Just My Two Copper - WoW Gold Guide

trade channel boredom.. bring on the dailies

2012-05-30T11:00:00.004-04:00

One of the biggest pet peeves I have with Warcraft are the players who will sit in one of the main cities, bemoaning how "bored" they are. After 5 plus years of playing Warcraft, I usually can find something that I can do. Some task that needs to get done. Or even better, some daily to run for gold and reputation. If I ever get to the point that I am announcing my boredom, it's time to go and read a book. Or even write one :-)

Dailies quests in different areas have been an excellent way of earning gold, especially at 85. But the 25 daily quest cap could be troublesome if you were trying to grind multiple reputations. This cap hits hard if your also doing profession dailies. But with Mists, that cap gets removed and you have unlimited dailies that you can do. Want to ride a flying manta? Go do the Sha'tari Skyguard dailies. Don't forget about the Argent tournament dailies in Icecrown. Doing the jousting dailies can add up to a lot of gold for buying the pets, and the pennants are interesting to carry around too.

There are at least 100+ dailies in the game that can be done, all stacking both reputation and gold in your pocket. Next time you see someone say "I'm bored". tell them to go do a daily. Or read a book.

Good luck and Good Hunting

Past Entries

Preview of upcoming events
Gold to burn
I'm gonna tell you a secret
Life with no AH
Yakity Yak
The Auction House Blues
O Brother Where Art thy professions
Come Back Players... Come Back
Measuring the AH of a "Wow Killer"
Gold: It makes a player better
Get thee to an Engineer
Darkmoon Faire Returns.... Much rejoicing
Prepping for MOP: Dinner Improbable
Random Dungeons: A Concert of Errors
Patterns
Save the children.. Save Azeroth

Previews of upcoming events

2012-05-29T10:12:00.001-04:00

The longer that Mists of Panderia is in Beta, the longer that speculation on what will be needed to amass gold when the expansion starts will continue. Personally I've held back most of my lists simply because they change depending on how the beta turns out and the market flows.

Do I have a master list of items to save? I do, and some of them are going to be oddball unless you look at the philosophy I use for my gold making. And even with any list, you need to pick and choose based on your professions available, the gold available in your account, and just how brave you are.

Just a few that are currently on my list.

Netherweave Cloth

If you can get this for 5g per stack your guaranteed money. Netherweave bags will explode, cloth stacks will explode. Look for this to be easily 2 to 3 times your gold invested without breaking a sweat.

Inscription Inks.

With the changes in glyphs, including some disappearing and new ones introduced with MOP, you will be in the money to get cheap inks. Also included in this will also be the herbs to craft these inks. Middle tier inks such as Jadefire Ink will end up being in high demand for the new player as well as the established characters.

Leathers

I'm looking heavily at leathers found in the Burning Crusade expansion. Many players will be leveling through content and barely touch areas in the Burning Crusade, and other than the farmers and investors these leathers such as Knothide Leather will be valuable if purchased at the right price. I'm looking at between 10-15g per stack as a safety zone for investment.

Herbs.

This is going to be an interesting investment area. You have two customers (alchemists and Inscriptionist), and they will be wanting to get as many as they can. Those that planned ahead will be prepared, while you have others who are just getting started or leveling new toons that are plodding their way through buying/picking their own inventory. Investments that are inexpensive (Staying away from the low end herbs) will get a nice return on investment.

Is all of this standard fair? Mostly yes, I'll be adding more as time goes. Elementals are going to be a big time investment area simply for lack of supply and large demand for leveling. My engineer is already banking on big profits not just for my Mechano-hog sales. Even buying pets from the alliance side and moving them over to horde side for sales can rake in a nice goblin gold fortune.

Keep watching, each profession will get it's own entry, and it's own logic for investment.

Good luck and Good Hunting

Past Entries

Gold to burn
I'm gonna tell you a secret
Life with no AH
Yakity Yak
The Auction House Blues
O Brother Where Art thy professions
Come Back Players... Come Back
Measuring the AH of a "Wow Killer"
Gold: It makes a player better
Get thee to an Engineer
Darkmoon Faire Returns.... Much rejoicing
Prepping for MOP: Dinner Improbable
Random Dungeons: A Concert of Errors
Patterns
Save the children.. Save Azeroth

Past Entries
I'm gonna tell you a secret
Life with no AH
Yakity Yak
The Auction House Blues
O Brother Where Art thy professions
Come Back Players... Come Back
Measuring the AH of a "Wow Killer"
Gold: It makes a player better
Get thee to an Engineer
Darkmoon Faire Returns.... Much rejoicing
Prepping for MOP: Dinner Improbable
Random Dungeons: A Concert of Errors
Patterns
Save the children.. Save Azeroth

Gold To Burn

2012-05-28T09:47:00.003-04:00

I enjoy receiving email from readers. Usually in involves asking me questions on what to do in their specific situation. Is there any "secret tips" I can offer that will jump start their goblin skills.

With many of the conversations I have, there does seem to be one similar ingredient into their difficulty. The thinking that it requires gold to make gold.

Now, Warcraft and MMO's have many similar ideals that we have in the real world. Working gains money, money can buy items we want. The biggest difference is that I cannot go outside and look for a big yellow exclamation point over someone's head to get a quest. Applications and interviews do still seem to be the normal approach to making money in the real world.

But in the World of Warcraft, the key to making gold is to not just work hard, but to work smart. Retraining your mind into understanding that you can put 100 different auctions to sell, but if noone wants them, then they will not sale. But you can add 10 items on the AH that are in great demand and make more money than you ever thought possible.

My biggest technique is to try to find the niche markets that few are in, and to dominate that market. My biggest money consistant money maker has been the leatherworking and blacksmithing PVP gear. Two to three were in that market on the two servers I play on, while almost 100's of people were posting up Gems. I still post up Gems, and the money is consistant. But my PVP gear is still the number one slot that keeps me swimming in gold.

Each server is different, and that's where a gold goblin has to change their mindset to look where to spend the gold to burn. Even in the case where someone has only 1k gold, one or two good flips of items can double that gold in a heartbeat.

Having gold to burn is nice, but it's the mindset of looking where to burn that gold to become a raging inferno, adding more and more gold into your goblin loving pocket.

Good Luck and Good Hunting

Want to get in contact with me? . Email me at Dragonbearjoe @ gmail. dOT com or find me on twitter at "@Dragonbearjoe" or leave a comment here. You can find me hanging out on the Shandris Server, chat me up and I will buy you a glass of juice.

I'm gonna tell you a secret

2012-05-26T11:35:00.000-04:00

There is a big secret when it comes to playing the Auction House and making large amounts of gold. It's a secret that you can keep to yourself, or share with friends. It's a secret that easily 95% of the players in World of Warcraft do not know.

The secret? Making gold is not rocket science.

This is in no way to convince you that you can be a warcraft millionaire tomorrow. Making gold does take time, and even some effort. But a PHD in WOW economics is not needed. What is needed is one phrase that you need to drill into your goblin gold loving head. When you flip on the computer, log into your computer and your gaming screen and prepare to play. One phrase will change how you make gold in warcraft.

Supply and Demand.

If you took basic economics in school or in college, this was what was the basis of any market system. People want something, someone provides it at a price and they make money. If noone demands it, then it goes unsold and you move onto another item to sell.

The wow auction blogging community will show you many ideas. Items you can craft, should craft, should buy to resell. But supply and demand is what will put gold in your goblin pocket. Forget this idea and it will just as quickly remove gold from your pocket in lost auctions, failed crafting projects and storing the wrong items.

On another item, seems that many people are complaining on the boards of having their Battle.net accounts being hacked, some are pointing to the authenticatiors being the root of the problem. The blues on Battle.net cried foul on many of these rumors. If you read their blue post here they have yet to have an incident reported with an authenticator secured account. So the rumors of people removing their codes form their accounts are leaving an unsecured account. With the release of Mists (thanks to the Gold Queen seeing that the latest beta is now a PTR build). In short, leave those authenticators on your accounts, or let the player beware. The scam and phishing artists will be in full force with the release of the new expansion pack.

Good luck and good hunting

Past Entries
Life with no AH
Yakity Yak
The Auction House Blues
O Brother Where Art thy professions
Come Back Players... Come Back
Measuring the AH of a "Wow Killer"
Gold: It makes a player better
Get thee to an Engineer
Darkmoon Faire Returns.... Much rejoicing
Prepping for MOP: Dinner Improbable
Random Dungeons: A Concert of Errors
Patterns
Save the children.. Save Azeroth

Past Entries
Yakity Yak
The Auction House Blues
O Brother Where Art thy professions
Come Back Players... Come Back
Measuring the AH of a "Wow Killer"
Gold: It makes a player better
Get thee to an Engineer
Darkmoon Faire Returns.... Much rejoicing
Prepping for MOP: Dinner Improbable
Random Dungeons: A Concert of Errors
Patterns
Save the children.. Save Azeroth

Appreciating the Warcraft Auction House After Playing Diablo 3

2012-05-25T08:00:00.000-04:00

I've been playing a lot of Diablo 3 and not much WoW. It's a pretty fun game and works well with my crazy busy schedule the last few weeks because I can hop in, play for 20 minutes and have some fun. As you would expect I've been dabbling in the Auction House on Diablo 3 and it's made me miss the Warcraft AH's conveniences and power.

Addons

By far, the biggest hole (and we're talking a gaping chasm here) in the Diablo 3 auction house is the lack of addon support. The base auction house without addons is much better than Warcraft's base AH, but addons in WoW push it over the top, especially ones that help with posting. It's hard to adjust to life without Trade Skill Master, Auctionator and other little conveniences. If you aren't using these addons in Warcraft, you're missing out on some huge time- and effort-savers. Do yourself a favor and check them out.

Number of Listings

It's not unusual for me to post hundreds of auctions at a time in Warcraft. Addons make it possible to do quickly, but the AH system allows me to do it. Diablo 3 limits your active auctions to 10 items. And once they're posted, you have 5 minutes to cancel them before you have to wait for them to expire manually. Because of the unlimited listings in Warcraft, you're able (and smart) to diversify your postings across lots of different categories. Diablo 3 has forced me to specialize a bit more or "price items to move" to avoid completely clogging my inventory. Are you taking advantage of the unlimited listings Warcraft provides? Are you diversifying your auction house business or still working in a single industry? What's keeping you from diversifying?

Auction Duration

In Warcraft, you've got options to post for 12, 24 or 48 hours. This gives you some flexibility in how long you'll keep an item available. Diablo 3 posts everything for 48 hours. Combined with the inability to cancel, if you make some bad choices on what to list or pricing, you're out of luck for 2 days. In Warcraft, you can post items with high-competition for 12-hour periods to cut down on your deposit fee losses. Items that don't have much competition or demand can be posted for a longer period of time so they're available when someone gets around to look for them. How do you use the different auction durations?

So have you been playing Diablo 3? What do you miss from the WoW Auction House in Diablo?

Life with no AH

2012-05-24T13:37:00.000-04:00

If you have been reading my articles and ramblings here, then you probably have put together that I have been splitting my playing time between Diablo 3 and Warcraft. If you haven't caught on, then I have been splitting my playtime between Diablo 3 and Warcraft. (Now your caught up).

Last night the Diablo 3 Auction house was disabled for commodities. Not going into a large amount of details (if you want more info on Diablo 3 AH go talk to Markco here). This downtime did make me wonder about a few things when it comes to the Warcraft Auction House.

What would players do when it comes to making gold if there was no auction house. The auction house has not always been there. And definitely it has not been as advanced as it is now. So what would you do if you had no AH to play around.

Here is a quick list.

1. Sell in trade/listen in trade

Still many times there are buyers and sellers in trade chat looking for specific items, or linking to a crafting Profession. got an epic wand of smackiness? Nothing wrong with announcing that your crafting it for a set amount of gold with the buyers materials.

2. Archaeology

Yes it's slow, yes it's tedious. But your flying around anyway. And some of those items can fetch a pretty penny or two. Where it won't make you swimming in gold, it can pay the repair fees once you get high enough.

3. Quest/loot/

One of my favorite off AH ways of making gold. Everytime I see an 85 begging for gold in orgrimmar the temptation to renounce them from the Horde strikes. Level 85 quests are double the gold. Some of the ones during cataclysm were putting 50-100g in my hands just for a little effort. Bored? grab an alt and cash in the easy way

4. Random Dungeons/Heroics

This one is truly a no brainer. You get gold each time you run a dungeon heroic. You also get valor points for the first 7 runs a week (limit of 1000 per week). After a week and a half of running, you have enough to buy one of the bracers that people are continually asking for. Advertise in trade chat and count your gold. Justice points are also rewarded and you can sell the lower versions of the bracers as well in the same manner.

Thankfully we still have the warcraft auction house available to sell items and gain goblin gold dominance. But you never know, someday the AH might come to a screech halt for " maintenance ", will you still have gold flowing or will it come to a stop?

Good luck and good hunting

Past Entries
The Auction House Blues
O Brother Where Art thy professions
Come Back Players... Come Back
Measuring the AH of a "Wow Killer"
Gold: It makes a player better
Get thee to an Engineer
Darkmoon Faire Returns.... Much rejoicing
Prepping for MOP: Dinner Improbable
Random Dungeons: A Concert of Errors
Patterns
Save the children.. Save Azeroth

Yakity Yak

2012-05-22T13:38:00.002-04:00

Every so often I like the idea of taking a break and presenting just why some things are too much fun
to not have wow gold for.

Imagine your walking in Pandaria, having fought off multiple monsters, gaining gold and dreaming of gold filled days. Your game throat is parched, and that little icon flashes on your screen telling you it's time to repair. You can go to your local outpost, get repaired and sell all your junk. Zap back to where your hearth is set. Or you can push one button and ride one of the most awe inspiring mounts of all time.

That's right gold goblins. for the estimated price of 60,000g this multi-ton off road mount can be yours. Similar to the Traveler's Tundra Mount it's going to have vendors (hopefully will updated items) and 2 seats that can be used to travel in style. 4 wheel drive hoofs are extra.

60,000g is a lot to most players. But then remember that it's highly possible this will be carried over to all your toons with the new mount based account system. The best idea is to see which one of your toons will get the best discount to buy it. If all of the discounts apply (it's unknown yet since Mists is still in beta) it should come down in price to a mere 45,000g. Chump change for this stunning vehicle (MP3 Player sold seperately).

This will be one of those must have items at least one person in a raid. Jumping out of an instance and having everyone repair quickly and restock instead of having to wait til everyone teleports, gets back and then the momentum is lost. Plus you can put the heads of your enemies on the pointy horns.

Get your Yak mount soon. Be the first to try to milk a yak. But your on your own for that part.

Good Luck and Good Hunting

Past Entries
O Brother Where Art thy professions
Come Back Players... Come Back
Measuring the AH of a "Wow Killer"
Gold: It makes a player better
Get thee to an Engineer
Darkmoon Faire Returns.... Much rejoicing
Prepping for MOP: Dinner Improbable
Random Dungeons: A Concert of Errors
Patterns
Save the children.. Save Azeroth

5 habits of successful goblins

The Auction House Blues

2012-05-21T12:31:00.000-04:00

The Auction house is the heart of the action for a gold goblin. It's one of the most powerful areas we have to make money. It also has become one of the most misunderstood.

One of the reasons for this is the use of add-ons for most auction house tasks. Please understand I am in no way against AH add-ons. I use them everyday for common tasks and they are very useful, and very powerful. But the underline reasoning behind why they do these common tasks gets lost.

I dedicated some type playing Diablo 3 this weekend. And the Auction house itself brought me back to the first time I approached the World of Warcraft Auction House. At best it was confusing, and at it's worse it was almost useless for the common player. With experience and trial and error I learned some of the techniques that are shared now with you. (as the saying goes, I have taught you everything you know, but I have yet to teach you everything I know).

One of the reasons it's important to understand how the base Auction house works on Warcraft is do to patches and new expansion packs. Where many addons such as Trade Skill Master stay up to date. Some addons such as Auctioneer may take weeks to update to a new patch. Leaving many who have become dependent on it's usage out in the cold.

So here is my suggestion to be ready for the next expansion. Keep track of your "must have" addons, especially the ones based on the auction house. Keep them updated as much as possible, even reading some of the notes to see if a beta version of the add-on is available. If it appears that addon is no longer going to be supported, it may be time to look for another add-on that will work similar to what you need.

Another tip would be to turn off the add-ons you use for a day and get back into the idea of using the base auction house system. While slowing down your gold making for that day, it will prevent your goblin techniques to grind to a complete halt while waiting for an update to your favorite add-on.

Good Luck and Good Hunting

5 habits of successful goblins

O Brother, where art thy professions

2012-05-18T13:43:00.000-04:00

If you have been a reader of this journal from the days of Markco til now, there have been a staple of suggestions to new and experienced gold goblins. Largest of these being to have maximum profession scores as soon as possible.

But many times it skirts over why this idea becomes necessary. With MOP just on the horizon, it becomes that much more important to understand why a max profession is important for gaining gold.

First it gives you access to the best crafting items on the market. The faster that you have the best recipes available and crafted, the more profits become available. Players, especially with extra cash on hand, look for the best items they can purchase. And many are willing to pay extravagant prices to obtain these glittery swords, shields, chest pieces etc. Quicker crafting and placing on the Auction House will provide higher profits. As more and more crafters reach these top levels, and these items become more available, the profits begin to dwindle.

Alchemist and tailors when at maximum level have transmutation items become available. In Cataclysm, Transmute: Truegold was a continual money maker for alchemist. While tailoring with their Dreamcloth transmute became available at the 500 point level Both were money makers during the entire length of cataclysm.

Another reason for maxxing out your professions is achievements. MOP is introducing account wide achievements, one of them being max professions with all the professions over the account. So those with multiple professions can have an achievement that many won't be able to reproduce for an extended period of time.

Even your gathering professions are beneficial to max out. Besides the ability to mine, skin or pick herbs anywhere. You also have benefits to your player themselves. Mining adding more stamina, herbalism giving you a self healing ability and skinning adding critical strike. All three can be beneficial to any of the different Race/Class setups.

The first look at making gold is always going to be try to max your chosen professions as soon as possible. This gives you access to the best recipes and best money making opportunities.

Good Luck and Good Hunting

Past Entries
Come Back Players... Come Back
Measuring the AH of a "Wow Killer"
Gold: It makes a player better
Get thee to an Engineer
Darkmoon Faire Returns.... Much rejoicing
Prepping for MOP: Dinner Improbable
Random Dungeons: A Concert of Errors
Patterns
Save the children.. Save Azeroth

5 habits of successful goblins

Come back players... come back

2012-05-17T16:23:00.000-04:00

Everyone who has played World of Warcraft for an extended period of time has gone through these times. People going off to another game to play. To enjoy the excitement of something new, something "revolutionary". State of the art graphics and gameplay.

But never to worry faithful goblins, even if things seem slow right now (and on some servers they are pretty slow), many come back. People have sunk in large amounts of time and effort to be good or the best at warcraft. And games such as Diablo 3 do end up with a shelf life (not to say that it isn't fun to just go mindlessly blow up things. Maybe Warcraft needs it's own cow level)?

But for the Goblin in you, now is a good time to recheck all those plans you have set up for the introduction of Mists of Pandaria. Farming will be easier in highly contested areas because the competition won't be there. Even sneaking in a few achievements to bolster your gaming portfolio.

Have you double checked the Auction House. It might be a great time to steal some hard to find items with people dumping product not being sure what it's worth? Pulling together some quick runs to Black Temple to get some transmog gear? Even farming low level instances solo to get gear to sell to leveling twinks.

Right now 5 man heroics or raids might be more difficult to pull together. But don't let that stop you from your goals and preparation for MOP. Even if it's just sitting down with a piece of paper and sketching out exactly how many materials you need to collect and where to store them. Preparation is your key to success in a goblin society.

Good Luck and Good Hunting

Past Entries
Measuring the AH of a "Wow Killer"
Gold: It makes a player better
Get thee to an Engineer
Darkmoon Faire Returns.... Much rejoicing
Prepping for MOP: Dinner Improbable
Random Dungeons: A Concert of Errors
Patterns
Save the children.. Save Azeroth

5 habits of successful goblins

Measuring the AH of a "Wow Killer"

2012-05-16T13:51:00.002-04:00

Diablo 3, the latest "WOW killer" released on the 15th. As with any new release, server issues, loading issues, graphic issues and more issues than National Geographic have occurred. Anyone who has been involved with a new game has this expectation. Nothing ever goes completely smooth with the release of a new game.

As a gold goblin, anytime I see a new "WOW killer" the first thing I look at is the Auction house system. And how it compares to the World Of Warcraft system. With Diablo 3 it was the Real Money Auction House (not implemented yet), others introduced new vendors, new crafting items etc. But it always seemed to come down to how I could dominate that new system.

I was discussing Star Wars: The Old Republic mmo with a friend who had started playing the game during the beta. Where he was excited about the characters and abilities, it was obvious that at somepoint he would hit that wall of burnout that appears with many MMO's. Doing the same things over and over again ad nauseum. At some point he would want to find something new to dominate. Many turn towards PVP or achievements. But like me, he usually turns towards the AH on the game.

The biggest question with the RMAH from Diablo 3 will be what will Blizzard learn from this to add to the franchise ship Warcraft. Is there a chance that Warcraft will get it's own RMAH? How would they balance the scales of new players, giving them opportunities to gain real life money vs experienced players who have stockpiles of gold from the start.

Then there is the secret MMO code named "Titan" that many gamers are waiting to hear announced from Blizzard. What will it entail? Will it truly be a WOW killer, taking all the mistakes that happened with World of Warcraft and having it be at a running start from the beginning?

As Diablo 3 runs it's course and starts to age, what will be the next "WOW Killer" and what rewards for the goblin auction house gurus will it bring?

Good Luck and Good Hunting

Past Entries
MOP: Auction House Goes Dark
Gold: It makes a player better
Get thee to an Engineer
Darkmoon Faire Returns.... Much rejoicing
Prepping for MOP: Dinner Improbable
Random Dungeons: A Concert of Errors
Patterns
Save the children.. Save Azeroth

5 habits of successful goblins

2012-05-15T04:52:00.002-04:00

Diablo Gold Secrets by Tony Sanders is Predicted to Help Gamers to Make Big Real Life Money in Diablo 3

Dean Brown from Stanford University, an Economics Major in Virtual Economy discussing his predictions of the hyped up Diablo 3 Real Money Auction House and how to get an edge in the game with Diablo Gold Secrets.

Games have always offered money making opportunities for players, from days of World of Warcraft to Aion and Second Life… but with the launch of Diablo 3, there’s a new gold mine about to be unearthed.

Based on the basic principle of willing buyer and seller; and with an estimated 5-10 million players in the game, Diablo 3 will definitely have ample amounts of both, thus creating an environment and a huge potential of an exciting in-game economy.

For aspiring players intending to make the most amount of real life currency with Diablo 3, as with all economies, be it real or in-game, it takes money to make more money. And in this game, initially, the best way to make the quickest buck is to sell off in game currency, this being gold and getting real life currency in return.

In short, it’s going to be a gold rush. And as with any gold rush, those who get in early will be ahead of the pack.

Realistically, a full time gamer could easily earn up to $100 a day, amounting to about $3000 a month but this is actually a very conservative estimate. Items in similar games such as Eve Online have seen transactions in excess of $5,000 for a spaceship! With very rare items such as Legendary weapons and with an auction house in the game, there is just no saying just how high these items could be sold for.

For gamers who are keen on earning a sizable income using the Diablo 3 Real Money Auction House, the higher level you’re at, the more gold you’ll be earning and the better items you’ll find. Therefore, it’s advisable to be at the highest level in the game as quick as possible (currently at level 60) to ensure that all the drops or finds which you get are significantly higher than the other players on lower levels.

Also, there are other “off-game” principles which can be used to gauge and monitor the auction houses which will allow players to maximize their earnings through auction trends, much like stock market brokers in real life as well as the application of the Pareto principle.

In 1906, Vilfredo Pareto noticed that 80% of the land in Italy then was owned by 20% of the population. Later on, after observing that 20% of the pea pods in his garden contained 80% of the peas did he develop this principle, also known as the 80–20 rule or the law of the vital few. He states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.

Hence with Diablo 3, it’s going to be for certain that only 20% of players will be monopolizing 80% of the economy in the game… and 20% of this select group will have a further 80% of this share. This disparity works out to show that the top 4% of players will own more than half of the entire Diablo3 economy (a whopping 64% in fact!)

So the question now is, how do you work your way to be that select 4% of players? The only way is to be a leader, to be the one right in front of the game. That will only happen when you’re at the max level, earning the max amount of gold and getting the best items in the game.

Then there are other auctioneer principles which delve in studies involving human behavior, market fluctuations and the like which also will affect the auction house and making money from it.

Hence, it cannot be stressed enough the importance of being at the top of the game in the shortest amount of time. Going about playing on your own and learning from your mistakes is probably the worst way to go about it. By the time you’re familiar with the game play and at a decent level, there will already be plenty of players right around your level which doesn’t give you any leverage or advantage whatsoever.

The best way to go about this is to invest in a good Diablo 3 leveling guide which will really straighten out that learning curve so you’ll be leveling much quicker than the others. Then, look for a great Diablo 3 gold guide which will show you the best ways to sway the auction house to your advantage.

But with so many Diablo guides in the market, careful analysis must be carried out to ensure that you get only the best and most relevant guide there out there in the market and with Diablo Gold Secrets, you’ll get just that.

This is a great all-in-one Diablo 3 Gold and Leveling Guide which was written by Tony Sanders and is currently the benchmark for all Diablo guides with great in depth knowledge of the auction house as well as a step-by-step leveling guide for players of all levels.

Tony is a professional gamer who’s been involved in plenty of games which have similar mechanics (leveling and making in-game currency) such as World of Warcraft and the recently launched Star Wars: The Old Republic and his Diablo 3 Gold Guide will show you how to make the most amount of gold in the game and was recently updated to include a blueprint which shows how to study and master the auction houses, hence showing you how to make the most real world money in Diablo 3 as well.

Therefore, if there is anyone who wants a clear head start in the game with every intention to dominate and own all the best items and gold, this is clearly the best Diablo 3 guide in the market.

Dean Brown is an economist majoring in virtual world economies with several publications under his belt. He recommends Diablo Gold Secrets as the best guide out there:

http://www.DiabloGoldSecrets.com

MOP: The Auction House Goes Dark

2012-05-14T15:16:00.000-04:00

The major gold sink has been announced for Mists of Panderia. MMO-Champion broke the news that some of the vendors will have "black market" items to bid on. With little information other than what is on the beta this will become an interesting idea as it starts to develop.

On this black market AH will be past discontinued mounts, pets and other items. Included in this is the Tier 3 armor sets that were removed when Naxxramas was moved from Easter Plaguelands in Azeroth to the barren wasteland of Dragonblight in Northrend. These will most definitely be Bind on Pickup items. The biggest question will be whether the pets and mounts on the Black Market AH will also be BOP. If they become BOE it might end up being a big opportunity to resell. Currently the market has it set at 12 hour auctions so bidding at night when there is less population could cause deals to become more readily available. Parking an unused character at the Black market site and bidding occasional could reap a large amount of rewards.

One of the downsides of this blizzard idea will be that many of the armor sets and mounts that players have become proud of "earning" will be just as available for the right amount of gold. Already on the boards there is squabbling about how it's unfair to those that had gained the Tier 3 armor set through dedication and hard work. While others will be able to just drop a large (or even small) amount of stored gold to gain the same elite status in the eyes of some.

Will this diminish the investment quality of some of the hard to get items in the game? Big questions of just how much this will go to evening out the gold playing field. There is already an expected low value set on many items (10,000g for pets, 10,000g for armor, 20,000g for Mounts). Looking at the list of some of the items you can see the current cost on the AH for many of these pets and there is an expectation that they will go unbidded on. The Elwynn Lamb for example is easily obtainable on both the Horde and Alliance side for 4k to 6k. So bidding 10k on one on the BMAH would be giving money away. But mounts like the Ashes of Al'ar are beyond rare to see, and will cost a large amount of gold to bid upon.

So this might be a stroke of genius by Blizzard developers, or come back to just be another forgotten idea with MOP. The new expansion will have an influx of players both returning and new. Having little or no money to start, and many not armed with the tools of making gold other than questing, there will continue to be a divide between the haves and the have nots.

Hopefully those that read this journal want to continue to be part of the Haves.

Good Luck and Good Hunting

Past Entries
Gold: It makes a player better
Get thee to an Engineer
Darkmoon Faire Returns.... Much rejoicing
Prepping for MOP: Dinner Improbable
Random Dungeons: A Concert of Errors
Patterns
Save the children.. Save Azeroth

5 habits of successful goblins

Gold: it makes a player better

2012-05-11T13:02:00.000-04:00

When World of Warcraft began in 2001. Gold making wasn't on the map. It was a niche idea that a few were able to begin with. Auction house buying was young, and most of the fortunes made in game were from dubious methods (buying of gold, duplication of items etc).

But fast forwarding to today, there are multiple journals and opinions on how to make gold. From farming, selling, buying, crafting. All viable ideas. But with one purpose, to make you into a Warcraft virtual millionaire.

The plain truth is that making a large amount of gold in the game changes how you view playing. Deal hunting and selling becomes a unofficial profession of it's own. Now with the right amount of gold you can have just about anything you want in the game. You can almost instantly have a raid equipped toon in under 5 minutes. You can buy that awesome mount, or even buy a run to get an awesome mount. Want a cat, jump to the AH and you can buy one of your very own.

The benefits of having gold will change the game. Also it will become a game until itself. Getting bored with raiding and dungeons (and right now it's not that difficult to do). The AH becomes a flexible opponent that you can never truly beat. As the consortium forums say, gold making is the ultimate in PVP.

As we continue with this journal. Getting closer to the Mists of Pandaria invasion, those that are making gold now will have a huge advantage over someone who is just starting out. It is difficult, near impossible to get a realm first in a crafting profession without having enough money saved up. The first BOE mounts and getting the first combat pets require gold to purchase from the AH, or the time to farm them up yourselves.

So what is the tip for today? Be ready for tomorrow and the next day and the next day. Making gold in the warcraft game changes your gaming life, and it changes how people look at you. And how you look at yourself

Good Luck and Good Hunting

Past Entries
Get thee to an Engineer
Darkmoon Faire Returns.... Much rejoicing
Prepping for MOP: Dinner Improbable
Random Dungeons: A Concert of Errors
Patterns
Save the children.. Save Azeroth

5 habits of successful goblins

Get thee to an engineer

2012-05-10T14:02:00.000-04:00

One of the first items I always add to a new toon is the [Gnomish Army Knife]. Having before to drag one or two different tools to be able to do mining, skinning or grass picking tasks. It's a farmer's best friend.

But MOP brings a nice little addition to the party. Carry this item around on your farmer and you will get a +10 to the gathering professions. That might not seem like much, but combine that with the +5 gloves enchant for any of the professions ([Enchant Gloves -Advanced Mining], [Enchant Gloves - Advanced herbalism], [Enchant Gloves - Skinning]. This enchant/item combination adds a healthy +15 to your abilities. Leapfrogging you over many of the dead zone areas that happen when leveling a gathering profession.

For engineers, this is going to be a nice little niche goldmine to add to the small amount of items that sell continually. Grab some Saronite, a pick, a hammer and a skinning knife and make some quick profit from the start.

It is item changes like this that will drive the price of Saronite ore and bars higher than expected. Starting to buy cheap, or farming them in Wintergrasp will put you ahead of the demand to come.

Good Luck and Good Hunting

Past Entries
Darkmoon Faire Returns.... Much rejoicing
Prepping for MOP: Dinner Improbable
Random Dungeons: A Concert of Errors
Patterns
Save the children.. Save Azeroth

5 habits of successful goblins

Darkmoon Faire Returns.... Much rejoicing

2012-05-07T16:20:00.000-04:00

Sunday started another round of the Darkmoon Faire. Good opportunities to get those alts some points towards topping off your professions.

Always looking for the fastest way to do my dailies on a toon, I jotted down the way I finish my dailies in a little bit under 15 minutes (all depending on how accurate my getting shot out of the cannon.

1. Go to darkmoon faire portal either in Thunder bluff or Stormwind

2. Follow path to get to the main faire area.

3. Buy any tickets necessary at 54, 55

4. Play Whack a mole game at 53, 54

5. Go to Cannon shot game at 52, 56

6. Land in water around 56, 34

7. Run to Turtle ring toss game at 51 78

8. Go to Tonk challenge game at 50, 64 (this usually takes me two round to complete)

9. Go to Shooting Gallery at 49, 60

10. Back to Cannon to finish off points at 52, 56 (if you scored a perfect the first time your finished)

11. Land in water around 56, 34

12. Swim to Teleport back to cannon at 57, 89.

13. Repeat steps 10, 11 and 12 til you've finished your cannon mission.

Finishing the monthly professions as you go the first day will add time, but this should quickly finish off everything on your to do list. Don't forget to bring the materials that are necessary with you to finish the profession quests.

If you missed the hint we passed on from Wowinsider earlier in the week about finishing up the Childrens week companions quicker. With the new expansion when you learn a pet on one toon attached to one account, then it will apply to all the characters on that account. So keep track of what you learn on each character with the tickets earned, so that you can keep from repeating buying pets/mounts from the darkmoon faire.

Finishing the dailies/weeklies on all your toons can bring a decent amount of gold in your coffer for about an hours worth of repetitive work.

Good Luck and Good Cannoning

Past Entries
Prepping for MOP: Dinner Improbable
Random Dungeons: A Concert of Errors
Patterns
Save the children.. Save Azeroth

5 habits of successful goblins

Prepping for MOP: Dinner Improbable

2012-05-05T14:33:00.002-04:00

Next to First aid, Cooking tends to get ignored unless your a raider, or in the gold making business. Most players who decide to level their cooking will level one, maybe two of their toons to maximum and then the rest end up getting ignored.

With the introduction of Mists of Pandaria this idea may have to change. Especially if you have a gold goblin heart like mine. MOP is introducing specialization into the mix. There is limited information but all the comments from the developer posts point to at least 5 different specializations. Any time specialization is mentioned, or limited recipes. The goblin should look at how to get to those recipes the fastest.

Ultimately one toon will be able to specialize in everything (possibly even an achievement). But that will take a dedicated amount of time. But now is the time to plan ahead to grab those recipes and be one of the first on the market.

We have approximately 2 to 3 months til the introduction of MOP. That gives at least 40-50 days to level up cooking. Most players by now have leveled multiple toons up to 85. So now is a good time to firm up your cooking (and even fishing) skills to make sure your ready to finish the new cooking dailies in MOP. Even if you don't level that toon immediately, Cataclysm opened up the ability for a lower level player to gain cooking points through the dailies. Having your alternate toons begin to level cooking through the daily cooking quests in Orgrimmar and Stormwind will place you in the drivers seat to be able to continue on. Using the dailies (and the Darkmoon Faire cooking quests) will give you the cooking points, without the need to use items you are saving for MOP (many of the foods will still be in demand come MOP for leveling cooking on new players).

If you haven't done the Darkmoon Faire cooking quests. Just pick up 5 [simple flour] from one of the cooking vendors in your home city, then go to 52,6.68 on your mini map at the Darkmoon Faire. Batter the frogs, throw them into the pot and you have your 5 easy earned cooking points.

The goal is to end up being around the 510 mark for cooking before Mists arrive. Being at max cooking (525) will open up more opportunities and should be very easily finished.

Here is some of the base information from the betas on the cooking. More can be added or subtracted
as we continue to get closer.

(courtesy of MMO-Champion)

Recipes on Beta Servers

Recipe: Great Pandaren Banquet - Well Fed: +275 in a useful stat.
Recipe: Pandaren Banquet - Well Fed: +275 in a useful stat.
Recipe: Black Pepper Steak - Well Fed: +300 Strength.
Recipe: Sea Mist Rice Noodles - Well Fed: +300 Agility.
Recipe: Mogu Fish Stew - Well Fed: +300 Intellect.
Recipe: Steamed Meat Buns - Well Fed: +300 Spirit.
Recipe: Chun Tian Spring Rolls - Well Fed: +450 Stamina.
Recipe: Eternal Blossom Fish - Well Fed: +275 Strength.
Recipe: Hozu Stir Fry - Well Fed: +275 Agility.
Recipe: Braised Wolf - Well Fed: +275 Intellect.
Recipe: Fire Spirit Hot Pot - Well Fed: +275 Spirit.
Recipe: Twin Fish Platter - Well Fed: +415 Stamina.
Recipe: Charbroiled Tiger Steak - Well Fed: +250 Strength.
Recipe: Jade Forest Fried Rice - Well Fed: +250 Agility.
Recipe: Swirling Mist Soup - Well Fed: +250 Intellect.
Recipe: Shrimp Dumplings - Well Fed: +250 Spirit.
Recipe: Forest Pheasant Roast - Well Fed: +375 Stamina.
Recipe: Pandaren Meat Ball - Restores 100000 health over 10 sec.
Recipe: Fish Cake - Restores 100000 health and 100000 mana over 10 sec.

Known Food Drops

Black Pepper
Mogu Pumpkin
Ox Ribs
100 Year Soy Sauce
Sirloin Steak
White Turnip
Pink Turnip
Aged Pink Turnip
Tender Brisket
Minced Meat
Pheasant Breast
Forest Boar Meat
Raw Tiger Steak
Scallions
Tough Wolf Flank
Goat Chops
Juicycrunch Carrot
Rice Flour
Red Blossom Leek
Yak Flanks

The object of this is to allow each of your 5 maximum leveled cooking toons to follow one of the other paths to give you access to all the recipes as soon as possible. Later on once you have learned one line of cooking, you can start to pick up another and begin to retire your other cooks.

Access to recipes as quickly as possible will become important to obtain sales to raiders and players
as they run through dungeons and heroics. Adding more gold into your goblin hearted pockets.

Good Luck and Good Hunting

Past Entries
Random Dungeons: A Concert of Errors
Patterns
Save the children.. Save Azeroth

5 habits of successful goblins

Random Dungeons: A Concert of Errors

2012-05-04T13:33:00.000-04:00

Today I'm going to take a break from gold tips, tricks and ramblings and give a little bit of a rant. Or a jumble of words put together for your amusement.

Currently I run two of my toons through random heroics to maximize their valor points (mostly for the points to buy bracers to sell on the AH). I have a warrior and a Rogue (so I like melee characters).

One of my instances was in Zul'aman. This seems to be one of the roughest dungeons for new toons so it's expected to get a lot of wipes and deaths. Part of the process of "random" dungeons.

On this particular epic run the healer who was a priest had already demonstrated his inability to keep his mouth shut, barking at the tank to be better, dps to be better etc. Looking at his gear it was hardly epic in nature, mostly from the Dragonsoul instances and a few pieces purchased. The attitude seemed to be a Walmart special.

Now generally I keep my mouth shut in instances, if someone gets lippy, I ignore them, do my job and collect my loot. Sometimes I will speak up and say 'howdy' and of course, there is the required bad Star Wars Jokes necessary during the last fight of Dragonsoul. But in this case it wasn't my time to feed into the smugness of said healer.

But what struck me the most is that his Insistence on calling me "noob" and questioning my ability to handle dps. Having learned early to always keep a dps meter in my addons I double checked the numbers, yep second on the list which is acceptable. But occasionally I seemed to be pulling threat from the tank. Obviously not a good thing so needed to adjust my timing (3 count then go method). This didn't seem to make the healer happy. Somehow his decision was that I was obviously in defensive stance (for those that aren't familiar with warrior stances, this is the stance you tank in, it doubles your threat generation on your abilities). I laughed simply because half my abilities I was dpsing with wouldn't be available in defensive stance. After the next wipe (third boss in the rotation) I had had enough of his inability to play well with others and dropped the group.

So why did this strike me as something to discuss here? Because for my 20 dollars, I play a game, make gold, enjoy myself. And my 20 dollars is just as equal to his 20 dollars. He has every right to run his mouth, mock everyone and be a pain in the rump to other players. As I have every right to drop group and go do something else.

Every time that we play the game of Warcraft. It's an interaction with other people. Most hiding behind an anonymous name that the odds of you ever meeting in real life is slim and none. But behind these characters an extension of your personality persists. Even if it's a small portion, that snob arrogant healer is exactly who he is or can be when given the right circumstances.

So maybe this entry does have a little bit about gold making. When we are fleecing people on the AH for imaginary items, we are leaving a little bit of ourselves to the public. You get a reputation for being a straight shooter, or a scam artist. And where that reputation may never touch you in the real world, it is still there in a world of your own creation.

So before you whip out saying "noob" or even worse saying that's "gay". Remember that your showing your acorn of truth in your own self. And many might think it's as glorious as you do.

Good Luck and Good Hunting

Past Entries
Patterns
Save the children.. Save Azeroth

Loot rule changes in MOP

Cleaning out your closets

5 habits of successful goblins

Patterns

2012-05-02T15:22:00.001-04:00

Many Warcraft players are creatures of habit and pattern. Some Gamers will wake up and go through their daily routines. Including their Warcraft gaming routines. Others will come home after work, and perform the same routine game wise. Even the best of the Gold Goblins in all of us will get set patterns on what we list first, when we list it etc.

But there are times that if you step outside the normal pattern you will see other things that are normally missed. Occasionally I have found myself having difficulties sleeping, or being up late at night for other reasons. And I will log onto the servers I play on to view the auction house from a different time frame. Late at night many will list items to sell, with very low bids placed on them. This giving a prime opportunity to scoop up the occasional deal. Or in many cases to open up a new market that isn't usually available with my normal routines.

Late night/early morning raiding becomes a different market to attack. Also keeping your competitors on their toes who have zeroed in on your Warcraft business for attack. Just when the competition begins their celebration of eliminating you from their domain, coming back to strike harder and faster with a new determination to dominate your turf.

So this weekend change up the status quo, see what difference a couple of hours of posting your wares gains you. Check out the night life and see just what deals are waiting for you on your server.

Good Luck and Good Hunting

Past Entries
Patterns
Save the children.. Save Azeroth

Loot rule changes in MOP

Cleaning out your closets

5 habits of successful goblins

Save the children... Save Azeroth?

2012-04-30T15:08:00.000-04:00

It is children's week. That Hades week that you run 10 toons through a group of quests so you can have your delicious chocolate cake and share it with the kiddies.

But thanks to a quick reminder from Wow insider writers (view here) we were reminded of the major change to companions come Mists of Pandaria. Get a pet on one of your toons on an account, all of them on that account get the same pet/companion (there does seem to be some hold outs for this, including some special one time pets).

This is not good news for the gold goblin multitudes. Where Children's Week has never really been a huge money maker for most (the occasional lazy ice cream buyer and payment to run people through PVP achievements). The majority of the money was made in people wanting the companions on multiple toons. Those that have been paying attention will take advantage of this and just run each of the quests on one of their toons, then be patient as it appears on their other toons later in the year (that's saying toons a lot).

But being knee deep in the flipping market for volatiles, wait, you haven't been buying and flipping volatiles?

I thought I had trained you better than that. You're not seeing Volatile Earth's going for 50s a piece? Or Volatile Life. Alchemist can easily go back to transmuting their Volatile Life to Volatile Air or Volatile Water and gain some extra profit. This applies especially if your Truegold and Cardinal Ruby business is

on the downturn.

The Elemental Market gets it's own treatment later in the week, but for now jump on these deals when they arrive. Storage is going to be a long term solution (there will be a demand especially for Volatile Earth once the rush is done.

So in short,

Kid's week + mist companion changes = Lower gold sales

Volatile Earth and Volatile Life are your friends (especially if your an alchemist)

Also you might snag a few hundred gold just for taking people through the Kiddie Day Quest lines

The basic level requirements for the quests are

Orgrimmar/Stormwind Level 10

Shattrath City Level 60

Dalaran Level 72

(courtesy Wowwiki.com)

So good luck, eat your chocolate cake (it's good for you) and Happy Hunting

Past Entries

Loot rule changes in MOP

Cleaning out your closets

5 habits of successful goblins

Its all in the bag

They call me the mad hatter

Gold-Making 101: Your First 100 Gold

2012-04-27T08:00:00.000-04:00

Join us on a journey from rags to riches. The Gold-Making 101 series will walk you through the basics of getting started on your road to the gold-cap. This week we cover some of the basics that will be the foundation for your gold-making journey.

Getting Started
The hardest step in your gold-making journey is going to be your first few steps. If you're continually low on cash, can't pay repairs, can't afford enchants and gems, or are just scraping by, you need to invest some time and effort into making gold. Generally speaking, gold-capped is reached through discipline and doing small tasks consistently over time. There are very few "get rich quick" schemes in life and there are very few in the World of Warcraft also. Every gold-making empire is built on doing small tasks consistently over time.

I'll be assuming you're starting from scratch with no gold and no level-capped characters. If you have some character assets to start with, great! You're ahead of the game! But what if you don't? Well, the first step is to create some. Their race and class don't matter at this point. The point is that we need something to work with on our way to gold-cap.

The Bank Alt

One of your characters is going to function as the banker for your gold-making empire. While race and class don't matter a lot, you might consider races/classes that have speed-boosting abilities. Worgen have the racial Darkflight, which grants a running speed boost. Rogues, druids, shaman and mages all have some sort of speed boost. This will help save you some time while you run around the city. It's a minor advantage, however, so don't get too caught up on it.

You'll want to level this character to at least level 5, then head to the capital city for your faction. Horde should ultimately end up in Orgrimmar, Alliance should end up in Stormwind. This will give you access to face-to-face deals with people in the future. There are also some low-level gold-making opportunities in these cities for this character to take advantage of.

The Adventurer

The second character is the one you're going to be using to adventure and make money out in the world. This might be an existing character, or it might be a new one. You'll use this character to complete quests, farm materials, level professions and generally be your "main" character. Pick a class and race that you enjoy playing. While there are some advantages for different races with different professions, they aren't so overwhelming that you need to worry about them now.

Your First Steps to Gold Cap

Now begins your journey to the gold-cap. Here are some things you should be doing with each character:

Adventurer

Your first priority is getting to max level. A mix of dungeons and questing will probably be the fastest, though questing will generally provide you with more gold along the way, which should be useful for you in the future.
Don't buy upgrades. Nothing is so difficult while leveling that you'll need upgraded gear from the Auction House to overcome it. Questing and dungeon drops provide all the power you need. Don't buy enchants or gems (levels 60+). If your class has a glyph that will help you level faster, buy it if they are reasonably priced. However, you can always come back to this later when you have more gold.
Buy upgraded bags. Every rule has an exception. The one upgrade you should purchase is bigger bags. Netherweave are a great bang for the buck at around 10 gold on many servers. If you don't have that, there are faction bags available from the capital cities (There are 6 bags in all for each faction, from each of the playable races). These bags are 2 gold once you reach revered, which you should do in no time while questing in their zones.
Sell everything you get. Back when I was a guest writer for this blog, I wrote an article about how to optimize the gold-making process while leveling. You should read it. Most of that still applies today. One thing that's new since then, however, is Transmogrification (or mogging for short). Mogging allows people to change the look of their armor/weapons while keeping the stats of their high-level gear. So gear for a level 85 character can be made to look like a level 30 player if you wanted to. (Note: Control-Click gear to see what it looks like on your character to evaluate if it's worth selling) There's a big market for this gear, especially:

Head, Shoulders, Chests, Legs, Hands, Feet, Cloaks and Waist slots. These are the visible pieces of armor.
Weapons, especially if it has a more unique look to it.
Anything black. Black boots might be worth 3-4 times as much as green boots with the same model.
Headpieces that show the face while active.

Learn a gathering profession. You can learn professions at level 5 from trainers in the capital cities or other locations around the world. I'd suggest mining and skinning, mostly because I find herbalism to be the most difficult to keep up with my level. Farm as you level and you can make some good gold.
Pick up recipes from vendors as you find them. Generally speaking, if a vendor sells a recipe and it's not bind-on-pickup, you can sell it for a profit on the auction house. Send them to your banker for sale. WoW Confidential has a pretty comprehensive list of what's out there, though the page requires Internet Explorer to see it correctly. You can download the spreadsheet version of the list directly here.

Banker

Scan the Auction House. Get an addon like Auctioneer, Auctionator, or Trade Skill Master (I prefer Trade Skill Master with the automatic updates. Faid at Clockwork Riot has some great videos that go over how to use Trade Skill Master if you've never used it before. Your goal here is to look for good deals on items that are low-priced to purchase and resell for a higher profit. Much of my early gold-making success was built on flipping a small variety of items like low-level gems (Malachite, Citrine, etc.) for profit. The way to tell if something is underpriced is to have good auction data to work from, so scanning the auction house regularly (if you don't use the auto-update feature) is critical.
Buy Low, Sell Normal. This post from 2009 is still applicable today and goes over the strategies to make this successful. As you look at the markets, you'll start to notice trends and get pretty good at flipping items. Snatch lists are going to be your friend here.
Systematically sell your drops. Did you read that article I linked earlier? Read the part about using Trade Skill Master again. There's some work involved setting up the initial groups and systems, but once you do, you can re-use it for your next character that you level, and the one after that, and the one after that. You can easily make 10,000 gold on the way from level 1 to level 85 (or 90 in Mists of Pandaria) by just selling your drops. If it's green, blue or purple, chances are it has some value on the auction house.
Check the capital city for goods to resell. The Gold Queen has a good overview of items and why this works. Again, if it's a recipe, or it has a limited quantity available (it's limited if there is a number in the bottom right corner of the icon), it's worth something on the Auction House. Find out which ones sell well on your server and focus on those things. These aren't big profit makers, but as you get started, they can help get you going quickly.

If you missed any in the series, check read up on the rest of the Gold-Making 101 series:

Gold-Making 101: The Basics

Grey: The New Purple

2012-04-26T12:09:00.001-04:00

Now from the title you might be thinking that blizzard made a game changing announcement, that all those items you have been vendoring with extreme prejudice have become the most valuable items in the game.

Sorry to bust your bubble but when Mists of Pandaria releases, the great purple search will begin again. All of these things we have spent hours collecting will mostly become as valuable as what they can be sold for when replaced.

But I've been a collector at heart since I started. Whether it was trying to collect the entire [Moldy Leather Armor] (Ultimately I collected it all, it was only amusing to me when I brought up my stats on the old Wow Armory). To my current obsession which is hats. Seems that the stranger the hat, the better.

But can this obsession make people money? The view of things I have is yes. Some of the coolest looking items are items that have no real game value other than to the collector. Whether it's hats, or all of the different old school metals (anyone remember when you had to do a Naxx run just to do some basic smelting?). The niche market in odd items still exists.

Does this mean you should post all of your grey items in the hopes that you might get a sucker on the hook? I wouldn't suggest it currently. Noone is going to want the [Gold-Capped Troll Tusk] from zul farrak. But take a moment to look at what your vendoring on one of your grinding sessions. Sometimes posting up an unusual item might grab another bit of gold for your stash.

Anyone got any hats to sell?

Just call me Mommar. The Mad Hatter

Good Luck and Good Hunting

Past Entries
Have you posted epics today?
Netherweave Cloth: It's math time
Time to Invest... Invest in Time
Thinking Outside the Old World Box

Loot rule changes in MOP

Cleaning out your closets

5 habits of successful goblins

Its all in the bag

They call me the mad hatter

Have you posted epics today?

2012-04-25T14:10:00.000-04:00

Yesterday being server reset day, I was posting up my normal allotment of items. Epic armor patches, Spell threads, everything that a raider with new equipment would ask for. Including in this is my epic and standard gem package etc.

As we get closer to the release of Mists of Pandaria (the new pet battle system has just been released), we get closer to the tipping point that players will stop purchasing items of gear for their alt toons. As with any economic system, there is a point in the curve that the investment stops being worth the time and the money that is put in.

Are we there yet? Probably not, as long as items still sell then there is profit to be made. But now is the time to keep track of your investments more closely. Are you getting the most bang for your gold? Is your army of Alchemists or Jewelcrafters posting up gems at the right times, or are the base mats better to be stored for later sales.

Items such as Truegold and epic gems will start to lose their value, and when MOP is finally released they will end up having even less value. Players will look to either gem or enchant with cheaper materials, or ignore altogether looking for the gear at the next level.

A good idea currently is to make absolutely sure how much you have invested in your craftable items, and balance between what items will be more valid sales when Mists if released. Discounting sales of items to produce more turnover will allow your profits to remain at the same level, but not end up getting left with materials that devalue in the long run.

Good Luck and Good Hunting

Past Entries
Got Glyph?
Netherweave Cloth: It's math time
Time to Invest... Invest in Time
Thinking Outside the Old World Box

Loot rule changes in MOP

Cleaning out your closets

5 habits of successful goblins

Its all in the bag

They call me the mad hatter

Got Glyph?

2012-04-24T12:45:00.000-04:00

One of the biggest money making opportunities coming up before the release of Mists of Pandaria will be
'Glyphmas part 2'. 'Glyphmas' originally was when Blizzard expanded the glyph mechanics to 3 tiers and added/removed multiple glyphs. Players bought multiple glyphs to fill the gaps they had in their toons. Large amounts of gold were made by the inscriptionists that were prepared.

But left out in the cold were the non inscriptionist who watched players rake in 1000's of gold per day. This time the non inscriptionist can be prepared to make a sizeable profit from just a little time and investment.

On many servers glyphs are going for inexpensive (I'm hesitant to use the word dirt cheap, but 1.5g per glyph is right next to dirt on it's cost). These glyphs are going for less than it costs to purchase the ink itself. So a wise investor will start to look for these bargains to sell when the rush hits. I set my purchase limit to 10g and my total limit to 20 glyphs. Depending on your server size you may raise or lower these limits.

The easiest way to do this is to go into the standard search directory for the auction house, click on the glyph category and then flip the search so that it goes from lower to higher. Doing this will also allow you to look at glyphs that are for a low bid. Bidding low is a good way to occasionally get a high level win in the gold rush. If you lose your bid, you get your gold back. Win and relist either now or later when the demand is at it's highest.

Also a good target will be the inks themselves. Just stay away from the speciality inks [Fiery Ink] etc unless your very familiar with what each ink can be used for. Mid level inks such as [Jadefire Ink] will retain it's value.

Later on we will have a more detailed suggestion on 'Glyphmas revisited' and how to take more advantage of this boon in the market.

Good Luck and Good Hunting

Past Entries
Netherweave Cloth: It's math time
Time to Invest... Invest in Time
Thinking Outside the Old World Box