Cornering a Market

There are very few times in my Wow career that I have used my professions to actually make money. And even more so, to use the AH wasn't exactly my forte. Until I discovered a little secret last night.

Leiandra's professions have always been enchanting and tailoring. Until this last expansion, I had to sit out in front of the IF bridge and spam trade channel letting people know that I have the enchants. Tailoring was less of a chore, but it didn't ever make much money. Oh, I suppose there was the time back in TBC where I had the pattern for Belt of Blasting that was a pretty good money maker. But other than that... well... you just don't go off and make a boat load of Moonshroud Robes and expect to sell them in one weekend. Currently I do sell my enchants, but only a few at a time. I'm mostly just burned out on spamming trade channel, and generally just lazy about making money.

Well, Zanderfin has been my miner/jewelcrafter. For the most part, I'd say it's been profitable. He's mostly used his own materials to skill up. And most of the meta gems I used to finish off the skill up process have been sold for only a small loss.

But last night, I happen to do a quick scan of the AH to find out what the current price of Runed Cardinal Rubies were. It's one of the few epic cuts I can do, so I'll post one of those every once in awhile for a small profit. When the results showed there were none, I had to check a few times. Sure enough... none. So, I quickly posted 2 for about 40g more than I usually post them.

Then I searched again to make sure nobody else had quickly undercut me. The results showed 1 auction. But wait. Where did my other auction go? Did I mess up and forget to post it? After searching through my bags, I finally looked at my auctions tab. Sure enough, somebody had bought the first one at almost break-neck speeds. What's a person to do? Yep, throw a few more up at an even higher price.

When you have a profession like Jewel Crafting, it's actually quite easy to make some money. Each gem is relatively cheap. Even epic gems are only about 200g. (Which is kind of a lot, but not as much as a couple thousand for epic tailoring items.) Every class needs them in some form or another. So, with the low price point, people are generally lazy about purchasing a raw gem and finding somebody to cut it. They simply get the cut gem, and move on. It's not worth the inconvenience to save a few gold for that one gem.

And that, my friends, is the beauty of Jewel Crafting. The "pure stat" gems like pure spell power, pure attack power, or pure stamina seem to sell the best. The more I do my daily JC quest, the more gems I can cut. And.... most importantly: I don't have to spam trade channel!!! Yeah!

The down side of this profession. If you're a miner/jewel crafter, there is an opportunity cost in using that ore to prospect. You don't get to make the boatloads of money as you're leveling up. A lot of your gems will probably be sold to a vendor... especially the lvl 70 ones. But you'll eventually get to make some pretty sweet money with this profession.

Yet Another Guild Vault Hacked

Just when I was wondering what to blog about today, the idea hit me in the... guild vault.

One of our guildies has been having computer issues. To make a long story short, he sent in his computer and gave them the password to his computer. I guess he used the same password for his Wow account. I don't know. Anyway, he claims that that's how his account was hacked. I trust the guy, he's been around for a long time. I can't fathom any reason he would have to steal the stuff. He's a lot of things, but certainly not a thief. (He's actually a lot of good things, I kinda said that in jest... just sounds like a line from a movie. heh.)

At any rate, he kept getting booted off last night at around 1. Then he couldn't get on at all; they changed his password. Shortly after, they ransacked the guild vault. We lost almost 30,000 g worth of mats. (The majority of which were Hearts of Darkness that we had been saving for shadow resist gear.)

So... anyone know a number I can call over at Blizzard? Or do I have to open an in-game Ticket when I get home tonight? /sigh

The other strange thing is that the log on Wowarmory and what's in game (at least per what my friend has said since I'm at work) don't match. Strange. I think the correct one is the one in game, but I guess I'll see when I get home tonight and look. Yeah... that sucks.

Newest Gold Spammer Antics in Wrath

This past weekend, I spent an evening running Steamvaults with my wife and a couple other friends. I was on my Shaman, so I was healing the run. Out of nowhere, I get a message from a level 1 toon. WIM initially blocks tells from level 1's, but I was curious as to who it was and what they said since the name was something that sounded legit.

In the message, I was asked if I wanted to trade my shaman for a 70 rogue with S1/S2 and T4/T5 gear.

Well gee... I thought the gold spammers were bad, but now this? He didn't even validate the tell (as WIM requests you to do if you're a level 1 toon).

Let me first say that this is totally against the EULA. You cannot trade accounts.

But it got me thinking about their marketing strategy. The Gold Spammer of old at least had a product that appeals to everyone. Even if you don't want to buy it with real money, everyone in the game has a need for money. Some might have enough where they don't need any more, but they still need to have some.

If you're targeting specific classes, you've just dropped your supply by a great deal. Over-simplifying the numbers, you are now only dealing with about 1/9th of the population. And you're making a pretty big assumption that that's the only level 70 that that account has. And you have to find somebody that isn't happy with their class and now wants a rogue (in this case). Wow... Talk about a market niche.

Now, far be it from me to tell somebody how to do marketing for their business. Maybe it was some random kid sending out a ton of whispers. (But again... I would think they would have validated the WIM message so it would get through to me?) It would certainly seem that if you were advertising your web site or service of trading toons, you'd want to do so to a much bigger audience. Who knows? Maybe spell out your web site name in IF using dead gnomes. Oh wait... the Gold Spammers already did that.

Then again... maybe this was just some random person looking for a shaman to trade for.

Suggestion: Guild Bank Tax

Since I somehow started trolling the WOTLK forums today, there's been a couple of things I've wanted to point out as news. Looks like WoW Insider beat me to the punch on the realms first level 80 titles removed, but there's another blue post that they didn't address.

There's a suggestion on the forums that states the following:

Hey I thought it would be a cool idea for guilds to be able to have a set % of earnings from killing a mob goto guild bank. Guild master can set the amount. Not from vendored items just from what is picked up from a mob.

You receive 95 silver from %t, 5 silver goes to guild bank.

something along those lines. Would help towards guild raid mats/mounts for people.

It's an interesting idea and got stamped with a seal of approval from Tigole:

This is an interesting idea. We won't be able to get to this for the WotLK launch, but we are compliling a list of future guild improvements that we'd like to make in WoW.

Since I can't actually put my 2 cents in on the forums since I'm not a Beta Tester, I figured I'd voice my opinion here. I think it's a good idea, but only in certain situations. So, for example, the Raid or Party Leader should be able to turn this tax on or off. If you're out farming your own gold, you should be able to keep it all. But if your guild is doing some raid, I think it would be fair that a portion of those funds be directly deposited to the guild vault. I think with that spin, it would work. Otherwise, as a Guild Leader, I wouldn't use it.

My Wife: The Farmer*

Over a year ago, there was a guy that was in our guild that had his own personal "Chinese Farmer". He'd pay for his nephews account, and in return, his nephew would farm materials for him. Heck, he'd farm the herbs for 1/2 the guild sometimes. I always thought it was humorous, but it also seemed like that what his nephew enjoyed doing. He never raided with us. Some people quest. Some people PVP. Some raid. He herbed and mined.

Last night, I had about 20 minutes before I needed to send out invites to the raid, and my wife really wanted to play Wow for a bit. She's not a big fan of dailies because we do the same ones over and over again. (Yeah, she's not a fan of the "grind".) So, I figured I'd give her a taste of grinding mobs for primals. While Shadowmoon Vally is rich in many different primals, we started by working on Primal Fires. I think we had about 5 motes by the time we got down there and I had to switch toons to start the raid. It was a start.

A little bit into the raid, I realize that my wife is still at the computer. (She's actually in a different room.) She whispered me telling me that she was going to log, but that she had accumulated 30 motes of fire. (Sounds much more impressive than 3 Primal Fire.) It's a pretty good start towards some of the gear we want to make for her. Then again, with Wrath looming so close, I'm not really sure we want to use those mats to actually produce something, but that's not really the point.

The point is, that I turned my wife into a farmer. At least for one night. I don't expect her to do that every night. And in fact, I think I'd be shocked if she did it again (especially after this post. lol). It's just neat to hear things like she wants to be a contributor to the raids she comes on, not just a warm body. And now, she's "contributing" to get better gear made for herself.

Now if I can get her over the monatony of dailies that she dreads, she can be a true Gold Farmer. :)

Wrath Preparation - Start Now

I was looking through my personal bank for Leiandra the other day, and I did a pretty good job at cleaning stuff out, but I still have things that have been sitting in there for a few years now. Being that I've had most of these items since before the last expansion went live, I have a feeling that as we get closer to the next expansion release, they'll be even further diminished in their value.

As an prime example of one of the items that lost value, let's look at Mooncloth. It used to have a cooldown of about 4 days (3 days, 20 hours). (As of patch 2.4.3, the cooldown was removed, but that was long after the expansion was released.) With a cooldown of 4 days, there will generally be an inherent supply shortage. While there were a number of high-end, level 60 items that could be made with Mooncloth, Outland drops were far superior. The only reason left to create Mooncloth after the expansion hit was for the 16-slot Mooncloth bags. But even those are "replaced" with Netherweave Bags (although the Mooncloth ones have the advantage of not being BoE).

In Classic Wow (pre-The Burning Crusade expansion), the Essences (Fire, Air, Earth, Undeath, and Water) were a pretty big crafting component. They'd go for a decent amount on the AH, and many areas were farmed for it. I remember spending long periods of time farming the 10 Fire, Air, Earth and Water that I needed for my Robe of Archmage. Again... only to be replaced shortly after entering the Outlands.

So, what can we learn from last expansion to apply to the upcoming one? Start selling now. I'm not saying you need to clear out your 6 tabs in your 1-alt guild vault, but you might want to start thinking about it, and maybe even slowly moving stuff out. I'm guessing that Primals will go the way of Essences, and whatever we're farming in WOTLK may even eventually drop motes as Essences are dropped in farming motes now. So, there's really no need to keep them locked up in your vault. Start to sell the ones you won't need. And do it slowly so you don't flood the market and drop the price.

I'll admit that we don't know a lot about crafting in Wrath of the Lich King, but we can assume that there will be better stuff. You don't use level 30 items to craft level 60 gear. Neither will you use level 70 items (primals) to craft level 80 gear. You might also want to slowly start moving out leather, cloth (Netherweave, Shadoweave, Primal Mooncloth, and Spellcloth), and ore. Don't get rid of all of it; you'll most likely need some for your first skill-ups above 375, but if you have an entire guild vault tab dedicated to Spellcloth for your one level 70, you might want to think about moving that stuff out. Also, the "expected" release date is still 4 or 5 months away. You may still be using some of that stuff for yourself before we all storm Northrend. You know your situation, act accordingly, but don't let the value of those items drop too much as we get closer to Wrath.

Side note: I recognize that a lot of people hold on to lower crafting materials for alts and whatnot. That's fine. Continue to do that if that's your thing. But even as Essences lost value (both monetary and skill up value), so will Primals. Will anyone think of crafting a 400g 20-slot bag when they may be able to do the same bag for considerably less materials from Frostweave?

4th "Final" Ding and New Career

Well, I got my paladin her final level this past weekend, so she's all ready for her mount with the next patch. So, she's once again going to retire to Stormwind to pursue her career as a banker. Even last night, she made a phenomenal find on the AH.

On my server, Primal Water goes for about 30g each. I found 8 posted for 9g, which I quickly bought. I was thinking about sending a tell to the person, but when I got the Primal Waters out of the mail, the message disappeared, and the name was lost. About a minute later, I get a tell asking, "Did I just sell 8 Primal Waters for 9g?" I started to feel kind of bad, but then again... she did post them. And there was a small justification because I was using them for my wife's Shadow Embrace set, and not just turning around and selling them. Thinking about it now, I'm kind of a jerk. But should I feel bad?

She didn't ask for them back. She didn't ask for additional money. At one point, she said "oh well". And I found out it was a female because I told her that my wife thanked her for helping her craft her Shadow Embrace set (hoping that would ease the sting because it wasn't turned around and sold for cash), and she responded that she'd just make her husband go buy more for her.

So... yeah. Should I feel bad? Or just move on. Even if I do feel bad, I'm not willing to do anything about it. So, I guess I'm not really going to feel that bad anyway. lol. Anyone have any other stories about profiting from other people's misfortunes?

New Daily Quest Discovered

Just when I thought I was aware of all of the daily quests, a guildie showed me a new one last night. Well, technically it isn't a "daily" quest, but more one that can be done every 5 days. What am I blabbering on about? Onyxia.

So, while this may not be news to a lot of people that Onyxia drops a pretty good chunk of money (180g), it may be news that she is very easily done with only a few people. We 6-manned it last night, but even that was pretty much overkill.

Yet another way to make money in World of Warcraft. Now, I'll admit that our group is pretty epic'ed out. But even a solid group of 10 people would get 18g for a pretty easy encounter. And if you really want... you can go farm T2 helms. :)

Making Money in 2.4

I know I've mentioned it at least in passing before, but let me be very clear on this point. Probalby one of the easiest and most consistent ways to make money in the game once you hit level 70 is doing your daily quest. You get an average of about 10g per quest, and some of the quests are so rediculously easy that's it's almost as if Blizzard was giving money away.

As of patch 2.4, you can complete up to 25 daily quests per day. So, if you take the time to do all of them, that's 250g. Not to mention that you'd probably get a few greens to sell in there as well. Personally, I haven't done 25 dailies in one day. Nor do I really plan to do that. There's certainly enough daily quests out there. Some of them require some pre-requisites to open up, but with the Sunwell Plataeu, there's a bunch that are simple, fast, and unlocked to all 70's. (See complete list over at WowWiki.)

Bronzebeard server is currently on phase 2. That means that there are 5 daily quest just after taking the portal to the Shattered Sun Staging Area. Further Conversions and Arm the Wards! can be completed at almost the same time. The Wretched Fiends and Devourers seem to have about a 50% drop rate for the Mana Remnants, and you can kill them while you're hunting down
the Arcane Sentries. So, about 12 kills, and you've completed 2 quests. The Battle for the Sun's Reach Armory is another simple quest. Kill 6 demons, and then throw a flag onto a demon that's generally already lying there dead. Then.. now that they've nerfed the quest a bit, Distraction at the Dead Scar can be be completed in just one run. And finally, Know Your Ley Lines is a quick quest where you can pretty much just run around to three points, and collect your 10g.

So, in about 20 minutes or so... you can make 50g. Not too shabby.

Raid Update: Switched up Al'ar doing it with only 4 tanks... our tanks did it perfectly. But still haven't downed that flamer, Al'ar, yet. It seems that it's really coming together though. I'm really optimistic about next week's attempts.

The Price of Playing a Mage

From the player that pretty much has the market on 1-300 or 300-375 profession leveling guides, come an interesting analysis of the cost of leveling the professions. Interesting to note that enchanting is the most expensive profession based on buying mats from the AH. Granted, I know all you enchanters get most of your mats from disenchanting items, but it still bring up an interesting point.

I still don't have my flying epic mount. I've practically given up on farming for gold because I've found it mostly un-fun. I'll use my enchanting to get some gold here or there. I run enough instances that I break even at worst after repairs. I had always wanted to get the flying epic mount, and still do, but it's become less of a priority at the moment. From the looks of that analysis, I probably spent enough during the leveling process of tailoring and enchanting that I could have had a flying epic mount. But, as a guildie said, you can't take an epic mount into a dungeon.

So, what does that mean? For a mage, having tailoring and enchanting as your two professions will almost always give you a leg-up. At 375, you can craft all of the Spellfire set including the [Spellfire Robe]. Each piece by itself is amazing considering you don't have to set food in any dungeon. But then you look at the 3-piece set bonus. Plus spell damage up to 7% of your Intellect. Being that Intellect is one of our major stats, it's very nice to have an increased reason to have that stat. And, in case you didn't notice, all of those items are BoP. So, while it may cost you 1,381g to get tailoring up to 375 (not including the gold or mats to make the Spellfire set), you can bring that into a dungeon. So, tailoring for a mage, while expensive, is a really good choice.

What about enchanting? When I first started leveling enchanting, I did it because I wanted to make myself a wand. Little did I know that the enchanting wands didn't go very far, and I'd usually replace them with dungeon drops moments after I was able to actually craft them. It's been expensive, and a small part of me misses that money. But overall, I believe I've spent enough time advertising in the trade channel to at least make the hurt not so bad. So now that I'm 375, what now? Well, with the release of the Burning Crusade, the only enchant that non-enchanters can't get is enchant to rings. So that means that because I'm an enchanter, I can have an extra 24 spell damage (12 per ring) more than other non-enchanters can have. Would I suggest dropping 4,842g so you can get 24 more spell damage? Probably not. But at least it's a semi-sane justification for all the money I've put in. Don't tell me otherwise... I'm contend in my own little coma.

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.

Ogri'las and Gold

Anyone who's been level 70 for more than a week probably knows what great gold there is in doing quests. The average quest in Netherstorm or Shadowmoon gives you about 10g instead of the experience you got pre-70. So, last night, I got invited to do the starter quests for the Ogri'las. The quests start with V'eru in Shattrath City who tells you to speak with Grok, also in Shattrath City, who then tells you to speak with Mog'dorg the Wizened in Blade's Edge just outside of the arena. The next quests are all 5-man quests, so bring a group before you leave Shatt. Mog'dorg gives you 3 quests that give you about 20g each, and then you have to kill another elite that gives you 25g. To sum it up, 85g for about 30 minutes of work isn't too shabby at all. Not to mention that everything can be looted from anyone around (doesn't have to be the party that got the kill) this could be a quick guild event to land everyone some quick money in their pocket.

On another note, in talking with one of my guildmates last night, I was admiring, nay, drooling over his flying epic mount. I just want to be one of those cool kids, but I digressed. From his point of view, and probably fairly accurate, I choose to level tailoring and enchanting to 375 (well, 372 atm for enchanting), and he choose to buy a flying epic mount. So, here's the next tangent to comment on: Is it better to have the income stream from the beginning by skilling up your profession, or is it better to be able to complete travel faster in order to complete quests and farm mats (racing to nodes) faster? Personally, I like being able to craft things even if it's not the smartest financial move (not saying that it is or isn't), so there's that factor to consider as well.

So, You Want to Play WoW (a starting money post)

The same co-worker that thought it would be a good idea to start this blog has picked up his "Wandering Paladin" again. You can read all of his adventures here. So, in conversations, I thought of a lot of the things I've learned throughout my time playing. This isn't a post on the Auctioneer add-on (although that's a great, easy way to help you make money through the AH), nor is it how to get the gold for a flying epic mount. It's just a few simple suggestions that will help you have some extra money and not have to beg in Iron Forge/Undercity for money for your new skills.

1) There are gathering professions and there are producing professions. To be simple and straight to the point, choose two gathering professions as you lvl your new toon. While producing professions can get you some "cool" armor or weapons or widgets, overall you'll lose money in the beginning. By choosing the gathering professions, you'll always have additional things to sell at the AH. Even the lowest stuff (copper bars (smelt all ore before AH'ing it), light leather and peacebloom) will always sell at the right price. So, choose either (A) Skinning and Mining or (B) Skinning and Herbalism. You can only have one type of tracking active at any given time, so Hebalism and Mining is kinda a tough combination.

2) Get yourself some bags so you don't have to go back to the bank or mailbox or Auction House every 5 minutes. Start out small and get what you can afford. Trust me, this will be the best investment you can make at lower levels.

3) Bring everything that's not gray to the Auction House. Somebody might be trying to skill up their cooking and need just one more clam meat. You never know.

Ultimately, you'll want to have enough money to purchase your mounts at 40, 60, and 70. Flying epic mount? Well... you're on your own. ;) At least until I get around to that post.