Critical Goblin

Quality, Cost and Time

2012-02-22T00:30:00.000+13:00

PS: how do you guys like the weekly Wednesday (or Tuesday for most readers) posts so far? Yea i know, a big change from the daily posts in the past. Anyway thanks for stickin' around.

So as you can guess, today we're going to talk about the magical relationship between quality, cost and time, in relation to business.

In the most simplest form these are the 3 quantifiers (or is it qualifiers? my grammer and spelling sux) that you consciously, or sometimes unconsciously, compare when making a purchasing decision. Quality refers to the quality level of a product or service. Time refers to how long or short it takes to access (buy) said product/service. And lastly cost is obviously how much gold/dollars/pesos its going to set you back.

The golden rule normally is, in most situations, pick any two. Since this is a wow gold blog lets have a look at some quick AH examples from the eyes of a buyer:

- Want a cut epic gem (high quality) and want it now (short access time)? Dont be surprised at the high cost.

- Want the latest purple BOE (high quality) but want it as cheap as possible (low cost)? It takes time to keep checking the AH and finally snatching one when the price is low enough (long access time).

- Lastly, need an enchant for a new chestpiece now (short access time) but can only afford something cheap (low cost)? +8 stats (low quality) is all you're going to be able to buy.

There are of course exceptions to these rules. Sometimes you can get epic gems cheap right now on the AH because the seller is not a pro goblin and needs the cash to splurge on the new weapon he's been drooling over for the last few days.

So what does this have to do with you the budding business goblin of the wow world? Simple.

The first rule of business club is: set a goal.

The second rule is: know yourself and your competition.

The third rule of business club is: know your target audience ie your customers.

The goblin that has 5 million gold on your server understands exactly how much to fine tune the above 3 variables for each of his products and services, to maximize his operating profit. Be that goblin! Win the AH for Critical!

80 / 20 Rule for Inscription

2012-02-15T00:15:00.000+13:00

Albertus asks an excellent question on Croda's blog:
"Why will you spend a ton of time and money to max a profession and in the end only use a Small part of it."

I know I promised to move away from wow/glyph/gold topics but this worm was too juicy to not take the bait. Why was this an interesting question you ask? Because Critical's whole blog previously was focused on only part of the inscription profession: glyphs and DM trinkets. I never sold books, inks, pigments, raw materials and the only times I sold MFCs was to cheese off a particular competitor until they buggered off and then I stopped. I am the guy the question is exactly aimed at and it was thought provoking to say the least, thanks Albertus.

So I'm guessing most of my Critical Readers will know or have heard of the 80/20 rule yea? By having it in the title its pretty obvious that's what we're going to talk about today.

So there I was asking myself: Hmmmmm if I'm so smart why did I focus on part of the inscription profession instead of everything which is profitable. I never really thought about it back then but looking back I believe I focused on the 20% of the inscription game which gave me 80% available profit. Obviously I just made these percentages up and I have no proof but hear me out.

Firstly, lets look at all inscription items able to be sold for a profit and then chuck em into a pie chart that I just happened to have in my back pocket. You will notice glyphs and DM items make up a nice portion of the pie (and by pure coincidence happen to add up to 80%):

Secondly, lets talk about the time required to run a business focused on glyphs and DM trinkets only. Once you set up your manufacturing process efficiently, it can become 20% of your time spent on inscription. See my Critical War series and you'll notice the same smooth repeat every "work" day taking very minimal time. DM trinket manufacturing isn't shown but that's super easy as pie: collect a crapload of embers and AFK mill into embers then pull out the cheap lifes you've been snatching off the AH and then again AFK craft cards.

Why spend (possibly up to 80%) more time inscriptioning making the other stuffs which give you small (aka the 20%) profit? You shouldn't! Think big business, big total profits, big big big! Don't run a small 7-Eleven selling 100 SKUs at high profit margins slowly. Grow your business into a Walmart or a Target, something big! Be an Apple! I dont know! I dont care! As long as its something Big! Lame goals = lame results. Winners fuck the prom queen!

!!!!!! Set your goal today with big exclamation marks !!!!

Oh and dont focus on the 80% that results in 20% return !!! Phew, almost forgot the moral of today's post.

The Measure of a "Good" Blog

2012-02-08T00:30:00.000+13:00

Some people are competitive, others are not. Some people are winners in life. Some are losers. Some people care deeply about anything and everything whilst others dont care at all. Whichever category you belong to, I am pretty you have asked yourself at one point in time, I wonder how my blog is doing?

If you're a noob like me, you'll be stumbling around having a good ol time trying to figure out this blog game because there is no "Become a Pro Wow Blogger in 30 Days!" program. So how do you know how well your blog is doing?

Here are a few of Critical's favorite measurements:

1. Monthly Pageviews - this gives a great picture of whether your blog is "improving". Blogger tracks, plots and even resets it monthly automatically! The only thing it doesn't do is iron my socks =(.

Click the red circles, especially the DO NOT TRACK MYSELF button.

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2. Comments - what this indicates is whether your Posts are engaging enough to convince your readers to start or continue a discussion. If you dont get comments you either treat commentors badly (by deleting comments) or the content was only boringly interesting enough to perform a quick 3 second skim before shutting down the window.

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3. Unique Visitors - this one is available in Analytics. This basically tracks how many theoretical unique visitors visited your blog in a chosen period (I like to choose 7 days). If your unique visitors count goes up it means more and more readers are reading your blog.

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4. Feedburner reader count - not the most simplest to set up but this is probably the most consistent measure to use to compare against other blogs as well as self assessment. Basically it shows how many readers have subscribed to your "feed". The more the better.

So there you have it. Yes yes nothing new for the pros. But hopefully for the average non-blogging Reader the above is an interesting insight into the wonderful world of wow blogging.

Blog Partner

2012-02-01T00:30:00.000+13:00

A blog partner is another blog that your blog interacts with regularly, preferably mutually in both directions. A prime example is Tobold and Greedy. Another older and no longer active pair was Foo and Breevok way before Critical was conceived.

Why is it important to have a blog partner(s)?
Good question. Having a good blog partner increases readership because your readers can become his/hers and vice versa.

How do you choose a good blog partner?
Pretty straight forward, basically a blog that focuses on similar topics to your own. Its preferable to choose a "stronger" partner with more readership rather than a weaker partner, eg if you are learning to play tennis and Nadal happened to like you and spent time playing tennis with you, your game will improve much more quickly than if you played with beginners.

So who asks who out? Does the guy make the first move or what's the rules?
One of the easiest ways is as follows, which I learnt from my big bro Greedy. Firstly keep up to date with the partner blog's posts. When you see one that you disagree with, have an opinion BUT DONT comment on their blog. Instead create a post on your own blog sharing your negative/opposing opinion whilst linking to your blog partner. Here's a recent example. As you can see you dont need to have the complete opposite opinion, just disagreeing slightly is sufficient. Sooner or later the blog partner will somehow find you are blogging about them and hopefully return the favor starting a weird and wonderful internet/blog/crazy relationship.

You can do positive posts but to be honest that's a bit lame and gets boring and I think you'll lose readers.

Should I limit myself to one partner only?
No, some of the biggest bloggers have a massive network. But if you're starting off, start small. Choose one max two blogs that are very, very similar to your own and start interacting. Those of you that have been with Critical from the beginning know that my partners are Foo and Mox, chosen because they have a similar passion and competency of pro glyphing as myself. Faid and Jim/Flux pair up well because they both are skilled at media presentations (youtubes/podcasts).

I'm a small blog, what should I do?
Choose a stronger partner.

Ok what about if I'm a medium blog?
Help the little guys and partner downwards. Each one that partners back helps you a little bit. But every bit counts.

I'm a big blog, what's your advice?
How the feck should I know, you should be advising me!

So there you have it. Find your life partner now and make the link today. You'll thank me when your readership quadruples instantly!

Daily Blog Posts

2012-01-27T00:10:00.000+13:00

Today's topic: Daily blog posts.

Below are some quick fire bullet points what Critical learnt while sticking to a daily posting schedule for 3 months and its advantages:

1. Less pressure on quality - if you do a bad post who cares, it gets pushed down in 24hrs. Your focus is on the next post rather than worrying whether readers loved your last post.

2. Smaller topics - easier to write, from an author point of view. Easy to read, from a reader's point of view.

3. Forces interblog interaction - no one has enough stuff to write without interacting with other blogs/authors. This results in increase viewership as readers from other blogs also read your blog, and vice versa returning the favor.

4. Increased subscriptions - if you post daily, even if your post quality is average, readers will read. All they want is new content to consume. Why? Think about when do you yourself read blogs. You dont do it as when you're working, as part of your job. You do it when you have free time and need to fill and kill time. Only if you get really lazy and really drop your quality do you lose readers.

5. Forces planning - in the same way we goblins in wow make lots of gold by having a good routine and sticking to it, so does posting daily. Create drafts early, finalise and schedule them to auto-post at the same time every day. Choosing a set time means you know how long you have to finish tonight's/tomorrow's post.

Think it sounds easy? Give it a go for a week, stick to a simple intro/body/conclusion format and I promise your readership will go up and up and up!

PS: See Croda's as a great example, he gets it. Well he did ... boooo Croda's girlfriend =).

Blogging a Passion??

2012-01-25T00:30:00.000+13:00

Welcome to Critical's first post completely not related to his usual glyph ramblings!

So there I was, asking myself, what are the best topics to blog about, to achieve "success" in terms of blogging? What should be my new topic(s)? The obvious choices are either: what you are personally passionate about, or what you excel at. If you can hit the sweet spot that nails these two ... booya! Instant win!

Why do I say this? Look at the blogs that go from strength to strength to strength. Greedy, his blog does well because he is passionate about his topics. Same thing with Flux/Jim, Cold and Markco, they know (knew in Markco's case) exactly what they want their baby to become.

In reverse what about the blogs that die or slowly phase out, such as Critical's own blog or if you're an oldie you may remember Bangkok Bill. I dont think its because he/we lost the passion of blogging, more likely because we lost what we were passionately blogging about: the gold universe in wow.

So anyway, back to this blog. Hmmmm what is Critical super pro at and also loves, thats not glyphing and is still semi related my 89 subscribers? Blogging of course! Yes yes I'm a blog noob but 0 to 95 subs in 91 days, I believe is a decent achievement (actually I have no idea, there's no standards to compare against).

Its a huge tangent but hopefully not too many Critical Readers abandon ship during this change in direction. Hope you stick around for an interesting adventure!

Week 20 Blog Stats

2012-01-23T01:15:00.000+13:00

Hola loyal Critical Fans still subscribed to my feed! And u other guys who keep coming back and boosting my page views even though there's been no new posts!

So anyway I hope everyone had a good Christmas and New Years! Quick stats for the 7 days ending 21 January 2012.

I can see ya'll thinking, whats with the post all of a sudden Critical? Hmmm I guess reading some of the recent articles in TUJ (Vile's and Alto's to be exact) made me miss blogging. Plus I never really achieved a personal side goal of disassociating my blog with wow so that its not reliant on the monthly subscription, which my big bro Greedy managed to do ages ago.

So what does this mean? To be honest I'm not quite sure. But as I've preached many times over I know the first step has to be setting a goal. Detractors may disagree, but I felt I achieved my previous goal. Going forward there must be a new destination set for this blog's journey, no matter how absurd or ridiculous. Just fine tune as you go along when you start to understand strengths, weaknesses, possible high value goals to achieve, low value goals to avoid being distracted by etc.

How about:
"To be the most popular gold blog who's author blogs about other stuff not always related to gold making, does not play wow, and does not blog daily".

Hmmmm. No one said winning the internet would be easy! Give me a few days and we'll see what sort of non-wow related rubbish Critical can come up with.

PS: remember its compulsory for Critical Fans to post a hi in blog stat posts if you're new! Click subscribe then post a hi below! Come on, it only takes 5 seconds, feed the Critical goblin today!

Week 13 Blog Stats

2011-12-05T00:00:00.000+13:00

As I have mentioned a few times previously, I am no longer active inside of Wow. The release of 4.3 has made me realize that I am now a dinosaur. This patch is not a major patch but at some stage there will be a game changing update that will completely nullify the knowledge I blog about.

I have always felt that my costing sheet was my most secret weapon as it showed exactly what my real floor is, and was always planned to be one of my final releases.

It has been a fantastic journey developing this writing character from originally a rude crude critical dude obsessed with pointing out writings he did not like, to a more cultured individual very interested in sharing all he knows about glyphing. Long term Critical Readers will know the massive ups and downs this blog has been through.

The original intent of this blog was to become the best knowledge bank on advance glyphing. I believe we (yes I am talking about you Critical Reader) have achieved this. I have also noticed multiple blogs focusing intently on glyph discussions and it gives me great pleasure to see other like minded individuals love glyphing as much as myself. I have the utmost confidence in these capable authors to lead new glyphers through future patches.

As such I hereby tender my resignation from my promised daily posts, and move from a pro-active schedule to a silent role. Yes you could say this is the second (real) end of Critical. Dont worry all the old stuff will stay available for reference purposes.

I would like to say a big thanks to the support crew who have been with me all the way through the ups and downs. This blog would not have become what it is without your support.

I will still monitor comments and try my best to answer any questions anyone might have but there will not be any more new posts. Thanks for sticking around this long Critical Reader, I really appreciate your support during this journey.

Whilst this post answers Grue's question somewhat, his comment was not the trigger. This post was already finalized and scheduled before his comment.

Take care,
Critical

What is a Glyph Market Leader

2011-12-04T12:00:00.000+13:00

And why would anyone want to become the Glyph Market Leader? Croda asks the hard questions.

Hmmmm going backwards and looking at my original Glyph Market Leader post I realize I never really defined the term Glyph Market Leader.

This is one definition of a market leader:
"The brand, product, or firm that has the largest percentage of total sales revenue (the market share) of a market."

So to be the Glyph Market Leader you must have the highest share of actual glyph sales as illustrated in my pie chart.

I dont advise being the Glyph Market Leader because it has magical advantages. My methods/strats/tactics aim to maximize the user's share of sales, which if the user takes a step further and say they want to have the lion's share of total sales, is by definition becoming the Glyph Market Leader.

My Selling posts/instructions focus on sales, not profit or ROI or GPH. They are meant to show advance techniques on how to aggressively attain and retain dominant market share. Improving your profit or efficiency requires improving your Buying and Making skills.

So why did I choose this goal?
Collecting a billion gold is easy, ask Mox and Brent. Driving out serious competition is not. Setting a goal of 1 or 2 or 5mil is not a hard goal, it just takes time and a good routine, ask any pro goblin. I chose a hard goal that I had no idea whether I could achieve it, which was: is it possible to obtain majority market share and still be profitable? Any tom, dick or harry can come in and sell at cost price and gain majority market share because no one else will (rightly) bother selling. The fun part is making the market appear bad to other competitors whilst having good buying and making systems in place that provide good return.

Imagine if 8 out of 10 gems sold on the AH were your gems? That's exactly what Critical dreams of. Except with glyphs of course.

Calculator v1.2 (with DM Trinket Costing)

2011-12-04T00:00:00.000+13:00

Ok ok I admit, I only released half of my costing sheet because I felt the full thing would be too bit confusing. Here's the full shabang. I'll try to explain how I use it, just ask if you have any questions.

[Side note: I've also added a full stack version for those glyphers that like to work with full herb stack prices because I'm kinda getting the feeling I'm the only one who works with single herb pricing (choose the tab at the bottom: Single or Full Stack).]

Calculator v1.2 (DM trinket costing added)

To show you how to use this I am going to use the figures in Big Al's example. PS: I'm really scared this is going to be too confusing for many readers, but lets give it a go!

Al's numbers:
- 9 bf to 1 inferno ratio
- 46g whiptail stack cap (ie buy all below this cap)
- 10g volatile lifes

The intersecting point attempts to answer the question: if I buy whiptails at 46g and lifes at 10g, what is the raw material cost for a DM trinket? Answer: 4,700g. Remember 1 inferno can be bought with 10 BFs at the ink vendor, so the ratio does not affect the DM trinket costing part of the form. It also assumes you make a tonne of glyphs and end up with a tonne of infernos and therefore make a tonne of cards and therefore easily make DM decks/trinkets.

Beginners cross their fingers and hope they get a Two of Waves (or whatever they are missing). Professionals do the maths and normalize costings eg in wrath we knew transmute procs over mass transmutes equal extra 20% or 1.2 and we reverse calculate and discount our costing appropriately, where as noobs go ZOMG i got 5 red gems instead of 1!

Darkmoon Trinkets Still Win for 4.3

2011-12-03T00:00:00.000+13:00

/shrug Critical stopped selling DM trinkets a while ago but 3 purples confirming viability in 4.3 cant be wrong.

I know I know, I'm the only one with no cool 4.3 news. Check out Flux's new Chronicle newspaper. A nice starting point for quickly skimming through all our gold crazy blogs.

How-To Use CG's Herb Calculator

2011-12-02T00:00:00.000+13:00

Yesterday's post was the release of my special special herb/glyph costing calculator. Nothing complex, just a whole bunch of equations mushed together. Critical eats his own dogfood, this is exactly what he uses.

Lets get started!

Step 1 - Work out your Blackfallows to Inferno ratio. This figure is basically, how many blackfallows is one inferno worth to you? Personally I set this as 10 because infernos convert into DM trinkets which sell highly well but everyone is different. For example Foo, at time of his comment, would use 4.5.

Step 1

Step 2 - Use Auctionator and search for Whiptails. Focus only on auctions that are full stacks (20) or at least multiples of 5. Ignore all other stacks with funny sizes including singles. Look at the single item price (circled in red). For this example lets use 1.6g.

Step 2

Step 3 - Look at the Whiptail pricing row and find 1.6g. Raw material cost is 6.5g (labor not factored in).

Step 3

Step 4 - Decide the max Glyph Cost price you want to work with. Lets say for example you are ok with 8g per glyph. Go back to Auctionator and snatch (buy all quickly) all the full stacks of herb below that price.

Step 4

And there you have it, that's how you use Critical's secret secret costing calculator! Sorry if you were expecting something super fantastically amazing. Critical doesnt do amazing =/.

Critical's Secret Costing Calculator

2011-12-01T00:00:00.000+13:00

You asked for it (actually only Brent and Robot did, but I've been wanting to talk about Buying for a while now). So ... here is one of the most important tools you need to help you improve your Buying:

Critical's herb and glyph costing calculator

To be honest this is Critical's MOST important secret. I release these dataz because I love you Critical Readers. This is 10x more important than posting/selling strats because the cheaper/lower you pay for herbs, the more aggressive your posting strats can be.

To keep this post clean and short I will do the How-To guide to use this calculator tomorrow, rather than mass pics here.

GrayzBDF's Goal Post

2011-11-30T00:00:00.001+13:00

Like many other readers and authors, Critical loves scouring the internet for interesting blogs. When you find a good one its a special feeling. You are part a small group who have stumbled upon a treasure trove that you and few others know about.

GrayzBDF seems to have discontinued his blog but skimming through some of his older posts, this is what made Critical get a strange tingly feeling and go, ZOMG SOMEONE ELSE EXACTLY GETS IT!

People can say what they want with whichever arguments they have, but it's simple; I choose a goal, learn what I need to get there and do it. Every single time that I choose a goal and shoot for it, I reach it, without fail. It's all just a matter of how long it takes to reach the goal, if you do the same things that other succesful people do. You can't fail if you're on a successful path. And success is simply "the realization of a worthy ideal" -Earl Nightingale. Brian Tracy would argue that you can reach any goal, "within reason", which may hold true, but most of the time human beings hold themselves back more than they push forward, so I simplify it and say if you can imagine it, you can do it.

PS: Grayz I like your writing style. I myself have 98% quit wow, no raiding, no pvp not even playing the AH (only maintain a sub to run experiments and take screenshots). If you have been playing since Vanilla and hit both caps I am sure you have a stupidly, ridiculous wealth of gold making knowledge. Have you considered blogging about how you AH and the theory behind your processes (or used to if you have quit).

I think if you did shorter, more succinct posts, that as a side benefit take less time than big ones, you would have great success. This is because it is rare to find an author that has years of experience/success, good writing skills and no real reason to withhold good/quality information (because you are not worried about tough competition).

For example this post could have been broken up into 10 smaller posts released 1 by 1. Its not about trying to stretch content and increase blog life. Its about making it easier for yourself because you're not spending heaps of time doing big posts, and its also easier for readers because shorter posts can be skimmed when readers have a spare minute and then mentally digested during routine tasks/work that dont require brainpower.

PPS: I like how you refer to yourself in the 3rd person. I thought I was the pioneer! I guess I was not.

Top 5 Reasons You NEED to Subscribe TODAY! (NSFW)

2011-11-29T00:00:00.000+13:00

After intensive surveying and sending out thousands of questionnaires and collating answers (no not really), here are (in quick fire format) the Top 5 Reason You Should Subscribe to Critical's Blog Today!

5) Updated daily (unless I get reamed and need a couple of days quiet time to reflect)

4) Ad free

3) Pro topics/discussions, no "guess what I bought for 1g and some noobie bought for 1,000g!" posts

2) Critical has an opinion and loves to share it.

And lastly:

1) Hot girl pics!!!! (ok not really only just this one time)

Where else can you get a daily dose of Critical's opinion on pro discussion topics, ad free with a side of hot girls thrown in every once in a while. ONLY ON CRITICALS THATS WHERE! CLICK THE SUBSCRIBE BUTTON UP TOP TODAY!

Week 12 Blog Stats

2011-11-28T00:00:00.000+13:00

Another week another blog stat post. Happy to see things returning to normal and not regressing due to bad publicity. Week 12 ending 26 November 2011:

In general most of my new posts start off with around 50 to 100 page views each, which is cool for a new blog. I dont know what happens on other blogs but the interesting thing is they continue to climb as time passes, I believe as new readers go backwards and read old posts:

What it highlights is that post quality is very important. If the post you release today is of poor quality and it only garners semi interest now, it will definitely not be interesting (and therefore read again) later by any reader (new and old).

Interesting.

PS: If you're new and wondering what these blog stats posts are about, its primarily a post about the blog itself rather than on topic glyphs/gold/competition. The things I talk about here may be confusing if you are not a blog author. Dont worry if your eyes are glazed just stick around for tomorrow's post. Oh and of course dont forget to say hihi if you're new!

Why Co-ops Suck

2011-11-27T00:00:00.000+13:00

Because you have to follow rules.

What happens when you break even one rule? Any and all agreements previously agreed upon, including informal non-ah related ones, are nullified instantly as we can see with Brent not wanting to tank for Foo.

Now I wont argue that co-ops dont work. Critical has never tried, how can you say caviar tastes yuck if you have never tried it.

But I mean really, how can you have fun with different posting strats if you have to follow set rules? All you can do are lame, tame, non-Critical-like stuffs. That dont sound like fun.

PS: had no idea u guys were on the same server.

Dear Foo, Mox and Brent ...

2011-11-26T00:01:00.000+13:00

After another dumb argument Critical finally realizes: No one method is best. Yes yes it sounds strange for Critical to admit his methods are not best. Ya'll finally got it out of me.

Our arguments are almost as lame as arguing that Rook to e4 is a bad move (or good). We shouldn't be saying, this strat wouldnt work against me so thumbs down. It is true most straight forward strats wont work against us because we're very experienced pro glyphers who have done glyphs for years over multiple patches and expansions. We are very good at implementing very complex strats and fine tuning on the fly very fast.

We should instead be assessing why the strat topic at hand, is a good strat (or bad) and what might its strengths and weaknesses be, and/or what are possible counters.

I believe (well I hope anyway) our readers are more interested in this sort of discussion than the argy bargy I'm right your wrong arguments we always get caught up in.

Croda's Glyph Blog

2011-11-25T00:01:00.000+13:00

Yay another glyph blogger!

Welcome to the blog club, beware the many critical commenters (I thought I was the only one, boy was I wrong). Havn't had a chance to have a thorough read-through yet but I likey your consistent daily posting schedule.

PS: for some reason your Profile doesnt show your blog. Otherwise I would've added your blog ages ago.

Critical's War - Triple Walls Conclusion

2011-11-24T00:01:00.000+13:00

Remember Critical's triple wall war post? Seems like ages ago!

Recap of this mini experiment:
- took down all auctions (empty AH)
- start with little gold (<50g)
- cleared, reset and emptied mysales data
- load up 3 walls cleanly and neatly
- leave them up all weekend, dont touch them at all dont even log into wow
- wait until after auctions have expired (more than a week later actually) then open both mailboxes
- rub hands with glee

Log into alt 1 and afk clear mailbox. Repeat alt 2.

Weeee!

Mysales data here.

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Ok maths time!

AH posting time for 2 alts = 21mins
Time taken to log into alt 1 and click mailbox = 1min
Time taken to afk unload everything from alt 1 = 0min
Time taken to log into alt 2 and click mailbox = 1min
Time taken to afk unload everything from alt 2 = 0min

Total actual work time = 23mins
Total sales = 11,849g

GPH = 30,910gph <<< WINNER???!!!!

How-To Production Queue via Mailbox

2011-11-23T00:01:00.000+13:00

Today's post is quick and dirty because Critical is sleepy.

A production queue is where you "queue" up mass amounts of mats in a crafting alt's mailbox. End result, mailbox full of mats waiting to be processed:

When you have collected a crapload of mats and are ready to go to bed, unload the mats and start an afk craft queue:

Wake up, brush your teeth. Put your pants on and BAM. Who doesnt like to wake up to a few bags full of inks ready for glyphing:

Critical sure does.

Best 28 Glyphs!

2011-11-22T12:00:00.000+13:00

Last week Critical managed to sort out his sales data and finally figured out the actual worst selling 28 glyphs of all time. Holywarrior also asked how did I extract sales data into excel. Well I cant find the consortium link where someone created and shared a java jar program that does the extraction so I cant really do a How-To.

This is my nasty, simple way using mysales (bit lazy to learn TSM_Accounting):
- install and run mysales to collect sales data
- ready to extract data, then find the mysales.lua in WTF folder and cut and paste it somewhere else (which forces mysales to create a new empty file the next time i log into wow)
- use msconvert.jar program which converts the txt into csv
- open the csv file in Excel, use Txt to Columns and save the resulting spreadsheet as a .xls in Excel
- tada

Anyway thats not the point of today's post. Today is the opposite of last week, here are the best 28 selling glyphs! As an added bonus I also included a quantity sold column!

Showing the bottom 28 (highest selling) glyphs of the sales list.

(NB: the reason why the list only has 343 glyphs instead of 344 is because the two Glyph of Death Coils (DK + lock) are combined by mysales. /shrug)

For the super nerds who love google docs:
- Raw glyph sales June to Sep
- Totals June to Sep

Week 11 Blog Stats (Updated)

2011-11-22T00:01:00.001+13:00

Archives back up sorry I took em down, was sick of the accusations I was pulling a publicity stunt to get more view counts and new viewers.

Easing back into routine slowly, no massive pro glyph post today just the usual weekly stats for Week 11, ending 19 November 2011:

A day late but better late then never!

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Update: added Absolute Unique Visitors pic

Critical's Apology

2011-11-21T00:01:00.001+13:00

There is no way that you can outrage an entire community and not be wrong. Hence upon hours of reflection please find below final closing remarks relating to my last post.

In response to Apple Cider's comments, firstly I would like to thank you for the polite and rational way you commented on here on the very first day, and secondly thank you for taking the time to respond to Nick's questions in depth. I would like to offer a public apology to you and your readers. Your comments are correct and the comments of mine that you highlighted, yes were not well thought out. I am not a rape victim and have/had no right to make those statements. It is not appropriate to delete said comments as if they were never written hence this retraction and apology. I hope you accept.

To the sponsors and supporters of White Ribbon and the Wow White Ribbon team: it was not my intention to make light of this worthy cause. For stealing limelight from the hard work you have put into pulling it off I apologize. That was not my intention at all and I hope you will accept my sincere apology.

To the real person behind Alyzande: It may be too little too late and not welcome, but I do wish you well and a speedy recovery.

To my Critical Fans, I appreciate your small notes of support. I know how hard it was to post those in the presence of an angry mob. I bounced between "screw this, this isnt fun" and the opposite many times during the last few days. Without your support this would have become a very quiet and dead blog.

Lastly thank you Reader for reading. Whoever/whichever group you are.

Gold Queen - Are We Being Played? (Update 5)

2011-11-18T00:01:00.000+13:00

Critical has been thinking about this for a while since the Gold Queen's first RL post, and after that the daily bombardments of gold posts which always include a funky income earning link.

Dont get Critical wrong. On the AH yes he is a jerk, but in Real Life he always donates to charity gold coin collectors and co-sponsors 2 World Vision children because its the right thing to do. This was one of those on-the-fence posts and I hope I dont lose readers because of it.

The question Critical is asking himself is as per the title: Are we being played by Markco and Co, professional social internet manipulators?

I dont know Markco or Alyzande, the owner/author of the Gold Queen. I dont know if she has been raped. Critical only knows what is published by someone, on her public blog. There are just some funny vibes, and I think Critical is not the only that is picking up on these strange vibes. Why do you say that you ask? Because Critical can see 2 distinct blogger groups:
- gold bloggers who are vocally sympathetic
- gold bloggers who have not been vocal (and i believe smell something fishy)

Hmmmmmm.

Or maybe its the GOLD SPEED RUN link in all the new posts?

Or maybe its the weird feeling that, if Critical was involved with a traumatic incident (for example a car accident), my wow blog would be the last thing on my mind behind Personal wellbeing, Kids, Family etc

Or maybe because if someone was raped, they generally do not want to tell the whole world? Especially in gorey details such as:
"Some part of me died between 2nd and 3rd rape."

Or maybe its the way the Setup was (in Critical's opinion) very cleverly set up:
- putting Markco and Warcraft Econ as temporary regents (authors) so that if it all goes to poos Alyzande can claim, oh this was all Markco posting not me
- a real world charity link, so that it looks like its not all about generating own income stream
- after the intro post comes a few neutral posts with no sell links and then BAM! daily lame posts with clever links asking you the Reader to: speed run speed run speed run clicky here!!!!
- if anyone questioned the reality of Alyzande's condition all it would take is one non-anon reader to post a vouch and that is sufficient to shut down any doubts eg Nathan posts "i have talked to Alyzande in Real Life and yes she is in hospital and is in a serious condition".
- a few weeks before an Awareness day, she has that ailment

Again I hope you dont misunderstand Critical. Increasing awareness of domestic violence and child abuse is highly needed in Critical's own country and I personally feel a piece of me die when I read in the newspaper of yet another child in our country being mistreated and callously killed.

/shrug, I happen to know from personal experience preparing and loading up a blog post via a smartphone with links and pics such as the recent Gold Queen posts is nowhere near easily done. Even though each post is signed POSTED BY Alyzande, Critical would guess they are definitely created and posted by a caretaker.

I dont know. My gut tells me, I think we are all being lead on to some extent by a very clever puppeteer. Maybe Alyzande did get raped, but Critical believes the mastermind behind these posts should not be taking advantage of her reader's pity and push internet sales, thats just poor form.

Hmmmmmmm. Hopefully Critical does not lose Readers because he voiced his opinion that something smells very fishy. I dont know .... I just cant shake that feeling.

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Update 1: Thank you all for taking the time to read and comment on this topic. If I do not respond to your comment it is not for lack of respect but for time. I will also refrain from referring to myself in the 3rd person that many Critical Readers are used to, so that you know you are talking directly to this blog's author not a blogspot character.

Firstly I would like to address Apple Cider Mage because her post and commenters highlight genuine concerns with my published post, rather than bandwagon everyone-all-aboard. I wish to clarify to Apple that I support White Ribbon, and that I agree rape, domestic violence and along with child abuse (I know thats not relevant but to me it is important) are serious issues that do require promotion and increased awareness to be raised. My post calls into question the appropriateness of capitalizing commercially for self gain, on the back of a serious incident.

Secondly @Sinshroud thank you for taking the time to share with everyone exactly what is going on. I have immense respect for you personally and the sacrifices you have made to give back to the wow community. I sincerely apologize for being the "jerk" who did not hide behind a corner and spoiled a surprise birthday party (to put it mildly). I am sorry you feel this way and completely understand if you remove my blog's link from your forums blog roll (if you have not yet). I do wish it to be clear though this post was not intended to be personal attack questioning whether the incident occurred, but (again to re-iterate), to question the commercial income stream attachment to a serious incident.

Thirdly @Zse Thank you for sharing a very personal part of your life. I apologize because my statement was poorly structured. Yes everyone has the right to deal with a traumatic incident in whatever way helps you help yourself. What I meant to call into question was, to what depth of detail do victims go to when describing their ordeal. It just flickered a "hang-on" switch when the post casually mentioned "oh by the way I was raped at least 3 times".

Lastly @Markco Thank you for showing me a perfect example of how to drum up interest which converts into sales figures. I have a lot of respect for you, your skills and your abilities. If I was camp Gevlon prior, I am now camp Markco. If I had the tiniest inkling of commercializing for income, you would be the first one I would call.

To address the wider audience I would also like to clarify 2 further points:

Did I release the post for publicity knowing it is an aggravating topic? No. Loyal Critical Readers who have stuck with me through thick and thin will know I am only interested in true Critical Readers aka glyphers wanting to improve themselves and their glyphing skillsets, and are willing to return the favor by helping other glyphers improve. Sports Illustrated has no use for a house wife who is not interested in sports. In the same way temporary short term visitors interested in conflict but not glyphing, are of no use to a glyph specific blog.

Why publish this post then? Along with many other gold blog authors I read a lot of gold blogs. Also like many blogs, this blog is built on the author's opinion. I had an opinion, I tried to keep it honest and unbiased based on the information I had at the time of the post. I also tried to avoid applying nasty labels to people or situations, which often happens on many other blogs. This post simply highlighted the commercialization tactics on the Gold Queen's blog and the chain of events unfolding. I did not (and have not) made a personal judgement call whether what is happening is good or bad, except to say: this is what I see happening.

I will honestly and openly admit I am a very new blogger new at blogging and whilst I have learnt a lot in the short 2 months of this blog's life, I still have a lot more to learn. With a higher readership count and therefore power, comes responsibility. Much more so than a blog with a smaller viewership base.

To the real person behind Alyzande/The Gold Queen: You have my sincere sympathies and I wish you the best and a speedy recovery.

Thank you again all for contributing to a very healthy (albeit heated) discussion. If I have let my loyal Critical Readers down with an apparent lack of ethics or thereof, I apologize in advance. I have made my own bed and rather than hide, delete this post or delete this blog I am choosing instead to front up and face the media storm ahead. This is because I feel a personal obligation to explain myself to my Critical Readers who without, my 2 month old blog would not be what it is today. I know you are there in the background not commenting/questioning and calling for my blood with the rest of the mob, but you deserve an explanation.

To everyone else calling for my blood: I fully understand if you vote with your feet, stop reading this blog and go and click the income stream links to "show your support" against me. This is an unfortunate side effect that often accompanies strong opinion Posts, that there will now be an even bigger divide between Critical Readers and Non-Critical Readers.

yours sincerely,
the real person behind Critical

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Update 2:

@Brent I will be honest yes it was a short post, from opening, draft and complete time being <1hr. If I could do it again do I wish I had held onto the Draft longer or wish I had not published this Post? No. I have already learnt very early on that publishing a public post on a public blog is irreversible and you cannot "regret" publishing articles. I expected a few Critical Readers to share their opinions (for and/or against) but not the awesome public backlash with heavy hitters of the wow blogsphere (Sinshroud, Markco etc) also wading in. Unfortunately this is now something my blog and my pseudonym writing character must live with.

@Midas the news articles are easy to find now because readers are linking my post and the article together to spread the news and cause more outrage.

@Alto why would I want to try and forget I posted this? It was I that published it. It was myself that wrote 100% of the post, no one else helped.

To those thinking this was a publicity stunt: this post's view count is only 1,315 views. The blog's total pageview for around 2 and a half months is 22.7k which loyal Critical Readers know, was earned through hard work publishing (imho) semi-decent posts, every day. This topic is hardly interesting enough to garner 22,000 hits in 1 day. Only JTMC articles can hit those sort of numbers because of the high quality of their articles.

Reading through the comments posted through all day, the 3 that have stood out have been Markco's. I completely and absolutely admire his exceptional EQ. If not for the seriousness of this topic, I would be all over his comments and fully dissecting his "dont bash her, bash me" hero act and his "tsk tsk tsk so wrong" /shaking his head act. Markco we have to work together sometime, I am sure we could make some big bucks with your experience and my critical attitude. Hit me up when you are ready buddy.

@Dave /bow thank you, thank you for the golfclap. Wasnt it super clever of me to ruin my reputation that I have worked so hard to cleanup and build up over the last 10 weeks, for 1,300 measly page views? Ask any blogger, any real blogger would they intentionally destroy their reputation for 1,300 page views? I would not, as highlighted in Update 1.

There are obviously some very very angry readers that feel I have touched a raw nerve. As I have already mentioned, I will not try to hide or trivialize this post as a normal daily post to be pushed downwards and forgotten. I will try to explain myself as best as I can but as this is a public blog, you the public are free to flame me, burn me or hang me as you wish. I only ask you read through my clarifications and apologies before skewering me further.

This blog is now belongs to you Public Joe for 3 days, after which, hopefully I have not lost all my Critical Readers and can continue with my daily post routine.

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Update 3:

@Alto, I have always been very outspoken about from the very beginning of this writing character. Along the way I have offended people and have made many "enemies" so to speak. Because of the above post, my blog has become a platform for wholesale attack, with comments coming from all sorts of commenters:
- genuine concerned individuals (Sinshroud, Applecider, Zse)
- defensive parties (Markco)
- Critical "enemies" (Kath, Bree etc)
- Neutral, open minded (Vendoh)
- long term Critical Readers (Brent, anon, Midas)
- let's jump on board, everyone's doing it so its ok aka mob mentality

To the genuinely concerned individual's I have tried to address their concerns as honestly as I can and apologizing where I felt appropriate.

I can also understand a defensive party wanting the opportunity to defend themselves. The interesting thing is Markco proves again he is king of social manipulation. He not only blocks a thrust, he counter punches in the same breathe. He has learnt a very long time ago that all publicity is good even negative publicity, it is all in how you handle your public relations. I do not joke when I say he is my idol.

My enemies are here to get their shots in. Go for it, we all know if you wait long enough, a strong opponent will still make a mistake once a while and that will be your rare opportunity which you should capitalize on before its gone.

I appreciate Vendoh's comments because he defends my post as an objective, open minded individual who is not taking the easy route of jumping aboard the wagon and wholesale flogging some guy because everyone else is doing it. Thank you for being a voice of reason, I hope your association with this post has not tainted your name.

My Critical Readers are who I hold the most respect for and to be completely honest Alto, they are the only readers I give a rats ass about. In the same way I do not give a rats ass about random strangers jumping in because of mob mentality and wholesale beating someone up because that person must be bad or else why are they getting beaten up. It may be counter productive in repairing my public relation to say this but it is who I am.

I do not hide from my responsibilities and for those that are here to jump on board the wagon go ahead, unrestricted commenting is still open. What I do not want is new readers thinking this is a publicity stunt with the hopes of increasing my Readership. If you are here for the conflict by all means enjoy the numerous scathing comments and feel free to jump in and get your jabs in as well. But if you're new and only here for conflict, I want you in, get your punches in, and then out. I dont want you to have any other reason to stay, hence the removal of all everything except this single post. In out, go find the next "evil" I dont want you clicking other posts that I and Critical Readers have worked hard together to build.

Yes you heard correctly Critical Readers. This blog is only what it is today because you helped build it with all your contributing selfless comments. I believe this blog is one of the few "small" blogs that have a great community of commenters which you know is true by the screenshots of comment counts that I regularly post. Dumb questions are never shutdown and are helped to be answered not just by me, but by other selfless Critical Readers. Anon posting has always been open right from the start and no non-spam post has ever been deleted because I believe 100% in the articles that I publish.

Because of this I owe it to my Critical Readers to try to shut this uproar down as quick as possible. I have a highly professional group of glyph mad Critical Readers and I stand by my articles 100% including this one. But I do not want this monkey hanging on my back, with strangers commenting on future posts.

I too may not be wordsmith or a great blogger and yes I have maybe only 100 posts and yes I have not yet hit the 3 month or 300 post mark. Yes your blog is probably better than mine. I too am not famous. Markco bam instant recognition, same for Sinshroud. Yes my blog may die off tomorrow or next year, and if that happens yes you may or not miss me. I also have no idea how I will be remembered.

But it boils down to, why do I blog and why we purists believe in not loading adverts on our blogs? We blog for "fun". Being advert-free I believe it keeps us honest, not just to our readers because we are not pushing out rubbish posts just to look active, but also to ourselves so that we continue to blog and share our opinions because we want to and it is what we enjoy. If there is no more enjoyment it is very easy to stop because we are not reliant on a $1000 per month advertising income stream.

It may seem I have turned my "glass house" into a brick house. To be honest I am not quite sure I fully understand your analogy. But I hope the above has explained the reason for the massive changes.

Thank you Alto for your words of advice. It has helped and forced me to formalize, understand and reaffirm with myself the actions I am taking are the best in mine and my Critical Reader's interests.

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Update 4:

@Zoxy
- Of course everything I write about here is about me me me. This whole blog is about my opinion as is the case with your ex-blog or anyone else's blog.
- Everyone has the right to run their blog the way they want, with or without ads. I tried to simply explain to Alto why its not a big deal if I "die off" as he so kindly puts it, because I dont have or need an income from a blog.
- Lastly I am not Charlie Brown from Accounting preparing a financial report. I am Critical from Tichondrius geeking up a glyph blog, hence the pen name.

@Alto
1. There is a slight difference between a Critical Reader and a reader of Critical's blog. [reference to Breevok deleted].

2. My updates are not revisions. While I may correct a spelling error here and there, I do not modify my previous writings. The majority of visitors to a blog are to read the author's views. I choose (which is my right as you rightly noted) to consolidate my comments together. Whether you like this style of author commenting or not, that's obviously your choice.

@Flux
/hugs, sorry buddy I know you wish everyone on your blogroll could get along but I know what I posted when I posted it and I chose to post it because I am who I am.

@Everyone else asking I continue my regular posts, please be patient. If you re-read through the early comments you will notice the bloodrage effect where all they see is blood and all they want is blood. When the drama dies down hopefully the mob will shuffle away back to their own circles.

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Update 5:

Only just read Breevok's latest update and new blog, my reference above deleted. We may not see eye to eye on many things, but I feel your pain and hope you are doing ok.