CMill-ions: Your Guide to Goblinisim

Post 4.0.1 - End of Week 1

noreply@blogger.com (cmill) — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 12:52:00 +0000

Well, it's the end of week one, and the guild bank now sits at 315,000g (i removed a little over 200g to make it a nice round number again) - not bad, 80k to 315k in one week, that's 235k profit.

I will update on the story sometime in the next week, it should be a fun post.

Looking back, I feel I did a few things wrong.
1) I over prepared - however I would much rather over prepare than under prepare.

2) My original fall back price of 159g was not high enough, I think i could have gotten away with 259g at least on the first night.

3) by day 3 I should have lowered my threshold more. It was set at 50g for way to long.

I still have LOTS of glyphs left, i think when the ink seller changes to cata inks i should be able to sell the rest off.

Anyone else have a chance to take a look at what they did wrong in the last week?

Post 4.0.1 patch - Day 4

noreply@blogger.com (cmill) — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 03:08:00 +0000

Today's guild bank total is 281,270g 23s 35c - that is 101,270g so far this week!

been kind of a slow day, i changed my threshold to move less inventory in anticipation of people runing out of glyphs in the next day or two. Hope this pays off.

on another side note, tonight i found 2447 glyphs listed at under 25k on my server - which is the cost to make them. I could buy them all out for 39,761g... and i'm seriously thinking about it... not sure

there are only 7,000 glyphs total on my AH right now, so i would take down slightly less than half.

Post 4.0.1 patch - Day 3 - PVP Sucks

noreply@blogger.com (cmill) — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 02:45:00 +0000

So pretymuch the entire day today there were horde killing the auctioneers in all 4 major cities. made things very hard to post and hard for people to buy.

None the less the guild bank is up to 260,025g 30s 61c. that's 180,025g profit so far from this patch! w00t!

Post 4.0.1 patch - Day 2

noreply@blogger.com (cmill) — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 03:06:00 +0000

Closed today out at 221,959g 58s 52c - past the old gold cap! w00t!

that puts me at 141,959g 58s 52c for this patch.

Post 4.0.1 patch - day 1

noreply@blogger.com (cmill) — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 06:47:00 +0000

Well, servers came up about 8pm EST. Started with 80,000g, ended with 139,162g 88s 98c for a total net profit of 59,162g 88s 98c

not bad for 5 hours of play...

Patch Day Jitters

noreply@blogger.com (cmill) — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 17:29:00 +0000

Happy 4.0.1 day everyone! Today we get to see how prepared we actually were, and how unprepared our competitors are. My main competitor told me last night (after buying out my stock of charred glyphs) that he didn’t feel he was ready and he was worried about how long crafting was going to take him after the patch 

As whitewolf said, I don’t think its possible for anyone to have over prepared for this day, if anything we under prepared. The only thing we have to worry about at this point is posting our glyphs so high that your average Joe will go to his buddy to make them for free.

Some tips for today when you log in:
1) Learn and craft the new glyphs! The first one to have these on the AH will have the most sales. 90% of the scribes probably aren’t aware they exist. I made a list of them, and you can find it here: http://20kleveling.com/JMTCforum/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=7961
2) Move your fallback higher than you think you need to. Believe it or not, people will spend 300g on a glyph when there is nothing else available.
3) Post the new inscription dust that the glyph supply vendor sells for a grossly overpriced margin.
4) Triple check (you should have already double checked) that you have the correct fixes for your add-ons – if not, have fun posting everything manually!

Just to remind everyone, I am keeping track of my guild bank gold amount over in the side toolbar to the right. I started at 80k last night when I logged off. I’ve had a few people also ask me how much gold I invested in this patch… well, I spent about 85k to make my 31606 glyphs.

Feel free to post your first day profits in the comments below!

The Night Before Glyphmas

noreply@blogger.com (cmill) — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 12:16:00 +0000

'Twas the night before Glyph-mas and at all auction houses
Competition was stirring, (those idiot louses.)
The posters were lined up in cities with care,
In the hopes that the new patch soon would be there.

The players were nestled all snug in their beds,
Not suspecting that glyphs would soon cost them hundreds.
And I, with my money (in excess of goldcap)
Had just settled in for a long Maintenence nap.

When out in Dalaran arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the Inn to see what was the matter.
Away to the portals, I flew like a flash
(Sensing wind in my nightrobe, I retied the sash.)

After rezoning and remounting my horse
I rode to the city's center of commerce.
At what, with my wondering eyes, should I stare,
But my army of bank alts, heavy laden with wares.

How could I have known, when I first lifted a quill,
It would eventually lead to this night of thrill.
More laden than pack mules, (those should be in-game)
I whistled and shouted each glyph product's name

Now Nourish!, Now Rebirth!, Now Mind Flay!, Now Smite!
From Tricks of the Trade to Beacon of Light
To the top of the Listings, beneath others' glyph walls,
Post away! Post away! Post away all!

They spoke not a word but went straight to their work,
Undercutting those other competitive jerks.
And as the first batch flew off the shelf
I pondered the dance of a cute little Belf.

And then with the next batch, my Fallback, it rose.
Those clients will now have to pay through the nose.
Secure in my placement I turned my attention
To transmuting gems, (I sense early pension!)

Though they languished for months for 2 pieces of gold,
I sense a great shift in the rate that they're sold.
As you'll hear me exclaim once the server's online
Happy Glyph-Mas to all, Pay now 199g!"

Copyright the artist known as Whitewolf on JMTC Forums

Do You Use QA, Auctioneer or Another Auction Addon?

noreply@blogger.com (cmill) — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 18:18:00 +0000

If so, they will be broke come 4.0.1. As of right now, none of these addons have been modified in such a way to allow auction posting at all.

Blizzard modified the StartAuction() command so that it requires a hardware event. The QA author has said he has no plans of fixing the add on.

Good luck to everyone out there

Charred Glyphs in 4.0.1

noreply@blogger.com (cmill) — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 14:30:00 +0000

There are currently 17 glyphs being deleted in 4.0.1... I've compiled a list for easy access...

DEATH KNIGHT
Glyph of Dark Command
Glyph of Icebound Fortitude
Glyph of Unholy Blight
Glyph of Disease

DRUID
Glyph of Survival Instincts
Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation

HUNTER
Glyph of Volley
Glyph of Possessed Strength

MAGE
Glyph of Arcane Explosion
Glyph of Fire Blast
Glyph of Scorch
Glyph of Mana Gem
Glyph of Fire Ward

WARLOCK
Glyph of Siphon Life

WARRIOR
Glyph of Barbaric Insults
Glyph of Last Stand
Glyph of Taunt

The WoW Manhattan Project

noreply@blogger.com (cmill) — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 19:38:00 +0000

Secret WoW Project

I logged off of StarCraft II, and logged onto WoW for the first time in… 8 weeks? I can’t remember… I’ve been to bored with WoW and to engrossed into StarCraft to care.

Anyways, I started reading up on patch notes and what not for Cata and 4.0.1. I’m not going to spoil this for anyone, but there are some MAJOR changes coming to inscription. I expect anyone who prepares enough for these changes should have no problems joining the ranks of the WoW millionaires on jmtc forums.

This blog is going to be brief intentionally, but I will say this… just stocking up on herbs and inks won’t be of much help come 4.0.

Let the Manhattan project begin!

ps I will keep the guild bank total up to date DAILY starting with 4.0.1 patch day. I plan on doing a full breakdown of my work the Tuesday following patch day.

I Need Your Help to Get My Wife to Play WoW!!

noreply@blogger.com (cmill) — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 12:51:00 +0000

I am so bored with WoW right now. We are 10/12 in heroic ICC and the only fun that’s left is working on the 2 bosses we don’t have down yet. My rogue is geared up in mostly hard mode ICC stuff already…. Which leaves me to farm gold and work on the little dumb achievements.

As a side effect, I now have a decent amount of free time. I’ve purchased a treadmill to try and get in better shape.

Part of me is wanting to hit the gold cap before cata comes out… but it’s so boring any more. I can rake in 10-15k gold no problem a week… but I don’t need it for anything because all my toons have everything they need, and I have enough to last me through at least the first tier of raiding in cata, so why bother?

I am trying to get my wife to play WoW. I think it’d be fun to level another toon with her and get her into raiding. We have several couples that play in my guild and they seem to enjoy it a lot. Anyone have a good way to convince my wife to play?

M&S and My Readers

noreply@blogger.com (cmill) — Wed, 12 May 2010 15:49:00 +0000

Today I commented on Gevlon's blog (links in the side bar). Even though I don’t have the time to write a blog every day like him and some other people in the community, I still very much so enjoy reading several blogs and writing my own or commenting when I can.

Gevlon was discussing the reason there are so many idiots (read this as the dumbest of the M&S) in the game, basically because your average Joe who isn’t amazing at the game, but knows how to gear and not stand in fire, helps the M&S out because he believes he owes it to the M&S.

For the longest time I would not have agreed at all with this. But an incident a week ago changed my mind.

I’ve recently leveled up a rogue from 1-80. The very instant I hit 80, I queue up for the heroic daily. Mind you my gear is about 80% greens and the rest blues all from quests.

The run starts… our warrior tank only has 22k health – not a big deal, I had less when I started tanking heroics back when WOTLK first came out… I’ll give him a chance and try to help him because I’ve been a warrior tank for about 5 years now.

First trash pull in the Nexus… I tricks the tank and go to town pulling a whopping 1.8k maybe 1.9k dps. Before the mob dies… I pull threat from the tank. WTF?!? I vanish and he gains agro again… not a big deal.

This starts happening on most every pull. It doesn’t matter he starts out with tricks and gets all my threat. I pst him and ask him about his rotation, is he using shield slam? I see that he’s using thunderclap but I can’t tell what else he’s doing. He never responds.

First boss… wipe… w00t just what I wanted. I take a look at his gear, he’s got a decent amount of epics, I’d say 80% or so and a few blues. But as I look closer to his gear… I notice TONS of spirit! And better yet, no defense… apparently he thinks out of combat health regen is important. He also had no gems or enchants of any kind.

I asked him about his gear choices in party chat so the others would know. I asked why he had the wrong type of gear on, no gems and no enchants. His reply? “dude we cant all be as lucky as you with gear lol I have a life”

I think to myself… I’ve been 80 for what?? 10-15 minutes now? I have 4 days 17 hours played total on this toon?

As I’m reasoning this out to myself, I’m voted out of the group. Apparently the M&S needs the rest of the groups help than me.

On a side note, I’m amazed that despite my lack of effort in blogging on a regular basis, my reader base has grown about 20%. You guys are awesome. I hope you enjoy what I have to say and keep coming back.

The Glyphs are on Fire!

noreply@blogger.com (cmill) — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 14:12:00 +0000

This week, after going on a huge spending spree for my main and my alt, and looking at the guild bank dipping down to 56k, I fired back up the glyph machine and started posting again.

A few changes I’ve made in my strategy this time around, rather than posting for 24 hrs and canceling/re-posting twice a day, I’m now posting for 48 hours and canceling/re-posting twice a day. Why you ask? Because the competition on my server never lists all the glyphs, they are all cherry pickers. This means I have some glyphs that stay up the entire 48 hours without being undercut. This saves me time from not needing to post these glyphs as often.

So far it seems to have worked. I’ve made 9k over the last 3 days… a decently nice profit. I’ve also restocked my guild bank mats that I let get very low.

I’m going to try not to burn myself out this time around, and hopefully I’ll have more to post as this goes along.

Motivation

noreply@blogger.com (cmill) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 17:25:00 +0000

Well... it’s been about 2 months and I've spent more gold than I've made. Yep, that’s right, I’m down to about 85k.

First I bought 11 of the 24 slot bags for my main, and to be honest I donno what else I spent. I'm just so unmotivated to keep making gold... After I hit the 100k mark it was hard to stay focused.

I've spent my auctioning time leveling up a new rogue from 1 to 57. I've also leveled my Bloodsail Pirates rep up to 10% revered... The grind of the AH just has me fried at the moment.

I wonder myself if Gevlon runs into this issue as well? He's strayed away from his gold advice and writes now about his PVP project and Blue Gear Raiding project...

So my question to you good people who still are subscribed and read, how do you keep yourself motivated? any tricks? do you set any sort of limits on yourself?

CMill

The Big Screen TV Effect

noreply@blogger.com (cmill) — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 20:29:00 +0000

Well... I have not touched WoW at all this week besides our raid (one shot on all bosses in ICC w00t!). The reason? I got a new home theater, and I've played with the best way to hook it up and rearrange the room all week. Also I've watched movies every night.

Hope everyone had a profitable week. I'll write something more informative when I get back from my short break!

Are 48hr Auctions Worth It?

noreply@blogger.com (cmill) — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 15:06:00 +0000

Now that I've passed the 100k mark, I'm having problems motivating myself to keep going. Though my end goal is the gold cap, and I'm over halfway there, my lazy side is flaring up.

I'm considering pulling a Gevlon and posting every 48 hours and changing my undercut from 25s to 50s. I'm not to sure with everyone in my market using QA if the undercuts make that big of a difference to be honest, I'm not sure.

How many of you do 48 hour posts with QA? Have you had any luck? Are there any settings you have that you can't live without?

I've started teaching my boss at work how to make gold via inscription. If you have any starter scribe suggestions, feel free to leave them, I think he reads my blog.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Ding... 100k

noreply@blogger.com (cmill) — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 13:33:00 +0000

Sorry it's been so long guys... I'll go over my blog changes in a bit.

So yesterday I passed up the 100k mark. For those of you who are to lazy to read the old blogs, I've done this all from selling glyphs, inks of the sea and rune scrolls of fort. I've sold a few other things here and there like ores and gems I get on my main, but 99% of my profits are from glyphs.

Some interesting information however, I looked in the statistics tab last night, and out of my 104k gold profit, I've made a total of 208k gold from the AH.... So I'm getting a return of exactly 50% on my money

On to the blog, I feel like I started writing crap just to give you guys something to read. That's not what I want this blog to be. I want to write interesting stuff or at the very least useful stuff. That being said I will try to post at least one quality post a week.

Hope everyone has a good week!

The Legendary Ring

noreply@blogger.com (cmill) — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 13:35:00 +0000

Good morning guys. I think Wednesday is going to start being our “post raid activity” day. Last night we grinded trash again… for 2 ½ hrs…. gahhh… I haven’t killed trash as much as some of the rest of my guildies but I’m up to 3690/12000 honored. I’d say about half of my group is already in revered, and a decent amount of people on our server are exalted… just insane imo – if the ring was legendary it might be worth this extra trouble, but as it is we’ll probably be in ICC for another 10 months. The rest of the raid was boring, after the trash we one shot every boss, no one died, raids are too easy qq.

Someone mentioned last week that the ring is a nice upgrade for people who aren’t decked out in the nicest raid gear. That is true but how many people are dedicated enough to farm trash for a ring, but aren’t dedicated enough to raid and get upgrades?

On a different note, I wanted to explain the 80/20 rule a little better after a comment I received about yesterdays post. The idea of the 80/20 rule is 20% of your glyphs will make up 80% of your income from glyphs. For people who make all the glyphs by hand rather than with their add-ons, they need to focus on those 20% of the most profitable glyphs. For the rest of us who automate things, we probably play in more than just the glyph market (I do at least). We should figure out which market is the most profitable (be it JC, Inscription or whatever) and push most of our effort in that area.

Question of the day: What market (or area of your market) is most profitable?

The 80 20 Rule - It will make you OVER 9000 Gold!

noreply@blogger.com (cmill) — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 13:38:00 +0000

Many of you have probably heard of the 80 20 rule before. In a nutshell, it says that you get 80% of your results from 20% of your effort… which means that 20% of your results come from 80% of your effort.

The thing that sets rich scribes apart from the scribes who don’t make much are the efficiencies that we gain along the way. For example, in about 30 min time I can craft and post half stacks of every glyph in the game, where most other newer scribes will take an hour or so to figure out which glyphs will sell the best and create and post just those.

Focus this week on where the 80% of your results are coming from… then focus on putting more than 20% of your effort here.

Giving Away Gold

noreply@blogger.com (cmill) — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 15:33:00 +0000

I hope everyone had a great weekend, and I hope even more of you have the day off work (I sure wish I did.) However on to today’s topic, Giving Away Gold.

If you read my last post, I talked about giving a gift to your farmers. I want to expand on this idea a little. If you ever hope to reach the gold cap, you need to worry about having repeat customers. Go back and read that last sentence again, it’s that important. Repeat customers will be your bread and butter on the way to the gold cap. Don’t believe me? Start tracking who buys what from your auctions. You’ll probably have several of the same M&S buying random glyphs from you, or the same people who respec every week who need the glyphs and buy them all the time.

Now to the title, Giving Away Gold… I am NOT condoning giving out your gold to bums and M&S, however I had one of my customers come up to me the other day. The glyph he needed was posted at my fallback price of 60g. He asked if I could make him a deal. I then gave him the glyph for free… yes FREE!

I know, I lost a 60g opportunity cost – but that is very short term. This guy will remember I gave him the glyph for free, and he will come back and buy more later. Now this wasn’t just some shmuck that bugged me, but I knew it was someone who was in a good guild and tanks, DPSes and PVPs. I donno if he’s bought from me before or not, but I KNOW he will buy from me again.

Business update… I made 12k over the weekend and broke past my 75k goal! On to 100k!

Goblins are not Grinches

noreply@blogger.com (cmill) — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 05:20:00 +0000

Merry Christmas everyone! Just a short update, I’m currently at 65,000g. I’ve spent so far in the last week about 5000g on herbs and 2000g on gems and enchants for my main raiding toon. So that gives me a total of 22,000 gold for the week… defiantly my best week ever.

Just wanted to remind everyone that just because we are goblins does not mean we can’t be kind and generous to our friends in the game. Do yourself a favor, send your farmers a Christmas present via in game mail. It’ll make them feel good, it’ll make you feel good, which makes business run smoother for both parties.

I hope everyone has a safe and fun holiday.

Put Your Stuff in Haris Piltons Portable Hole

noreply@blogger.com (cmill) — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 14:56:00 +0000

In case you don’t get the title, 3.3 introduced a new 24 slot bag that Haris Pilton sells called the portable hole. At 3000g (125g per slot) it shows how important bag space can become for some people.

If you’re in the glyph industry, you probably already have 11 Packs of Endless Pockets, which is the 32 slot inscription bag. I hear lots of people complain about the 32 slot bags not being enough storage, but it should be plenty of room for all of your glyphs. Currently in the game there slightly less than 350 glyphs (If someone feels ambitious you can go look up the exact number.) If you use 11 of the 32 slot bags, plus you backpack you have a total of 368 slots… more than enough for a full stack of every glyph.

What most people have problems with is where to put the rest of their junk. My first obvious answer is have a guild bank – but most of you already probably have one or have thought of this already. But have you ever thought of using the AH as your personal storage bin?

Typically what I do is I upload all my glyphs 4 bags (and a backpack) at a time to the AH. So at any given time my bank is empty of glyph materials. Unless you are working on a HUGE crafting session, this should produce more than enough bank space on one character to meet all your needs.

Question of the day: What is your creative way to save bag space?

Wtf? Are We Seriously Grinding Trash?

noreply@blogger.com (cmill) — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 13:28:00 +0000

Rep grinding… everyone hates it… well I guess I shouldn’t say everyone, I’m sure there is one idiot who likes it (the same idiot who likes to eat paste in grade school). As much as I hate it, I enjoy that it separates the lazy M&S from the rest of us. It also is designed to give rewards over time to the players.

But here’s the dealio… many people (some of my guild included) in a rush to get their 277 rings are farming trash in an effort to get it faster. Why? So they can get a lousy 19 item points on their ring. Yes I realize its best in slot for many people but it’s not like everyone won’t get it eventually. Seriously… we have like a year left in ICC. From the looks of it we have 4 months before hard modes come out too, which by that time we will most likely be exalted.

Grinding… just the thought of it makes me cringe…. That’s why I started playing the AH to avoid such painful tasks… I guess WoW is the wrong game for me if I hate grinding so much? Oh well, I’ll live.

Gold update: as of 11:30pm last night I was up to 61,000.

Chuck Norris Sells Glyphs of Anal?

noreply@blogger.com (cmill) — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 13:35:00 +0000

So last night I had a RECORD one night of sales… I sold a total of 450 glyphs in one night! How you may ask? Chuck Norris and anal jokes.

You may laugh, and you might not believe me (no screen shot so it never happened am I right?) and I can’t say that I blame you, I’m not sure I believe it myself.

So this is what happened… the anal [link item here] jokes were going around, and some Chuck Norris jokes were going around. My immature side got the best of me and I joined in with “anal Chuck Norris?”

Then I thought… I have a captive audience made of mostly M&S who are reading each and every anal joke that comes across the screen… so the next thing I type is…

“/2 anal [glyph of whatever] now on the AH! Chuck Norris already bought 3!”

And you guessed it… glyphs started selling… and I kept spamming. I’ll have an updated total gold amount for you when I log on later today, I’m estimating it to be up to 60k already.

Also a bit of a house keeping note, I’m planning on blogging every Monday – Friday now and I’m considering creating a YouTube channel for Warcraft gold making if I see enough interest in it. Please leave me a comment and let me know.

PS just updated the gold total! 60k now in the guild bank and some change to spare!

Yellow Snow Sells Glyphs!!

noreply@blogger.com (cmill) — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 13:30:00 +0000

Well, yellow snow might not sell glyphs, but it defiantly sells beer as you can see from this youtube link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNs_F4E1CNk.

Today’s topic is advertising. You may think that advertising won’t make a difference in your sales but you’d be surprised. A little /2 spam from a bank alt WILL draw attention to the AH.

“/2 Fire sale! All glyphs in game now on AH!” or “/2 Buy one ink get one FREE! Or buy them half price on the AH”

Every time I spam the AH I noticed that things start selling almost immediately. The /2 spam does two things.

1) It reminds the M&S that he has gold in his backpack that he has to spend before he logs off
2) It reminds the lazy raider who didn’t get the right glyphs yet that he needs to do so.

Give my advice a try this week… watch how your sales come rolling in!

p.s. Guild bank already up to 57,000g!!