Friday, June 29, 2007

Cash is King

Any of you finance majors might recognize this title. Once again, what's true in the real world is true in World of Warcraft as well. Well... at least as far as economics goes. The phrase refers to the importance of cash flow in the overall health of a businesses. A company may have a ton of assets, but if they aren't easily liquidated (possibly high accounts receivable) and/or they don't have a lot of cash, they may not be able to pay wages, for example.

I started reflecting on this last night as one of my guild mates was showing off his new Nether Drake Mount. Leiandra the Mage isn't poor, but I wouldn't call her cash rich either. I've successfully skilled up two producing professions to 375 (tailoring and enchanting) with an alt's
alchemy to 351 (mostly off of AH goods), so that's taken me a bit of gold. I've noticed that I have a lot of things that could sell for a decent amount of money if I wanted to take the time and patience to get them sold. So, assets I have, even if I don't quite have enough for my epic flying mount.

The biggest single expense that I know about in the World of Warcaft at this time is that of your flying epic mount. The cost is 5000g for the riding skill and then another 200g for the actual mount. Then if you want one of the Nether Drakes, you have to purchase the artisan riding skill, and then complete a series of daily quests. If you do them every day, the daily quests will take about 30 days to get the needed reputation for one of them. It's estimated that you get about 1000g while completing these daily quests as well.

So, for me, once I have purchased my 300 riding skill, I imagine I'll be more willing to spend the 27g to get one Primal Fire on the AH. Right now, I'm watching my money too much to justify spending the 27g for something that I can get (at the right time) in an hour or less. In other words, if I didn't have this large expense looming, I'd feel more free to do what I want, instead of feeling like I have to go grind some more.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

After spending several thousand gold on Tailoring and Enchanting I've realized besides the personal benefit there isn't a lot of benefit to have leveled these skills to 375 if I don't have the patience to sit in a major city spamming my wares for hours on end (the same reason my highest fishing skill is 15).

I have found that by doing the quests in Netherstorm and Shadowmoon Valley that I was able to net over 2k gold (I hit 70 in Blades Edge). Also having another 70 do those same quests will almost get me enough to get epic riding. Of course the consequence is my hunter is now my warlocks proverbial biatch. Poor hunter will never have anything of his own.

Just some thoughts.

DadGuy said...

It's so not worht buying a primal fire for 27g on the AH. You need to change farming spots -- I would farm for ~90 minutes and have close to 3 in blades edge.

Rarely is the farmable materials worth the money from the auction house, assuming you have a decent way to get what you are looking for.

Be a tightwad, it all adds up. Aridhol was over 3000 gold when I left. I've earned about 400 gold since I've come back and I've not been trying terribly hard. I have been scrimping and saving though.