Just My Two Copper - WoW Gold Guide

5 things you should be selling... Cooking

2012-02-13T11:49:00.001-05:00

If you missed our last episode: Five things you should be selling: Engineer Edition here is the setup for our plan to make gold.

First the rules of the road.

1. All recipes have to be obtained by either Training, purchasing from a vendor or via reputation.
2. No World drops or items that would require a larger than life grind to obtain (ala Fireland dailies)
3. Materials can be gathered or crafted, not requiring BOP dropped items or boss farmed items.
4. Each item should make a minimum of 30% profit over cost of crafting.

And now on with the show.

Cooking. From Spice bread (definitely sounded better than it probably tasted) all the way to Seafood Magnifique Feast, cooking is used for both enjoyable changes in how your toon looks. To powerful buffs for raiding and questing. For some it can be a huge money maker, if you know what recipes to grab and to sell.

1. [Small Feast]

Originally this was a mid range raid/instance food for parties to get that quick pick me up between pulls. Now it's been overshadowed by larger amounts of mana/health replenishment. But the most enjoyable part of this is that it makes your toon 30% smaller, and can stack with many of the different foods/potions/items that can change size and shape. Grab a [Noggenflogger elixir] from the tanaris questing and you can be the smallest pirate. Or the tiniest Ninja. Plus with the larger amounts of alts that will be created soon, this could be a nice money maker for just a few wrath cooking tokens and some basic materials (2x [Glacial Salmon], 2x [Nettlefish], 2x [Rhino Meat] and 1x [Northern Spices]

2. [Gigantic Feast]

The counterpart to the [Small Feast], Who doesn't want to look 30% larger. Does this feast make me look fat? 2x [Chunk o Mammoth]. 2x [Deep Sea Monsterbelly], 2x [Rockfin Grouper], 1x [Northern Spices] should sell well now and in the future for new alts created. Look for not just the feast itself, but many of the mats to be in demand as more players enter the warcraft realms with Mist's of Panderia release.

3. [Tracker Snacks]

This has sales that can be up and down depending on what it's used for. During the Pilgrims Bounty holiday it's in high demand for it's useful during the [The Turkinator] achievement. It's also valuable for non hunters who are grinding out materials or just farming for skins. 1x [Shoveltusk Flank] and 1 [Northern Spice] can bring in good gold.

4. [Chocolate Cookie]

These are continuous sellers Simply for the idea that it's used for the [[You'll Feel Right as Rain] achievement. Plus who doesn't want to bring cookies to a raid. Just do not forget the [Ice Cold Milk]. The [cocoa beans] can be purchased from the Token daily recipes in your faction major city. The [Fresh Water] and [Simple Flour] from the cooking suppliers in the same general area. Now someone make a warcraft oatmeal chew and I will be happy.

5. [Fortune Cookie]

What other food can you get both a very sizable buff (90 stamina + 90 in your core class stat) plus have a chance to win 5000g? With [Mysterious Fortune Card] on some servers going for 4-6g per, you cannot lose to buy and craft these. Costing only a couple of cooking tokens, if you have maxxed out your cooking profession these will continue to be sales all through the winding down of cataclysm and into the next expansion. Take 1 [Mysterious Fortune Card] + 1 [Simple Flour] and craft gold into your bag.

There are other food recipes that can sell well depending on the climate of your server. [Great Feast] is used for the achievement [Dinner Impossible], for your pvp achievement lovers. As well as many of the low level items that are used to keep leveling toons at their peak abilities.

What other recipes are selling on your server? Or does your cooking skills need more work?

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.

Five things you should be selling: Engineer Edition

Dealing with Mid Sales Blahs

Love is in the air: By the numbers

The Nerf, the nerf, the nerf is on fire

Love is in lunar fair

Just call me patch Mommar

Liquid Assets

5 things you should be selling. Engineer Love

2012-02-11T08:00:00.000-05:00

This week is going to be straight forward. After receiving multiple questions in my email asking me how they should make money in a specific profession. I am going to present to you five (sometimes more) things that you should be selling right now

First the rules of the road.

1. All recipes have to be obtained by either Training, purchasing from a vendor or via reputation.
2. No World drops or items that would require a larger than life grind to obtain (ala Fireland dailies)
3. Materials can be gathered or crafted, not requiring BOP dropped items or boss farmed items.
4. Each item should make a minimum of 30% profit over cost of crafting.

And now on with the show.

Deciding that the first one to tackle is going to be what many consider the most difficult to make money at. Engineering started off as being only having items that were crafted for personal playing enjoyment, with the occasional low level "toys". Rarely was engineering considered to be a "serious" profession.

With Burning Crusade, items were added to the fold to make some profits available. It opened the crafting of high level guns, scopes and even a mount that could be sold. Having rare world patterns in the mix such as the [Lifelike Mechanical Toad] as well as a few other farmable pets from gnomeregan that were made easier to obtain as the game expansions continued. Cataclysm opened a wide number of sales opportunities for engineers, combined with the opportunities from the previous expansions to present gold making diamonds in the rough.

So here is the list of engineer items you should be selling.

1. [Plans: Inlaid Mithril Cylinder]

This one is pretty straightforward. You purchase the ink and common paper from the engineering vendor, Craft, then sell to blacksmiths. The reason why it's so popular is because blacksmiths need it to craft the Inlaid Mithril Cylinders to sell right back to engineers for leveling, as well as many items including the [Ultrasafe Transporter - Gadgetzan]. The recipe is taught by your local Engineer trainer.

2. [Recipe: Goblin Rocket Fuel]

Another recipe that can be crafted and sold. It's sold to alchemists, many times for those that want to complete their collections. Goblin Rocket fuel is a good seller for alchemist for the lower level toys. It's also used for the [Firework launcher] and [Cluster Launcher] again for engineers. This recipe is also taught by your local engineer trainer.

3. [Tranquil Mechanical Yeti]

The end of a long, involved quest line during Vanilla wow all the way to Wrath. Cataclysm brought a quick shortening to the steps in the quest. It is easily completed in around 30 minutes, allowing you to be taught the pattern by Umi Rumplesnicker. There are three quest lines that have to be completed, starting with [Hammer Time] from Lillith the Lithe in Winterspring, ending with the quest [Are we there, Yeti?] from Umi. The materials are easily farmable or purchasable from the auction house, with a strong profit margin for new players as well as seasoned pet collectors.

4. Gnomish Army Knife

Another item from your trainer, this item will be a decent seller now, and will become more valuable as we get closer to Mists of Panderia. 10 Saronite bars, 1 Skinning Knife, 1 Mining Pick and 1 Blacksmith Hammer nets you a decent sized profit. I've sold these continuously from between 75g and 100g a piece, more on days that multiple alt toons are created. Giving a player access to multiple crafting tools, as well as engineers getting access to a non combat resurrection attempt. Making these very popular to have in players bags.

5. [Mechano-hog] (Horde) or [Mekgineer's Chopper] (Alliance)

The bulk of your time to obtain the pattern requires your toon repuation to get to exalted with either Horde Expedition for the [Mechano-hog] or Alliance Vanguard for the [Mekgineer's Chopper]. The easiest way to gain exalted for either factions are to run wrath level heroics without a tabard for any faction, or doing the dailies found in Icecrown, Grizzly Hills and in Argent tournament. The entire discussion on how to maximize your rep with these factions are on wowhead here.

The materials are both crafted and gathered, the large ones being [Titansteel bar] from miners. The Bind on Pickup items are only purchasable by engineers from the patrolling goblin Roxi Ramrocket found walking around the flight path in K3 in Storm Peaks. Occasionally these can be found on the AH from runs in Ulduar, engineers can deconstruct the mechanical bosses in Ulduar but are much easier to purchase from Roxi. The BOE items cost approximately 11.4k (any type of personal or guild level bonus deductions can lower this price and gain more profit). This is going to be again a big seller when Mists arrive due to the idea that many people will want this mount for their new Class/Race combination. Many servers have these selling for 22k plus.

The Extras.

There are others engineer crafted items that can be sold for large profits. The [Lil' Smoky] and [Pet Bombling] Schematics that drop from the last boss in Mekgineer Thermaplugg who is found at the end of gnomeregan. This can be a difficult grind due the low drop rate (personally it took me 20+ runs for it to drop for my engineer. Using real world materials, these tend to have a acceptable profit margin as well as the other items mentioned previously. Well worth taking the time to gain the two patterns.

I hope this will spark some profit making with your engineer. What other items do you see as making money for your engineer?

Sunday. we take on cooking. Bring your fire and your fish

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.

Dealing with Mid Sales Blahs

Love is in the air: By the numbers

The Nerf, the nerf, the nerf is on fire

Love is in lunar fair

Just call me patch Mommar

Liquid Assets

There is a mote in your eye.. and more

Eat your vitamins and do your fireland dailies

Secret of my success

Exploring Old Markets

2012-02-10T08:00:00.000-05:00

Early in Cataclysm, Jewelcrafting was my primary (really only) focus for making gold. Part of the reason for this is my limited amount of time I was willing to invest in the process. Because I like to do lots of other things in the game, I wasn't willing to sit and prospect, craft rings, disenchant, create scroll and post them. The process that we call "the shuffle." Or sit and mill herbs, create inks, craft glyphs and get into nasty undercutting wars. I valued my time more than that.

So what I did instead was look for smaller markets that weren't overcrowded and post there in addition to me Jewelcrafting business. At the time, these were mostly niche markets or "old" opportunities like Wrath-era markets. Well, as with all things, the "new" markets have become "old" again. With the drop off in subscriptions over the lat year, there's been a reduction in competition in some markets. Early movers who were willing to spend hours on end to be on top have tired and moved on or post with less frequency.

Case in point: I've been making good money on Mysterious Fortune Cards, something that was relatively cut-throat early in Cataclysm. It required lots of barking and re-posting to be the lowest (or at least 2nd or 3rd) and margins were thin. Now, however, there's virtually no competition. I mill herbs while waiting for my Looking For Raid queue to pop, post MFCs, bark once or twice and then run the raid.

So what markets are you able to test that you didn't want to try early in the expansion because of increased competition? Have you been back to see where those markets are at now? Is it time to get back in (or get in for the first time)?

It was about this time in the life cycle of Wrath that I started my journey to 1,000,000 gold. Cataclysm got me there. Maybe now is your time to start.

Dealing with the mid sales blahs

2012-02-09T14:29:00.000-05:00

Every sales goblin has it happen. The normal routine of posting sales, crafting items, raking in gold becomes a low paying second job. Waking up in the morning, signing on and going through the routine that has netted you hundreds of thousands of gold.

Events such as Love is in the air or lunar festival become just another gold grab instead of enjoying the event. The Swift Lovebird becomes another dollar sign instead of a majestic steed (yes, I said majestic with a straight face).

This is the time to adjust your views and renew some of the goals that you set aside for the love of the gold. Putting aside one of your gold making routines and doing more of the "practical" adventures of wow. Have you finished your Loremaster title on your toons? Lead a team into Icecrown to whoop a little lich king butt?

Gold Runs through old content is an awesome way of changing the tempo of your gold making business. The bonus in letting your toons get titles and enjoy the content from a new perspective.
Did you run Ulduar as a melee DPS? Try it as a ranged, or even the dreaded healing class.

Changing your pattern of gold making might not make you a ton of gold, but it will breath life into your experience when the game starts become stale.

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.

Past Articles and Readings

Love is in the air: By the numbers

The Nerf, the nerf, the nerf is on fire

Love is in lunar fair

Just call me patch Mommar

Liquid Assets

There is a mote in your eye.. and more

Eat your vitamins and do your fireland dailies

Secret of my success

Straight to the hearth

Dont flip out

Love is in the air: By the numbers

2012-02-07T16:34:00.003-05:00

With this years Lunar Festival and the introduction of the [Festival Lantern] and [Lunar Lantern], a gold mine was introduced to the casual player.

Almost all of the events previous, the pets and mounts were BOP and non transferable or able to be sold. The changes brought along a new commerce, one that has it's own benefits and pitfalls.

The lunar festival pets were straight forward. Go to the different areas in Azeroth, Outland, Northrend and Cataclysm areas, get 50 [Coins of Ancestory], buy the pet and sell it. If you were completely ruthless you would transfer it over to the opposing factions side to gain more gold. These have been steadily selling between the 9000 and 11000 mark on many servers (undermine has the mean avg at 11312g) on the exchange servers.

The lunar lantern showed the same amount of profit on the opposite side, easily adding 4000g to the asking price. Not a bad amount of cash for maybe an hour worth of running around (I personally used this guide here http://wow-pro.com/ with the leveling add-on to get the job done faster.

Just 3 days ago started the Love is in the air event. This added a new wrinkle to the gold making process because you could buy and sell not just the pets and mounts (Peddlefeet and Swift Lovebird). Each of the [Lovely Charm Bracelet] turned in giving you a [Love Token]. Making a bracelet required 10 of the [Lovely Charm], which was received if you had the charm making kit in your inventory and killed "level appropriate mobs". Reported drop rates were between 50% to 100% depending on the area. That means you need to kill at minimum 2700 mobs to get enough to make the 270 bracelets, turning them in (the bracelets do not stack so you will have to empty your inventory multiple times and find storage). Rough estimate would be over 4000 mobs to get enough to get enough bracelets, or more if your drop rate is horrendous.

The [Lovely Charm Bracelet] are able to be sold (but not mailed to alts, though you can drop them in guild banks and transfer them between characters that way). I've seen these going from 1g all the way up to requests of 30g a piece. They aren't able to be sold on the AH so you would be adding both time of searching for them, plus the initial cost. Here's a simple graph on how much it would cost if you purchased all of the bracelets.

Cost of Bracelet	Cost for Peddlefeet	Cost for Swift Lovebird
5g	40 x 5g = 200g	270 x 5g = 1350g
10g	40 x 10g = 400g	270 x 10g = 2700g
15g	40 x 15g = 600g	270 x 15g = 4050g
20g	40 x 20g = 800g	270 x 20g = 5400g
25g	40 x 25g = 1000g	270 x 25g = 6750g
30g	40 x 30g = 1200g	270 x 30g = 8100g

The mounts are showing to be sold easily over 20k per. Though the longer the event occurs, the more apt that you will have them being placed on the AH as well as being in trade chat. Most players are not going to want to drag their alts to farming spots. So they will depend on their high levels for the bulk of the work.

If you haven't gotten a headache up to now from the math, here is why all of that is important. Earlier in the week we talked about farming spots. The best presented as the Throne of the Tides farming spot that gave between 600-900 of the [Lovely Charm], which becomes 60-90 of the bracelets. So you can amass multiple hours farming enough to purchase the pet. Giving you a nice GPH (Gold Per Hour) profit if you have the time, and the inclination to farm. There are other spots that offer more of the tokens, as well as trash drops and BOE's. Deepholm and Icecrown have become popular farming spots. Also wrath heroics can drop many items as well. Depending on your enjoyment of farming you can get a tidy profit just from this as well. bring a couple of [Potion of Treasure Finding] if your going to be farming in Cataclysm zones.

The final way is to do the daily quests. If you do all of them (honor the 3 different horde/alliance leaders, the random perfume/cologne daily and the crushing the crown daily. Adding the boss daily that can be queued up at 84. This gives you the opportunity of between 25-30 tokens per day. For approximately 30 minutes of work per day you can have your mount by the end of the event, or multiple copies of the Peddlefeet to sell or your Swift Lovebird. Both can hold a tidy profit as the event winds down. If Blizzard continues with this practice, the cost of both items will probably drop as it gets closer to the anniversary of the event.

For myself personally, I have been doing a combination of both farming and also the dailies. Between my 85 alternates I will end up with approximately 5 mounts and 4 pets to sell. Once more information is given about the new pet battle mechanics with MOP, and what pets will be valuable I can see this being a long term investment. As far as the love flamingos, Feel sorry for them when I put my tauren butt on him and he gets squashed.

Hopefully this gives you an idea of the best course for your time and effort. Leave a message on your results.

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.

Past Articles and Readings

The Nerf, the nerf, the nerf is on fire

Love is in lunar faire

Just call me patch Mommar

Liquid Assets

There is a mote in your eye.. and more

Eat your vitamins and do your fireland dailies

Secret of my success

Straight to the hearth

Dont flip out

The nerf, the nerf the nerf is on fire

2012-02-06T12:17:00.000-05:00

As I was working on my Love is in the air dailies (yes, looking for the big love rocket like everyone else) a couple of things popped up.

With 4.3.2 it appears they lowered the requirements for the tokens to start the fireland dailies. Originally it was 150 (which was the bulk of the amount you had to get to open up the good stuff). It's now lowered to 20. Easily opened in a day. The rest of the faction requirements stayed at 150 but it does cut out a couple of days of frustration. This should cut down at least 3-4 days of grinding to getting those patterns I talked about here.

I'm also expecting a large nerf of drop rates once again. Similar to what they did when people were running the opening of uldaur (solo gnomeblitz) for multiple item drops.

The forums on www.warcraft.com has an active lovely charm drop spot list developing here (thanks altos gold guide for the original link.

One of the nicer spots seems to be the massive amount of mobs in deepholm. When picking a good farming spot keep in mind not just ease of kills but also what else drops from each mob. Volatiles and cloth from humanoids still sell pretty regularly.

There also seems to be a bug where your drop rate is severely lowered if your carrying both the lovely charm collectors kit and also working on the [Test Your Strength] quest from Darkmoon island. Putting your [Darkmoon Adventurer's Guide] in the bank while your farming seems to fix the issue for now.

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.

Past Articles and Readings

Love is in lunar faire

Just call me patch Mommar

Liquid Assets

There is a mote in your eye.. and more

Eat your vitamins and do your fireland dailies

Secret of my success

Straight to the hearth

Dont flip out

Love is in the lunar faire

2012-02-05T12:09:00.001-05:00

his week starts the rare triple combo of holidays. We're in the 2nd week of the lunar festival,
today starts the Love is in the Air holiday, and this week the Darkmoon Island is open for inspection.

Should be a busy week for everyone. Not a lot changed with the Love is in the Air event. Only major change is that there is a mount available, the [Swift Lovebird] for 270 [Love Tokens]. This should spur continual sales during the event.

Thankfully for the goblins in all of us, the [Lovely Charm Bracelet] are again BOE this year so look to sell these either through trade chat or on the AH. Grab a [Lovely Charm Collector's Kit] on all of your questing and raiding/instance alts. They do drop in PVP as well, but you have to get the kill shot to get credit for the charm.

Every year the Blizzard powers that be tend to tweak the drop rates when someone finds a very nice
farming spot. So keep an eye for good farming spots, especially if you have finished the opening to
the fireland dailies. Craft or purchase a [Potion of Treasure Finding] and run do some farming in the cataclysm areas. My suggestion if your at level 85 is going to be based around Mount Hyjal, up and down the area close to the Sanctuary of Malorne. Mobs die quickly and large amount of fire volatiles drops.

Lower levels want to look for large amount of mobs that can be killed quickly. The wrath expansion areas still have many mobs that are within "level appropriate" to get drops of the charms. Other professions such as skinning might find the twilight highlands area a good option to skin the dragons for raw materials. Leather is still selling at a premium on many servers. If you stay withing 2-4 levels of mobs you are killing you should continue to get the drops for the charms you need to make the bracelets.

Here is a link to Wowinsder for their overachievers guide to the entire holiday. Keep an eye here for any updates we have as all three holidays continue. Also please post comments on your suggested farming spots.

Don't forget to have your [Darkmoon Adventure's Guide] for dungeon and raid instances for drops of the rare tomes and items to turn in for Darkmoon Faire tokens.

All this going on is going to keep people busy for the week.

Good luck and good hunting

[Addendum 12:07] Looks like the bracelets aren't able to be placed on the AH. so trade chat is the only [option]

Read this for blizards refund policy on buying the wrong item. Short and sweet version. Make sure of your purchases. The powers that be won't be refunding tokens if you buy the incorrect item.

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.

Past Articles and Readings

Just call me patch Mommar

Liquid Assets

There is a mote in your eye.. and more

Eat your vitamins and do your fireland dailies

Secret of my success

Straight to the hearth

Dont flip out

Go invest young man

Just call me Patch Mommar

2012-02-04T08:00:00.000-05:00

4.3.2 is supposed to be the last patch for cataclysm. This is separating the idea of hot fixes that get rolled out when a major or minor issue comes to pass.

As I was looking at the near calculus level of changes with class mechanics. Two things struck me as
being very important for the gold goblin in all of us.

"Power of the Aspects Buff" -- see here

This ends up being a mixed bag of good and bad. Good because it will get more people raiding on the regular and heroic content. Meaning more possible sales to jump start alt toons to get raid geared. The bad part of this is that it will also allow more people to get geared quicker via raids instead of purchasing items from the AH or having them crafted. This is going to depend on just how quickly multiple groups are thrown into the mix (notice the buff doesn't effect Looking for raid groups).

Also beneficial will be more BOE items that could be flipped quickly for profit. All of these things will be depending on just how quickly the casual raid groups are able to access the higher content. I wouldn't be supried that purchased gold runs will be happening more often on servers.

In patch 4.3.2 (Feb 2 Hotfix) Notes

Events:
- Darkmoon Faire
- [Soothsayer's Runes] and [A Treatise on Strategy] should now drop from all appropriate Heroic and raid bosses
- Murozond's temporal Cache now has a chance to contain monstrous Egg and A Treatise on Strategy

[Soothsayer's Runes] and [A Treatise on Strategy] have been very strong flip candidates since they were introduced as drops with the new darkmoon faire. With it becoming more available it's going to be more often on the AH and become less and less expensive. If you have been storing these for a rainy day this might be the last Darkmoon Faire (Feb 5th to the 11th) to get the best prices.

Keep an eye on the extra BOE's as they pop up and jump on them when you see them at basement prices.

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.

Liquid Assets

There is a mote in your eye.. and more

Eat your vitamins and do your fireland dailies

Secret of my success

Straight to the hearth

Dont flip out

Go invest young man

Engineers do it with Power .. and Portals

Trade Skill Master Goodies

2012-02-03T08:00:00.000-05:00

If you've been auctioning for a long time, you've undoubtedly heard about (and been using) the addon Trade Skill Master. Well, sapu and the gang have recently released their first "release" version, officially moving out of Beta. With the release came an entirely new interface and design. Here are some of the cool new features, or old features that I'm just discovering with the new interface. For a more comprehensive video guide to TSM, you should check out Faid's post.

Custom Post Scans

I've talked about multiple profiles before. The basic idea was that I could limit the items I was scanning for by setting up different profiles that contain different groups and pricing structures. If you right-click the Post Auctions button, you can create a custom post scan. Basically, this allows you to only post certain groups, or even just a few items in the group. Maybe you're not interested in posting your entire cycle and just want to do enchants and gems. Now it's easier than ever to do it.

Custom Cancels

Right-clicking Cancel Auctions also produces a custom process. It has the same functionality as the custom post scan, limiting the groups you want to scan for. It also has the option to cancel only items with short (30 minutes), medium (2 hours) or long (12 hours) durations. In my auction groups, some items are posted for only 12 hours total because there's high competition and I want to re-post more frequently. Some items I only post once/day for 24 hours, or even 48 in a few rare cases. One frustration I've had is posting auctions before leaving for work, then returning home and posting again, except not all of my 12 hour auctions are expired. I don't want to cancel everything, and now I don't need to. I can custom cancel short duration auctions and leave up my longer ones.

Automatic Database Updating

I love having up-to-the-minute data. I regularly update my Undermine Journal Addon so I can have accurate pricing that isn't dependent upon me logging in and scanning hourly. Now, TSM author Sapu has a separate program that runs in the background outside WoW and updates your AuctionDB data. Read this post for instructions. Some people are concerned about running executables from users, but I've had it running for a few days now with no problems. It worked right out of the box for me.

These are just a few of the hidden gems I've found. How is the new version working for you? Any tips to share with your fellow readers?

Liquid Assets

2012-02-01T10:46:00.004-05:00

While looking at the Auction house. One of the many tasks that the goblin auctioneer has is to pick up long term investments. Speculation runs rampant on the boards both with JMTC and on Consortium boards on what to buy, what to keep stored for the winter months of Mists of Panderia.

Later on as we get closer I will start adding lists of what suggestions I have on purchasing for long term storage and sales. But the biggest tip I can give is a very simple one. Keep your assets liquid.

What do I mean when I say this? If you buy stacks of Netherweave cloth for Netherweave bags. Make some of them into bolts of cloth, while you keep others in their natural stacked form as Netherweave cloth. This gives you the option of both crafting the bags quickly, as well as jumping on people wanting to buy large quantities of the cloth itself. This also applies to your stacks or ore, and leather. Resist the temptation to compact all your materials into smaller units. This opens up more opportunities for sales in the future.

One other quick note. Start to look for alternate storage areas for your prospective "nuts". Players who aren't interested in adding MOP to their game will look to leave the game. We have talked many times about buying guild banks for storage. Keep an eye out for sales of guilds as they come up in trade. Many insane buys of 3 to 4 slot banks will come up for 200-500 gold as the current expansion comes to a conclusion.

Good luck and Happy 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.

There is a mote in your eye.. and more

Eat your vitamins and do your fireland dailies

Secret of my success

Straight to the hearth

Dont flip out

Go invest young man

Engineers do it with Power .. and Portals

Happy New Tear

There is a mote in your eye... and more

2012-01-30T17:52:00.001-05:00

Everytime I start a search for motes on the auction house. I think of a cartoon that was on TBS called Captain Planet. I won't go into specifics because frankly, it was a horrid cartoon. But the main part of the show was a chant that the kids did when they were combining their powers.

"Earth, wind, water, fire, heart".... [yes, I know the rest, it's embarassing]]

But now, the alchemist have a chant of their own. [Primal Earth], [Primal Air], [Primal Water], [Primal Air], [Primal Mana]. by my transmute powers I declare [Primal Might] = Money

Now that we have taken that break from reality. How do we make gold on this?

With 4.3 alchemist no longer need primal mights for their specialization. That was changed to needing 4x truegold. But the alchemist still needs their primal might for their [Alchemist Stone]. Enchanters also need these for their [Runed Adamantite Rod]. Both necessary for leveling and future crafting.

The primal market is heavily farmed. But what many do not take advantage is that the motes that can be turned into a primal. Taking 10x of the appropriate mote (mote of fire... mote of air) and then turning them into the subsequent primal.

With the end of cataclysm coming along as well as people setting up alts for their MOP questing and crafting professions, this can easily become both a short and long term money makers.

Farming for these motes are all done up in the Negrand, the water area just outside garadar holding the monsters dropping motes of water, and up on elemental plateau holding the other motes available.
A quick run through this area can continuously grind some gold for yourself.

With Primals averaging 600g on many servers, and in constant demand, the power is yours! *groan*

Now I need a real cartoon to get that thing out of my mind. Where is bugs bunny when I need him.

Good luck and good hunting

Straight to the hearth

Dont flip out

Go invest young man

Engineers do it with Power .. and Portals

Happy New Tear

Tip the light fantastic

Eat your vitamins and do your fireland dailies

2012-01-29T19:22:00.003-05:00

When the fireland dailies came into existence with patch 4.2, there was a rush of people wanting to complete them. Running around killing fire pups, fire elementals, big rock elementals and generally dying multiple times. All for the sake of getting access to now defunct loot.

So why go back through the 25+ day grind to get extra loot that you won't use. Simply put, four items that will continue to sell all through the rest of the Cataclysm and well into MOP expansion.

There are two patterns for leatherworkers

[Triple Reinforced Mining Bag] which is the largest mining bag you can currently make in the game
[Royal Scribe's Satchel] which is the largest inscription supplies bag you can make

Both sell at a decent market from the costs, plus will be in demand as more and more items become available in the game. There are lesser sized bags, but many times people will pay a premium even for a few extra slots.

For Tailors you have:

Luxurious Silk Bag] which is the jewelcrafting bag available through the dailies.

All three again sell at a 200% markup on many servers, only costing your time to unlock the vendors and some gold (which you will earn more than enough as you do the daily quests).

Engineering gets something not just that will sell, but also is very entertaining. the [Flintlockes Woodchucker] is going to be popular with hunters even through parts of the Panderia expansion. Even if it's not popular with PETA members worldwide

As the cataclysm expanion winds down to it's end, what other places should be ground out or dailies finished for lost patterns that will be available?

Good luck and Good Hunting.

Straight to the hearth

Dont flip out

Go invest young man

Engineers do it with Power .. and Portals

Happy New Tear

Tip the light fantastic

A Return to Low-End Enchants

2012-01-27T08:00:00.000-05:00

Remember back in the start of Cataclysm when the prices on high-end enchants were through the roof because of the prohibitive cost of Maelstrom Crystals? Even gold makers like me refused to pay those prices for the top enchants since they were a marginal improvement over the cheaper variety.

With the return of higher prices on maelstroms and heavenly shards, many of the high-end enchants (Landslide, Power Torrent, Windwalk, Bracers [Agility, Strength and Intellect] among others) are again becoming cost-prohibitive for people to purchase, especially when coupled with the smoother upgrade curve I talked about last week. Why would I spend between 2-3k on enchants for 378 Gear from Heroics that I'm going to replace soon (because we all think our next upgrade will be Soon™, right?) with 384 LFR Gear? I'll wait to purchase the best enchant for when I get my "best" drop, where "best" is defined as the highest level gear I think I'll be able to obtain.

A comparison of Low- vs. High-End enchants:

Weapons
Mending instead of Windwalk (Tanks)
Avalanche instead of Landslide (Melee DPS)
Hurricane/Heartsong instead of Power Torrent (Spell DPS/Healer)

Bracers
Speed (50 Haste) instead of Greater Speed (65 Haste)
Critical Strike (50) instead of Greater Critical Strike (65)
Most Bracer Enchants (50/65 Secondary Stats) instead of Agility/Strength/Intellect (50 Primary Stats)

Gloves
Exceptional Strength (35) instead of Mighty Strength (50)
Mastery (50) instead of Greater Mastery (65)

Chest
Mighty Stats (15 Primary Stats) instead of Peerless Stats (20 Primary Stats)
Stamina (55) instead of Greater Stamina (75)

Cloak
Critical Strike (50) instead of Greater Critical Strike (65)
Intellect (30) instead of Greater Intellect (50)

Legs
Ghostly Spellthread (55 Int, 45 Spirit) instead of Powerful Ghostly Spellthread (95 Int, 55 Spirit)
Enchanted Spellthread (55 Int, 65 Stam) instead of Powerful Enchanted Spellthread (95 Int, 80 Stam)
Scorched Leg Armor (110 AP, 45 Crit) instead of Dragonscale Leg Armor (190 AP, 55 Crit)
Twilight Leg Armor (85 Stamina, 45 Agility) instead of Charscale Leg Armor (145 Stamina, 55 Agility)

In most cases, the higher cost item sells for 7-10 times more than the lower end one. Some of the higher-end enchants (I'm looking at you Bracer - Mighty Strength) have huge markups (Around 1,000g on my server). Most however, tend to be not much better than the lower level enchants. But I've noticed that lately I'm selling a lot more of the low-end enchants than the high-end. So even though the lower-end enchants have a smaller gold markup, I make more gold on them because I sell a lot more.

Have you forgotten about the lower-end enchants and focused on high-end only? If so, it's time to revisit the lower-end, more affordable enchants.

Bonus Somewhat Unrelated Tip: Enchant scrolls can now be placed in enchanting bags. The change seems to be an undocumented (at the time) one that came with 4.3. If you keep a lot of scrolls in stock at any given time, it might be useful to pick up an enchanting bag.

The secret of my success

2012-01-25T18:21:00.003-05:00

In the past few weeks there have been more and more messages arriving at the JMTC office Midwest campus.

Some end up being thanks for tips, some are comments about my style (or lack of). And even the occasional spam from a African princess looking for love in all the wrong places.

But one of the most popular ones are looking for tips on how to make more gold. Many of them lately being of the "I'm just restarting to play wow again, and I need to make 5-10k gold every day.

I thoroughly enjoy helping people making warcraft gold. And having 2.3 million in the bank seems to say that I am semi decent at it. With the different methods, economic builds, elementium shuffles and other strategies that we talk about all the time here. There is one ideal that should be put into any gold sellers mind as being their mantra:

I supply, they demand.

Everything gold related expands on this ideal. You have consumers that want products, you have methods to make these products and to supply them. The rest is a matter of learning the mathematics behind the sales. What can I sell to someone, and what will they pay for it. This seems like a simple idea, but you build your millions based on this one statement. Everything else is extra curricular on what you do with your money.

The other answer that seemed to be a popular answer from others have been you need to have TSM or another favorite addon to make gold in the game. It was even presented at one point that you needed to have the Android/Iphone app and two accounts to make gold in warcraft. Where these ideas do open a lot more opportunities. They really are in no way required to make lots of gold in the game. It takes time, and knowledge and even a form of discipline. The addons make things a lot easier. But just like science. If you do not have a baseline knowledge of how the warcraft economics work, you are limiting your gold making opportunities

Gold making should always be fun in the game. It can easily become a game into itself. one that you know the score by hearing the ringing of the coin purse as you answer your mail. IT's a basic skill that will open up areas that you never believed possible. Gearing alts quickly, buying that stronger piece, buying your way into mount runs. The only limits are what your mind can develop.

There is no truly easy button to press to make gold. Everyone has an opinion on how it's done, and sometimes they are right, sometimes they are wrong. The decision has to be your own on whether you want to try something with the chance of failing. Or just look at that 85k mount you have always wanted and not be able to afford it.

Good Buying and selling

Straight to the hearth

Dont flip out

Go invest young man

Engineers do it with Power .. and Portals

Happy New Tear

Tip the light fantastic

Tis the season to be goblins

My rod shall comfort thee.. and make gold

Lunar... looney, it will both drive you mad

2012-01-22T17:34:00.002-05:00

Today is the start of the lunar festival. One of the longest warcraft holidays of the year. 3 weeks of explosions of firecrackers, kissing long lost elders feet for coins, and lots of fancy dresses.

For the gold goblins, there ends up being a couple of new twists this year. Two new pets are introduced the [Lunar Lantern] for the alliance and [Festival Lantern] for horde players.

The interesting thing about these pets is that they are Bind on Equip. So they can be traded (for now)
and also sold on the AH. The color description on the pets also do not show a faction limit so
both can be seemingly owned by one toon. A great opportunity for those having the ability to swap
across faction Auction houses for a big sale. Or listing on the joint AH in either Tanaris or in Booty Bay.

Don't forget as well the Engineer patterns for the fireworks and the tailoring patterns for the dresses.

With cataclysm elders you have 84 possible coins as well as any you kept from previous years (one good reason to continue to do these even if you've completed the achievements.

Wowhead has a very detailed walkthrough with all of the different positions for the elders, as well
as the patterns available here.

Enjoy the holiday, and don't let the elune bite you too much.

Straight to the hearth

Dont flip out

Go invest young man

Engineers do it with Power .. and Portals

Happy New Tear

Tip the light fantastic

Tis the season to be goblins

My rod shall comfort thee.. and make gold

Making Gold on the Dragon Soul Nerf

2012-01-20T08:00:00.000-05:00

Back in September, I wrote an article about how to make gold with the nerf to the Firelands raid. If you'll recall, the premise was that Blizzard wanted more guilds to experience the raid content, so they they made a substantial nerf to the difficulty of the raid.

Now, they are at it again, this time with the Dragon Soul raid. You should go back and re-read the Firelands article because much of it applies to this new nerf. The big difference this time is that there are actually three levels of difficulty for Dragon Soul: Looking For Raid (LFR), Normal and Heroic. Rather than a substantial nerf all at once, the devs are also returning to the Icecrown Citadel style, with a progressive 5% nerf over time (as opposed to a 5% character power increase in ICC).

Smoothing Out the Curve
Prior to the Firelands nerf, sales were lagging across most industries. I remember Inferno Rubies sitting around 90g for the cut variety, then going up to 140g after the nerfs, but working their way back down within a few weeks. Sales were on a steady decline, but the nerf brought a large spike, then a relatively quick return to the steady decline. The spike was the abnormality.

But now we have the LFR difficulty. As a casual raider, this has been wonderful. I've been able to upgrade gear in ways I've never been able to before. At best, my upgrades were limited to Valor Point items after exhausting the current-tier dungeons. Now, however, VP gear is the consolation price and LFR is providing my gear upgrades. Some weeks I don't get any, but some weeks I get multiple upgrades. Across three characters participating in LFR, I get about 4-5 upgrades each week.

More importantly, I've learned encounters in a way I was never able to do in the past. Already this tier, I've done more Dragon Soul Raiding than I did in all but the final month of Firelands. Now I can understand the fights and adjust from the LFR starting point and do more Normal mode raiding. This has netted additional upgrades to my gear as well.

Trending Up

The result of 3 tiers of difficulty for raiding has been a smoother progression path for characters. Tiers and their gear iLevels:

Hour of Twilight Heroics (378)
Dragon Soul LFR (384)
Dragon Soul Normal / Valor Gear (397)
Dragon Soul Heroic (410)

This smoother progression path has propped up sales far longer than previous patches. Consider Brilliant Inferno Rubies, a leading, high-end commodity in gear upgrades. Currently, the US average for Brilliants according to AHSpy.com is 291g (Alliance) and 284g (Horde). After a strong initial surge with the release of patch 4.3 to as high as 400-450g/Brilliant on many realms, prices settled to a range of 260-280g. Now, nearly 2 months since the release, prices have remained steady because of increased demand overall.

I suspect that many more people are experiencing content across all levels. LFR has been wildly successful. I suspect it's also boosted participation in Normal modes and to some extent Heroic. This translates into more players getting more upgrades more regularly, which results in steady or even increased demand. Now, at the end of January, we start getting progressive nerfs, almost like mini-patches, that will allow more people to move farther through Normal modes and into Heroic. With each nerf, you'll see an increase in sales. Unlike previous patches, instead of prices trending downward throughout the lifecycle of the patch, they seem to be holding steady and even trending up.

This is good for auctioneers. So what to expect? Some quick-hit thoughts:

Increased enhancement markets (gems, enchants, leg armors)
Increased raw material prices (ores, leather and enchanting mats especially)
Decreased Essence of Destruction prices
Decreased Epic gem prices
Decreased Pattern prices

What are you expecting from the nerfs? How are you planning to capitalize on them?

Straight to the Hearth

2012-01-18T12:04:00.001-05:00

The hearthstone, one of the few items that will follow you all the way through your adventures in azeroth. Sometimes the bane of your existence when it's down and you just want to go back home, take a quick hot bath and pack it up for the night.

Something that people do not realize is that it's a very powerful item. Especially when you have the timer down to 15 minutes on it though a higher guild level. It can zip you around the world in a moments notice.

When I started playing warcraft I set my characters hearths at the nearest inn as they were questing. Made it very easy to zip back to a safe spot and finish up turning in quests. But once I maxed out my toon, it just seemed to be a random place to place the hearth at. I could go anywhere I wanted with the zeppelins, and the flight paths.

But with the hubs that first were in dalaran, I realized that it could be a good tool to have. So I looked at the best places to have my different professions. As they were leveling I kept my hearth in Dalaran (and then in Orgrimmar with the introduction of cataclysm). Then I decided where to place permanently them at their best advantage.

Two of my engineers remained in Dalaran. Having access to the engineer only auction house gave me quick access without any of the lag of the major cities. It also gave me access to all the profession patterns via a hop/skip and jump over to Orgrimmar (Stormwind would be the same for the alliance).

Placing my leatherworker in the valley of wisdom freed up the ability to grab from the mailbox my money for the day, and then let me work with the anvil and the smelting area in that same zone. Auction house access right in front of me sealed the deal to where to place that hearth.

My jewlcrafter ended also in Dalaran. Picking up the Dalaran jewel crafting daily, going to the portal and picking up the cataclysm jewel crafting daily and then going through my normal routine for the day.

I placed one of my bank toons down in Tanaris for quick access to the joint alliance/horde auction house. I could quickly jump to that toon, check out any auctions to snipe or switch over, and i was finished with that gold making chore.

Placement of your hearths might seem to be tedious, but take a look at the different options and what your crafter needs are. You might find out that there is a much better spot to be doing your daily routine.

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.

Past articles by Mommar:

Dont flip out

Go invest young man

Engineers do it with Power .. and Portals

Happy New Tear

Tip the light fantastic

Tis the season to be goblins

My rod shall comfort thee.. and make gold

The (Guild) Bank Challenge

2012-01-13T08:00:00.000-05:00

As it turns out, I'm a bit of a pack rat. I thought Void Storage would be a big help for clearing space in my bank/bags. As I looked for stuff to move to the long-term cold storage facility, I realized most of it isn't actual void storage material. It's junk I collected here and there for use "someday". I've got full banks on at least 4 toons, plus a 6-tab guild bank that's full of stuff.

After reading a post at WoW Insider about Keyboard Shortcuts (Did you know you can shift-click items in your bags while a crafting window is open and it will show you only the recipes that use that item?), I decided it's time to get more organized. There are items sitting in my guild bank from at least three toons that I've leveled in the past 6 months, plus all this random other stuff. Here's my plan:

If it's not from this expansion or I don't have an immediate use for it in large quantities, it has to go. Craft and list it or just sell it on the Auction House. This means you, Copper Ore!
All products will be shipped to an unused bank alt. I'm going to start with 1,000 gold to cover auction house fees and purchase any additional supplies to craft the raw materials into something more profitable.

I'm looking to get down to at least 50% available slots across all my toons. That's a large number to free up considering I'm almost full across the board. After I've sold everything off, I'm hoping to end up with 50,000 gold and some potential new niche markets.

So what are your banks and bags looking like? Do you have a guild bank packed to the gills? Are you a pack rat like me? See what you can turn all that junk into. You never know, you might be sitting on a pile of gold. But more importantly, you might discover some hidden revenue streams you never knew existed!

Dont flip out

2012-01-12T08:00:00.000-05:00

One of the strongest of techniques in making gold on the auction is "flipping the market."

Here is how it works.

When you're going through a list of items, especially with inscription or jewelcrafting, undercutting will bring items lower and lower. Sometimes the items become so low that it becomes beneficial to purchase all the items that are listed and relist them at a higher price. This resets the market to a more profitable level, as well as gives you a higher profit margin on someone else's materials.

The dreaded math:

Let's say you see six [Forceful Dream Emerald] at 10g a piece
Purchase all the [Forceful Dream Emerald] from the auction house.
Relist them at 125g a piece

It seems like a very simple technique. You sell one, you have made 60+ gold from the first item sold. The rest that you sell ends up being pure profit as well. Undercutting from other crafters and speculators will cut into your expected profits. When all of the items are sold you have made a steady profit with little work.

Now, there are some difficulties with this auction house technique. And it becomes very easy to get lost in purchasing and re-listing that you find yourself ending up with large amounts of unsellable crafted items. As the auction house returns to the previous low level quickly. Some suggests that will help keep you on the right side of the market flip.

Know the market you're turning over: Certain markets will always sell low because there is a large amounts of competition. [Solid Sky Sapphire] is a very popular cut to list on the market. And with the large amount of blank sky sapphires available, many purchasers will pick up a few gem blanks and have someone cut the gem for them instead of purchasing them from the auction house.

Resist the temptation to set too high of a market price: It can be very tempting to buy out a stock of cut gems at 5g and instantly list them at 250g. Sometimes this will work because even selling one at that price will profit you, the rest being extra over the top. But many of the markets will not hold onto that price and under cutters will come in and stomp all over your well laid plans. Leaving the market again at a low price and you will extra items that will not sell.

Limit how many items you buy: Whenever I use this technique I limit myself to six or less. With inscription glyphs I would raise this limit to 10. The difference between glyphs and gems is that gems have a shelf life til the end expansion. More powerful gems will become available with the next expansion making these less valuable. With the inscription items carrying over to the next expansion you have a longer time for sales.

You will probably lose money occasionally: Until you develop the understanding of the market, the odds are that you will lose money on some transactions. The no risk/no reward ideal is in full effect with this technique. Go slow and build your market muscles, it will benefit you in the long run

I hope this will add another tool to your auction house toolbox.

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.

Past articles by Mommar:

Go invest young man

Engineers do it with Power .. and Portals

Happy New Tear

Tip the light fantastic

Tis the season to be goblins

My rod shall comfort thee.. and make gold

Your milage may vary

Go Invest young man

2012-01-08T08:30:00.000-05:00

When the crafty auctioneer starts looking at advanced auction domination 101. The biggest decisions you have to make is whether a pattern is worthy of your investment.

Every new raid level, every new patch sets up a difficult conundrum. Is that pattern selling for 10k
worth my hard earned gold. As the patch matures on the servers and more are offered, the same question is asked. Where is the cut off line to take a chance and invest in a craftable pattern.

Here are four rules to set for yourself to decide whether it's time to invest.

1. How many sales do you need till the pattern becomes profitable?

Our first mistress is the all mighty Warcraft gold numbers. The more money we make, the more opportunities we have to buy that shiny trinket we want. Or just to waddle around in our imaginary gold
pool. So the investment numbers take precedent on our investments.

Here is where your wow math prowess and keen eye on materials come into play. Let's take for instance a sample pattern the [Bracers of Flowing Serenity]. The required materials being:
*avg price from wowhead.com prices. Profits determined by cost of materials on your server*

4x [Pristine Hide] (400g x 4 = 1600g)
10x [Volatile Life] (8g x 10 = 80g)
10x [Volatile Water] (13g x 10 = 130g)
10x [Volatile Air] (25g x 10 = 250g)
2x [Chaos Orb] (50g x 2 = 100g)
2x [Essence of Destruction] (4000 x 4 = 16000g)

Total Approximate material investment = 18160g
Undermine Journal horde median sales = 28000g

A quick shortcut to this is just to use the most expensive material needed for the pattern to get a quick determination on cost of production. Or taking a quick look at the item on Undermine Journal will
show you a quick breakdown of cost on your server per item.

If you purchased the pattern from the AH for 8500 you would need to sell only one of these to gain a very healthy profit. So by sheer numbers this seems to be a good investment.

2. Toon Upgrade

You cannot remove the idea that could an item be worth an investment just to make your raider more powerful. Where crafted items will many times be slightly inferior in numbers as their raid drop counterparts, the ease of crafting an item cannot be removed from the decision. Especially if you're talking about lower level patterns when previous material drops become more available. [Living Embers] were obscenely expensive during the 4.2 raids. Limiting non raiding crafters to invest heavily in materials. With 4.3 these materials took a dramatic drop in cost with the introduction to the looking for raid tool. Patterns also become more attractive to casual raiders because the cost to upgrade instantly alternate raiding toons for the higher level raiding teams as needed.

3. Strength of raiding community

A strong raiding community means strong sales in some areas. But it also means weak sales in some areas. Well progressed raiders will be more liable to have these patterns inside their own guilds. So they are less apt to look to outside guide crafters for items. Included in this is the knowledge that raid drops will be superior to the crafted items. So they are more willing to wait for their wanted item drops instead of investing heavily into higher priced items. Make sure to look at not just your tools to see listing and sales on your server, but get a general feeling on how investment of higher ticket items have developed on your server.

4. End of Cycle Sales

As the end of a patch life continues, items will begin to drop in prices as well as in demand. More and more patterns begin to appear on the Auction House. Some end up being at inexpensive prices. As the supply for these patterns, and even the materials expand, the demand for the crafted items will fall. Your potential sales decrease, till the next expansion is released. Generally when an expansion hits the PTR's, sales of high level crafted items come to a screeching halt. Keeping this in mind to keep from getting stuck with added inventory for materials that will lose value at the end of the patch life.

5. Long Term Sales Investment.

Starting with patch 4.06 certain patterns came on the market almost immediately. Enchanting patterns such as [Enchant Bracers - Might Intellect] at first seemed like large investments. These were not short term investments that would run our of steam like many of the crafted items. They retained their value by being best in slot enchantments even through 4.3. Most enchanters gladly invested a large amount of money on this pattern knowing that there would be continuous sales in the future. Where many crafting patterns will lose their lifespan as more powerful items are found. Some patterns retain their demand for future sales. With materials generally being less expensive, lower prices will be made up by higher sales demand.

With patch 4.3 coming to an end and Mists of Panderia being the active expansion, now is a good time to hone your techniques for the next number of sales.. A little research and a little knowledge of costs can go a long way to put you on track for large amounts of gold.

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.

Past articles by Mommar:

Engineers do it with Power .. and Portals

Happy New Tear

Tip the light fantastic

Tis the season to be goblins

My rod shall comfort thee.. and make gold

Your milage may vary

Manufacturing Maelstrom Crystals

2012-01-06T08:00:00.000-05:00

I was finally starting to run low on Maelstrom Crystals the other day and started looking around for some cheap ways to obtain them. The Raid Finder has sent prices through the roof, which has been great for the scroll business if you had a stockpile of scrolls and/or mats. I figured there would be a jump of around 50% on the crystals, with a similar drop in Heavenly Shard prices, thanks to the new Maelstrom Shatter spell for enchanters. As it turns out on my realm, prices for the crystals more than doubled while the shards saw a slight bump because of increased demand for enchants.

Sadly, everything that could be crafted was way more expensive than the crystals on the Auction House, so it wasn't looking good. Then, while upgrading another toon, I realized my enchanter (which is also my primary dungeon/raiding toon) could get them with her extra Justice Points.

From the early days of Cataclysm, I've had it in my head that crystals are expensive at 3750 JPs from the trade goods vendor. Which is expensive by the way. But enchanters can actually get them for only 700 by purchasing any of the epic Relics for a mere 700 JPs. Plus, with the guild perk Bountiful Bags, you have a chance you double your value if it procs. Not an enchanter? Get the epic Bind-on-Equip boots for 1650 and have a friend disenchant them for you.

It's not a long-term solution to keeping stocked on crystals, but it's a decent source in a pinch.

Market Manipulation

2012-01-04T09:00:00.000-05:00

Hi guys, today's Guest Post is brought to you by Bozzor, the Gold Multimillionaire all the way from Romania!

Prices.

They go up and down, up and down...but why?Most of the times because the demand and offer are also going up and down.

The vast majority of items available in AH are raw materials and craftables.Most of the times, craftable item prices are speculative while raw material prices are generally based on offer and demand.

Almost nobody will sell a crafted item under material cost.There are exceptions, ofc, but those are... exceptions, and not the rule.

All traders wants one thing only : to buy as cheap and sell as expensive as posible.But how to be sure that what they buy is as cheap as possible? Well, there are two choices : wait until the prices go down as much as possible (reaction) or make the prices as low as possible (action).

Since craflable item prices are largely speculative, traders usually undercut each other until they reach their minimum profit mark.Once that mark is reached, they stop posting.Now, they have different profit marks, and the ones that bought the cheapest raw materials sell first.And if they manage to sell their stuff before the demand stops...all other traders (well, most of them) will get a mail filled with expired auctions.

So, buying is much more important than selling.And buying as cheap as possible is the key for large profits.Back to reaction and action.Most of the traders are reacting, waiting for a natural price drop of raw materials.Few traders act, forcing artificially the prices to drop...or go high, depending on what they actually wants.

What they do is Market Manipulation.

Now, to successfully manipulate a market, one need to know his server economy very good : how many farmers are active, how much they sell on daily basis, how many big buyers are for that market.

If you didn't know by now (but i think you know), ore market is the most active market in game.From ores we have : raw gems, cuted gems, bars, enchanting materials, items that requires gems or bars to craft.

The next active market is herb market.From herbs we have : flasks, potions, glyphs, inks, dust of disappearance.Herbs are also used in gem transmutes.

Leather market is aslo very active...not as much as herbs, but certainly more profitable (LW leg enchants mostly).

After this very short coverage of raw materials, lets see how can we manipulate a market to reach our goals.

What we need to do, its easy : post large quantities of raw materials at certain prices, to force farmers post cheaper than us, starting a undercuting chain reaction on that market.What is hard is to know the price we will post for and how much we will post...

Well, if you know your server farmers, the answer is easy : post in stacks of 1 (ore, herb, leather,cloth) and below medium price (but not to much under) and post before farmers are posting.They will undercut the cheapest price in AH, no matter if its per stack or per ore.

If you think that someone will buy what you posted and will repost at higher price or just buy because its cheap for them...worry not.Most people REACT, so they will wait for a better price, because you already flooded the AH and anyone will know that a large offer will make prices go lower.

Now, the hard part comes when farmers start to sell...They will undercut you, and they will post in stacks of 20 providing large quantities of materials at prices closer and closer to what you want. Now, what if someone else buys before you do?Well, if you know the main sellers, you should already know when are they online, so you can buy before they do.

Ok, the above it is for lowering prices.But sometimes (well, most of the times for a serious trader) you want a certain price to go up, limiting the competition to have cheaper materials.This also can be done, and most of the times, shortly after you droped the price.

The cycle is like this : you post materials to force prices go down, farmers come and post cheaper, you buy their stuff, than you cancel your auctions and repost for high price, but this time in stacks of 20.The window of opportunity is generally small in weekends (1-2 hours max) and generally big on weekdays (up to 4-5 hours).

What you really want with this market manipulation is to craft items as cheap as possible, with a high profit mark, so you can sell them at profit EVEN if the price for raw materials is HIGHER than your crafted item. If you managed to buy, lets say, elementium ores for 30g / stack and crafted bars for 3g each, then you forced a price increase to 40g / stack...everyone who buy at 40g will not sell elementium bars under 4g each. But you can.And you will make profit by selling UNDER the current material price.

I hope you understand that Market Manipulation is not for everyone, but only for those who have great knowledge of their server economy.If you are not one of them...what you waiting for ? Add on your friends list the main farmers and buyers, watch their activity for couple weeks and then, start making more gold than you did before.

Acting is better then reacting. So...start acting.

Bozzor,
Gold Multimillionaire.

http://www.auctionhousegoldstrategies.wordpress.com

Engineers do it with Power... and Portals

2012-01-04T08:00:00.000-05:00

Engineers have always been on the short end of the stick when it comes to gold making. During the burning crusade and wrath expansions the consensus was they made a few "neat" weapons. The rest of their crafted gear being trinkets only available for self enhancement (and sometimes self explosion).

One of the things that occured during my wow playing days is that I inherited a troll. The person who had first created the character had went with engineering. Soon they were unable to play the toon and I started leveling them (we had shared the account for a bit.) As everyone had said, the majority of their items were of a self destruction nature (rocket boots XL ftw). But one thing that was semi useful was the portals to different areas you could use.

One that was introduced in Vanilla wow was the Dimensional Ripper-Everylook. Not that handy unless one of the malfunctions happened and set you in a random spot for farming. Or needing to do a pet run in Everlook for Winterspring Cub.

With Burning Crusade the Dimensional Ripper -Area 51 (or the alliance version ultrasafe transporter toshleys station). Again these were good to get to random farming areas, or just for sheer enjoyment.

With the introduction of the wormhole generator northrend engineers received something much more useful. Activating this gave the engineer a choice of where they wanted to port too. One of the 5 areas (once they were discovered) plus the occasional 6th area (the underground) where some rare patterns were on sale from time to time. (the dragonling patterns still sell well on multiple servers).

So why did this become a money maker for me? I couldn't port anyone to an area like a mage could. But what I could do is combine this with my Jewelcrafter. Flying for the daily in northrend was the bane of my money making life. I could do nothing those 5 minutes or so I had to fly. Even if I jumped down from dalaran it took me a couple of minutes to fly to the point of where the monster was I needed to kill for the drop.

But with the combination of my troll's ability for astral recall I had multiple connections to get back to my home port. With the borean tundra area having all of the different drops I needed for the dalaran jewelcrafting dailies I could finish both of my jewelcrafting dailies in less than 10 minutes.

Here is how I have it set up:

I log onto to my Jewelcrafter (my hearthstone is set for dalaran)
Reset all auctions and cut any gems needed to post
I run over and pick up the Dalaran Jewelcrafting daily
Run and use the portal to go to Orgrimmar
Pick up the JC daily for cataclysm
Cut whatever gem is needed for this daily (I keep all of them in stock in my bank)
Turn in for token
Use my wormhole generator northrend to port to Borean Tundra area
Fly to where I need to go to get drop
Port back to dalaran (use my astral recall spell)
Turn in (either buy buying the gems from the AH or from my storage)
Recheck auctions (yes, on my server they can be undercut that quick)

So why is this important to know? Because in gold making, time is money. There are other combinations of class abilities and crafting that can be used to do similar items. Mages are good at porting for farming or for turn-ins. Or for restocking rare recipes.

What other combinations can you find that will add more money to your coffers?

Til next time

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.

Past articles by Mommar:

Happy New Tear

Tip the light fantastic

Tis the season to be goblins

My rod shall comfort thee.. and make gold

Your milage may vary

Would the owner of the saronite please stand up?

Stars are full of gold

You got your jewelcrafter in my alchemist

join the fun ... buy the t-shirt

Niche Market Vendor and Profitable X-Faction Gold Opportunity

2012-01-03T20:00:00.004-05:00

For many players, items like shirts can be a big deal. They can be visually appealing and match a set of gear. Have a cool name that attracts attention during a possible inspection. Or maybe the player is just trying to flaunt the rarity of the shirt and is just trying to show people that he or she has it. Any way you look at this market, there is room for profit.

Every character in World of Warcraft has a slot for a shirt, and many players just like to buy one to have the slot filled if for nothing else. Just the fact that there is such a large consumer base for these items should be enough to convince a person to enter the market. Shirts are a very low investment moderate return market just because many can be purchased from vendors or crafted through the tailoring profession at a low level. There are a few niche markets for these items, but the Rich Purple Silk Shirt, Bold Yellow Shirt,and Stylish Black Shirt are the ones that open up the most room for profit. The pattern for the Rich Purple Silk Shirt is a blue quality item that is an extremely rare world drop off of 33 different mobs ranging from level 33 to 45. I have heard countless tales of people controlling the market for these items on their server for years just due to the rarity of the pattern itself. This is an excellent market to get into if you can find a pattern for the shirt anywhere.

The Bold Yellow and Stylish Black Shirts are also extremely viable niche markets that have so much room for profit. They are only sold by one vendor in-game, Lisbeth Schneider, who for alliance players is conveniently located in the trade district in Stormwind. You would be surprised how few players actually know about this vendor, and the competition on most servers is minimal. The only way a horde player would be able to obtain either of the shirts would be through the Neutral Auction House. This is a dealbreaker in terms of profit potential for the market because it opens up a whole other faction to deal with, and believe me, these shirts are sought after and are often more popular then their less hard to find counterparts.

The Bold Yellow Shirts cost 40 silver each without reputation discounts and the Stylish Black Shirts cost 60 silver. These are miniscule investments and the low vendor prices allow for posting them on the Neutral AH for very small deposit prices, a factor that often deters entrepreneurs from selling items cross faction. The huge consumer base, larger demand, rarity, convenience, and small investment all make this market extremely viable for basically any Alliance player. Horde players can try picking these up on the Neutral AH and selling them in their major city AH, or creating their own Alliance character and trading with themselves.

If you have any suggestions for future topics, comments, feedback, or would just like to get in touch with me, don't hesitate to contact me through my twitter @AlerickF

Happy new tear

2012-01-01T08:00:00.000-05:00

Congratulations on playing wow in 2012. May your mailbox be always full of sales. And no-one undercuts your best items. As with any holiday you will get more casual users than normal, so keep an eye on the AH for discounts on materials.

If your a Jewelcrafter, hopefully you are still doing your dailies even if you have all of the patterns. Especially looking at how Nightmare tears have been up and down in demand. A quick 10 minute
trip can easily net you 200-400 on many servers.

The also goes with the cataclsym jewelcrafting daily. If you haven't finished purchasing all of your rare gem patterns, keep doing the dailies til you have. The experiment of limiting the ilevel of gemmed armor will probably will occur with the MOP expansion later this year. If the demand for wrath level gems is any indication you will be well ahead of your competition by having the patterns ready to cut. Also look to stock up on blanks to help level future Jewelcrafters in the next expansion.

One last thing. There has been some rumblings from the EU servers and some of the US servers of dupe items showing up again. These seem to be especially applying to Essence of Destruction and Epic Gems. Remember that if a deal looks too good to be true, it probably is.

Enjoy the rest of the holiday

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.

Past articles by Mommar:

Tip the light fantastic

Tis the season to be goblins

My rod shall comfort thee.. and make gold

Your milage may vary

Would the owner of the saronite please stand up?

Stars are full of gold

You got your jewelcrafter in my alchemist

join the fun ... buy the t-shirt