Just Another Wow Blog

So long, Azeroth

2011-06-17T12:57:00.000-07:00

Obviously, I haven't updated this blog in a while, and I suppose it's finally time to officially say goodbye to it.

The reason I'm giving it up is that I want to spend my time on something a bit more academic. I'm currently an MBA student, and doing some academic work on virtual economics. Starting off with how to make money in WoW seemed like a nice, logical step into the blogging world, but now I'm moving to something broader. For anybody who's interested, the new blog is Virtual World Economics. Thanks for reading, and I hope I've helped some people to make money more easily in WoW.

And I'm broke! A story of riches to rags

2011-01-10T13:13:00.000-08:00

I knew that the launch of Cataclysm would be an expensive time for me. I had decided to go for a realm first, mainly just because I'm a sucker for achievements. I ended up getting realm first illustrious enchanter, which cost me something in the neighborhood of 50,000 gold. I also decked out my first level 85 character, my protection warrior, in as much BoE gear as I could find. Despite that, my gold kept going up, because I was making an absolute fortune off of crafted PvP gear and prospected, uncut gems. I think my high point was somewhere in the neighborhood of 300,000 gold. But then I started leveling my other two characters, my mage and my priest, and I started spending on them as well. Long story short, they're both decked out with quite a few BoE epics and they were both close to ilevel 350 right when they hit level 85, but I'm now close to broke. Well, broke might be an understatement, but I have about 40,000 gold left, which is awfully low for me.

I sort of expected this to happen. I knew I would get wrapped up in the new Cataclysm content, and I'm somewhat of a hardcore raider, so I've always thought getting yourself equipped as best as possible before raids is important. So I've spent money on BoE gear, enchants, gems, flasks, and the like. I've also spent tens of thousands of gold helping other members of my raid group get BoE gear themselves. After the PvP goldmine dried up as more crafters started competing in those markets and the Tol Barad honor change helped most of the hardcore PvP'ers get the higher level gear, I prettymuch stopped making money. It's not that I couldn't, it was just that I was busy doing other things with my time in game. So, gradually, my pool of cash got smaller and smaller. I don't regret any of this, I've enjoyed the new Cataclysm content and I've never been one to make gold just for the sake of having a lot of it, I make gold to equip my own characters and to be able to help my friends.

But now my 3 characters are all 85, and it's time to get that gold stockpile built back up. I should note here that I absolutely hate farming. Personally I find it boring, and I also think it's generally a worse use of time than playing the AH. I see lots of other gold blogs talk about great farming locations, and that's fine for them, if they enjoy that part of the game. But I don't, so you generally won't see farming posts from me. I believe that the auction house is, far and away, the best way to make money. And now it's time to focus on doing that again.

Not coincidentally, my focus on other aspects of the game besides making gold has coincided with a drop in post frequency on this blog. So, as I start working on making gold again, you'll see more posts about that. But there's something else that I need input about. I started this blog to talk about other things besides just making gold, but since that was what I was focused on at the time the blog started, that's what all the posts have been about. I've been working on a series of class-specific guides to heroic dungeons and raid encounters as well, and what I'd like to hear from readers is if they would like to see this blog evolve into more of a general-purpose WoW blog or if I should start a second blog for content focused on PvE content and keep this one purely for making gold.

Please comment and let me know what you'd prefer.

Tol Barad changes again, unsurprisingly.

2011-01-03T15:19:00.000-08:00

Blizzard appears to have reversed their stance on Tol Barad and nerfed the honor gain for an attack from 1,800 to 360. A quick look around the forums shows that there are all sorts of opinions about this, but what I'm concerned about is how it affects the markets. What I wrote in a previous post about how the Tol Barad changes could be used to make money is now not as relevant, as we won't have huge numbers of players getting 1,800 honor from a win and rushing off to buy, gem, and enchant a piece of PvP gear. So how will these changes play out on the auction house, and how can we use them to make money?

First off, a slower average income of honor means a slower rate of acquiring PvP gear. This means that those PvP gems and enchants I recommended selling immediately after each TB attack won't be selling as fast now, so I hope you made some good money off of them while the fun lasted. I know I did. :) A simple fact of enchanting and jewelcrafting is that demand is heavily influenced by the average rate of gear acquisition. When it goes up, demand goes up, so you should be ready to sell more. When it goes down, demand goes down, so you can cut back (but not stop!) supplying these markets.

The benefit to the change is that the crafted PvP pieces (the ilevel 339 gear like Bloodied Pyrium, Emberfire, etc.) will become more attractive again. When people could get 1,800 honor per TB win, there was no point in spending money to buy crafted gear that would be outdated within a day or two. But with this new change, people will be getting honor at a slower rate, and thus the crafted gear looks more attractive. The majority of players will not have completed their PvP sets in the brief time that Tol Barad gave 1,800 honor, and to remain competitive, they'll be wanting to upgrade their PvP gear. This is a good time to get back into those markets. Check out my previous post about making gold with crafted pvp gear for more information about how to work these markets, and remember to watch out for the pieces that people are leveling tradeskills with!

The big point of all of this is what I keep harping on: the markets are volatile right now. Being quick to adapt is the best way to make money. Not only are the markets changing on their own as players progress through Cataclysm, but Blizzard has been making (and will likely continue to make) fairly quick changes as they balance their new expansion. All of these changes have impacts on the gold markets, so stay up to date on the news and always be thinking about how a change will affect what players want to buy.

And now for a change of pace, a guild recruitment post!

2011-01-02T12:31:00.000-08:00

Nothing about making gold in this one, but I figure a fair number of people seem to read this site, so maybe it might work out. My guild, Reason of Korgath, is recruiting for a raid group that runs Tues/Wed from 9pm-midnight Pacific time. We'll likely add a third day once we pick up a few more people. If you're looking for a guild, check below the break for more information.

Reason is an Alliance guild that was founded on Kil'jaeden in August of 2005 and transferred to Korgath via a free transfer when that server first opened. We've been around for a long time, so we can offer stability - if you join us, you never have to worry about your guild vanishing in a poof of drama. We'll be here, and if you're both a good player and a fun person, you'll have a guild to call home for as long as you want to play WoW.

We're currently running 2 10-man groups, and the group I run is looking for a couple more people. We run on a merit basis - the best players get the guaranteed spots. If you come and prove yourself, you'll have a spot every raid.

We believe in a casual schedule and a hardcore attitude. Right now we're raiding Tuesday and Wednesday from 9pm PST - midnight PST (we may add a third day in the next couple of weeks, we'll see). We don't want raiding to be a second job, as most of us did that back in vanilla/BC. So we want to get the most of our raid time, which means we expect people to come ready to raid and do whatever they can outside of raids to improve their characters. Here are the expectations we have:

    * You need to prepare yourself for raids. This means getting gear from heroics/reputations, it means getting gems and enchants, it means coming with consumables to every raid. You need to do everything you can to make sure you're as good as you can be pre-raid. We use consumables for EVERY progression boss, which means health/mana pots, flasks, etc.
    * You need to research your class and role. Cataclysm is very different from Wrath, you need to dust off abilities that you never needed to bother with before. You'll need to realize that unlike Wrath, where just doing the most dps was the way to go, Cataclysm is more about staying alive, dodging avoidable damage, and CC'ing and attacking the right targets at the right times. Tunnel vision dps just doesn't cut it anymore.
    * If you can't make it to a raid, you need to let us know. Things come up, and life happens. But get in touch and tell us if you're not going to be there so we're not all sitting there at raid time waiting for somebody who's not going to show.

It's going to be a learning curve for everybody. There will be plenty of wiping at the start, and that's fine. That's part of progression as we learn encounters. People will make mistakes, but so long as they can learn from them, you're not going to be yelled at for screwing up. Just don't keep making the same mistake over and over.

We're not really looking for particular classes, though our group is pretty melee-heavy at the moment. We could use another tank, another healer, and a couple of ranged dps. You can apply at reason.wowstead.com (the new site, which is still a work in progress), or www.reasonkorgath.com/forums (the old site, which I'll still check). Or feel free to comment on this, or come over to Korgath, where you can find me on Xand, Pandamere, or Xandamere.

The Tol Barad honor change and how it affects the markets

2010-12-31T14:46:00.000-08:00

Tol Barad was recently changed so that the attacking side gains 1800 honor for winning. There is also a borderline exploit where you can stand at the bridge just outside the zone, run in just before the last base is captured, and still get the honor even if you never got the queue for the battle (seriously, go check out that bridge when your faction is attacking, it's hilarious how many people are there). Because of this change, honor is extremely easy to come by, which means the pvp gear you can buy with honor is quickly becoming very common. So how does this affect us as gold-makers?

The market for crafted pvp gear has dried up quickly. With honor so easy to come by, who wants to spend the money to buy crafted pieces? 1800 honor is just about 1 piece per Tol Barad battle, and as most of the time the offense now wins, that's 1 pvp piece every 4 hours. I'm a bit sad about this, because I made an absolute killing off of the crafted pvp gear, as in hundreds of thousands of gold. And I hope a lot of readers made money off of it too while it lasted, but I suppose all good things must come to an end.

There is an upside to this change, however! Lots of fast gear replacement means lots of business for jewelcrafters and enchanters. When people are getting gear so quickly, the first thing they'll do after buying it is hit up the auction house to gem and enchant it. This is a great time to be selling gems and enchants that pvp'ers want, and I would definitely recommend keeping a stock of supplies to list immediately after a Tol Barad attack ends. The half hour or so after an attack, as people do dailies and then filter back to town to get their new gear, is a very busy time for selling gems and enchants.

I expect that you're going to see this market pattern for the next few weeks. Some players already have their full honor sets, but keep in mind that most of the population is a lot more casual, so they might get one Tol Barad battle a day. I've actually started getting pvp cuts on my jewelcrafter to take advantage of this while it lasts.

The early days of Cataclysm have been all about rapid market changes, and those able to react fastest to it are those making the most money. Be aware of changes to the game and what players are doing, and you'll be able to figure out where they will be spending their gold.

Time is money, friend - your time is valuable, so spend it wisely

2010-12-28T11:19:00.000-08:00

And I'm back from Christmas vacation, so blog updates can start again! I hope everybody had a good holiday. :)

Today's topic is the value of your time. People often say things like "well I farmed the mats, so it's free" as they post crafted items for below the cost of materials in the auction house. We know this isn't true, because you could have sold those materials for more than you're selling the crafted the item for. This is what's known as opportunity cost, and it's been blogged about thoroughly, so I won't go over it in detail here. What I want to talk about is the value of time when it comes to making gold and playing the auction house.

Towards the end of Wrath I found myself with little else to do, so I spent a lot of time on the auction house. I'd buy materials, craft items, disenchant, prospect, and all of that goodness to make a few gold. But now that Cataclysm has launched, I've found that I want to spend more time out playing and enjoying the new content and less time dealing with my gold-making empire. Buying ore to prospect in order to craft rings that I can then disenchant to sell the mats for a 2 gold profit per item (part of the classic Saronite Shuffle) might have been appealing in Wrath when I didn't have much else to do, but now it just feels like too much time spent for too little reward. In short, I want to become more efficient, so I've been focusing solely on markets where I can make good money with little time investment.

I used to be a big player in the low-level BoE market on my server. It was good money, but it also took a fair amount of time, scanning the AH frequently for items posted well below value and buying them up. In this market it's also very common for auctions to not sell, so it involved a lot of time clearing out my mailbox, reloading my UI over and over, and relisting. Since Cataclysm, I've sold off most of my stock and gotten out of this market. It's just not worth the time investment to me anymore. Netherweave bags also take ages to craft, so even though I can make 10-15g per bag, it's no longer worth the hassle to me. I've sold off what I had stockpiled, but I'm no longer buying netherweave.

The markets I'm focused on right now are crafted pvp gear, jewelcrafting, and enchanting (now that enchant scrolls have finally started to sell for more than the cost of mats). My main is also a blacksmith, so I sell chaos orb gear as well as belt buckles. The common theme of all of these markets is that they take very little time to work. I'm even willing to buy bars instead of ore and pay a slight premium, as well as uncut gems rather than ore to prospect myself (unless I can find some delicious, cheap pyrite to blow up). I'm currently willing to make less money in order to spend less time, so I have more time to run heroics, do dailies for reputation, pvp, and get ready for raiding.

So the question becomes, what's the cutoff point? How do I value my time and decide which markets are worth being in? I like to use farming as a basis to judge. I figure I can farm in the neighborhood of 1,000-1,500 gold per hour if I sell everything I collect. Now, I hate farming, so I never actually do it intentionally, but it's just a basic meter for what my time is worth. This means my time is worth roughly 20 gold per minute, so if I'm spending 5 minutes gathering mats and crafting stuff that will make me a 50 gold profit, it's not worth my time. If I advertise in trade that I'm doing enchants and need to wait 3 minutes for somebody to decide what they want, gather materials, find me, get the enchant, and tip me 20 gold, it's not worth my time (which is why I don't use /trade to sell enchants anymore).

All of this is just my personal preference, of course, but I find it helpful in figuring out what my time is worth so I can decide what markets to be involved in. I guess you could say I'm a bit addicted to making gold, so if I didn't have a way to check myself, I'd be spending all day scouring the markets for a few extra gold here and there. Having a benchmark stops me from doing that and gives me more time to play the rest of the game, so I hope it's helpful to you all as well.

I'm also curious what other people think. Do you use any sort of benchmark to figure out if something is worth your time?

And it's Christmastime!

2010-12-19T16:30:00.000-08:00

First it was Cataclysm and now Christmas has snuck up on me. I'm going out of town too visit the family, so the blog is going to be a bit quiet for the next week. But I'll be back after Christmas, I have a lot more to write about. Thanks to everybody who's been reading it so far, it's really great to see people enjoying what I've written, and hopefully some of you have found it useful and profitable.

And remember, the whole reason why I and all of the other WoW gold bloggers out there do this is because it's fun and we like to help people out. We do it for the readers, so if there's anything you'd like to see me write about or any feedback about how I can do a better job of passing along information, please let me know.

Merry Christmas and happy Winter Veil!

A Cataclysm crafting price database

2010-12-17T09:41:00.000-08:00

A project I've been working on for the last couple of days is a crafting spreadsheet with popular items and what materials are used to make them. It's fairly simple, you plug in the costs of each material and it spits out a total cost to make the item. So far it includes blacksmithing, tailoring, leatherworking, alchemy, and a nice little prospecting spreadsheet. I've found it to be really helpful, and now it's at a stage where I feel like I can share it.

Xandamere's magical crafting spreadsheet

A few notes: This is a public Google document, but only I can edit it. So what you need to do is go to Google docs, create your own spreadsheet, then copy/paste the pages you want from mine into yours. That will let you edit the sheet to plug in prices from your server. Or, you can go to the file menu and save or download the entire spreadsheet that way. Thanks to Lavache of the JMTC forums for pointing that out. :)

I've included the popular level 85 stuff, which at this point is basically PvP gear and epic items. If you want to add in anything else, like say the lower-level blacksmithing stuff, the format is there and all you need to do is plug in the materials used. A few other notes:

Chaos orbs and dreamcloth are not included in cost. You have to decide for yourself what you want to charge for these.
The prospecting spreadsheet is a work in progress. Right now it's using Wowhead prospecting data, which is fairly complete for obsidium and elementium, but less so for pyrite.
I plan to update the prospecting spreadsheet to take the full shuffle into account, such as including the possibilty of crafting jasper rings and disenchanting them, or transmuting green-quality gems to blue or meta. That'll happen in the next few days.

Personally I've found this more useful than Lilsparky's Workshop so far in Cataclysm, because the auction data has been fluctuating so quickly. So, I hope somebody else finds it useful as well. :)

Now is the time to make gold with bags

2010-12-16T08:08:00.001-08:00

Back before Cataclysm, everybody was talking about what to stock up on, what would sell well and make us all rich. Netherweave and Frostweave bags were two items that came up frequently. Everybody knew they were "can't-lose" investments, because new characters all need bags, right? And sure enough, as soon as Cataclysm hit, bags started flying off the Auction House, and prices started rising. But that wasn't the best time to sell bags. Now is the best time to sell, and if you have (or make) a good supply of bags starting this weekend, you're going to make a killing.

Why is that? There are two reasons. The first is that a lot of people haven't really started playing Cataclysm. Maybe they've bought it, installed it, and played around a little bit, but server queues can be discouraging if you get home from school or work to find an hour wait in order to log on. A lot of people will have been waiting for winter break to really get into it, and that's starting this weekend. A lengthy vacation means a lot more people playing, which means a lot more people needing to buy things.

The second reason, and the one that's more interesting to me, is competition. Everybody knew that bags were going to sell great when Cataclysm launched, so everybody posted their bags for sale....and now everybody's sold out of bags. A lot of people don't want to spend an hour making more bags to sell when they could be out enjoying new content (have you SEEN the craft time on Netherweave bags?). As soon as Cataclysm released there were hundreds or even thousands of bags being posted, and now they've all sold. As of this morning, my server's auction house had 0 (yes, ZERO) Netherweave or Frostweave bags posted for sale.

There was a huge increase in demand for bags immediately after Cataclysm launched, but there was also a lot of supply available. We saw some price increases in those first couple of days, but only by a few gold per bag. Now we still have a high level of demand, but the level of supply has dropped by quite a bit. High demand plus low supply equals high prices. I've seen Netherweave bags go from 10 gold pre-Cata to 15 gold in the week after release to 30-40 gold now, while Frostweave bags have gone from around 70-80 gold to over 200 gold.

If you're not in the bag market, get into it. If you sold off your Cataclysm stockpile of bags already, check your server's AH, because it may be worth it to get back in. And also, the bigger lesson from what's happened with bags: predicting market trends is great, but predicting your competition and how they'll react to market trends is even better.

The Elementium Shuffle

2010-12-15T10:50:00.000-08:00

The Saronite Shuffle was one of the most popular ways for players with several professions to make money in Wrath, and it's coming back in Cataclysm with elementium ore. Elementium is plentiful and thus fairly cheap, and lots of people (including me) have talked about prospecting it to sell uncut gems and make great money. This has been one of my major sources of money so far, and I'm going to walk you all through it, including what to do with each gem to make the most money. Make sure to check your server's Auction House to see if the pricing trends on Korgath are similar to yours.

There are 6 colors of gems and 2 rarities that can be gotten from elementium, so it's pretty simple to lay this out and talk about what to do with each gem. Being efficient and maximizing the profit from each gem is how you'll make the most money with the Elementium Shuffle, so this bit's important.

Carnelian (red) - These don't tend to sell well, but with a transmute specced alchemist, you can turn 3 carnelians and 3 heartblossom into an inferno ruby, which sell great. If you're transmute specced, you'll even occasionally get extra inferno rubies for free. So if carnelians are selling for under 1/3 the price of inferno rubies, transmute.

Hessonite (orange) - These sell well on their own because they're very useful in leveling Jewelcrafting, as the jewelry made from hessonites stays yellow for a long time. Over the next several weeks as jewelcrafters max out their skill, though, demand will drop.

Zephyrite (blue) - Doesn't tend to sell very well on its own most of the time, but one of the jewelcrafting dailies requires 3 of them. You can also transmute 3 zephyrite and 3 azshara's veil into an ocean sapphire, which sell nicely and can proc freebies with a transmute master. On the day of the zephyrite daily, prices will spike dramatically (on my server they went from ~30g to ~100g yesterday). Always keep a couple of stacks of this in your bank for the daily, and keep an eye on the price of ocean sapphires. When sapphires are expensive and when you have a large stock of zephyrite, transmute some away.

Jasper (green) - Similar to zephyrite, it doesn't sell all that well on its own anymore, but there's a daily that uses it. You can also make a piece of jewelry with 1 jasper, so you can keep an eye on the price of enchanting mats on your server and turn jaspers into DE fodder if the price is right. So, just like zephyrite, keep a couple of stacks in your bank for the daily.

Nightstone (purple) - Sells well on its own because, like hessonite, it's useful in leveling jewelcrafting past when cut green gems give skill points. There's also a daily for it, which makes it even more valuable. These should sell well at any time and especially well during the daily, so keep a couple of stacks around to take advantage of price spikes.

Alicite (yellow) - Alicite is the redheaded stepchild of the gems, at least on my realm. It's not really needed for skill-ups, there's no daily for it, it's not worth a lot if you transmute it because uncut amberjewels don't sell very well, and the jewelry you make from it takes 2 gems so it's more difficult to disenchant profitably than jasper. For now I'm just dumping it and counting alicite as a loss, but if anybody has a better use for it, please let me know.

So now you've got your little gem factory going and you're churning out auctionable stuff. But you can also cut gems, right? So what cuts should you purchase? A lot of people seem to have gone for the standard popular cuts, like bold/brilliant/delicate red gems and solid/rigid blue gems. Personally, I've found that red and blue rare-quality gems sell well enough on their own, but I was building up a large stockpile of amberjewels (rare yellow gems) that weren't selling for very much. So I picked up a couple of yellow gem cuts to help move that stock. When considering which cuts to get first, don't just think about which gems are the most popular, because those markets will be the most competitive and there will be a high demand for uncut gems of that color. Look for where there's the biggest difference in price between an uncut and a cut gem, and where you're having trouble selling the uncut versions for a decent amount. This will vary from server to server, but on my server amberjewel and dream emerald cuts are the ones I'm aiming for first.

Simply prospecting elementium and selling whatever you get can still be profitable, but we're starting to see prices come down on the uncommon gems as more people level their jewelcrafting. For the first few days of Cataclysm just prospecting was free, easy money, but there's still a lot of money to be made in elementium if you know the value and what to do with each gem.

The next Cataclysm gold mine - PvP gear

2010-12-13T10:23:00.000-08:00

Making money in Cataclysm has, so far, been about being quick to spot opportunities and take advantage of them. The markets are shifting very quickly. Truegold was 5,000 gold each for a couple of days, now it's down to around a thousand on my server as more and more alchemists hit 525 skill. There was a great flipping opportunity when Blizzard announced they had cut the spawn rates of herbs and ore when you could buy heartblossom, twilight jasmine, and elementium ore and sell it a couple of days later for twice what you paid or more. But you have to be quick. The next hot market is going to be PvP gear, and if you really want to cash in you need to be crafting it today.

Rated battlegrounds and arenas start tomorrow, so people will be wanting to get themselves the best gear. I've already been selling the bloodied pyrium set pieces (for plate dps) pretty regularly, as they also help people meet the ilevel requirements to get into heroics, but I expect that the next couple of days are going to be a huge boom for these PvP sets. These pieces all require a lot of volatiles, so prices for all should shoot up quite a bit over the next couple of days. If you can't make any of this gear, investing in volatiles today should net you a nice return by selling tomorrow. But if you can make the sets, there's even more money to be made. Here's the set breakdown:

Blacksmithing
Bloodied Pyrium: Plate dps set, takes elementium bars and volatile fire
Ornate Pyrium: Plate healing set, takes elementium bars and volatile water

Leatherworking
Bloodied Dragonscale: Mail agility set, takes heavy savage leather, bloodied dragonscales, and volatile life, water, and fire
Bloodied Scale: Mail caster set, takes heavy savage leather, bloodied dragonscales, and volatile life, water, and fire
Bloodied Leather set: Leather agility set, takes heavy savage leather and volatile life, water, and fire
Bloodied Wyrmhide set: Leather caster set, takes heavy savage leather and volatile life, water, and fire

Tailoring
Emberfire: Cloth caster set with haste and spirit, takes cloth, volatile fire and water
Fireweave: Cloth caster set with crit and mastery, takes cloth, volatile fire and air

As you're making this stuff, you need to consider your customers and how big each market is. We all know that there are far more dps players than healers in WoW, so you'll sell more of those types of sets. The Bloodied Pyrium, Emberfire, and Fireweave sets should sell the best, as they're worn by dps of multiple classes. Bloodied Dragonscale and Bloodied Leather should be right behind, as they're also used by dps, just with fewer overlapping classes than the other 3. Bloodied Scale will be popular with resto and elemental shaman, and Bloodied Wyrmhide is good for resto and balance druids. Finally, Ornate Pyrium will only be used by holy paladins. The last 3 sets can still be profitable, but you shouldn't expect nearly the volume in these as with the dps sets.

Tuesday's coming. People have already been buying this gear, but the volume will start to pick up tonight as people want to get ready for PvP. Get crafting and get this stuff up and listed today. Good luck!

Back to the blog!

The first weekend of Cataclysm and how to profit from it

2010-12-11T08:41:00.000-08:00

We're starting to hear about guilds killing raid bosses, but it's still very, very early in the expansion. Guilds like Paragon aside, the vast majority of players are not yet level 85. Most of them haven't leveled professions . It's a great time to be out farming, and it's an even greater time to have some solid crafting professions. Here's a fun bit of anecdotal evidence: my guild has 20 level 85 players. Out of that pool of 40 professions, hardly anybody has anything over 500 skill level. 3 alchemists (1 me), 1 blacksmith (me), 1 enchanter (me), and such down the line. It's a small sample, but it's safe to say that most people are waiting to level professions. So if you've leveled yours, you're in a great position to make a ton of money. Let's talk about how.

You need to think about what customers want and how you can fill those needs. One big roadblock at level 85 is getting the required average item level in order to queue for heroics. A lot of players don't want to run normal dungeons to get gear, they just want to jump straight into heroics. These players will hit the auction house looking for gear. On the high end, you have people who want some of the first epics on the server, which is the stuff crafted with chaos orbs. And on the lower end, you have people who want to level professions without spending time out farming because they just want to get back to questing or running dungeons as quickly as possible.

Being able to queue for heroics is all about average item level. You need 329 in order to queue, so anything over that should be a good seller. One particularly strong seller for me has been crafted PvP gear, as it's ilevel 339 so it will help boost their average a good deal. In fact, this stuff is the best combination of high ilevel and easy availability. It's been selling really well for me, so I'd recommend checking out the market on your server. The only trick is that you have to be level 84 to learn the recipes, as the vendors are phased in the Twilight Highlands.

I mentioned this in my last post, but it's so easy and profitable (for now) that it bears repeating: prospect elementium ore and sell the *uncut* gems. Jewelcrafters can't prospect elementium until 475 skill, so they're buying up uncut gems like crazy. On my server a stack of elementium sells for about 250g, and the cheapest green gems are selling for at least 50g each, with blue gems and some of the greens above 100. I'm roughly doubling my money on every stack prospected for almost no effort. This market won't last forever and I've already watched the prices on uncut gems come down a little bit in the last few days, so check it out while you have the chance. This might be some of the easiest money you'll ever make in WoW.
While you're at it, send some of those green gems to your transmuter to make shadowspirit diamonds. Jewelcrafters are just starting to be able to get the meta gem cuts, so these are flying off the AH for me at over 1,000 gold each. And don't forget your truegold transmutes!
The price of materials has started to stabilize over the last couple days, and though volatility is expected, if I had to take a guess I'd say that we're not likely to see them head downward any time soon. In fact, I think prices on ore and herbs are likely to head up a little bit,especially for farmed materials like ore and herbs. We've basically hit peak supply, as all of the new zones are highly populated and the nodes are being gathered quickly, but we haven't hit peak demand as plenty of players aren't leveling professions yet. More of those players are going to start leveling professions in the coming weeks, increasing demand, but the rate of materials being supplied won't really change.
Finally, one little trick if you're tired of looking for mages to port you back to a city from one of the new zones: carry some Potions of Deepholm with you. One of these little babies will teleport you directly to the main Deepholm hub, and you can take a portal back to a major city from there, saving you a great deal of time and hassle trying to find a mage.

As with all AH advice, you need to check your server's markets, as they're all different. But one thing that is common across all servers is that there is a lot of money to be made right now. Most people are focused on leveling and getting gear, and they're willing to spend all of that money they're making from quests. If you're crafty, you can get a good chunk of that money from their pockets to yours.

Early Cataclysm crafting for profit

2010-12-09T11:01:00.001-08:00

Well I'm loving Cataclysm, and crafting has been so profitable that I'm still only level 83! My bank account is loving it even more. There's so much to write about that there's no way I can fit it into one post without making it absurdedly long, so today I'm going to give a brief rundown of what I've been making money off of and then in the next couple of days I'll get into more detail.

Blacksmithing has been an absolute gold mine, especially because elementium was so plentiful that prices came down very quickly. Avoid the early recipes that people are using to level, just check your AH to see what there's a lot of. Belts and gauntlets, mostly. The higher-up stuff like helms, chestpieces, legs, shoulders, and the blue ilevel 333 weapons are selling great. I've been moving pretty good volume at 200-300% profit margins.

I've also been prospecting a lot of elementium ore and selling raw gems. The key here is that jewelcrafters can't prospect elementium themselves until they hit 475 skill, so they either have to prospect obsidium (which on my server is 3-4 times the price of elementium), or buy gems. This means that the vast majority of jewelcrafters will be hitting the auction house to buy green gems. Hessonite and Nightstone are especially valuable, as they jewelry they make takes you to higher skill levels than green gems. You can make a huge amount of money just doing this.

Truegold is...well....gold. I sold my first truegold for 7,500 gold (the cost was about 1,200), so I actually paid for a guildmate's last 25 points in alchemy in exchange for him giving me his transmutes if I supply the mats. If you've been holding off on leveling alchemy, get it finished up. Just a transmute or two will pay for all of the cost.

The key to all of these is that people just aren't leveling professions quickly. Everything's so expensive, the vast majority of players are waiting for prices to come down. So while it's expensive to level professions right now, you'll also be one of a very small numbers of crafters who can make the higher-level items. Check your AH's prices and supply and see where the opportunities lie.

Tomorrow I want to get into more detail on the relationship between Cataclysm resources and items. The markets are so new and so volatile that there is a huge opportunity to make money. I've already made a profit of close to 30,000 gold in Cataclysm, and that's after dumping about 80,000 in the first night leveling professions. Listen up, because this part's important: that means since leveling my professions, in the space of TWO days, I've made about 110,000 gold in profit. The money's out there, people have it to spend from all the money made while questing. It's just a matter of figuring out how to make it.

My first night of Cataclysm

2010-12-07T14:41:00.000-08:00

This one isn't so much about sharing gold tips as it is about sharing the experience I had with my first night in Cataclysm. Some people get frustrated with big release or patch nights, with the lag and tons of players out in zones, they find it an inconvenience. I find it exhilarating. I think it's a ton of fun because it makes the game feel more like an actual living, breathing world when there are a ton of people running around trying to do things, competing with each other, killing each other over a mining node. So needless to say, I had a great time last night, and it was the first time I pulled an all-nighter in a while.

I started off slowly enough, mining in Sholazar Basin to get up to 470 skill so that I could mine elementium with the gatherer enchant. I took off to Twilight Highlands on my miner alt, spent about an hour, and gathered about a dozen stacks of elementium, a couple stacks of pyrite, and some volatiles. I listed all of it on the AH for ludicrous prices and all of it sold right away, so that was a nice 15k start to Cataclysm. I then switched over to my mage, which is my main, and spent a while running Blackrock Caverns. It was fun, but not nearly as difficult as all the beta people made it out to be. Maybe they just had bad people in their groups, or maybe they nerfed it. It probably didn't hurt that our group was raid-geared. It was maybe a little bit more challenging than the average Wrath heroic. I'm looking forward to the higher-level instances and heroics at 85, though, as those look to be challenging.

I also decided to go for at least one realm first, in a profession. I know it's a waste of money because mats are ridiculously priced in the first night, but I figure what's the point of making all of this gold if not to do something with it, and the chance for a realm first only comes around every couple of years. I spent most of last night working on enchanting, which included not just buying stuff off the AH, but flying around to the new zones buying greens from people as well as using other professions to make greens for disenchanting. It took about 5 hours of solid work and roughly 50k gold, but I was the realm first illustrious enchanter on Korgath. So I now have a realm first on Xandamere from Wrath (Northrend Vanguard) and from Cataclysm. I'm undecided on if I want to try and also get Jewelcrafting or Blacksmithing (on my warrior alt), as they're both still available. One is probably enough.

All in all, a fun night. Kudos to Blizzard for a smooth launch, no major issues other than the experience problem, which was fixed almost immediately. I hope everybody else enjoyed it as much as I did.

My Cataclysm snatch list

2010-12-06T23:46:00.000-08:00

The minutes are ticking down. Everything is organized, spent about 2 hours posting a ton of auctions, and I'm ready to go. So, I figured I'd take a bit of time to write up my current Cataclysm snatch list. It's by no means complete, but I wanted to have a nice start so I can watch the markets right from the start. The prices are set really high, because I'm not interested in looking for deals, I just want to see what's out there and what the prices are without having to search for each item individually. Without further ado...

I'd first like to give credit to Server Fifth. I talked about building a snatch list ahead of time using a mod like Atlas Loot to get the links, but he (or she?) posted detailed instructions about how to build it using links from Wowhead or MMO-Champion. It's really useful, and I'd suggest checking it out here.

Now, here's what to snatch:

The metal: Obsidium, Elementium, Pyrite, and Truegold. All but Truegold come in both ore and bars.
The herbs: Cinderbloom, Stormvine, Heartblossom, Whiptail, Azshara's Veil, Twilight Jasmine
Volatile air/earth/fire/water/life
The uncommon gems: Jasper, Hessonite, Zephyrite, Alicite, Nightstone, Carnelian
Savage Leather / Heavy Savage Leather
Embersilk
Folded Obsidium (made by blacksmiths, some might AH it instead of using it)
Hardened Elementium Bar (same as above)

It's basic to start with, just the resources that are commonly gathered and used in profession leveling. This stuff should be in very high demand, so you should keep an eye on the AH to snatch up any that gets posted too cheaply. Nobody's really going to know what the "right" price is, so there will be plenty of opportunities to flip this stuff in the first few weeks. I'll add more to it as I see more of Cataclysm, and update this in the near future.

Good luck with the launch!

'Twas the Night Before Cataclysm - What to do

2010-12-05T14:33:00.000-08:00

Since most of us will be at work or school on Monday, today is the last full, free day that many of us have to prepare for Cataclysm. It's time to get everything sorted out and ready!

First, take care of the basics. Have your characters logged out where they need to be, hearthstones updated, daily quests complete and ready to turn in, or whatever you're planning on doing. Stock up on food and caffeine. There are a lot of Cataclycm checklists out there, including this great one at Cold's Gold Factory, so I won't rehash everything here.

Next, get your business in order. Store the long-term investments safely away, and get the stuff you're going to sell when Cata hits ready and easily accessible. I wrote about how to get yourself organized for launch day in detail, so check that out if you want more information. I mentioned setting your snatch lists up now, and Server Fifth posted a great guide detailing just how to do it. I'd suggest checking that out.

Now you'll need a strategy for listing auctions. You'll want to have all of your auctions listed and ready when Cata actually goes live at midnight, so you can jump right into the new content. I plan on pulling down most of my active auctions at about 10pm and then listing everything using a tiered pricing strategy. What I mean by that is instead of listing everything at one price, I will be listing groups of items at different price levels, so that I will capture early sales but also have higher-priced items ready to meet high demand. For example, I plan on listing a couple of hundred Netherweave Bags just prior to Cataclysm, which are currently selling for about 12g on my server. So my auctions will look something like this:

50 bags at 12g
50 bags at 13g
50 bags at 15g
50 bags at 17g

This gives a good combination of volume and margin, and can be used for any high-volume items you're selling. The hottest things to sell right when Cata hits will be the basic stuff that low-level characters need. They'll want bags, low-level BoE gear, enchants that they can put on any level of gear, and glyphs. Profession resources (metal, herbs, etc.) could be tricky, because there will be high demand for it, but also a lot of supply as another fresh wave of characters is created and starts going through early content. Deposit fees are cheap on this stuff, so I'm going to list a bunch of it in 48-hour auctions at high prices just to catch any waves of the entire AH being cleared out of a particular item, but I'm not expecting to sell a lot of it right away.

This should get you right where you want to be at launch time. Inventory organized, characters ready, auctions already listed, and you about to head out to Mount Hyjal or...whatever the other zone is whose name I can never remember. It's just about that time, folks. The last pre-Cataclysm post I'll be making is a broad overview of the economic effects of these huge waves of players leveling and how to profit from them. It's not one you'll want to miss!

Fun with crafting - low level crafted items to sell in Cataclysm

2010-12-04T10:16:00.000-08:00

Lots of new characters leveling up plus plummeting prices on most old-world resources equals a huge chance to profit with crafted items. Today's post is basically just in list format - it's everything I've been crafting and selling lately, and expect to continue selling well for the first month or so of Cataclysm. But first, there are a couple of basic rules to follow when looking for crafting opportunities at the 1-60 level range.

Avoid things that will be crafted in bulk by profession levelers. Many of them will dump everything they make on the AH, hoping to make back whatever they can on the money they're spending to level their profession. There are a couple of exceptions to this rule, but for the most part you're not going to make money here, because these sellers are often willing to dump their items for less than cost.
People get googly-eyed for blue items. Blues must be better than greens, right? Well, they generally are, but it's amazing how much more money you can charge for a blue-quality item that has only 1 or 2 more stat points than a similar green item.
Look for items that need uncommon materials. Something made purely out of copper bars isn't likely to sell well, but add in the requirement of a lesser moonstone or a shadow silk and you might have a good seller. This is because these items are generally avoided by profession levelers, as they're a slightly bigger hassle to make.

And now, the list! Obviously you need to check your server's AH for prices and competition, but this is what's been profitable for me. Also, I'm a bad gold blogger and don't have a maxed leatherworker yet, so I can't really comment on that profession's items.

Enchanting rods - arcanite and higher. All enchanters need these, and most enchanters aren't blacksmiths, so they'll be buying them from the AH.
Green Iron Hauberk - great low-level mail chestpiece. You'll need a LW to get it made.
Spidersilk Boots - I talk about these here. Great market.
Cloak of Frozen Spirits/of the Moon - Higher-level, but they tend to sell well for me.
Barbaric Bracers
Golden Ring of Power
Amulet of Truesight
Ruby Crown of Restoration
Truesilver Commander's Ring
Gem Studded Band
Misc. other low-level jewelry - low-level players don't have much access to rings and necklaces, so there's always demand for this stuff. Just watch out for what jewelcrafters use to level with.
Random enchant rings (Heavy Silver Ring, Aquamarine Signet, Sapphire Signet) - If you're feeling lucky, you could make a few of these. Ones with good enchants (of the monkey, the eagle, the boar, etc.) will sell well, but you might also get crappy ones.
Misc. green mail and leather gear - There's often a lot of this in the market, so talking about this violates rule #1, but it at level 25 and below it still sells very well. There aren't a lot of other gear options, people are just getting into instance runs, and you can sell this stuff at 5-10g each and make a good profit because of how little it costs to make. That's an attractive price for somebody looking for an upgrade but not wanting to dump 100+ gold on a blue item. I say mail and leather over cloth because physical dps classes tend to be more gear-reliant. Look for items with good stat modifiers, like strength/stamina and agility/stamina.

Enchant scrolls have been a great market for me since the Shattering. Leveling enchanters have taken some of the profit out of it, but you can still make great money because most of these enchants are very cheap to craft. Look for the highest level enchant that can be put on any level item. Here's a quick list of what I'm still finding to be profitable:

Weapon: Crusader, Fiery, Lifestealing, 15 Agility, 15 Strength, +22 Intellect, +30 Spellpower
Chest: +3 Stats, +100 Health (if you have the +4 stats enchant, it's a gold mine, but you probably knew that)
Boots: Run Speed, +5 Hit, +5 Stamina
Bracers: +9 Stamina, +7 Strength, +7 Agility, +15 Spellpower
Gloves: +7 Strength, +7 Agility
Cloak: Stealth, +3 Agility
Shield: +7 Stamina

Finally, and this might require a bit of advertising, but keys from blacksmithing have been a great source of income for me. Most rogues don't bother leveling lockpicking, and finding a rogue to unlock your lockboxes is a hassle anyway. I like just making cobalt keys, because they're cheap, they're crafted in stacks of 10 so it's quick to make them, and they can open just about any lockbox. You'll probably have to advertise these in trade a bit, as most people don't tend to think about keys, but you can make a ton of money with little or no competition. Note that when you craft keys, they're put in your keyring, so you have to look there to find them.

I think a lot of us expected to be able to make money off of leveling characters by selling them ore, herbs, and such as they level their tradeskills, and most of us were caught off guard by just how much more of that stuff was put into the world in the Shattering. But low-level characters have a lot of needs and most of them have gold to spend, so it's just a matter of finding what fits those needs. Crafted gear like this is a great market, because the cost to make it hasn't been so low in a long, long time, and demand is probably higher than it's ever been. Check out your server's markets, look for what's not being sold, and get there yourself.

It's Cataclysm launch time - how to prepare yourself to make money AND see the new content!

2010-12-03T14:18:00.000-08:00

Cataclysm launch day is fast approaching, and if you're reading this blog, you probably have a nice stockpile of stuff that you've been saving up and you're all ready to make money. But you probably also want to go see the new content, level up, and get your professions maxed quickly so you can jump into the new markets. Today I'm going to talk about how to manage your Cataclysm launch auctioning as quickly as easily as possible, so you can spend more time out in the new zones playing.

Designate an auction house character. For most players, one will suffice. If you have more than one account or multiple guild banks, you'll want a character for each account and guild bank, so you don't have to mess about with mailing things back and forth. The fewer characters you have to log in with and mail stuff around with, the less time this will all take. Put them in a good spot...Stormwind is still nice with the relation between the AH, the mailbox, and the bank, but it's going to be crowded. If you have a slower computer and lag in busy areas, you'll want to put your AH alts somewhere else.
Craft in advance! Anything you plan on putting up on the AH for the first few days should be crafted ahead of time and stored away. The less time spent crafting, the more time spent leveling. Over the weekend I plan to post my entire array of crafted items that I'm getting ready for Cataclysm. There are a ton of niche markets available here with great margins, so check back to find out what's going to be hot.
Get organized! Sort out your inventory and bank. I recommend placing small-number items in the character's inventory or bank, where it's easy to spot which item is which. This goes for things like BoE gear or anything that you only have a small number of stacks of. Depending on whether or not you use any inventory and bank management add-ons, you can arrange the items to taste, but try to keep like items together. If you want to find more Blackened Defias Belts to put up on the AH, you want to know right where they are.
Use the mailbox! This might be the most important tip for fast auctioning. You can store an infinite number of items in your AH character's mailbox, but you can only see 50 mails at a time. With 12 items allowed in a mail, that's still 600 total stacks worth of free, easily accessible storage. The trick is using it effectively. Keep each mail to one specific item, so if you send your AH character some Netherweave Bags, send them in batches of 12. Don't send a mail with 6 bags and 6 stacks of copper ore, that will make it harder to keep track. The mailbox will put the name of the first item in the mail's subject line, so if you do this, you can see what each mail contains without having to open the mail one by one. If you have a big enough stockpile that you need to send more than 50 mails to your AH character, stagger them, because it only displays the most recent 50. You don't want to have 75 mails full of Netherweave Bags blocking you from seeing your other items. So, send a couple mails of Netherweave Bags, then a couple mails of Copper ore, then a couple mails of your BoE blacksmithing pieces, then more bags...you get the idea. Smart management of your mailbox gives you a ton of additional, easily accessible storage.
Get a snatch list up, FAST! You can use Atlas Loot to get links of the Cataclysm stuff now and set up your snatch lists. I would recommend using multiple lists and setting the snatch price high, which will let you keep an eye on the markets and see what the new stuff is going for. This way, with just a few clicks, you can check prices on all of the new Cataclysm stuff rather than wasting time searching for each item individually.

Smart preparation like this will help you to keep your auctioning time to a minimum and leave you free to explore Cataclysm. Now it's back to my own prep work, I have a lot of stuff to organize and a lot of mails to send! Check back this weekend for information on crafted items and what to sell on day 1.

Requesting feedback and questions!

2010-12-02T16:45:00.000-08:00

This is a new blog, and I'm just getting my feet wet on the subject of blogging. So I have some questions for those of you who are kind enough to read what I've been writing.

I know I tend to write long articles. I like getting in-depth, trying to provide a better and more thorough understanding of a subject than I've seen from some other bloggers. Do people like this, or should I try to break things up into more, smaller articles? I don't want to run into the TL,DR situation, but if the long and in-depth articles are helpful to people, I'll continue working in that format.

Secondly, does anybody have any questions for me, or anything they'd like to see talked about that they can't find information on from other gold blogs? I don't write this for myself, I write it for other people, to help them out in their games. So I want to write what other people find useful. If you have a question, or want to see some discussion about a topic that you feel is overlooked in the gold blogging world, don't hesitate to ask! Just post a comment.

Thanks for reading! :)

Stockpiling for Cataclysm - Northrend edition

2010-12-02T09:02:00.000-08:00

With only 5 days until Cataclysm, it's high time to get that stockpile finished off. There were still be plenty of opportunities to buy after Cataclysm launches (and I'll talk about that in a future post), but most of us want to spend our time out seeing the new content, not huddled in an auction house. The key to being able to do this profitably is get ready now, and then have a good snatch list ready for Cataclysm so you can be efficient.

Let's deal with the "now" part first. I previously wrote about how Outland materials are a great place to invest. Another great area for investing is Northrend, because the materials are still in abundant supply, but won't be for much longer. Northrend is less accessible now, and because it's old content, leveling characters will be rushing through it as quickly as possible to get to the new Cataclysm zones. They won't be likely to take a leisurely pace through Northrend, spending time farming up the materials they'll need to level their professions, so they'll be AH'ing those materials later on. So, how to invest?

Northrend is a fairly simple area economically, compared to Azeroth and even Outland. Most of the needed items are commodities rather than fewer rare drops, which makes an auctioneer's job both easier and more difficult at the same time. It's easier because you have fewer items to keep track of but many of those items serve multiple purposes (see: saronite ore), so you're not dependent on one profession for your sales. But it's also more difficult, because you can't monopolize a market and you'll never see supply of something dry up completely. What you can do is invest wisely and always have a backup plan. Here's what to look for:

Infinite dust. Enchanters still need a ton of this (around 600 at least), even if they stop with Northrend recipes at 425 and switch to Cataclysm recipes. Enchanting materials are a good stockpiling item in general because they're hard to farm, and infinite dust is one of the best of them. Beware of other enchanting materials: cosmic essences aren't needed to hit 425 (and barely needed to hit 450). Dream shards are another potential area, as they are needed to purchase the Dalaran recipes, which means you can cater to those using Wrath recipes to level all the way to 450 as well as completionists.
Saronite: a safe bet if you can buy it around the vendor price (12g50s per stack of ore), as you can always smelt it to bars. This is a low-risk investment, but you're also probably not going to get rich off of it, because saronite will always be somewhat easy to farm. Some profession levelers will be able to skip needing saronite by moving to Cataclysm recipes at 425 skill, but you can always prospect it for gems that leveling jewelcrafters will need, or turn those gems into greens that you can vendor or D/E. Saronite is a safe investment that will turn a profit, just not an enormous one.
Cobalt and titanium are the real places to make money in the ore market. Both are much more spread out and difficult to farm than saronite. Cobalt is needed in larger quantities for profession leveling, as its use goes all the way from 350 to 425 skill. Titanium should hold its demand well into Cataclysm due to its use in motorcycles. These two ores should definitely be on your snatch list, and with all of the dumping going on right now, you can build your stockpile cheaply. Everybody seems to be big on saronite, and you can definitely make money with it, but I think the real money is going to be made in cobalt.
Northrend herbs are another safe investment if bought cheaply. Prices have been plummeting as scribes can no longer trade Ink of the Sea for other inks, however, Ink of the Sea is still going to be the most used ink. Cataclysm herbs will be more expensive than Northrend herbs for some time, so you shouldn't have to worry about loss of demand from scribes trading in Blackfallow Inks. Alchemy is also going to be a popular profession in Cataclysm due to the new mount, which will further drive demand. Herbs are something that will be more popular in the short term (1-2 months after launch) than the long run, as eventually Cataclysm herbs will drop in price as people spend most of their time in those zones and scribes can just buy those for their ink needs. Buy now as the prices collapse, and sell shortly after Cataclysm goes live.
Borean leather is really cheap right now and is needed in huge, huge quantities by leatherworkers. The Alliance, especially, should see a lot of leather demand due to the Worgen racial bonus. Most players won't collect all of the leather they need while leveling through Northrend, so there will be good demand here. Stockpile it cheaply, but I wouldn't make this a huge section of the stockpile, as unlike the other items listed leather only really caters to one profession.
Eternals (and frozen orbs) are actually a great market to be in, but you need to be careful about which ones you invest in. Eternal life will still see demand due to Darkmoon Faire decks, while earth and shadow can be turned into green items by jewelcrafters and then disenchanted. Eternal fire is needed (as well as earth and shadow) are needed for titansteel, which is used in making motorcycles. I'm less bullish on air and water, as their uses are more limited. The other four eternals have a wide variety of uses, including profession leveling up to 450, which will still be popular early on as it will be cheaper than using Cataclysm materials. Frozen orbs offer you the most flexibility as they can be traded in for any eternal, but at least on my server, eternal prices have absolutely collapsed while orb prices have remained steadier. If you want a price comparison, just look at the prices of primals from Outland over the last year or so and see how much they've gone up from where they were during BC.

That's the nice thing about Northrend, you don't need to stockpile 100 different things. Here's the Northrend buy list, in short form:

Infinite dust
Dream shards (if found very cheaply)
Saronite ore (around vendor price)
Cobalt ore
Titanium ore
Northrend herbs
Borean leather
Eternal fire, shadow, earth, life
Frozen orbs (if found cheaper than the eternals)

Whew, that was a long article. That's it for now, and it's almost the weekend! I'm planning on using this weekend to organize everything I've stockpiled over the last couple of months and get ready for the actual launch. Over the weekend I plan to write about how to organize yourself to do your auctioning quickly and efficiently once Cataclysm is live so you can spend most of your time out enjoying the new content, as well as initial launch strategies for making gold.

Spidersilk Boots - the perfect example of a niche market

2010-12-01T07:28:00.000-08:00

What are "niche markets?" Niche markets have a few important traits. They tend to be low volume sellers with high margins and little competition. Being successful in a niche market is all about dominating it. Niche markets don't tend to generate a large number of sales, so you want to make sure you're getting the vast majority of those sales.

Spidersilk Boots are a perfect example of how niche markets work. Since the Shattering, I've been selling 1 or 2 of these per day at 400 gold a pop, when they cost me well under 100 gold to make. So what is it that makes Spidersilk Boots such a great niche market, and how can we use this to spot other profitable niche market opportunities?

They're not easily farmable. If somebody wants a pair of these boots, they're not likely to try and farm spider's silk themselves, as the spiders that drop it are in awkward places and the drop rate isn't very high. If a potential buyer even knows they're crafted, they're likely to check the AH for the materials, and if they don't see the mats available, they'll just buy the pre-crafted boots that you have conveniently made available for them. Rare drops of any kind are a common trait in niche markets.
Controllable supply of materials. Given that the mats aren't really "farmed," you're unlikely to see a large supply, but rather just sporadic drops that are put up there by people who find it while leveling. Buy all of it if it's anywhere near reasonably priced, and you ensure that a potential buyer won't be able to find the mats to get them crafted by another tailor, and that no other tailor can find the silk needed to enter the market without farming it himself. I have about 30 silk stockpiled, but I keep buying whatever I see just to keep up my monopoly.
The item has poor or no substitutes. You need high margins to make niche markets worthwhile, as you won't have a high volume of sales, so each sale needs to make a good amount of gold to be worth your time. The way to spot a high margin market is to look for an item that has either poor substitutes, or even better, no substitutes. So let's look at Spidersilk Boots. Go to Wowhead and check out cloth boots with a maximum level requirement of 19, and you'll see that Spidersilk Boots are by far the best available, and one of only two BoE options. That makes them perfect for twinks, and great for leveling characters. Thus, Spidersilk Boots only have a poor substitute available. An example of an item with no substitutes would be enchanters needing 1 Primal Might to level, as they need this exact item and can't replace it with any other.
There's a good target market. You need to know who you're selling to, and what traits those players are likely to have. You want to sell to wealthy players, obviously, as they have more money to spend and don't mind paying a premium price. Spidersilk Boots target players with level 19 battleground twinks and leveling players who want the best possible gear to help them level faster. Both of these demographics are likely to have money to spend and won't mind spending it to get the best item for their characters.

If you can find an item that fits all of these traits well then you've found yourself a great niche market, but even if you find an item that only fits 2 or 3 of the traits, it can still be a profitable opportunity. The purpose of this article isn't to spoon-feed people the idea of crafting Spidersilk Boots (though it's a good market and I'd encourage you to work it if nobody's making them on your server), but rather, to talk about how to identify a good niche market and spot profitable opportunities.

Edit: since I originally wrote this, I’ve noticed that I haven’t been seeing ANY spider’s silk on the auction house, so I did a bit of research. Apparently the stuff isn’t dropping since the Shattering. I don’t know if this is a bug or an intentional change, but if it’s gone from the game for good, then these BiS twink boots are going to be worth huge amounts of money.

The economics of inflation - why stockpiling for Cataclysm is the right decision

2010-11-30T09:30:00.000-08:00

It seems that all anyone's talking about lately in the gold-making world is what they're stockpiling for Cataclysm. The idea of stockpiling is that with the rush of people returning to the game and leveling new characters, they'll need stuff, and if you buy that stuff now you'll be able to sell it for a profit later. So then these people get into a discussion about what stuff is best. What's most needed, what's rarest, what will go up in value the most. I'd like to talk for a little bit about WHY this is going to happen, as well as answer the main question of stockpiling, which is "what will go up in value? I need to know what to buy!"

The answer is "damn near everything." Cataclysm means inflation, and this is one of the few situations in which the WoW economy is actually very close to a real economy. Cataclysm quests, including dailies, are worth much more gold than Wrath quests. Just look at these daily quest rewards. 51 gold per quest! That sounds like a lot, but it isn't, and here's why: inflation. As incomes rise, so will costs. More income from dailies means farmers will demand higher prices to compensate them for their time spent farming, which means the stuff they farm will become more expensive. This is a basic concept of how inflation works: when you dramatically increase the supply of money, prices will rise to compensate.

So, Cataclysm will bring about what economists refer to as an inflationary environment. We can be confident of this because of the increased supply of gold, as well as the fact that this is exactly what happened with the last 2 expansions. In an inflationary environment, cash becomes worth less, and stuff becomes worth more. There are plenty of real-world examples of this (Google hyperinflation if you want to read some really interesting stories), but the end result is this: your carefully nurtured and protected pile of gold is going to be worth less in Cataclysm than it is now. This is why investors don't accumulate piles of money and hide it in their mattress, they invest it in assets. And in a high-inflation environment, it's what you need to do, too.

When Cataclysm hits, you don't want to be caught with most of your worth in gold. Having liquid assets is good so you can take advantage of buying opportunities, but most of your worth should be tied up in stuff. We can debate what is the best stuff to own. I've done it and many other gold blogs are doing it. But the real message is that you need stuff, not gold. Just about everything will go up in value, so while you should always be looking for good buys, don't be too cautious and end up not spending your gold.

Here's the end result and my recommendation after all of this economic theory: buy stuff. Don't tie up all your wealth in a few things, you want to be diversified. So, buy a lot of different stuff. If you hit Cataclysm with 300k in cash and a 30k stockpile of stuff, you're going to see your actual wealth decline quite a bit between now and the time the market gets settled a couple of months after release. Don't be that guy.

Making money off of profession levelers

2010-11-29T13:24:00.000-08:00

The big moneymaker right now is people leveling new characters. Now that mining and herbalism give experience, a lot of new characters are using dual gathering professions to help level quickly and make gold along the way. This means that as those characters start to hit max level, they'll be wanting to powerlevel their permanent professions. The prices of most Azerothian ore and herbs have dropped dramatically, plus these characters will have a lot of that stuff banked from their leveling, so that's not a good way to make money off of them. So how do we make profits off of this mass of profession levelers?

I looked at all of the profession leveling guides at the two most popular sites, Almost Gaming; and Wow Professions, as these guides are what a lot of people will be using to level. The trick here is to anticipate what the customer will be buying, and what we can make a good profit on. We'll want to look for items that aren't easily farmable, or that are needed in such quantity that a leveling character just won't have accumulated enough and will need to turn to the AH.

The first step is to look for basic materials. Some are difficult to farm, and some are just needed in such large amounts that a leveling character won't have enough and will need to buy the extra on the AH. Most old-world ore and herbs have plummeted in price, though, so those are out. As mentioned in my last post, Outland materials are a great place to start. Northrend materials are also good, especially cobalt (as saronite is mainly for high-level recipes, but Cataclysm recipes will be accessible at 425 skill). Netherweave and Frostweave Cloth are needed by tailors in massive quantities, and you can always make bags out of them if you can't sell the cloth. Thick, rugged, and borean leather should sell well to leatherworkers, because the quantities needed compared to the leveling speed at those points means they probably won't get enough on their own.
The second step is looking at rare items. There are fewer of these, but because they aren't easily farmed, they can command high margins. These are all niche markets, so you shouldn't stockpile huge amounts, but carrying a small quantity of these can be profitable. These are things like crystallized air for blacksmiths, some of the various gems for jewelcrafters (citrines, huge emeralds, and blue sapphires should sell well), and black pearls and primal might for enchanters. Many of these are small markets that can be dominated by one player, so while volume may not be high, profits will be.
The final step in making money off of profession levelers is BoE recipes. Guides often refer to BoE recipes as ways to save mats and be more efficient while leveling. Blacksmiths are told to buy the plans for Mithril Scale Bracers and Mithril Spurs (though the lower price of mithril might cause some to not bother), Pendant of the Agate Shield for jewelcrafters, etc. The formula for Enchant Bracer - Greater Stamina should be especially valuable, as enchanting mats are going up in price, not down.

An important point is that Cataclysm is going to introduce multi-point skill gains. This will change the most efficient leveling path for most professions, so some of the individual items named here might not continue to be profitable, but the overall strategy of understanding how a profession is leveled and what people will buy will still make you money.

Golden Pearls are basically worthless now

2010-11-29T10:12:00.003-08:00

I posted this on the forums at JMTC and The Consortium, but figured I should add it here as well.

Enchanting has been changed, you no longer need a golden pearl to make a runed arcanite rod. This means that golden pearls, which before were a major roadblock for leveling enchanters and commanded a premium price because of this, are now basically worthless. They're used in a handful of mediocre crafting recipes, as well as enchant weapon - spellpower. However, mighty intellect is now as good as if not better than spellpower.

Sell your golden pearls now while they still have value.

Stockpiling for Cataclysm, Outland Edition

2010-11-28T13:16:00.000-08:00

If you've been reading the articles I've posted lately, you'll know that I find investing in Azerothian materials to be very risky. Where, then, is the industrious goblin to invest his hard-earned capital between now and Cataclysm? The best answer is Outland. Outland is now the oldest tier of content, which means questing is slower, resource nodes are less frequent, and players are bored of it. They just want to get through it as quickly as possible. This means less time spent gathering resources, even though those resources are needed in generally greater amounts than old-world mats for profession leveling. What are some of the best options?

Outland herbs. Needed for alchemy and inscription, these should definitely appreciate in value. Be wary of stocking too much dreaming glory or ragveil, as they're not very used in alchemy, so you're limiting yourself to the inscription market. Also beware of mana thistle, as it's incredibly easy to farm on Quel'Danas. Terocone, nightmare vine, and netherbloom are especially valuable; and felweed is needed in large quantities. Fel lotus are also very valuable due to the newly changed Enchant Cloak - Stealth (changed to +8 agi / +8 dodge rating, by far the best cloak enchant available for leveling characters, especially with the new BoA cloaks going into the game).
Fel iron ore/bars and khorium ore/bars are good to stockpile. Adamantite is easy to farm on Quel'Danas. Also, since profession levelers can start using Wrath recipes at 350 skill, there's less demand for the higher-tier ore. Fel iron is difficult to mine because there isn't really a central zone to mine it, so it should see an increase in value. If you can snag adamantite cheaply, though, feel free to pick it up if you have a jewelcrafter, as you can prospect it and sell gems to other leveling jewelcrafters (most of them tend to buy individual gems rather than ore to prospect themselves).
Outland enchanting mats, specifically arcane dust and planar essences. Not only will leveling enchanters need these, but you can also make enchant scrolls that leveling characters can use as they get level 35 items. Enchants like blasting, mongoose, and the like will sell well.
Knothide leather, heavy knothide leather, and fel scales will sell well to leatherworkers. Leatherworkers need between 300 and 600 knothide leather, and most won't want to spend that much time in Outland killing and skinning things.

Outland is a gold mine. Azerothian materials are risky due to the vastly increased supply of resource nodes, changes in drop rates, and the re-tuned dungeons encouraging people to run them (which means more greens, and thus, enchanting mats). The savvy investor wants to make money, not risk money. Outland materials are a much surer bet than old-world goods.