it continues I might just go with the flow.

It is not only jewelcrafting.  Making flasks is a loss unless you get lucky enough to proc a flask.  The herbs needed to make a flask cost twice as much as the flask sells for.  I would normally buy tons of herbs, make tons of flasks, come back and collect my gold later and it was always at least double the cash spent.  Now if I make a flask I am losing money and even with a proc I am only breaking even.

For the first time in a very long time I am noticing that farming is actually starting to be a good idea again.  Not to farm to make the items but to farm to sell raws.

Everything on the market does not make sense.  It was fun before the darkmoon fair started you could buy all the cards for 1200-2000 each and assemble the sets yourself. The sets sell for 30K on my server.  You do the math, at most it costs you 16K to buy and assemble to sell for 30K.  Not a bad deal right?  However, things change when the fair is around right.  Always has.  Usually the cards go up and the decks come down.  It changed for sure.  The cards have gone DOWN in price and the assembled decks have gone UP.  Excuse me?  What weird world did I wake up in?

My server has gone insane.  Nothing is making sense any more.  Strange times indeed.  I guess if I want more nightstone I will pay the higher prices or farm it myself.  Might as well farm and sell now while the price is high.  I can't see it staying like this. 

Are there really no farmers out there?

I mentioned this odd occurrence to a guild mate the other day and he decided to take advantage of it.  He was spamming heroics on his new 85 that happened to be a herbalist and decided to put his time to good use.  While waiting in the queue he farmed. 

He told me after doing 5 heroics and farming for the time waiting in between them he made 10K gold.  He had never been over 10K gold before and thanked me for mentioning it to him. 

If you do the math on that, 45 minutes wait time, times 5, that means in 3 hours and 45 minutes he make 10K gold just picking herbs.  That is quite impressive if you ask me.  Gathering has never been at such a large profit per time investment ever that I can recall. Usually if you could make 600g-800g per hour farming it was usually a lot. (with exception of the first week where you could have made 50K per hour farming thanks to broken respawn timers.)

Take advantage of it if you can too.  Who knows, maybe your server has entered the twilight zone too.

I'm going to be keeping a close eye on the market for the next few days.  I might even take a chance and spend a little on 95g-120g stacks just to see what happens.  I'll invest small in case the server go back to normal.  I just do not understand why it is like this.  It makes no sense at all.