Just My Two Copper - WoW Gold Guide

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

Farming Deepsea Sagefish

2011-12-30T08:00:00.000-05:00

There are lots of ways to improve your character's performance in dungeons, but one of the most common is eating food. For much of Cataclysm, casters have been using the Fortune Cookie to get their +90 Intellect food buff. But oddly, I've found there are lots of people who prefer to use the fish-based buff: Severed Sagefish Head.

The thing is, the cost of a fortune cookie has been about 50% less than the Sagefish version of the buff, plus you get a fortune card from the deal. As a market savvy raider/dungeoneer, I've always preferred the cheaper fortune cookie. But surprisingly, not everyone goes that route. Maybe they don't know it exists. Maybe they think their "other useful stat" won't actually be useful, instead trusting a tooltip that lists the exact stat. I'm not sure what the deal is.

But here's what I do know: For most of the expansion, I've been selling the Severed Sagefish Head at about 100% profit (in other words, doubling my money). Prices were consistently high because the fish could only be caught by fishing in open water. There was no pool available to give a guaranteed Deepsea Sagefish. That is, up until last week.

A recent hotfix (see December 20 note) has removed the Algaefin Rockfish pools and replaced them with Deepsea Sagefish. This means you can more reliably farm them by fishing in pools, no matter what your fishing level as pool-fishing is a guaranteed catch. Prices are down a bit on average, but their still better than the fortune cookie.

And despite the higher cost, they still sell. If you don't have much gold, or just enjoy killing time while waiting for a queue to pop, head out to Twilight Highlands for some easy gold.

Tip the light fantastic

2011-12-28T08:00:00.000-05:00

I hope this entry finds you enjoyed the afterglow of the Christmas holidays. Preparations for the New Years bash has begun as well in your future. Nothing like spending the new year nursing a hangover and exploring the world of gold making in Azeroth.

Something that both new and experienced crafters learn quickly; there will be a time that you expect a large tip for your efforts. Only to find that the person thanks you with a tip of the cap and a thank you. Somehow not realizing just how much you invested in the pattern, and leveling your profession to its maximum ability. Their newly crafted items equipped and ready for action.

The definition of a "tip" is a gratuity. By definition it is optional to give a tip if you have an item crafted for you. Etiquette would say that if you have a task performed, then a tip should be offered. Problems arise many times when the 10g tip that used to be a large amount of money in game during the burning crusade expansion is no longer appropriate in cataclysm. Inflation of quest rewards and easier availability to obtain gold has raised the expectation of crafters. But many times those asking for the items have not changed with these times. Multiple times i have taken the time to answer a request for an epic item crafting in trade, only to be offered 5g in tip. In my mind I jokingly will say 'I do not even go over to the other side of orgrimmar for less than 100g'.

If your tips have not been to your expectation, it may be time to go ahead and explain that there is a crafting fee for your time and effort. Sometimes where there is a large amount of competition for items (Rare Gem cuts etc) this might not be the best technique to use. Finding yourself with one of the only trained crafters with a specific pattern would change the idea of asking for a 100g or more crafting fee. Just be careful to know what your server population will support. Making sure that you do not quickly drive yourself out of the market.

Supply and demand should be your main drive in understanding when to ask for a crafting fee. And when to just invest your own mats and put the item up on the AH and not worry about non tipping customers at all.

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:

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

Tis the season to be goblins.....

2011-12-25T08:00:00.000-05:00

Today is the day we all wait for during the winter's veil holiday. The opening of the presents that have been taunting us under the tree. Rushing to see what items we receive, and what items will find themselves on the auction house.

As always the Red Helper Box and Green helper box will be flooding the Auction House for those that already have the pet on their characters. But now is an excellent time to save those in your bank for the middle of the year. We aren't that far from the rush of Mists of Pandaria and the quest fill in those pet slots. Also keep an eye on the Auction house to buy up some of the pets such as the Jingling bell to flip over later in the year.

Also with Winter veil comes a quick daily Your a mean one. The quest starts at level 80 and where you may not be able to contribute that much to the fight, you can easily wait til it's over and get credit for the finish. Make sure to talk to the reindeer after it's free and pick up some presents in the cave. Many of the presents are vendor gifts from the toy shop in dalaran. Look to drop those in your bank to sell at a later time or just give to friends for the fun of it.

The event goes on through the 2nd of January, giving you plenty of times to finish the daily multiple times. The big prize is the miniature winter veil tree found in the stolen present. Make sure to drop this on the AH for large amounts of profit for little work.

My last gift is something that an e-mailer brought up that was working on his server.

With the enchanters ability to shatter maelstrom crystal into heavenly shards the market for both is up and down. Keep an eye on this market when you can split the maelstrom crystal in the shards and sell for a profit. Do not forget to look at the enchants that require these to make sure they are in balance with the materials. Purchasing and reselling the enchants to sell at a higher price is a good way to raise your profit margin.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Have a wonderful winter solstice.

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:

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

Managing Inventory as Cataclysm Winds Down

2011-12-23T08:00:00.000-05:00

How do you calculate the cost of an item? Without getting into opportunity costs, let's assume all raw materials have a cost associated with them, even the self-farmed items. We'll use Dragonscale Leg Armor as an example as it only has two components: 1 Pristine Hide and 20 Blackened Dragonscales.

Figuring out the cost is easy enough for the Dragonscales: look up the data on the Auction House, your favorite pricing addon (ie, Trade Skill Master, Auctioneer or Auctionator) or at an independent auction site (The Undermine Journal, AH Spy). All will return different prices most likely, but you'll be able to get a good sense of what it's worth.

Pristine Hides are a bit trickier, because they can be purchased at three different levels:

Buying 50 Savage Leather, converting them into 10 Heavy Savage Leather and trading for a Pristine Hide from the leatherworking supply vendors.
Buying 10 Heavy Savage Leather and trading it in.
Buying 1 from the Auction House.

So you calculate a cost for that Pristine Hide, add it to the Dragonscales and you've got the cost of one Dragonscale Leg Armor. Except it's a little more complicated than that. Here's why: raw goods aren't always worth what you paid for them, but rather what it would take to replace them.

Prior to patch 4.3, I purchased large amounts of Savage Leather to turn into leg enchants for sale after the patch. My average price was around 3.75 gold/leather, or 187.5 gold/Pristine Hide. The Blackened Dragonscale cost me around 14 gold each, or 280g/stack. Add in the cost of the hide, and I was able to make the armors for 467.5g each. Post-patch, they were selling for roughly 800g on average after the initial surge in pricing, for a profit of 333.5g. Not too shabby.

The problem is that replacing them costs much more now. Savage Leather is sitting around 6g on average (300/hide) and Blackened Dragonscale is actually down a bit at 13.75g or 275/stack. The cost of producing them now is 575g and the average sale price has dropped to around 700g. That's a profit of ~125g—Still nice, but not as good.

Of course, right now there's not a real problem because I'm still making a profit on the leg armors. But what if prices for finished goods have dropped below the cost of your materials? This is a very real possibility the longer 4.3 lasts before Mists of Pandaria comes out. Raid Finder has been great for business, but soon the large uptick in business will fade and prices will begin to dip lower and lower. So what to do?

Well, I've not been as aggressively restocking my large supply materials (Leather, Ores, Herbs) as aggressively, instead waiting for prices to drop and my inventory to dwindle. Some items will continue to hold value into MoP, but many won't. Rather than gamble on a large overstock of something, I'd rather use up my inventory and then restock as needed.

I'm also only restocking my limited supply items (enchanting mats) in small batches to better control my costs. The last thing I want to do is purchase 500 Maelstrom Crystals at 200g each, only to see them drop back down to 150 or 125 as more gear from raids and 5-mans starts getting sharded again.

The Cataclysm is far from over. Best case scenario, MoP arrives in May or June. More likely it's August or as late as December. But with the launch of Star Wars: The Old Republic, declining subscriber numbers and Dragon Soul fatigue soon to set in, it's time to start thinking about ending in a good position to start the next big surge with the release of Mists of Pandaria.

My Rod shall comfort thee... and make gold

2011-12-21T08:00:00.000-05:00

Now is a great time to start looking at markets to get back into. Many warcraft players are starting to level alternate races and professions again. One of the most popular to level is an enchanter. As an enchanter levels his craft, he has to create the rods used for the next level enchants.

Each rod has it's own material requirements and is many times in high demand. Many Blacksmiths look at the big ticket items for their sales. But crafting and selling the plain rods can augment your sales.

Silver Rod (2x Rough Grinding Stone + 1x Silver Bar)
Golden Rod (2x Coarse Grinding Stone + 1x Gold Bar)
Truesilver Rod (1x Heavy Grinding Stone + 1 Truesilver Bar)
Arcanite Rod (3x Arcanite Rod + 1 Dense Grinding Stone)
Fel Iron Rod (6x Fel Iron Bar)
Adamantite Rod (10 Adamantite Bar)
Eternium Rod (4x Eternium Bar)
Elementium Rod (15x Elementium Bar)
Titanium Rod (2x Saronite Bar + 1x Titanium bar)
Elementium Rod (15x Elementium Bar)

As with anything you craft, keeping your material costs low will increase your profits. This becomes especially important when it comes to the arcanite rods. Arcanite is only available through an alchemist who has the transmute arcanite pattern. There tends to be a large demand for both the arcanite crystals (mined from thorium level areas like silithus or Plaguelands). Now would be a good time to start to stock up on these when you see them cheap. For both continual sales now, as well as future sales during the MOP expansion.

Fel Iron and Titanium bars become difficult to find at times. Few are doing the Outland and Wrath Expansion areas, making these two items will become in demand on many servers. These also might be good targets to use both a craft and long term storage option. Titanium Bars are also able to be transmute from 8x Saronite bars by an alchemist. Allowing you to have two paths to obtaining these materials.

These type of niche markets might seem trivial in regards to your larger cost items. But small and medium profit sales can add up many times to one large ticket sale. In baseball 4 singles still score the same run as one home run with the bases empty.

Past articles by Mommar:

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

Tools of the Trade

Maximizing Profits and Minimizing Losses While Power-Leveling Professions

2011-12-20T08:00:00.012-05:00

Power-Leveling a profession is widely recognized as one of the most expensive things to do in World of Warcraft. I have heard countless stories about people spending thousands and thousands of gold in WoW just leveling up a profession as quickly as possible. Now I leveled a few professions since the beginning of Cataclysm and let me tell you that if you're smart about it, you can break even, and easily find multiple niche markets that can allow for a steady long term income along the way.

Leveling mining by means of smelting ore is an extremely viable way to level the profession quickly and efficiently, and using this method you can level the profession almost completely without leaving a major city. The exceptions being 10 levels from 340-350 skill in the transition between Outlands and Northrend , and the final 25 levels between skill 500 and 525. Now the reason I am telling you all this is to show the massive range of ore and bars you'll have access to while leveling the profession. Having such a large repertoire will allow you to cater to audiences from levels 1-85 looking to level professions such as Engineering, Blacksmithing, Jewelcrafting, Enchanting(in the form of imbuing rods crafted by Blacksmiths but necessary for Enchanters nonetheless), and Alchemy(transmuting Saronite Bars). All of these professions require metals in varying forms to level up the profession, but the first three listed are the ones with the highest demand.

After power-leveling my mining skill through smelting I began to explore all of the opportunities that lay in front of me. I had a large supply of bars, and wanted to look into what would make me the most gold. First off, there was almost always a huge price differential between the ore and bars I saw on the AH, and I could basically break even by just selling what I had smelted. I compared prices and found specifically the Outland materials, Fel Iron and Adamantite Bars to be selling for a couple hundred gold a stack easily. Leveling a profession is one of the easiest ways to explore available niche markets on your server. Finding out all of the possibilities for extraneous sources of income can allow for a long term and lucrative relationship with that market. For example, after I had figured out how easy it was to make gold by just buying ore off the auction house and smelting it, I began to keep the most profitable ore on my snatch list, so when I saw any I could pick it up easily and smelt it for a nice markup.

A few more examples of this is the market for Khorium Power Cores. These items are gold mines, and can be crafted using the Engineering profession, and sold for a huge markup on the Auction House. These are valuable items partially because of the rarity of Khorium in general, and partially because they are reagents for high end items such as the epic Engineering mount. A core is also a necessary part of a quest that grants reputation towards the Netherwing faction. Khorium is always on my snatch list, and is often listed cheaply so make sure to look out for it if you can. Other items for possible niche markets that be crafted using metal are Enchanting Rods that are created through Blacksmithing, and Delicate Copper Wire which is a material required by Engineers but only crafted by Jewelcrafters to make Fused Wiring, which

is an important reagent needed to make the "Lil' Smoky" and "Pet Bombling" pets, as well as cool items like Goblin Jumper Cables.

These are just a few examples of the countless niche markets ready to be discovered through leveling a profession. Make sure to check the competition and demand for the item on the AH before making a substantial investment, and do some research as well. Most of these markets are server specific and it's up to you to find out what's going to be the best one. Use this advice well, and I hope you can all find something that works well for you.

If you have any suggestions for future topics, feedback, or just want to get in touch with me, feel free to contact me through my twitter @AlerickF

Your Milage May Vary

2011-12-18T08:00:00.001-05:00

Go to this place and farm. Put this on the Auction House and sell it. Flip this item for large amounts of profit. Multiple journals carry multiple amounts of threads on how to obtain gold on warcraft.

Many of our writers have different varying ways of stating their point of view. Some are able to put a more technical analysis on their gold making journey. Others tend to put more of a homespun wording on how they present the information. Others couldn't spell if their life depended on it. No matter what information is offered, or how they present it, one complete axiom is the same.

This idea may not work on your server.

Sorry to have to break the news to you on this. But no idea is 100% guaranteed to work completely. These tips and ideas are not sham-wow tested and approved. And when someone posts up a tip, they fully understand that you may not be able to add this to your repertoire of ideas to make gold.

Transmuting volatiles, flipping epic level patterns, buying raw gems and crafting to higher selling items. None of these listed methods will work completely. The only guaranteed 100% add-on that will work and guarantee money making opportunities is learning how to think outside the box. No matter how an add-on is presented as being foolproof, there is always a fool well engaged in proving that description incorrect.

So why is it important to know this when your reading the writings of JMTC? Because hopefully you have picked up as you read our entries, that the authors are not just wanting you to see information in a specific format. But we are hard at work trying to show you how to think for yourself. Saronite ore might not be a good option of prospecting. But that thorium that someone posted up for 10g a stack sure looks interesting and might generate profit. Every piece of information you are presented is one step to add to your stack of knowledge. Because that item might not generate a profit for you now. Later on it might be just what you need to jumpstart a sagging economic downturn.

Money making is not a go here and farm this, craft this, sell this type of system. Your brain and your ability to think will create loads more money than any journal or warcraft blog can teach you. Our hopes are to just be able to nudge you in the right direction, and then present ideas that might help in the long run.

If we can give you one idea that will allow you to expand your empire into another area. And bring you that much closer to your goals. Then we have done our jobs.

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.

Links to Previous articles

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

Tools of the Trade

Information Is Gold

2011-12-18T08:00:00.000-05:00

Today's Guest Post is by Bozzor, the Gold Millionaire.

Information is one of the most important factors in gold making.It is obviously that an informed player

reacts faster to any change in markets, gaining more gold or selling before a price crash.

Most players do not bother to read patch notes in depth or read known blogs about WoW economy on a daily or even weekly basis.They are simply caught ''with pants down'' when major changes happend in game.

Ask yourself a question : ''How much will hurt my play time 10-15 min / day of reading about WoW?''

I always read a number of sites and blogs BEFORE logging into WoW.I admit, i spend more than 15 min, but that is because i like to read about WoW economy.However, even 10-15 min its more than nothing. Try to do this, its not that bad :D

While informing about WoW economy its good, its not enough.This is only to have a general view about changes that will take place in game.But those changes are rare, ocuring only on major patches.After the changes take place, there is only one way to be prepared for speculations that take place after.

Add on your friends list the major sellers of ores, leather, herb and cloth.Watching their activity, when they log in, how much they farm before posting their stuff for sale, how much volume they sell, can help a player to cope with spikes in prices.Take into consideration that a crafted item that uses the above materials can be sold at higher than normal price if the farmers are busy gathering materials and there is 1-2 hours before they start selling, lowering the materials prices, hence, giving another crafters the posibility to make cheap items.

Also, add on your list the main competitors for craftable items on the markets you are active.There are windows of opportunity, when farmers are offline or gathering materials and the competition is offline or doing dungeons / pvp.

Think about that most of the farmers have 2 gathering professions, and sometimes, they move from ores to herbs, or from leather to ores. Being able to see what, when and how much they gather its an information that no serious trader can pass away.

So, to sum up, read about WoW economy and know your server farmers and competition.The first will have you prepared for any major changes, and second will give you the opportunity to gain gold between those major changes.

Stockpiling, as the main resource to make gold on long term, is heavily based on information and knowledge about your server economy, who is driven by major farmers and traders.

Speculation, along market manipulation, is a short time gold making opportunity that is also based on information.

Information is Gold is as much true as Time is Money.Even the smallest piece of information can make the difference between a succesful trader and a failed one.

Bozzor, Gold Multimillionaire.

If you like this article, please visit www.auctionhousegoldstrategies.wordpress.com for more auction house strategies by the author.

Patch 4.3's Long-Term Gold Implications

2011-12-16T08:00:00.000-05:00

I don't know about you, but my post-patch sales are slowly starting to return to normal. Prices are still generally higher than they were before, but raw material prices are generally higher now also. I love addons and their ability to automate my buying and selling, but I also like having a more intimate knowledge of certain markets so I can watch for trends and plan farther ahead.

As I've been doing my daily gold-making routine, I got to thinking about the trends from past patches and what would happen in the near future with Patch 4.3. The more I think about it, the more I think this is completely different from any patch in the past, with the possible exception of Patch 3.3 and the introduction of the Dungeon Finder.

If you played pre-Dungeon Finder, you might remember the pain and suffering involved with forming a 5-man dungeon group. Spamming chat channels in the cities looking for a group, then traveling out to the dungeon, only to lose someone and have to go back for more people. It could take hours to find a group and complete a dungeon. Suddenly, you could queue for a dungeon and within a reasonable amount of time, be in the dungeon and completing it with relative speed.

Groups with an enchanter could disenchant gear easily, resulting in an abundant supply of raw materials. This drove raw prices down and set a lower average price for enchanting materials. While this phenomenon was largely contained in the enchanting profession, there were tendrils of influence that hit other professions as well.

Raid Finder and Transmogrification Change the Game
Fast forward to the present time and we're living post-4.3. The Raid Finder and Transmogrification have fundamentally changed the way people acquire gear and what they do with it. In the past, sharding gear was common. If it wasn't an upgrade, why keep it? Now, suddenly, gear is useful for appearance and not just stats thanks to transmogrification. I've been keeping more gear, especially on my leveling toons, on the off chance that I might need it someday for transmogging.

The Raid Finder introduced a new level of gear to the equation as well. Now, instead of running 5-mans over and over, people graduate to the Raid Finder to get better gear and earn some Valor Points as well. Because it's a 25-man group, it's rare to find gear that drops and no one needs. If not for a main spec, then for an off-spec.

Combine these two factors and you have far fewer enchanting materials entering the market, especially earlier in a patch's life cycle. This means prices will stay high longer than in previous patches, though they might still return to a more "normal" level. In the past, you could count on enchanting materials going down in price over time, but now they'll consistently grow higher on average over the course of an expansion.

Higher enchanting prices means more Jewelcrafters shuffling ore into jewelry for disenchanting. This means there are less uncommon (green-quality) gems available for transmuting into shadowspirit diamonds or rare (blue-quality) gems. Ore prices will rise as Jewelcrafters consume more ore in the shuffle. This, in turn, means higher gem prices for consumers as costs go up.

Combating the Trend

Moving forward, stockpiling will become more and more important for the gold-making entrepreneur. Stocking up in large quantities when prices are low will become a more integral part of our gold-making endeavors. Investing in storage space through alts with full banks, guild banks, or managing inventory by storing it in the mailbox can lead to large profits over time.

It will also become more important to find reliable suppliers at the lowest possible level of the production chain. Ore, Herbs and Leather farmers that regularly send you supplies will be invaluable in fighting rising prices. Just be prepared to up their pay over time or some other enterprising merchant might steal them away from you.

What long-range implications do you see now that we've had several weeks to adapt to 4.3? How has it already affected your business? Are you finding supply of raw materials to be a problem?

Would the owner of the saronite please stand up?

2011-12-14T08:00:00.000-05:00

Many times we talk about active strategies to obtain money. Jewelcrafters are currently going through their progressions of posting up Raw or cut gems at large profits. Other professions are crafting items

such as PVP gear, spellthreads, leg armors and profit making materials.

When looking through a list of items that are at the forefront of money making ideas, a visit to past

ideas can add more profits to your warcraft gold til. One of these is Saronite ore and bars.

Saronite ore and bars are being dropped on the Auction House market at low prices. Right now is a perfect opportunity to use these to your advantage.

Three items are going to become important to your pursuit for gold. Prospecting these items will give you the ability to create Icy Prisms (1 dark jade + 1 chalcedony + 1 shadow crystal + 1 frozen orb) and an opportunity for multiple rare and even epic wrath of the lich king gems. Included in these are scarlet rubies which sell consistantly at the 120g to 125g on multiple servers. Included with this also is the ability to have an alchemist transmute into a Cardinal Ruby (1 scarlet ruby + 1 primal fire) for added profits. Using this can become a good way to use the alchemist cooldown timer on transmutations. The larger amount of volatile elements on the auction house has made the profit margin for transmutes lower and lower.

For engineers, saronite bars are useful for the crafting of titanium bars. 8 saronite bars can be transmuted into 1 titanium bar by an alchemist. Two stacks of saronite bar going for 20g can be turned into 5 titanium bars and sold at a profit. Another alternate source will be engineers looking to create tiansteel for their mechano-hog (or the alliance version the mekgineer's chopper). Both will become very popular come the next expanion. Who doesn't want to see a fat panda on a motorcycle?

Blacksmiths use saronite bars to craft the saronite set of armor. These still tend to sell very well on some servers for disenchanting stock by enchanters, and for leveling alternates at a faster rate.

Another option is just for storage before the Mists of Panderia expansion occurs is storage for resell at a later date. The start of a brand new character race creates a need for leveling materials for multiple professions. Every new expansion has created a rush to gain materials from previous expansions, creating a high demand and low supply situation at the start. Many stacks of saronite ore were going for hundreds of gold per stack.

Creating multiple alternate markets besides just the normal ones that are popular can increase your

gold balance. And allowing you to expand your markets into different areas.

What other materials are being looked over currently in your opinions? Thorium ore? Netherweave cloth? Gold ore? What are your opinions?

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.

Links to Previous articles

Stars are full of gold

You got your jewelcrafter in my alchemist

join the fun ... buy the t-shirt

Tools of the Trade

Goodbye Darkmoon Faire

Freud never said anything about warcraft gold

Between Deathwing and panda invasion

Gold Tips for the Arrival of the New Dragon Soul Raid

2011-12-13T08:00:00.009-05:00

Hello again everyone. Alerick here again here to talk to you guys about the new Dragon Soul raid and the gold making opportunities it brings with it. The new raid features two sections, each containing four bosses. Each boss on regular and heroic ONLY (that means no LFR) will drop a mote of darkness, excluding Deathwing which drops a mote that can be exchanged for a geode containing a guaranteed epic gem with a primary stat on it(agility, strength, intellect). The motes that drop from bosses in regular mode excluding Deathwing can be exchanged for a less valuable geode called a "Crystalline Geode", which has a chance to drop any of the epic gems, but at a much lower rate and will often include only common gems. I was lucky enough on my first open to receive a raw epic red gem which sold for about 10k gold within the hour I posted it. These gems can be cut by Jewelcrafters that purchased the recipes from regular using tokens obtained from the daily quests. These gems open up an exclusive and very lucrative market for us JCs who have a few cuts and are willing to put some gold into it.

Apart from gems, there are epic crafting reagents called "Essence of Destruction" similar to Living Embers and Primordial Saronites in the sense that they can be used to craft item level appropriate gear to that raid, and are commonly dropped off of these bosses. Since there is such a demand for all of the new gear, these essences will be going for extremely good prices, and I have already made quite a bit of gold by just buying them up on weekends when the supply is high, and selling them off immediately after raid times on my server when all of the raiders are looking to upgrade their gear.

This brings me to my third and final segment regarding epic recipes and patterns for the new Dragon Soul raid. There are a multitude of craftable items taught by recipes dropped in the new raid that can be created using these Essences of Destruction among other materials and sold to high end raiders for a premium price so early after the patch while many of the materials are still scarce. I know for a fact that MANY of these are well itemized and best in slot items for all of Dragon Soul regular, and while people are still looking to fully upgrade their gear, the hardcore raiders will be first in line to snag any possible upgrade to help with progression. If you are as lucky as I was when I got an epic BoE pattern while running the raid, you have the option to learn it on a character of yours and craft it for some profit, or sell it to someone who wants it either for their guild, or to further expand their profession's repertoire. I chose to sell mine for a premium price, because similar to the Firelands epic recipe drops, I am assuming that these recipes are at their zenith in price point now. The only way to go in terms of price is down now, as more people explore the content and obtain the patterns, it will decrease. However I chose to do this solely because the item I got was neither best in slot nor itemized well. If you happen to be one of the first on your server with a best in slot recipe by all means learn it and abuse it. This is one of the best ways to make gold and depending on how long it is before someone else gets the pattern, there's no telling how much profit you could make.

If you want to give me any feedback, have any suggestions for future topics, or just want to get in touch with me. Feel free to contact me through my twitter @AlerickF

The Stars are full of Gold

2011-12-11T08:00:00.000-05:00

For the 5th day straight I was raking in a large amount of gold on my server. While letting one of my add-ons sort things out, a conversation started with one of my group cartel members. We have actively been keeping an eye on Gem sales to make sure that they don't get too low.

The topic of the conversation was how much gold is too much gold. Both of us had gold capped

before patch 4.2. And as with many people, collecting and reposting becomes more of a chore instead of something that's necessary for raiding or PVE quests. Every mount on the AH is available at a click, every pet yours for the buying. Gearing up a raiding alt is just a few clicks away. Even faster if you have the needed crafting skill to make items.

As warcraft matures, the economy becomes more saturated with your wow millionaires. As more gold making websites, and gold making guides like Markcos gold guide become popular, there will be a continued amount of movers and shakers on server economies.

Blizzard every so often will issue a "money dump" to level the playing field. But advanced gold makers will always have an advantage over people who aren't able to amass large amounts of wow riches. The question is truly what can someone do with their gold. I"m going to give you 5 ideas to spark some ideas of your own. Two of these I did myself, and others were suggested from others.

1. Buy a specific mount for every one of your raiders (My personal choice is the Mechano-hawg)

2. Host your own trivia show on trade channel with varying amounts of prizes

3. Drop 10k gold on a random level 1 player in a starting area.

4. Powerlevel all of your alt characters to max level

5. Buy random pets to everyone in a specific area

There comes a time in every gold makers run to figure out a new way to entertain or challenge themselves. Creating a new goal besides wow millionaire status will extend your enjoyment in

auction house PVP. Plus everyone needs a cool show of all their guild members on hawgs don't they?

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.

Links to Previous articles

You got your jewelcrafter in my alchemist

join the fun ... buy the t-shirt

Tools of the Trade

Goodbye Darkmoon Faire

Freud never said anything about warcraft gold

Between Deathwing and panda invasion