WarcraftEcon.com | Cataclysm WoW Gold Guide Blog

Now Hiring Content Manager

Oligopoly — Tue, 08 May 2012 12:05:35 +0000

Want to join the Warcraft Econ team? With the upcoming Mists of Pandaria expansion as well as Diablo 3, we will have our hands full! So WoW Econ is looking to hire an avid WoW auction house player to manage content on the site as well as an economy news writer. These are paid position as we will be busy with our Diablo 3 gold guide blog, our sister site, for the next few months. Knowledge of WordPress is a plus, but not required. We can train you. See this hiring post for more details of what we are looking for.

Please contact us if you are interested or if you have any questions.

Interview with Jim Younkin – Founder of Power Word Gold. On Gaming as a Profession, Gold Guides, and Diablo 3 RMAH

Oligopoly — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 12:05:28 +0000

Today we have with us Jim Younkin of PowerWordGold.net, the man responsible for one of the few gold making podcasts, streams, and one of the top gold blogs. Recently he has created an illustrated guide that has a “You Choose Which Price” model. Meaning you can choose to pay which price of the available prices you want for it. We thought it was really interesting idea so we decided to contact him and set up an interview to see what it is all about as well as to get to know one of the predominant figures in the gold community. This is the first time we have done an interview like this that wasn’t a gold cap hall of fame one, if you would like to see more of this type of content, let us know in the comments.

Hey Jim, welcome. Can you tell us a little about yourself?

Sure! My name is Jim Younkin. I’ve started the gold-making blog and podcast Power Word: Gold just over a year ago. I enjoy helping people interested in gold-making as working foster a community of gold-making bloggers and players.

I’ve been a professional in the games industry for over 7 years now and have held many different positions specifically in the MMORPG genre including game designer, world builder, marketer, community manager. I live in Arizona with my wonderful wife (who also plays World of Warcraft) and our two awesome cats.

What do you enjoy most in World of Warcraft? What classes/specs do you play? What have been your most memorable moments in WoW?

What I love most in World of Warcraft is the feeling of accomplishment and progress that you experience with almost everything you do in the game. In “real-life” we are almost never rewarded in a positive way for the things we do. That is one of the most powerful aspects of MMORPGs in general. You spent time doing something and you get your reward instantaneously in the form of another level, more gold, more achievement points, more pets and so on.

While I have a level 85 of each class (including 2 85 druids) on my main server, my favorite class by far is the hunter class. Ever since I saw that very first Vanilla WoW cinematic with the dwarf hunter and his pet bear I wanted to be ‘that’.

I’ve been a dwarf hunter for as long as I’ve played the game. In The Burning Crusade I played Beast Mastery exclusively (there was no dual-spec back then). In Wratch of the Lich King I grudgingly switched from BM to Survival with Blizzard completely gutted the Beast Mastery spec into oblivion. (I’m still bitter about that btw Blizz.) Since then I’ve been Survival and enjoy it. I am currently BM/MM with my MM spec being used for farming and some extreme Hunter soloing.

I’d say the bulk of my memorable experiences in World of Warcraft took place in The Burning Crusade. I only leveled to 35 in Vanilla (due to thinking WoW was “way to addicting”). My wife April hit 60 in Vanilla and then hit 70 in TBC before I decided to come back to the game. TBC was definitely my “formative” years in World of Warcraft. Back then the game seemed difficult, but not impossible. You got the sense you were working towards a goal.

Some of my fondest memories are farming Karazhan for 6 months with the wonderful guild we were in. Being present in on over half of the boss-firsts was exciting. We were both DPS and felt like we were really part of something special. (Although spending 6 months farming Legacy wasn’t so much fun. More like some sort of great cosmic joke.)

My other fond memories were learning how to run dungeons with our weekly 5-man group. We started right at 70 and worked together to get ourselves geared up for heroics. Learning the TBC Herroics together was some of the most intense and enjoyable gameplay I’ve ever experienced. Learning each and every pull, learning how and when to properly CC and even then barely squeaking buy some pulls. (Damn you Heroic Shattered Halls!) It was the best. I ascribe any skill I have running 5-mans to those few months.

Unfortunately I don’t play with a guild anymore and LFD 5-mans feel like everyone in them is tapping their foot impatiently waiting for it to “just be over”. That said 5-mans are still one of my favorite parts of the game. April and I will often queue for them as something we can do together. (We secretly like to rage about how bad some of the players we meet in LFD seem to be. My version of “road rage” I suppose.)

The “You Choose Which Price” payment model is very interesting. No other guide has this type of feature. Where did you come up with the idea and why did you choose to use it?

I’ve always been interested in the different types of revenue models available to someone working to monetize a product. I’ve been a keen observer of movements like the Open Source movement in computer software and the Creative Commmons movement in the content area. I really like the idea of working to get a product to the highest number of people possible.

The major impetus for doing a “You Choose Which Price” model, where the only difference in the transactions is allowing people to choose which price, are two projects that have caught my attention in the last year or so namely bandcamp.com and the Humble Bundles.

Bandcamp is a site that allows musicians to put their music up and allows them many different pricing models including a “Pay What you Want” model that allows the purchaser to choose their own price. I found it fascinating because you are putting the power for determining the value in the hand of the consumer. Some may pay less and some may pay more but in either case they feel they paid what they thought it was worth.

The Humble Bundle does a similar thing buy bundling up a few (often indie) games and allowing the purchasers to choose which ever price they want to pay. I myself have purchased all of their bundles simply to support them for providing such a novel way for people to acquire games.

Another thing that influenced my decision was all the time I’ve spent over the years hammering out payment/monetization options for the MMORPGs that I have worked on. In those cases I was involved in researching what different options we have available to us (subscription, freemium, microtransaction, etc) and determining which was the best fit along with what the game might transition into in the future (ie. a subscription model that transformed into a microtransaction model if the subscription model failed).

With all that in mind I set out to give the power for what someone would pay for the guide to the individual. After a bit of trial and error I settled on the current “You Choose Which Price” model and so far it has been working out well.

The Humble Indie Bundle is where I first saw this type of pricing method too. Do you think there are advantages/disadvantages for other guide authors to adopt this type of pricing?

I think what the multiple prices pricing structures really do is empower the purchaser to select the price they feel something is worth to them thus empowering them to be an important part of the purchasing process. They get to use some critical thinking and ask themselves how much something like this is worth to them.

While a majority may feel the cheapest price is clearly the best price, I don’t think that is always the case. Some people want to encourage this type of content to be produced. They may feel that the author is doing something worth while and pay more to help encourage behavior they see as positive. I know I am certainly encouraged when given the choice, someone chooses to purchase our guide for $20 rather than $5.

The disadvantages? I feel using this type of “You Choose Which Price” takes a certain mindset by the one doing the selling. You have to believe that what you are doing is something of value and that people wanting to purchase it will agree with you. I have been blogging and podcasting about gold-making for over a year. I’ve recently started livestreaming quite a bit. I believe many of my guide sales that come in over the $5 are by people who have seen the work I do and are showing their support.

I think if someone was selling a guide only, with no other evidence as to why someone should buy it other than a “sales page”, than putting the pricing in the hands of the purchaser might be more difficult for them. Frankly, while I haven’t seen tons of guide “sales pages” I am often surprised with guide sales pages (besides being extremely verbose) fail to provide something as simple (and necessary to a transaction) as a price. Really? You don’t want people to know how much something costs until the click a button to purchase it? That makes no sense to me.

The fact that the store page that I sell my guide on is so dead simple is, at least in a small part, in response to these extremely long (and in my opinion often misleading) “sales pages” you often see when looking to purchase a eBook or a guide. Again, I don’t spend much time going over these types of “sales pages” but the few that have been pointed out to me by readers have just screamed “buyer beware”.

My sales page can be simple because I assume by the time people get there they have an idea that not only am I a “real person” (shocking I know) but that I know what I’m taking about and that I wrote a guide and that they can purchase it for $5, $10, $15 or $20.

The bottom line is that, at least in the case of selling a digital product like a .pdf, there is no difference in costs to me if a guide sells for $5 or it sells for $20. I could (and have) sold the guide for $1 and still make money. It’s all a matter of perception of value. Do your purchasers feel that your product has value?

While I don’t often go out of my way to flaunt it, I feel my guide has not only my past blogging/podcasting/livestreaming experience behind it but also has me. I’m always there standing behind my guide and (perhaps) that’s what other guides don’t have and therefore try to build with verbose and “flashy” sales pages.

It’s interesting sometimes to see players split down the middle when it comes to using game guides. Some love them because it saves them time so they don’t have to do all the research and trial and error themselves, and others hate the idea of someone charging for a product. I personally can see it from both sides based on sales/affiliate statistics and my interactions with many players from all sorts of backgrounds, playstyles, and skill levels. What are your thoughts on this? What would you say to each side to help them understand the opposite point of view?

I can understand both sides of the argument. I personally have never purchased a gold-making (or any other World of Warcraft guide) for “real money”. But then again I have never really felt the need to purchase one because I’ve never felt like there was something in the game I didn’t understand well enough to purchase a guide for.

That said, when I started my blog my main guiding principle was to teach others how to make gold in World of Warcraft. A blog is a great way to do that. You get updated information on lots of different gold-making techniques. Podcasts are great for generating ideas as well. Unfortunately, simply due to their being in a chronological format (where new information pushes older information off into obscurity) they aren’t really great tools for systematically teaching someone the basics of gold-making. A written guide is a much better format for doing that.

Also, I’ve been moving more and more towards monetizing my passion. Doing so involved lots of little things over the last 4 months or so but getting the guide finished and put out for sale was the first major step in accomplishing the goal of being able to teach gold-making as a full-time vocation. While I’ve worked in the games industry for a long time, I’ve always done it as an employee. This year I am really pushing to make this work. Not only for myself but to show others that there are people out there willing to pay for great content.

To those who feel that paying for a guide is tantamount to spending money for bottled water “when you can get perfectly clean water out of a tap” I would say that each person learns in their own way. (I would also say I bet you’ve purchased at least one bottle of water in your life.) Some people (myself included) love scouring the internet for information, digging and looking for just the right answer. But not everyone has a) the patience, b) the time or c) the dedication to go searching out something like a how to use a complicated gold-making addon.

To these people I would honestly ask, what does it take away from what you are doing that someone else would choose to pay for a packaged version of someone’s experience? I rarely hear people complaining about the fact that a book author would have the “audacity” write a book about, for example, flowers when there is lots of free information about flowers on the internet. We often purchase books about subjects not only for the content but because we value and trust the authors voice and expertise.

What would I say to those those who purchase the guide who complain about those who don’t? Well, honestly, I have never once heard this argument. I’ve never heard someone who has purchased my guide contact me and say “I can’t believe those people who work to find all this information for free on the internet.” I think the reason that it is that those who purchase the guide rarely ever concern themselves with those who don’t.

It is definitely an interesting thought experiment (and one that I don’t think I can solve in this interview). I’ll simply finish by stating that I can’t really understand the antagonism that is expressed by people against others who happen to want to pay for information rather than find it for free. I’ve never felt that I was somehow lessened by there being paid sources for the same type of information I might happen to find for free.

I can certainly agree with you on how a blog and guide are different. Running Warcraft Econ, we feel like a lot of old but great content get’s buried under headlines such as new patches and news. To help new readers and beginners, time may be better spent working on an all encompassing guide that can be updated to reflect new changes. An example of this would be personal finance blogs that have great tips and articles, but an actual book would be more helpful to those that want to see the big picture and basics before diving into more advanced content.

That sounds great Jim, I’m sure a lot of players would like to make an income from gaming, much like pro gamers in games like Starcraft 2. The two communities seem really different however. There is a lot of support for SC2 pros and players are happy to pay for various services, coaching, premium streams. Why do you think that the WoW or MMORPG community is not like that even though both are trying to make a living with their gaming hobby? Or maybe it’s just me who thinks that since I’ve been reading too many public Diablo 3 forums where people seem to hate (albeit it a vocal minority) the fact that someone will be making money playing a game?

I can only speak for myself as a gamer from North America (other parts of the world, Korea for example, seem to find little to nothing wrong with gamers getting paid to game) but I just don’t think there has been that many ways for gamers to make real-world money from playing video games. Many people in our culture still feel that video and computer games are child’s toys. They feel that playing games is childish and a “waste of time”.

As someone who grew up in the “Nintendo” generation, I can say that that this “games are for kids and you’re a kid if you play them” stigma has been following me for a long time. I have hope though that as our generation grows into adulthood and, perhaps more importantly, into parenthood the stigma of gaming as an unmitigated waste of time will start to disappear. Perhaps as the next generation grows up playing games along side their parents.

Video games, including MMORPGs, are a very legitimate past time. People spend money on golf magazines. People spend money on golf lessons. People spend money on golf equipment. I doubt you’d find anyone who thinks any of those are out of the ordinary. I think someday the same thing will be true about people spending money on their gaming habits.

As gaming continues to grow, the opportunities for those passionate about it to make a real money from that passion will grow as well. Who wouldn’t want to get paid to do something they enjoy? I’m just bush wacking my way forward in this area the best I can and maybe if I find my way I can show others how to find it as well.

Speaking of Diablo 3, what are your thoughts on a new breed of games that allow the player to buy and sell with real money? Will you be transitioning over to this game?

First off I think we have the grey-market RTM (real-money transactions) operations that have been plaguing games for a long time now to thanks for the direction that Blizzard has taken with the Diablo III real-world currency auction house. However Blizzard may try to to spin the addition of these feature, I have no doubt that the major reason they included it wasn’t as a an additional revenue stream for themselves but rather as a way to try to combat RMT in Diablo III. Hacked accounts, customer service time spent restoring account and all the other things that come along with grey-market RMT really put a drain on not only Blizzard’s staff but also the player experience.

By essentially “legalizing” RMT in Diablo III Blizzard is trying to disincentivized RMT operations targeting the game as well as provide players, who might otherwise purchase items from an unauthorized third-party, a safe way to purchase these items safely in the game instead.

As for the possibility that players may be able to make real money playing Diablo III? I’d have to say that I’m going to wait and see how it all pans out to make my final judgments. My initial reaction was that I would be able to turn my World of Warcraft gold-making skills into real-world money but there are too many variables to tell at this point.

One theory I have been kicking around that could put a major damper on any Diablo III player’s dreams of making “big bucks” playing Diablo III revolves around the very companies that drove Blizzard to implement the system in the first place. The risk is the same grey-market RMT operations plaguing current games will simply will turn their attention to Diablo III as a way to “go legit”. It is kind of scary to think that the ones best prepared to take advantage of the Diablo III real-currency auction house are companies already in the business of selling virtual goods to players.

If this happens, if RMT companies turn their attention to what amounts to “farming” Diablo III for the best items and turn around and place those items up on the Diablo III auction house that could severely depress prices for all items and thus lower prices that regular players will be able to sell items for.

I doubt that my efforts in the game, the time it takes me to acquire an item, the value I place on an item will be as low as the person working for a grey-market RMT operation. Basically, the real-world currency value for any particular item may end up being controlled by the entity with the highest vested interest in selling virtual items for real-world money. Grey-market RMT operations are set up for this sole purpose alone.

The flip-side of this is that purchasing items in the Diablo III real-world currency auction may end up being very inexpensive. That would ultimately be good for players wanting to simply “buy their way to the top”. It would also mean that people wouldn’t have to spend thousands of dollars fitting their Diablo III characters with gear.

The above scenario would also mean, however, that the regular players may not be able to make much money selling their virtual goods and that would mean that interest in doing so would die off as well. I could be wrong about all of this. Blizzard may have some “magic-bullet” that will be able to keep grey-market RMT operations from setting up “legitimately” in Diablo III but like I stated earlier, with all these variables it is simply really too early to tell.

I’d love to be wrong about the above. I’d love to make “thousands of dollars” a month playing Diablo III but my gut tells me if there are thousands to be made it may very well end up being made by the same entities that are likely making thousands of dollars right now selling virtual goods to players of current games.

I’ll finish by saying that, while I have played and enjoyed the beta, my continued interest in the game will very likely be based upon how the real-currency auction house system ultimately shakes out.

Since this is your first paid guide, have you done anything different or interesting that sets you apart from everyone else?

While I alluded to it a bit earlier, I think that the stark honestly I’ve shown in how I’ve chosen to sell the guide sets me apart. In many ways I am the anti-”sales page” guide seller. My store page is written to be brief and to-the-point. What you see is what you get. While I think this has some to do with my own fairly austere design sensibilities, I think is also really works to instill trust and a sense of being genuine that I don’t feel you get from lengthy and verbose “sales pages”.

The other thing I think that sets my guide apart is me. I am the greatest selling point for my guide. I think many people see me, see that I seem to know what I’m doing, and make their purchasing decisions based on that. I don’t know of any other paid gold-making guides available now that have such a active public personality behind them. Certainly not one that is as open and responsive to the community as I am able to be.

What does it cost?

Currently you can purchase our guide for one of the “You Choose Which Price” prices of $5, $10, $15 or $20.

It should be noted that our initial attempt at selling the guide was under a slightly different purchasing model which was a “Step 1: Download the guide, Step 2: Pay for the guide” model. The prices for the guide at the time were $1, $3, $5 or $10. After about a month and half we were preparing an update for the guide and reviewed our download statistics and compared them against our sales data.

We we’re a bit taken back when, after crunching the numbers, we realized that out of all the downloads of the guide (even with the lowest price being only $1) only around %2 of people that downloaded the guide actually paid for it. While we were encouraged by the interest in the guide we decided something had to change in regards to how we sold it.

For our second update of the guide we moved away from our initial “honor system” model and moved to a “pay before you download” model that we have been using ever since. We also adjusted the pricing to $3, $5, $10 and $20 with the second update. The service we chose for distribution of the guide was gumroad.com which is a very simple way for people to sell digital goods and we’ve had great success with the service so far. With the new system in place (as well as the addition of a free sample chapter download for those interested in the guide quality) we were happy to see that our sales continued to keep pace with what they were previous to the change.

As time went on we did another valuation of the guide and decided to move to our current pricing structure of $5, $10, $15 and $20. While we eliminated the lower price of $3 we also added the $15 price for those who felt the $20 price was a bit too high.

While our new prices are less than a week old, I’m happy to say that we have had sales of the guide at (almost) all of our price ranges. (Currently we haven’t had anyone purchase the guide for $15 yet.)

By allowing our purchasers to choose which price they want to pay we are essentially saying “Hey, we made this and we think it’s pretty awesome.” and the purchaser is saying in reply “I think that is pretty awesome and I feel it is worth $15 (or $5, $10 or $20).”

While each and every guide sale is wonderful, we get a special feeling seeing someone purchase it for $20 because it makes us feel people really understand and value our work.

I noticed Power Word: Gold has expanded into other areas beside the economy and added new features to the site. Can you tell us about some of these sub-sites and which ones are the most popular?

We have been trying lots of different things with Power Word: Gold over the last year. The main reason for this is that while we wanted to keep Power Word: Gold all about gold-making we had other interests that we felt the readers might enjoy. Most have had some tie to virtual economies. Some of these sub-sections of the blog have worked and some have not. We keep what works and abandon what doesn’t.

The three subsections of the blog that we feel have had the most success are The Hatchery, The World of Warcraft Gold Blog Directory and Power Word: Gold TV. I’ll give a brief overview of each of these three sections.

The Hatchery is a subsection where anyone can write their own World of Warcraft gold-making posts that they then submit. Once I receive them I post them up on the Hatchery. It is the easiest way for people to share their gold-making ideas who may not have a gold-making blog of their own. We’ve had great submissions and writers post in the Hatchery and we are very proud of it.

The World of Warcraft Gold Blog Directory is a labor of love. Started almost a year ago it was designed as a hand-crafted list of all the World of Warcraft gold-making blogs on the internet. It currently includes blog and author names, URLs, RSS feeds, twitter names and contact information for 89 blogs about making gold in World of Warcraft. One of the best features in my opinion is that the blogs are also listed by activity levels so you people know which blogs are still actively posting new content.

The final subsection is Power Word: Gold TV. Over the last few months livestreaming has become a very important and exciting way to interact with the gold-making community. We love it and Power Word: Gold TV includes a section to watch and chat with us when we are streaming live as well a being the locastion where all of our recorded livestreams are eventually archived. Livestreaming has the potential to be one of the strongest assets we have in sharing ideas back and forth with the gold-making community.

Thank you for doing this interview with us and good luck with your future endeavors!

See more of Jim’s work at:

Power Word: Gold
The Power Word: Gold Store (Guide purchase location):
Twitter
Facebook
YouTube
Twitch.tv

Black Market Auction House Coming to WoW Mists of Pandaria

Oligopoly — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 10:09:34 +0000

This client string was datamined by MMO-Champion recently:

BLACK_MARKET_AUCTION_HOUSE

At first we thought it was a neutral auction house in the new expansion or possibly a cross realm AH. However further investigation led me to the fan site WoW Interface that participated in the press tour about a week ago. They had asked about upcoming UI changes. Blizzard responded with:

Addition of black market windows

Auctions by NPCs of rare items for players to bid on.

Updated auction house windows

Wow! I can only imagine the possibilities. Could it be a vendor with a new gold sink that gold capped players have been waiting for? There is a possibility however we probably won’t be seeing million gold items any time soon. This is part of Blizzard’s game design to discourage players from buying gold. They put just enough money making activities (dailies, quests, farming) so you can essentially save up for a high value item. If that value was too high, players would resort to buying gold. Although keep in mind a lot of players already buy gold.

Another explaination of the black market NPC is that players will bid on these rare items and obviously the highest bid at the end wins. There just are just so many questions;

Will the highest bidder just be a rich player who put in a 2 million gold bid so no one else would win it?
How rare are these items?
Will they re-spawn later on, possibly in a randomized pattern?
Are these items seasonal, specific to a zone/faction?
Is this a significant gold sink to take money out of the economy?
Are these items Blizzard store-like items? (Mounts/pets)
Are these items otherwise obtainable on the regular auction house? (Gems, Ore, Herbs, Leather, and other materials)

What do you think the WoW Black Market will contain?

World of Warcraft 5th Expansion In The Works Already? Patch 6.0 – The One After Mists of Pandaria

Oligopoly — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 06:17:48 +0000

Looks like the lore team is getting started on the expansion after Patch 5.0, Mists of Pandaria. It doesn’t look like WoW is going anywhere anytime soon. There will most likely be another one after that too!

World of Warcraft’s fifth expansion pack is already approved and in development at Blizzard’s Irvine, California HQ, the company’s confirmed.

“I got the pitch from Chris Metzen of what they plan for 6.0 and I’m pretty geeked up about it. They already know what they’re going to be doing for multiple expansions ahead.”

(Source)

In other news, we are looking to hire someone for the team to do MOP coverage. Either video or articles. Please send us an email with your application.

Hall of Fame – 1 Million Gold Cap Club: Gintara of The Sha’tar-EU

Oligopoly — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 13:05:53 +0000

The Warcraft Econ Hall of Fame interviews the few elite players that have hit the World of Warcraft gold cap of 999,999 gold 99 silver 99 copper as well as ones who have obtain 500k and 250k. We have with us, Gintara of The Sha’tar-EU, who will be sharing their story with us today.

Please tell us a little about yourself and your gaming experience.

Hello, I am Gintara from The Sha’tar-EU. Am a 23 year old 4^th year architecture student with very few lectures during the day and a lot of free time in the evening as my boyfriend lives in another country, sadly. This leaves me plenty of time for raiding and gold making.

I created my first character in late vanilla, played casually during TBC – couple hours a week, not more. I entered my first proper raid, Ulduar, when it came out. Only then did I get more interested in the game and I’ve been playing almost every day since then.

Do you raid or PvP? How do you enjoy the game?

I pvp very rarely, it just seems a bit too violent to me, not the gameplay in particular but the rude manners of pvp players, so I stay away from them if it can be avoided. When it comes to raiding, I love healing. My current raiding main is a resto druid Nü on Outland-EU, used to do casual 25 man raids with her but got tired of being a female troll, faction changed back to a night elf and currently guildless, also two holy paladins and a disc priest at max level. Am leveling a few more healer alts, it just never gets old. Would love to try hardcore raiding but cannot dedicate the time for that – university has priority so if I have to study, I just won’t show up to the raid. Also, I play on a laptop, so while I don’t exactly crash on an aoe heavy fight, my performance is not good enough to meet hardcore raiding requirements.

One more thing that always makes me smile is the in-game holidays. I don’t really like doing the daily quests or event dungeons that much but I just love seeing capital cities decorated, watch people do their achievements etc.

I also do a little bit of role playing, had piles of gear in my bank and bags, so void storage was a nice change for me.

What motivated you to collect this amount of gold?

Back in vanilla and Burning Crusade I had no knowledge of gold making whatsoever, used to gather herbs and sell them to vendors for a few silvers. Felt rich while doing that. However, when I finally started raiding, I started watching some hunter videos on youtube and I came across Kripparrian’s channel. While I was copying his macros, one of his videos with quite an ambitious title caught my eye – “How to make 20,000 gold per hour’’. Watching it opened my eyes and for the first time in my life I sold something at the auction house. Making gold was easy enough, however a friend was in the JC business as well so making profit felt like I was stealing it from him and I took a step back from the market for a very long time. When Cataclysm came out, my guild transferred to another server, but I still kept alts on The Sha’tar. Sha’tar is one of the smallest EU realms, so pugs just don’t happen there and that left me with nothing to do. Thought to myself – might as well get one million gold.

How did you learn to do it?

Start was a bit bumpy, all my gold making knowledge came from that old Kripparrian’s video. However my strategy really hasn’t changed much since then – buy ores, prospect them, cut gems, sell gems. Worked in WOTLK, works in CATA too. I started reading gold making blogs about a year ago, this is how I found out about that wonderful addon, trade skill master, that made my life so much easier.

Is there anyone, hall of fame interview, or resource you would like to thank that contributed to your success?

Definitely Faid from nerffaids.clockworkriot.com. Trade skill master is a confusing addon for a beginner and she explained how to use it incredibly well.

Developers of TradeSkillMaster addon, those guys saved me so much time.

Also greedygoblin.blogspot.com for mocking the people who pay hundreds of gold for a vendor item that costs a few silver.

What were some of your early mistakes? How would you do things differently if you had to go back and redo them?

Well I definitely wouldn’t stop making gold only because my friend was in the same market now. It is just a game after all; competing against each other is fun. Also, I did not have any bank alts when I started, making a few level 1 characters for posting auctions as well as getting a banking guild made my life A LOT easier. Would probably encourage myself to be less careful with investing, back in WOTLK buying 10 stacks of ore was a big deal, now buying 100 stacks is a joke.

How did you go about getting to this gold amount? Any creative or original ideas?

To start with, I would like to emphasize that my gold making realm, The Sha’tar-EU is really tiny. I am on horde side and if we would believe wowprogress.com, the population of horde is about 2400. This made my gold making journey both harder and easier. Limited size of the market means that even if you are the only one selling the item, even if it is at an insanely high price, there just aren’t many buyers and your profit is limited. However, small market is also incredibly easy to control.

Gems: JC is and has always been my favorite profession. Sadly, unlike other jewelcrafters on the more populated realms, I get the chance to do the usual shuffle very rarely. Ore prices are pretty high here, for example 100g is an ok price for a stack of elementium ore here. Am using an addon, OreCrusher, to decide whether or not ores are worth buying. 9/10 times it is not profitable and simply buying the uncut gems is cheaper. I believe it depends on ban waves of mining bots. When mining bots are active though, I buy as much ore as I can and do the shuffle, prospect all elementium, craft rings/necks from gems that are not used for JC daily quest and send the green ones to my enchanter to disenchant. Carnelians and hessonites are sent to alchemist for transmuting.

Blacksmithing: belt buckles and enchanting rods. Yes, that’s it. Sha’tar is a roleplay server, there is almost no pvp happening so pvp armor didn’t sell at all until recently when raid finder came out, people buy the gear to boost their item level.

Enchanting: very often raw materials sell for significantly more than the enchant itself, so I just unload some materials to the ah when I notice that I have more than enough. Also, a guildie noticed that you can disenchant Avenger’s of Hyjal reputation cloaks for profit way before it was all over the forums and gold blogs so I made a decent amount of gold out of that trick too.

Alchemy: even though I am a transmutation master, potion market seems to be abandoned on my realm so I always make a nice profit out of that. Also, size changing elixirs are fairly popular on a role playing realm. Elixir of giant’s growth and pygmy oil always sell well.

Inscription: this will sound bad…I only entered inscription market to lower the prices to a decent level so that a low level character could buy glyphs without having to /beg in Orgrimmar. Seriously, you get your first glyphs at level 25 (I think), and if each glyph costs 500g, I doubt that an average level 25 character has 1500g in their pocket. This simply means people are being greedy so after my effort the most expensive glyph should cost about 100g max now. I even buy out some of the more expensive glyphs and post them at lower prices if I can’t make the glyph myself. Yes, I understand that this is a loss of money but one of the reasons why I am doing this whole gold thing is to make prices reasonable. Overpriced items really don’t encourage growth of a small population realm.

I have roughly 3-4 competitors in each field and quite a lot of them are, excuse the language, greedy bastards. My personal rule is ‘buy low, sell reasonable’, not ‘buy low, sell insanely expensive’. It has slowed my gold making a lot, however when I log on after a break of 3-4 days and find that they used my absence to post, for example, brilliant inferno rubies for 600g each, it works like a taunt and I /enrage. Nothing fixes the auction house prices as fast as an angry woman. I’d rather lose gold than rip people off. Arrogant? Maybe… But I see myself as someone who helps the community, stopping greedy bastards from being greedy and I run around Orgrimmar proudly with my ‘the noble’ title as I make ah prices accessible to everyone once again.

What is your master list?

Blacksmithing: belt buckles, all enchanting rods, occasional pvp items, crafted shields of all levels.
Enchanting: raw materials
Jewelcrafting: all Cataclysm gems, all wotlk gems, pvp jewelry
Inscription: all glyphs, an occasional pvp relic
Alchemy: potions, pygmy oil, elixir of giant growth
Others: vendor pets, BoE boots and bracers
What items are on your shopping list?
Darkmoon artifacts, ores, all gems, holiday pets, herbs.
What addons, if any, do you use to help you make gold and why are they needed?
Trade skill master – huge time saver.
Postal – one click mail opening – time saver.
Auctionator – simply cannot stand auctioneer interface.
OreCrusher – determining the potential profit of prospecting ores.
ProspectBar – quick and easy prospecting, milling and disenchanting – time saver.

Lilsparky’s workshop – to decide which item will be profitable to craft. Trade skill master is never even remotely accurate when it comes to item prices, sadly, no matter how many times I scan the ah. Or maybe I am doing something wrong with the settings, not sure. I’ve made mistakes trusting TSM prices a couple times, example: I run the scan, TSM says the item costs 300g to craft and will sell for 600g, I craft the item only to notice that an average price of that item is 250g. I check the undermine journal data, average price has been 250g for a week now. Where did TSM get the 600g value? Clueless and confused, I just don’t trust that addon.

BankStack – not essential but I like when my bags and bank look tidy.

Are you still going for more gold? If so, do you have a new goal? Are you close?

No, not any time soon at least. I will try to continue making prices reasonable for other professions as well, like tailoring and leatherworking, planning to put a lot of money into it.

Do many people know you have this amount of gold?

About 10 – 15 people do, my boyfriend, a couple of closer friends on wow and a few guildies.

Did you spend your gold on fun things? What have you bought? What things would you like to buy?

None of the current gold sinks seems appealing, I’m not a big fan of mounts, ‘fun gold spending’ to me means buying BoE gear for my raiding characters. Sadly, I raid on a different realm.

However I would happily pay for a gold-related title or a vanity item, for example, an item that makes your character /roll on a pile of gold.

If you were the professor of a gold making 101 college class, what would be some things you would talk about?

Probably about taking first steps on a new character on a new realm. Vendor pets, vendor recipes, your starting money. Alliance have it extremely easy too, The Great Moongraze Hunt is an amazingly easy quest and awards you with a cooking recipe that easily sells for a thousand gold.

How about an advanced gold making class?

Planning for the distant future, predicting market changes, preparing for the coming expansion, buying holiday pets for potential customers in MOP, stockpiling, investing in expensive items.

Do you have any good farming strategies or spots? If you don’t farm, please suggest something to farm if you had to pick the best items and locations.

I don’t farm, it is too time consuming for me, however if a person has the time and patience I would suggest fishing.

What are your future plans with WoW?

I have the annual pass, knew I would be playing no matter what. Am looking forward to the beta testing, curious to see how the monk class healing works out. As for live, my best geared character is guildless and I haven’t decided what to do yet. Maybe I will pug, maybe I will join a guild. However, if MOP beta comes any time soon, I’m sure my raiding will be next to non-existent.

I’m also really enjoying real id achievement raiding. Overall I am pretty satisfied with the state of the game right now and the few screenshots from Pandaria that I have seen bring back the good old Burning Crusade feeling – lots of colors everywhere. It is finally time for a cheerful expansion instead of blood, killing and death everywhere.

What are you predictions for the future WoW economy?

I expect epic gems to go down to roughly the same level the blue gems are right now (keep in mind that I am talking about Sha’tar level blue gems, 300g per gem). People are already mostly in heroic raid gear for their mainspec and offspecs so they will not be buying any more epic gems and the amount of gems in the market will only increase as the content is being nerfed and more and more people will clear Dragon Soul.

What your favorite artists, songs, movies, shows, or streams to watch while you are making gold?

I love radio. Going though the same playlists on iTunes gets old eventually and radio gives me something new once in a while. Personal favorite is www.indie1031.com. While I can’t say I like all music they are playing, at least 3/5 songs hit somewhere very close. I’m a big fan of Fleet Foxes band too.

What are your thoughts on the real money auction house that will be implemented in Diablo 3? How will you take advantage of this new change?

I will be getting Diablo 3 for free with my annual pass so naturally I will give it a go. No expectations yet but it seems to be an interesting idea.

When is the WoW Mists of Pandaria Beta Release Date? MOP Profession Changes, Being A Successful Auctioneer in Diablo 3

Oligopoly — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 13:05:00 +0000

Mists of Pandaria Beta Release Date Info

According to Boubouille, MMO Champion’s lead news writer:

A lot of you keep asking, let’s try to answer.

The Mists of Pandaria Beta is “soon” as far as I know. I don’t mean “probably in a month” soon. I mean that if Blizzard is still following their original plan, you will most likely see it this week. If it’s not this week, it will be the next one. I don’t think any Friends & Family Alpha will be involved this time, however, Blizzard employees are still able to invite people as far as I know.

Stay fluffy.

If you purchased the WoW Annual pass, which also gives you Diablo 3 for free, you will be automatically be in the Mists of Pandaria beta. In case you missed it on Monday, there was a lot of info on MOP from the press tour. There wasn’t too much about the economy or professions, however they did mention some sort of FarmVille type game where you have a farm to take care of.

WoW Mists of Pandaria Profession Changes

Professions

Lorewalkers might be worked in to Archaeology somehow, perhaps granting skill ups in some way.
There are now multiple different cooking specializations; steaming, frying, broiling. Each is related to one of the primary stats, like Agility. When you level one of the specializations to 600, you are able to make all of the feasts.
Inscription may get something new, like a staff that you upgrade as you level inscription. This will combat the fatigue that comes from creating hundreds of glyphs to level.
Archaeology may get random creature spawns from digging that will drop more fragments when killed. It also may get a rare drop that will transport you to the next dig site.

(Source)

Diablo 3 Release Date and Being A Successful Auctioneer

In other news, we have been playing the Diablo 3 beta and testing out everything we can get our hands on. There is still 8 weeks till Diablo 3 comes out and we plan to do as much testing and research as we can to succeed economically when it goes live. A word of warning to those that haven’t kept up to date on Diablo 3 and think they will be just as successful as they were in WoW’s economy. It is a whole different beast. A few concepts may carry over and even your Diablo 2 experience, but a lot of things are going to be very different. Add in the fact that there will be a real money auction house shared with every player in your region, things are going to be crazy. I may write an editorial about the topic for WoW players to make the transition to Diablo 3′s economy. Maybe called “The Diablo 3 Economy from a WoW Player’s Perspective”. You can read about my beta findings and strategies at my Diablo 3 gold blog. The bottom line is, just because you were a millionaire in WoW, it doesn’t mean you’ll have equal success in D3. However that doesn’t mean none of those players will do well. A lot of them that truly understand virtual economies will do quite well for themselves. Gevlon of The Greedy Goblin and the original Markco of JMTC are the first names that comes to mind. Love them or hate them, I would pay attention to what they have to say or speculate about D3.

Mists of Pandaria Never Before Seen Footage Leaked, MOP Beta and Release Date Soon?

Oligopoly — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 01:00:16 +0000

Mists of Pandaria Beta in April? Earliest MOP Release Date as Early as June/July?

World of Warcraft Mists of Pandaria — Scarlet Monastery and Scholomance Dungeons

World of Warcraft Mists of Pandaria — The Wandering Isle

World of Warcraft Mists of Pandaria — Valley of the Four Winds

World of Warcraft Mists of Pandaria — The Jade Forest

Diablo 3 Release Date is May 15th 2012

Oligopoly — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 13:56:12 +0000

When is Diablo 3 Coming Out? May 15th 2012!

(Source)

Oh happy day! Finally a release date, which is 2 months from now. This will give us time to build a new computer and work on a premium members area for Diablo 3 strategies. Don’t forget to check out our Diablo 3 Econ site and the private gold forum that we pay to be a part of. I’m really liking the intelligent people there all sharing their money making strategies and what they plan to do in the first month to maximize profits. Did I mention it costs 44 million gold just to create a max level, rank 14 gem? And that’s assuming the gems are free. Well have a good one everyone. You have 2 months to prepare for the release of Diablo 3!

Recap of articles on our sister site:

How Much Does One Rank 14 Gem Cost in Diablo 3? Oh Just About 42 Million Gold To Create

Beta Patch 14 Blacksmith/Jeweler Prices Changed Again, New Crafting Tomes

Ferret Companion and Grim Harvest Spells For Farming, New Skills Video

Videos of New Never Before Seen Beta Content

Diablo 3 Beta: 6 Gold Making Strategies

How the F**k Do I Afford a 250,000 Gold GF Amulet? Gold Find in Beta, A Look Back at Patch 13

Beta Patch 14 Undocumented Changes and Observations

Jeweler Cost to Combine Gems Up to Rank 14

Wizard Class Most Popular, Witch Doctor Least Popular, Why This Matters

Scroll of Resurrection Returns, Free Cataclysm Xpack, Free Boost to Level 80, Free Server/Faction Change

Oligopoly — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 01:29:11 +0000

Danielle Elizabeth of Trade Chat has created a video that explains the new Scroll of Resurrection changes (Source: MMO-Champion). This is for those who like to get their information through a video rather than walls of text. She also created the video that features gold tips from some of our Hall of Fame gold capped players when the gold cap was 214k.

Follow @TradeChat on Twitter.

WoW Gold Making Videos From a WoW Millionaire

Oligopoly — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 14:05:03 +0000

Arida is a World of Warcraft Millionaire and the Creator of WoW Marketeer. He is dedicated to helping the WoW community reach their gold goals. He shares gold tips that are not typically over saturated on the auction house. Watch as he shows you how to use the best addons and explains the best gold making techniques that will maximize your gold earnings in merely minutes! Arida aims to make you financially happy in WoW. Even though it’s only a game, we still need to be happy to proceed. Be sure to check out his channel for detailed videos and companion pet giveaways every 500 subscribers!

Diablo 3 Article Round-Up From Our Sister Site

Oligopoly — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 05:23:31 +0000

Just a quick reminder for those who haven’t heard, we have created a sister site to cover Diablo 3 news and economy related info at Diablo3Professions.com. If you are interested in Diablo 3 information, make sure to subscribe to the RSS feed.

Diablo 3 Econ Article Round-Up

Mists of Pandaria Beta in April? Earliest MOP Release Date as Early as June/July?

Oligopoly — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 13:05:55 +0000

With the MoP press event due March 13th – 15th, we could hope for a beta in April — as long as everything goes smoothly. If this is the case, it leads to speculation of a June or July release for Mists of Pandaria. Though not the ideal season for MMOs — Summer months see a decline in subscriptions — it would certainly make sense with no more large content patches coming to Cataclysm.

Source: Gamebreaker.tv

Read more about WoW Mists of Pandaria and econ related news. If you signed up for the WoW annual pass, which includes Diablo 3 for free, you also automatically get a beta invite for WoW: MOP

News: Player Makes 8.5 Million Gold While Botting

Oligopoly — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 01:55:38 +0000

We recently stumbled upon an interesting story about a player that made 8.5 million gold while botting on the WoW auction house.

Facebook image and caption about his experience

Perma-banned in World of Warcraft: for botting.

Less than 3 years ago, I engineered a way to sell items at the lowest price and keep them that way every 15 minutes via an add-on and a bot that I wrote. I spent 1-2 hours to restock daily and it took me several months before I took over the Auction House as a Walmart on both Alliance and Horde factions.

Over the course of 3 years, I have sold 60,000 items and accumulating 8.5 million gold to my name.

To put 8.5 million in perspective:

Until 2011, the maximum gold a character was allowed to hold was 214,748g, 36s, 48c. That amount was enough to get interviewed at http://www.warcraftecon.net/hall-of-fame. I had about 20 times of the gold cap. My raiding guild at that time kept around 30,000g. I had 200 times of that. A typical player keeps up to 10,000g around, making me worth over 850 players. I normally kept around a 300,000g worth of items on the Auction Houses at any time, which I once estimated to make up 5-10% of the entire market – that means I can probably buy out the entire economy 3 times over. To farm this amount of gold without playing the economy, one must mine or gather herbs for 30-50 hours a day for 3 years. There were unconfirmed rumors of player(s) holding a world record of somewhere around 2-4 million in some German servers – makes me wonder whether I was indeed the richest among 12 million WoW players.

8.5 million gold currently sells for US$4,000 and costs US$8,000 to buy.

Until I was banned, my bot had over 270 lines of instructions that alternately logs in my two characters in both factions, cancels all undercut items via an add-on (it also by-passes the anti-bot check), walks backwards to reach the mailbox, retrieve the mail via another add-on, walk forward again and post every undercut item that is also profitable. My bot even knew to re-log with my password when it disconnects from the server. The bot ran for 22 hours a day, permanently keeping my account logged on except during Tuesday maintenance. Somehow, Blizzard left me alone despite complaints from my competitors – one of them being a bad-mouthed Australian family that spends their day rotating in shifts trying to put me out of business by selling 20% of the items that I was selling at a loss.

I have also written a bot that lets my characters join the Alterac Valley battleground automatically and move every 10-60 seconds to prevent getting AFK-kicked, helping me make 6 level 85 characters so that I could max out 12 crafting professions.

It’s been 3 good years of WoW, although I spent months at a time not killing anything but staying in town to craft items and figuring out more efficient ways of running my enterprise, or coming up with more secure ways of transferring items cross-faction via Booty Bay (at one point there were 4 stalkers who tried to snatch my items whenever my transferring characters log in to sell items at low prices to each other). Cheating was definitely more fun than playing it properly – I sucked at playing the game properly. I was going to wait till I reach 10 million before I make an announcement, sell it all into real money and donate it to Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, but I guess that will have to wait.

R.I.P. Dorkmage. As for now, Skyrim.

Update: Manaview is having a limited time sale, 50% off its’ products. Lasts all week!
Just want the WoW Tycoon Gold Addon? Click here.

My First Diablo 3 Gold Guide and Private Forum Purchase

Oligopoly — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 22:47:10 +0000

2/22 Update: Just like I said before, the price went up. Grats to those that were able to get it for cheap. As for the trolls or skeptics, I did this entirely on my own. I mean come on, I can find $7 worth of change in my car. If your first question is about price, this product and forum is NOT for you (and that is fine), although I can understand players being skeptical about online products with all the scams out there. I’m simply letting those that are interested know about a deal that lasted less than 24 hours from when I originally posted this. You didn’t even have to use my link if you didn’t want to, although I thank those that did for their support. I decided to approve every comment if you want to discuss the matter, an act of transparency. Feel free to ignore those comments that have basis for argument. Unfortunately the vocal minority likes to ruin things for everyone else. If you have any questions or concerns, you can directly contact me through email. Take care.

I ended up purchasing a Diablo 3 gold guide for $7. It was such a steal I couldn’t pass it up. The real reason for the purchase is the 6 month private forum access that comes included since the actual guide is not done yet. This will give me a chance to talk to some other players about money making ideas in a private area even though I have ideas of my own. Diablo 3 is projected to be released between April and June so the free access should last till the end of August. I personally value the information in order to help me succeed; I mentioned this here. Information is key when it comes to making gold and money, not just in Diablo 3. So buying a guide was a no-brainer, it will pay for itself on the release date of D3. I normally do not do advertorial posts, but $7 was a good enough deal that I think some players wouldn’t want to miss out on. On top of that, the $7 deal expires on 2/22/2012 before the price goes up.

So we wanted to let our readers know about this special deal that Markco has given his readers. I personally believe in his products, otherwise I would not be writing a post purely to promote something. If you don’t need a guide or will never buy one, feel free to ignore this offer, but even I couldn’t ignore the value of this, all for some pocket change I could find laying around.

For Just $7 You’ll Get:

Permanent Access to Guide (when it’s done) Worth $47
Free 6 Months Forum Access Worth $24
You’re SAVING $64

Again here is the link.

Full disclosure: I get a small commission if you purchase the guide. However this does not influence any of my thoughts on it and wrote this post without the influence of the guide creator. It only comes out to a few dollars per sale, so it isn’t the reason I’m sharing this with you.

Hall of Fame – 1 Million Gold Cap Club: Minihax of Sunstrider-EU

Oligopoly — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 13:05:23 +0000

The Warcraft Econ Hall of Fame interviews the few elite players that have hit the World of Warcraft gold cap of 999,999 gold 99 silver 99 copper as well as ones who have obtain 500k and 250k. We have with us, Minihax of Sunstrider-EU, who will be sharing their story with us today.

Please tell us a little about yourself and your gaming experience.

I’m Minihax from EU-Sunstrider. I’ve played WoW since vanilla, mostly raiding. I’m a 21 year old computer science student from Sweden.

Do you raid or PvP? How do you enjoy the game?

I’ve raided almost every tier. I consider playing with friends the best thing about WoW, so I haven’t pursued any high ranked guild dreams, and have played with friends on Sunstrider most of my time. At one point I was into achievements aswell, spending insane amounts of gold to get the insane title back in Wotlk. I’ve never pvpd other than the odd weekly arena point cap.

What motivated you to collect this amount of gold?

I used to be a poor guy in WoW. Not poor as in ”I have 46 gold and can’t buy enchants”, but floating around a few thousand gold and never really farming but not spending much either. The first thing that motivated me to earn some gold was the “Traveler’s Tundra” mount in Wotlk. I farmed for a few weeks and eventually bought it, of course showing it off proudly afterwards. After that, I went back to being apathetic towards my amount of gold again. My ”Scrooge McDuck”-nature of spending lead me to have about 100k gold in the end of Wotlk, just through raiding and random drops. I spent this entire amount on getting the Insane title when it was rumored that it was going to be removed. In cataclysm I didn’t raid as much and raided more casually. I had some spare time so I started to gather some gold on the side. My goal was always just to have some gold lying around if I ever felt like buying new craftables and BoE items.

How did you learn to do it?

I didn’t really learn how to make gold. I don’t see gold-making as something you ”learn” to do. It’s pretty self explanatory, I had just never bothered with it before since there was no motivation for me to obtain more gold than I had. I didn’t have a guide or anything telling me what to do. I just went to the ah and started making gold.

Is there anyone, hall of fame interview, or resource you would like to thank that contributed to your success?

I don’t know if he is in the Hall of Fame, but Kripparrian US-Ysondre got me thinking that it shouldn’t be too hard to make gold. I also want to say hi to Bozzor from EU-Sunstrider!

What were some of your early mistakes? How would you do things differently if you had to go back and redo them?

In the very beginning I used to farm stuff and try to look for the best places to farm. This sounds typical, but I realized very quickly that farming is very limited in terms of how much gold you can make. When I actually started making gold, I had already played for many years so I wasn’t a newbie. Therefore, I went straight to the auction house. I’ve never lost gold on an investment, so there is nothing really that I would change.

How did you go about getting to this gold amount? Any creative or original ideas?

It started out with one profession, jewelcrafting. I started to level more professions, and now I have most of the professions spread across my many alts. The key to making gold is to have professions. The more, the better. To me it’s a no-brainer how to make gold with them. You buy raw and sell crafted. Since my time is limited, and I’m lazy, I’ve been focusing on goldmaking that requires very little time. This means that I prefer automated crafting over say milling or prospecting, since then I can be completely AFK. I don’t bother much with re-listing auctions and usually post them once per day, with a 12h timer for gems and 24h for anything else.

It started with the gems, but in cataclysm the gem market was pretty much destroyed by the obsidium shuffle. I didn’t do much shuffling since, as I said, I’m not a fan of non-automated crafting even if profit was guaranteed. Don’t get hung up on the word ”crafting” there, I know that prospecting and milling technically isn’t crafting. I mostly just went into obvious markets like crafted pvp gear, but I did earn gold from some niche markets. These niche markets are markets I have found that work on my own server using the undermine journal and wowhead.

There was a time when I read so called gold-blogs. This didn’t last very long though, as I got tired of all the self-proclaimed experts giving out blatantly obvious tips calling them ”gold secrets”. Some even trying to sell them for money! And the promoting of blogs, I mean come on. You can say whatever you want, but I know that the reason these bloggers have their blogs is to make money from advertisements. Some say they want to help the community but I don’t really buy it. The whole scenario is just ridiculous in its nature. You have these ”experts” sharing their ”secrets” as if it’s hard to figure out how to earn gold yourself. No, they just want to make some money on the side from their blog. You could argue that it helps new players or even experienced players make gold, but i think if you can’t figure out how to make gold yourself, you don’t deserve it either.

Pardon me, I got a bit derailed there. Making gold comes from one basic idea, supply and demand. With just this idea, and a few tools, you can become an expert instantly. Perhaps then, if your ego is really big, you can start your own gold making blog! The tools I use are: Wowhead, The Undermine Journal, MMO-Champion and the addon Auctionator. I have never used auctioneer, as I don’t see a need for it. If you understand how supply and demand affects server economy, you know how the prices of mats fluctuate. Use this to buy cheap mats. If you are devoted to making gold you could also find a ”farmer” to buy from. Use your mats to either sell them high if the prices fluctuate much or craft stuff with them. When you’ve found a market that yields a secure profit, write it down so that you remember it. It’s easy to forget about niche markets if you’re selling a lot of things. Then just add more and more markets/niche markets to your list and soon you’ll have a great list of markets that each give you profits. More markets, more profits. When you have a lot of them, you can cherry-pick the ones that are most profitable and consumes the least amount of time. This is what I did. But if you’re devoted to making gold, you can just keep them all and spend more time. Check mmo-champion for game-changes regularly. This is especially important before major patches. It’s easy to predict how changes will affect the economy most of the time. And the profits are huge. And there we have it, that is how I make gold. You just need a basic understanding of supply and demand and an understanding of your server economy.

What is your master list?

I don’t use an addon to track those kind of things. But I will list some items I sell consistently:

PvP relics
Fortune cards
PvP plate armor
Belt buckles
Rare gems (cut)
Volatile air
Potion of illusion
TBC uncommon gems
Adamantite powder
Vendor-bought pets (I only bother with the ones that cost 50silver)
Vendor-bought recipes
Electrified Ether
Infinite dust
Greater cosmic essence
PvP jewelry

What items are on your shopping list?

Abyss crystal for shattering
Adamantite ore for prospecting
Elementium ore for crafting
Rare gems for cutting gems
Cinderbloom and Whiptail for fortune cards, dust of disappearance and pvp relics
Vendor recipes
Vendor pets
Volatile life, fire and water for crafting relics, rings and pvp armor
Basically all of the raw materials from Cataclysm are on my shopping list

What addons, if any, do you use to help you make gold and why are they needed?

Auctionator for convenient browsing and posting.

Postal for fast and automatic mail recovery.

Are you still going for more gold? If so, do you have a new goal? Are you close?

No, 1 million was my ”goal”.

Do many people know you have this amount of gold?

No, just a few friends pretty much. But it’s not like I keep it a secret, I just don’t shove it in peoples faces.

Did you spend your gold on fun things? What have you bought? What things would you like to buy?

I gave 10k gold to my friend who needed gold for the rogue legendary quest daggers. But other than that, there is nothing that I’ve bought since I don’t really want anything. I did technically spend gold when I gave out mats worth about 100-150k gold to random people on my server last tuesday.

If you were the professor of a gold making 101 college class, what would be some things you would talk about?

I must say that this question amuses me greatly. In line with what I’ve said earlier, I don’t think it’s hard to make gold for anyone. Therefore the idea of a college class on this subject seems very bizarre to me. However, I will answer the question. I would focus on ”teaching” how to understand the economy and using the tools I mentioned in the section about how I made my gold creatively.

Do you have any good farming strategies or spots? If you don’t farm, please suggest something to farm if you had to pick the best items and locations.

To me, farming is a waste of precious time. Not to mention really boring. The only time I’ve farmed for gold was in the beginning of Cataclysm, with my tauren druid herbalist/miner. Since you could get XP while farming, and also about 3-4k gold per hour at the time, I found it acceptable. The leveling pace was decent and the gold as well. I don’t know anything about any good farming spots now, however.

What are your future plans with WoW?

I don’t have any future plans with WoW. Reaching one million gold was the last thing I wanted to do. I don’t see myself playing Mists of Pandaria, since I find it a joke of an expansion.

What are you predictions for the future WoW economy?

I predict that hypnotic dust which is very cheap now, going for as low as under 5g per stack on my server, will increase when mists of pandaria is released. Maybe not right away, but it will just like all the old enchanting dusts, go up in price quite a lot. Perhaps even more so than the previous expansions, because there is only a 5 lvl window where you will go from 80-85 before going into mists of pandaria content.

What your favorite artists, songs, movies, shows, or streams to watch while you are making gold?

I don’t really spend a lot of time making gold, so I don’t know really. When I mill inks for relics/fortune cards, I usually watch a documentary, online lecture or youtube videos at the same time. This way it doesn’t feel like I waste the time since I would’ve watched those videos anyway. Carbon based lifeforms is a great band I listen to a lot.

What are your thoughts on the real money auction house that will be implemented in Diablo 3? How will you take advantage of this new change?

I do plan on trying out Diablo 3. I haven’t played Diablo before so I don’t know a lot about it, but I will definitely look into making real money with Diablo. Although, realistically, I don’t think it’ll be that profitable. But perhaps a good way for a goblin to make some money on the side.

Thank you for taking the time to do this interview for Warcraft Econ. Do you have any last words?

I might come off as arrogant in this interview, but really I’m not. I just think gold making is really easy and that anyone who wants to do it can and should do it. I apologize if there is any gold-blogger reading this that actually doesn’t do it for the money and has a non-profit blog.

My computer restarted itself when I was writing this and was almost done, and I lost all of it (THANK YOU windows update, WHY am I not on my Linux computer). Final note: Get an authenticator. Just do it.

Free Instructional Videos by a Rank 1 Worldwide Player

Cottage — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 13:05:00 +0000

Although this has nothing to do with making gold we though we would share some free videos with you. We all love free stuff right? Recently we had a chance to talk to an Arena Rank 1 Gladiator that creates instructional videos to help players like you play better. His team was not only rank number 1 in his battlegroup, but also in the world. If you are interested in arenas and PvP, check him out.

Hello everyone, my name is Ivan Georgiev, more commonly known as Cottage. I am a passionate gamer of competitive nature who always strives to excel at what he does.

In 2010 my partners and I became the highest rated 3v3 team in the world, which turned our gaming hobby into a profession. Now, 2 years later, my goal is to provide the best instructional content for World of Warcraft players. I also post a dozen of non-commentary entertaining videos on YouTube, so make sure to check them out!

http://youtube.com/Cottagex

Today I share this instructional guide with you, as a warm welcome to my channel. I hope that you will have a good time watching it and will pick many tricks along the way!

Hall of Fame – 2 Million Gold Club: Vile of Skullcrusher-EU

Guest Blogger — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:05:11 +0000

The Warcraft Econ Hall of Fame interviews the few elite players that have hit the World of Warcraft gold cap of 999,999 gold 99 silver 99 copper as well as ones who have obtain 500k and 250k. We have with us, Vile of Skullcrusher-EU, who will be sharing their story with us today.

Please tell us a little about yourself and your gaming experience.

Hey everybody I’m Vile from Skullcrusher-EU server and the author of vilesauctions.blogspot.com, a blog about making gold. I’m an individual that enjoys playing games in general, but more importantly loves playing games that have working economies in them. I started out playing games way back in 1997-98 I think when I bought my first PC, that is for the PC era of gaming, but for gaming in general I would say much earlier in the days of the Commodore 64 and the arcades. I just want to add that to this day I am still amazed at how games could have been played off a cassette, but hey it happened. So thinking back at it all now, I can say with confidence that I’ve grown up with games, and that might explain why I love them so much.

Do you raid or PvP? How do you enjoy the game?

Well I have been playing the game since the very start. In this period I have pretty much tried it all. I will start from back in the Vanilla WoW time. I used to be a part of a PvP group called PoP ( Parade Of Pwnage), that was a dedicated group that used to chain run AB’s and totally own anyone we came against. After that would be done, we would jump in and do our raids. The raiding urge lasted the most, so basically from the first raids in UBRS, then ZG, then AQ and so on and on through TBC and WOTLK. I stopped raiding when Cataclysm shipped, and that is when I got ONLY in the AH PvP game. That is what has proven to be most fun for me and been my sole motivator to play the game.

What motivated you to collect this amount of gold?

Well what was my motivator? Hmm the answer to that question would not be easy to define, but I will try. For the longest period of time I played the game with my friends, battling it out in the PvP battlegrounds as well as the raids. Now one of the things that I would have to say were the main motivators would be that I loved to do that. Now the correlation of playing with your friends, and then that being your motivator for making gold is simple actually, the guild we got into. This guild I am talking about was a server first guild, that was always pushing for a kill and always requiring it’s members to have the latest gems, flasks and food. All this meant was that they needed gold to make it to the guild raid runs, and as the luck would have it they sucked in the gold making department, so that was put on my plate. While here, I might add that this was one of the main reasons why I decided to level up all the professions so that I can actually make it cheaper to get all the required goodies.

How did you learn to do it?

I would have to say that my starts were in the most unpopular manner that I keep telling everyone to get away from nowadays, and yes I am talking about Farming. So for longest time I used to farm for gold, be it killing mobs for the drops they have or picking herbs as well as mining ore. TBC was the last bastion of the killing mobs for farming because as soon as WOTLK came out there was simply no more mobs worth killing that would yield enough gold to rival the auction house. So you might guess that by this time I had all the professions leveled up, and was making my gold on the second tier of gold making, the manufacturing way. So if I would have to say how I actually did learn to do it, I would have to say that I did it by the good old way of trial and error.

Is there anyone or a resource you would like to thank that contributed to your success?

Well I have always been a person that kind of sucked in the social media department up until lately, so I can’t say that I have had much help from it. But as for sites as well as blogs I can say that I have gotten some ideas as well as massive amounts of entertainment, while reading or listening to them. I would like to link a few of them here because they are still active and still have awesome tips and ideas.

http://coldsgoldfactory.blogspot.com

http://altosgoldishadvise.blogspot.com

http://kujasgoldmine.blogspot.com

There are more but these were couple of the best ones I came upon that are still active and still are true to their readers.

What were some of your early mistakes? How would you do things differently if you had to go back and redo them?

Well I think I have already said what my earliest mistake was, farming. If I would be able to go back in time I would most definitely… well I would still farm, because I still believe that we all learn from our mistakes, so if I never learned from my mistakes, who knows I might have still be farming ore and herbs today.

How did you go about getting to this gold amount? Any creative or original ideas?

This is a very funny question, because I must say that getting to this amount boils down to two things, persistency and originality. Just so everyone is clear on one thing, when you see or hear about someone that has a million gold, or two or heck even five or more million gold know just one thing, he is probably using a few tricks but he is good at those tricks and he has been doing it for a very long time. Ok now since we got this out of the way I can go ahead and tell you what has been working for me and what hasn’t.

Profession wise I have already stated I have every single one, but unlike everyone I tend to try out a market and then if it gets too easy, or if I dominate a market I don’t stay in it for too long, but instead I get one of my friends to get in on that market and use my tactics for their own profits. I have done this with so many things that I can’t even remember them all. But all this aside I didn’t get to shoot past two and a half million gold without being constantly in a single market, and that market for me has been gems.

As I have explained in a few posts on my blog, the reason as to why I was good at what I did was simply because I had the motivation for it, I had the time to do it and I befriended the competition and made sure we all acted in sync, almost as a syndicate. With that done we had the server prices tailored to our needs, where prices of raw gems were high as well as the prices of cut gems because we made sure to control the market as best as we could. What this meant was on certain days we would end up buying 1000+ stacks of ore, but with prices of gems of over 200g it was a very profitable arrangement.

One other market that I have been into for quite a while is the crafting PvP items market. I like this market because of one thing only, with every patch they make the crafted items better or more in line with the current PvP gear so that makes that market always viable.

Another market that I used to be very active, but decided to leave it is the Inscription market. Well this is not correct because I have only left the glyph market while all the other goodies that profession has to offer, I keep using. What I mean here is the Mysterious Fortune Cards, and yes they have made me a true fortune in their time, as well as their Cookie counterpart.

I could go on and on about what to sell but I have that covered on my blog, so while here I can only give you one advice that I think is the most valuable, Advertise. Yup you heard it right, advertising has been one of my best weapons that I have been using in the AH PvP. The best thing about this is that advertisement works with any profession, heck it even works great if you are selling ore or herbs. And don’t forget the best part is that advertisement is free in WoW, and all you have to do go to a major city and enter the trade channel. Just so you get the basic idea of how this whole thing work. If you are selling product A, you go on the trade channel and simply say that your Product A will make you better, stronger and more awesome in any way possible, and you will shortly see that people start buying your given produce. Just don’t do it with these words, but more of a cheesy hamburger commercial way.

What is your master list?

Hmm if I would have to name items I constantly sell that would be a list that is always changing as I am jumping from a market to market. But I guess I can name the constant sellers that I have had in my experience. I will put gems as one thing, there really is no need to get into details which ones sell the best. Another thing that has been working for me for two expansions now is the blacksmith enchanting rods market, as I have been getting a constant stream of income from that.

What items are on your shopping list?

I am always on the look for raw materials that I use in my crafting, things like ore, herbs, cloth and leather. So pretty much always keeping my eyes open for good opportunities, and cheap items. One other thing that I always keep an eye out is the WOTLK level gems, the rare ones and the epic ones, as those are one of the markets that I stuck into even when Cataclysm came out.

What addons, if any, do you use to help you make gold and why are they needed?

Oh I have always been an addon buff. I have addons for almost anything, UI, bars, cooldowns, raiding, pvping and of course the auction house. With the amount of addons out there that cover pretty much everything, in the department of the auction house I’m using what any good informed player is using. In that bundle of joy I have Auctionator, Auctioneer and for my posting and checking I’m using TSM. I know there are some people out there that have never heard of TSM, so if you happen to be one of those people and you are reading this, go download it and then take some half an hour to familiarize yourself with the addon as that will save you a ton of time in the long haul.

Are you still going for more gold? If so, do you have a new goal? Are you close?

Hmm, well to be honest when I got the 1 million I felt like I should push for more, then when I got to 2 million I still felt like it’s not enough so I kept pushing on. So I thought about what should I make the next threshold, so I put it up at 10 million. I made up my mind for that number because that is the “hard cap” because you can’t have more than then split on 10 characters. As it is now I have an easy percentage based progress bar that is easy to follow, and I am still at 26% now so I have a lot of way to go to my “sweet spot”.

Do many people know you have this amount of gold?

This is a funny story as well. As I told you I used to be a part of a server first guild and only the people inside the guild knew about how much gold I had because I would “lend” people gold, and by lend I mean give. But as time went on and on the guild kind of fell apart as people left for whatever reasons and the people that stayed they moved on to other guilds. Now it’s a given fact that people talk, so in a very short time my amount of gold got to be well known amongst people and I started getting whispers from people I never knew asking me about an investments they did, and asking me if it is a good one. Then after the question about investments came questions about how to do things that were profitable, which eventually led to me making my gold making blog.

Did you spend your gold on fun things? What have you bought? What things would you like to buy?

I have told this to many of the people I know, I am a good earner but a crappy spender. It’s true that I have bought the Mechano-Hog mount, as well as the repair mammoth, but other than that I haven’t had any spending excesses. But on the other hand I have given loads of gold to friends, guildies and even random people that were just starting out. As for things I want to buy, well this is a joke that I’ve told many of the people that have asked me why I’m gathering all this gold, and I tell them that when I get 10 million gold I am going to contact Blizzard and ask that they let me buy a raid, and some day people will come over trying to kill me and when they do I shall throw gold at them.

But jokes aside, I would love for new and exciting gold sinks in the game. I have even had a few civil discussions up on the forums with people about it. If you ask me I think that Blizzard needs to bring in more then one gold sink to draw some gold away from the economy because if something doesn’t change and gold gets deflated I’m afraid the economy might crumble.

Few of the ideas I have heard going around as far as gold sinks go have been:

Ability for spectators to bet on arena teams as to who wins.

Introduction of Gambling Dens in WoW

Make more dailies like the one back in Sunwell days where you had to pay gold as a donation to help the families of the fallen heroes, or something like that.

If you were the professor of a gold making 101 college class, what would be some things you would talk about?

HIT THEM BOOKS PEOPLE ! … max out your professions and then simply dominate the market !

How about an advanced gold making class?

As for an advanced class I could only tell people to do one thing, branch out. What I mean by this is, you should never keep all your eggs in one basket, or to make it even simpler, go into multiple markets because if one of them crashes you have others to keep you afloat. Also it would be a good idea to get on Twitter and dig around who are the people worth following that are spewing awesome tips on a daily basis be it for crafting, auctions, transmogrifications or anything for that matter.

Do you have any good farming strategies or spots? If you don’t farm, please suggest something to farm if you had to pick the best items and locations.

Well I am going to go out and say it, I suck as a farmer per se but sometimes I can actually go out and do some farming when I am waiting for a queue, or I’m simply bored. One of my favorite spots for farming would be the trogs, or whatever they are, that are found in Deepholm fighting the dwarves.

But if I am not in the fighting mood then I would probably just hop on the druid and go for some Hearthblossom farming in Deepholm, so there it is two of my favorite spots are in Deepholm.

What are your future plans with WoW?

Well we never know what the future brings, but one thing is for certain as long as I have my friends up for playing PvP or do some instances I will keep playing the game, and have fun while doing it all.

What are you predictions for the future WoW economy?

Well this is another tricky question. I have said it multiple times that something needs to be done before inflation eats up the worth of the gold. I am a Diablo franchise fan as well as a WoW player and I am just hoping that I will never have to see that scenario where gold is worthless ever again. With the preliminary information about the decrease of the item level of items I am kind of hoping that Blizzard will address the issue where we have too much gold, and tone down the income for quite a bit. Just so I’m clear on what I mean, I hope that Blizzard tones down the income to that line where this is not the 2 million club but a rather 200k club,

Please tell us a little bit about how you handle your real life finances. What are the differences and similarities with how you do things in WoW?

Well actually in real life I’m pretty much like I am in WoW. NO that doesn’t mean that I go out and kill animals and dragons, no, what I mean is that in real life I do my job with a determination and persistence just as I am making my gold in WoW.

What your favorite artists, songs, movies, shows, or streams to watch while you are making gold?

I used to be very dedicated to playing the game and just the game, so no music, no movies no nothing. That is when I found the awesome aspect of the internet called Podcasts. I did a bit of reading and now I can’t wait till I get my weekly podcasts released so I can listen to them while I am making my gold, or even working my real life job. For the Podcasts that I follow I would have to say it’s Rep Grind Radio which is slowly becoming my top recommendation, then The Chaos Stream as well as few more but I won’t get into more details about them here now .

What are your thoughts on the real money auction house that will be implemented in Diablo 3? How will you take advantage of this new change?

I am going to playing Diablo 3, well actually let me give you an example of how much exactly. I lost a year at college because of Diablo 2, but even if that does sound bad I say it was good times. As for Diablo 3 I had the chance of trying out a bit of the beta, a whole 7 minutes of it before I deleted it from my PC. Now don’t get me wrong, I didn’t delete it because I didn’t like it, heck I loved it, but I deleted it because I didn’t want any sneak peaks into the game that I believe is going to be the game of the decade. And as for the RMAH, I am going to rock it for all it’s worth and use my experience I got from playing Diablo 2 and WoW to actually make some RL cash.

Thank you for taking the time to do this interview for Warcraft Econ. Do you have any last words?

I would just like to thank the readers as well as the Warcraft Econ for giving me the opportunity to share out my WoW life.

Hall of Fame – 2 Million Gold Club: Kermillion of Medivh-US

Guest Blogger — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:05:05 +0000

The Warcraft Econ Hall of Fame interviews the few elite players that have hit the World of Warcraft gold cap of 999,999 gold 99 silver 99 copper as well as ones who have obtain 500k and 250k. We have with us, Kermillion of Medivh-US, who will be sharing their story with us today.

Please tell us a little about yourself and your gaming experience.

Originally, Kermillion of Medivh, My name has been changed for privacy reasons. Most people on there would recognize my bank toon name before my main character!

Do you raid or PvP? How do you enjoy the game?

Lately, I have just been on the gold cap and 2 million cap lately. I was a serious raider until cataclysm. Time constraints dictated less playing time, so I chose to collect gold!

What motivated you to collect this amount of gold?

The challenge! After obtaining 1 million gold, 2 million just looked impossible. I just kept chipping away at it, and at about 1.4 million realized it could be done. So at that time, I just decided to go for it.

How did you go from one to two million gold?

No secrets really. I just did the same things I did to hit 1 million. Adjusting to changing game conditions is a must. At each major patch, there is a surge of items that sell well. Gems, enchants, and enchanting materials always sell well after each major patch.

Why did you do the things you did between one and two million?

Just tried to maximize profits. There were some stumbles along the way, but you just have put your mistakes behind you, learn what NOT to do and keep going.

What are your most profitable markets that represent a large percentage of your net profits and why?

Jewel crafting! Glyphs! The Glyph market has died down, still profitable, but not like WoLK. I also sell a lot of enchanting materials. Jewel crafting and enchanting just seem to be the most profitable duo in the game, at least to me.

What is the best advice you can give to other players?

CONTROL YOUR SPENDING! This is the single most piece of advice I can offer. DON’T buy the brand new items off the auction house for at least 2 weeks after a major patch. Let the prices come down. And there are other ways to obtain gear. If leveling a profession on an alt, don’t do it all at once, do about 25 skill points a day. If you buy out all the materials you need on the Auction House, the price will be triple the next day. Do just a little, farm the rest. It will save you tons!

How did you learn to do it?

Trial and error.

Is there anyone, hall of fame interview, or resource you would like to thank that contributed to your success?

I try to keep up 2 websites, Warcraftecon and My2copper. Other than these two, I just experimented.

What were some of your early mistakes?

Assuming people would buy anything. Paying WAY too much for materials because I had no idea what they were worth.

How would you do things differently if you had to go back and redo them?

I wouldn’t redo them. Every mistake taught me a valuable lesson.

How did you go about getting to this gold amount?

Making gold started with wanting enough funds to do anything I wanted. So I found warcraftecon, saw what others were doing and got started. Controlled spending! Two weeks before a new expansion or major patch, DON’T buy lots of new gear! Shop smart, become one of those coupon shoppers on TV. I see people spending insane amounts on stuff that they really don’t need.

I cannot stress enough the Elementium shuffle! Prospect Elementium ore. Craft cut gems from the rare gems for sale. Use the common gems to craft rings and necklaces, and then disenchant them for enchanting materials. Use the Carnelian gems for sale, they are needed by alchemists to craft epic red gems.

Any creative or original ideas?

I created a “savings bank” toon. I have a bank toon that all my auction house posts are run through. But I have a toon I send my profits to, never to be touched. I usually sent 50% of the days take to this toon so I would not spend it.

What is your master list?

Bold/Brilliant/Delicate Inferno Rubies, Carnelian, Celestial Essence’s, Heavenly Shards, Glyphs. 85% of my profit comes from these items.

What items are on your shopping list?

Elementium ore, Whiptail, Cinderbloom. 90% of all items I buy are these 3 items.

What addons, if any, do you use to help you make gold and why are they needed?

Trade Skill Master is a must, used to post multiple items rapidly. Realm Gold, gives you a total gold count on all of your toons. Other than these two, just plain old pen and paper.

Are you still going for more gold? If so, do you have a new goal? Are you close?

Not really chasing more gold at this point. I now want to level my other alts!

Do many people know you have this amount of gold?

Only 4 or 5 people.

Did you spend your gold on fun things? What have you bought? What things would you like to buy?

All of my level 85 toons have every mount you can buy, as well as my son’s toons. I buy pets, patterns, etc., to try and make the most complete character. Now I’m going to try to get maximum achievements.

If you were the professor of a gold making 101 college class, what would be some things you would talk about?

Loot everything you kill for vendor sale. If you can’t use it, sell it, either on the AH or a vendor.

How about an advanced gold making class?

Shop smart! Don’t over pay for crafting mats! CONTROL YOUR SPENDING! The dungeons reset every Tuesday. That means people will be getting more gear Tuesday and Wednesday. They will need Gems and Enchants. About 65% of my profit comes on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Do you have any good farming strategies or spots?

Another trick to gold making! Recruit 2 or 3 dedicated farmers to supply you with materials. I have one for ore and another for Herbs. They send me their items COD for less than the AH. I have a source of materials cheaper than the AH and they have a guaranteed sale without spending time and gold on the AH. We both win!

What are your future plans with WoW?

Level my alts so I have all professions available to myself and the guild. Be self reliant. Get more achievements! I may start raiding again, I miss it!

What are you predictions for the future WoW economy?

Inflation has already begun; things will just keep getting more expensive. There are usually 10 – 12 people on a server that control most of the auction house; I don’t really see that changing much.

Thank you for taking the time to do this interview for Warcraft Econ. Do you have any last words?

Do things smart. Control your spending. And if the game becomes work, take a break! At the end of the day, it’s just a game!

Hall of Fame – 1 Million Gold Cap Club: Breshota of Skullcrusher-US

Guest Blogger — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:05:47 +0000

The Warcraft Econ Hall of Fame interviews the few elite players that have hit the World of Warcraft gold cap of 999,999 gold 99 silver 99 copper as well as ones who have obtain 500k and 250k. We have with us, Breshota of Skullcrusher-US, who will be sharing their story with us today.

Please tell us a little about yourself and your gaming experience.

I am Breshota from Skullcrusher-US. I started playing WoW mid vanilla but Breshota came to be early in Burning Crusade. I don’t play other games ‘hardcore’ but I do enjoy games like Dance Central and Rocksmith on my Xbox.

Do you raid or PvP? How do you enjoy the game?

I have been a raider since the days of Zul’Gurub in vanilla and looking back I have enjoyed most of it. I miss the days of 40 man raids and huge guilds but I do enjoy the small group of friends that I’ve been raiding with the past few years. PvP has never played a huge part in my activities but every now and then I’ll hop into a battleground to blow off some steam.

What motivated you to collect this amount of gold?

When I first started in the gold making business I didn’t have a set amount to shoot for, but after learning the cap was one million I had a solid number to set my sights on. That helped me keep going a few times after hitting walls in my progression.

Making gold was also one of the few remaining areas of the game that I had not dominated. I was a hardcore raider in BC and Wrath, so that area of the game I felt fulfilled. And although I never got into PvP hardcore, when I did battlegrounds I was always at the top of one of three categories; damage done, honor kills and killing blows, so I felt satisfied there as well. Making gold was a completely different ball game that I had to learn from the ground up, which I haven’t had to do since starting the game in vanilla.

How did you learn to do it?

Trial and error. I read blogs, got an idea of what professions to start with and went from there. Once I found something that worked I continued it and a few weeks later I would take a look at another profession or look back at one to see if any other opportunities had opened up. As time went on and my liquid gold amount increased I felt more confident dumping larger sums of gold into projects, knowing that if the project failed, I had my previous successes to fall back on and keep me going forward.

Is there anyone, hall of fame interview, or resource you would like to thank that contributed to your success?

The story from the beginning is this: I had been going through some health problems and my cousin got me listening to The Instance (www.theinstance.net) which helped pass my time in the hospital. From there I was motivated to explore what other WoW related resources were available. The first gold blogs I came across were www.ahaddict.blogspot.com and www.powerwordgold.net. From there I found others and sort of ‘got the itch’, so I started my own blog. I originally made it for myself, to aid me in keeping track of my sales and my thoughts about my sales. I quickly learned I enjoyed posting and sharing my data with people who would read it so I got involved in the community and I haven’t looked back once.

What were some of your early mistakes? How would you do things differently if you had to go back and redo them?

You cannot be afraid to spend money in order to make money! I feel my biggest mistake was not taking more chances early on. I was very shy to the idea of dumping a lot of gold into a project with even the slightest possibility of it failing. Had I taken some bigger risks early on I feel my confidence would have grown faster. Towards the end of my journey I didn’t think twice about spending 10,000g to 25,000g on materials for a single day of posting and I wish I had the confidence early on to take bigger risks.

I also made some mistakes with items such as heavenly shards and carnelians. I sold those for record highs during patch 4.2 which was great, but I didn’t consider saving anything for patch 4.3, when demand would clearly go up. 20/20 hindsight I suppose but a lesson learned for the future.

How did you go about getting to this gold amount? Any creative or original ideas?

I prefer to sell items with a high moving rate and that are always in demand. Gems and enchants were my top two sellers overall but belt buckles, leg armors and spellthreads also took high spots on my selling list.

I started with jewelcrafting and cut rare gems. I had a basic idea of what the most desired stats were, strength, intellect, agility, and went about getting the gem cuts for them. Not only the red cuts but certain purple, orange and green cuts as well. The obsidium shuffle was another reason I started with jewelcrafting, but once patch 4.2 arrived and the ‘vendor’ part of the shuffle was nerfed; I looked at transmuting common gems into rare gems or crafting jewelry and disenchanting it. That’s what prompted me to open up my second market.

Enchanting scrolls have been my highest grossing category and I’m sure will continue to be very high. With the enchanting materials I had from disenchanting crafted jewelry I decided to hop into that market. I picked out the most common enchants used for each role and, through trial and error, determined what sold and what didn’t. Recently enchanting materials have been through the roof but that hasn’t stopped me selling them. With the skyrocketed prices my profit margins have been tiny at best, but the key is there is still profit to be made. I would rather sell ten landslide enchants for 200g profit and accrue 2000g total profit than not sell any in a week.

Inscription, more specifically glyphs, came a bit later. I was already well established and I knew glyphs were a massive market that I needed to be in. I started slow with them because I had no idea exactly how to break into this gigantic market without some sort of help. At first I manually scanned the auction house and picked out a number of the highest priced glyphs, but that didn’t turn out well. I mentioned that I was trying to get into the market in one of my blog posts and Nev at AHAddict directed me to a setup tutorial for TradeSkillMaster (TSM) she had done. After reading her tutorial and playing around with TSM I finally felt confident that I could succeed in the market.

Recently I have been selling anywhere between 450 to 700 glyphs in a week. I need to give credit here. In September of 2011, Faid over at Nerf Faids (www.nerffaids.blogspot.com) posted about an experiment where she applied a 30g ceiling to her glyphs. This got me thinking about the possibility of selling more glyphs at a lower price, therefore profiting more than by selling a few glyphs at a higher price. I initially set my ceiling at 50g and the reaction was intense, both from sellers and in sales. I had a few hate mails when I logged on to my glyph seller about how I was ruining the market, but after reading and laughing at those, I proceeded to loot the 100+ sales I had from one night, none of which were bought by any of my competition. I continued my strategy and ended up selling around 400 glyphs that first week. Not too many days later I had more of my competition still mad at me but willing to accept the fact that they were seeing a lot more sales too, a few even thanked me. With the recent increase in herb prices I upped my ceiling to 75g. So far I have not noticed a major change in sales quantity.

I am not heavily involved with the other professions but I do sell powerful enchanted and powerful ghostly spellthreads from tailoring, dragonscale and drakehide leg armors from leatherworking, and ebonsteel belt buckles from blacksmithing.

What is your master list?

My top 20 items since starting my journey in August 2011 are:

There are a number of other items I sell on a regular basis but these are the cream of the crop and have been selling well since I started posting them. You’ll notice that all of my top sellers are cataclysm level items. I don’t completely ignore items from other expansions, that would be a bad business decision, but I prefer to sell current items.

What items are on your shopping list?

I typically start my day by collecting all my mail from the previous night then searching the auction house for obsidium, elementium and pyrite ore to be prospected. Then I go to herbs, mainly whiptail, stormvine and cinderbloom because the other three are rarely cheap enough for milling. I continue on to savage leather and blackened dragonscales for leg armors and finish up by looking for inexpensive maelstrom crystals, heavenly shards and greater celestial essences. I keep my eye out for cheap carnelians and heartblossom as well for the transmute possibility but on my server the carnelian price is generally higher than 1/3 the price of inferno rubies.

What addons, if any, do you use to help you make gold and why are they needed?

TradeSkillMaster is the big one in my opinion. It makes life so easy when posting a large amount of auctions to the auction house. It is also great for keeping glyphs stocked by using the crafting feature. There are various other features TSM has but these two are the main reasons I need it.
Auctionator is a great addon as well. It makes purchasing items from the auction house a breeze and would recommend it to anyone.
MySales and Auditor are both great addons but not necessary to make gold. MySales is good for tracking your sales and Auditor is good for showing your total gold across all of your characters.

Are you still going for more gold? If so, do you have a new goal? Are you close?

I don’t know that I’ll ever not be going for more gold. I plan to continue my routine as I have been but at a more relaxed pace.

In the past I attempted to set maximum limits for purchasing materials but I always ended up pushing them upwards to keep stocked on top selling items. Now that I’m taking a more relaxed approach to making gold I think I will be able to stick to those maximum limits. A great example of this would be elementium ore. I had my maximum purchase price at 60g per stack to keep a decent profit margin; however as prices rose I pushed my purchase price up to 80g per stack. There was still profit to be made and I managed to keep stocked on rare gems but I felt a twinge of guilt for going past my limit, knowing that I could keep a higher margin. The drawback now; I won’t always be well stocked, but since I’m not pushing for a certain gold amount I won’t feel the need to go past those limits.

As far as a new goal; I am toying with the idea of getting to 10 level 85 characters, I am at five so far with another at 82. For gold making specifically I am not setting my sights on another number just yet. That may be added on down the road.

Do many people know you have this amount of gold?

On my server just my guild mates are aware that I have hit the one million mark. It is not something I’m going to flaunt but it is something I am proud of and did share with my guild when I first hit it. I prefer to post auctions from a bank alt so I can play my main without constant tells asking for trades, discounts or hate mail and I will not be letting the world know that I hit one million for the same reasons.

Did you spend your gold on fun things? What have you bought? What things would you like to buy?

So far I have not bought anything special. When patch 4.2 came around I made 300,000g in the first week and quickly proceeded to spend all of it and more on top bind on equip items from Firelands for my main. This time around I don’t have any gear that I’m interested in. I also already own most of the big gold sinks, mounts, toys, etc. I’m sure I’ll find something to spend it on before too long though.

I have considered giving some of my gold away to close friends and guild mates that I know don’t make a lot of money, but in the past I have preferred to teach them ways to make gold rather than just give it to them. I liked the idea that I was not keeping my knowledge to myself but rather sharing it and growing the general knowledge of my friends and guild. I’m thinking some type of guild competition would be fun and get a few more people involved in guild activity.

If you were the professor of a gold making 101 college class, what would be some things you would talk about?

Sell items that are in demand! I personally like to sell items that are always in demand. People will never stop getting new gear. Whether they are leveling alts or Blizzard is introducing patches with new instances and raids, there is always a demand for items like gems, enchants, belt buckles, leg armors, etc. I feel there is a smaller risk in these markets because people constantly need them.

How about an advanced gold making class?

Farming and gold per hour. Farming is something a lot of people consider ‘free money’. That tells me that their time and effort is worth nothing to them. I used to farm but once I got into the gold making business I felt my time was better spent buying materials for crafting. Here’s an example of how I would explain my reasoning:

Objective: Craft 40 glyphs.

Data Given:

1. 40 glyphs require 120 blackfallow inks which require 240 ashen pigments.
2. One stack of whiptail mills to 10 ashen pigments (actually ~12, but I still use 10 to be on the safe side).
3. Whiptail costs 2g per piece or 40g per stack.
4. Farming takes approximately 1 hour.
5. The glyphs you craft all sell for 100g each.

Based on the data given we can calculate the following:

1. 24 stacks of whiptail will be needed to obtain 240 ashen pigments. (240 pigments divided by 10 pigments per stack equals 24 stacks)
2. Milling 24 stacks takes approximately 5 minutes. (96 total mills times 3 seconds to cast and loot equals 288 seconds, divided by 60 seconds per minute equals 4 minutes 48 seconds, rounded up to 5 minutes)
3. Crafting 120 blackfallow inks will take approximately 5 minutes. (120 inks times 2.5 seconds to craft and loot equals 300 seconds, divided by 60 seconds per minute equals 5 minutes)
4. Crafting 40 glyphs will take approximately 4 minutes. (40 glyphs times 6 seconds to craft, loot and switch glyphs equals 240 seconds, divided by 60 seconds per minute equals 4 minutes)
5. 24 stacks of whiptail will cost 960g. (24 stacks multiplied by 40g per stack)
6. All the glyphs sell for a grand total of 4,000g.

Out of all this data the final results are this:

If you farm, craft and sell your glyphs you will have gold per hour income of 3,243g, which is very respectable. (4,000g profit divided by 74 minutes invested equals 54.05g per minute, multiplied by 60 minutes equals 3,243g per hour)

If you purchase, craft and sell your glyphs however, you will have gold per hour income of 13,028g. (3,040g profit divided by 14 minutes invested equals 217.14g per minute, multiplied by 60 minutes equals 13,028.4g per hour)

Now some people just enjoy farming and that’s great. Way back when I was one of those people, but if you’re going to get serious about gold making you need to focus on gold per hour income. By the example above I hope to convince people that your time invested has an extremely high value!

The second debatable topic here is the definition of gold per hour. I define gold per hour as the total amount of sales divided by the number of hours invested in farming, crafting, posting and opening mail resulting from said sales. Notice I said posting and opening mail, which is the key. I do NOT consider the time auctions sit on the auction house to be a part of gold per hour income. The reason for this is because once the auctions are posted, you aren’t doing anything to make them sell. Now if you spend time barking in trade or canceling and reposting them, that would be added to the equation, but if you are like me, you post and go do something else, you are no longer adding any time to the equation. I know people have differing opinions about this topic but this is my definition and thus far it has not led me astray.

Do you have any good farming strategies or spots? If you don’t farm, please suggest something to farm if you had to pick the best items and locations.

I have not farmed in some time. I used to farm elementium ore like a possessed demon when I first hit level 85 and for that I flew around Uldum until I had sand in my eyes in real life, which is hard to do in Indiana! Nowadays the only farming I do is a quick trip to Deepholm once a week for embersilk cloth. If you look at a map of Deepholm you will notice a place called Needlerock Slag on the western edge, just below that is what looks like a crater. Within that crater are more humanoids than you could hope for and, on my server at least, people rarely farm there. I take my tailor out once a week to farm the embersilk cloth for his dreamcloth cooldown.

What are your future plans with WoW?

At the moment I have not made specific plans. I will ride out the remainder of Cataclysm with a relaxed attitude now that I have achieved my main goal. I am looking forward to Mists of Pandaria and what it will bring. I’m sure I’ll be raiding there like I have the past seven years, but I will make those decisions when the time comes. As I stated in a previous question, I am toying with the idea of getting to 10 level 85 characters but right now it’s just an idea being tossed around in my head.

What are you predictions for the future WoW economy?

I don’t tend to speculate about future possibilities because I like to focus on here and now, but that doesn’t mean I can’t get excited about what has been said so far. I am looking forward to experiencing the launch of Mists of Pandaria as well as future patches because I feel much more confident in my ability to prepare for a content patch. Obviously the launch will be a time when everyone gets put onto a level playing field but having the knowledge I’ve learned from the past two patches I am excited, rather than nervous, to see what it has to bring. It certainly won’t hurt to have a decent bankroll to get my professions leveled once Mists of Pandaria drops either.

Thank you for taking the time to do this interview for Warcraft Econ. Do you have any last words?

Thank you for allowing me this interview! This journey has been a blast for me. Discovering gold making refreshed a game that had become somewhat stale to me and it renewed my desire to play. I have also met some great people along the way, all of whom have been friendly and encouraging and made this adventure that much more fun. It has been a pleasure to be involved in the gold making community and an honor to do this interview and to say I finally did it!

Also, you can follow my weekly sales and find more information about me at www.afkrafting.wordpress.com.

Hall of Fame – 1 Million Gold Cap Club: Breja of Duskwood-US

Guest Blogger — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:05:53 +0000

The Warcraft Econ Hall of Fame interviews the few elite players that have hit the World of Warcraft gold cap of 999,999 gold 99 silver 99 copper as well as ones who have obtain 500k and 250k. We have with us, Breja of Duskwood-US, who will be sharing their story with us today.

“I believe success is preparation, because opportunity is going to knock on your door sooner or later but are you prepared to answer that?” – Actor, Omar Epps

Please tell us a little about yourself and your gaming experience

Greetings fellow gold makers! I am Breja of Sen’jin on the Duskwood US Server. I have been playing World of Warcraft for 5 years now, but only engaged in gold making for the last 18 months. I began playing video games back when arcades had such new hits as Super Mario Bros., Tempest, Pac Man, and other great quarter eating machines. As I grew up, so did the industry surrounding video games. I owned the Atari 800, Atari 2600, Sega Genesis, and PlayStation and was drawn to sports games and single player adventure games.

I began playing computer games after college with such titles as Age of Empires, Warcraft II, and Neverwinter Nights. I then moved onto playing Diablo II for about 6 years, along with starting a family, before I finally picked up World of Warcraft in 2007. Back in 2003, A few friends had shown me the MMO that they were playing, called Everquest, but I was just not interested in playing “that type” of game (meaning any MMORPG’s). I was a huge fan of Warcraft II and its expansions, so I followed the news surrounding World of Warcraft for a few years before I finally purchased it in February of 2007. This was an exciting time, as the Burning Crusade expansion had just been released and new servers were being opened. I joined Duskwood to follow some friends to play here. My initial experience was that of fascination with the idea of such a large virtual world with so many other people interacting with each other within this environment. I was hooked within the first week of playing my Tauren Warrior and have been playing ever since.

Do you raid or PvP? How do you enjoy the game?

I began playing WoW from the only perspective on gaming that I had at the time, as a single player questing campaign. Eventually, I joined a friends and family guild and began to run dungeons, raid, and PvP with them. , I really enjoy raiding and running dungeons with guild mates the most out of all the activities in WoW. I love the experience of coordinating a group of people to overcome challenges in defeating a boss. It’s the fellowship and fun that we share in conquering PvE content that appeals most to me.

When not raiding, I enjoy crafting and utilizing my professions to make gold. I love finding items cheap and turning them into other items that I can sell for profit on the auction house. I will explain more about this in the questions ahead.

What motivated you to collect this amount of gold?

It all began with me wanting to have extra gold to set aside for a rainy day, after I found myself broke from purchasing epic flying on my second character. That idea evolved into setting a goal to collect 300,000 gold prior to the release of Cataclysm; so that when this expansion hit, I could purchase whatever I wanted from the auction house for my raiding needs. I reached that goal a few months prior to Cataclysm’s release. I used most of that gold to get all my professions leveled to 525, leaving me with a small amount left over. I realized that I enjoyed having “big” numbers of gold, but had not set a specific goal or plan for doing this.

At the time I was looking to restart my gold business on my server, I was listening to the “Auction House Junkies – episode 9” where one topic of discussion was about “Do you need to be gold capped to be credible?” The idea from other bloggers at this time was that only people who make large amounts of gold have the experience to draw from in being able to tell others about how to make gold. Wes and Cold made a compelling argument that gold capped is just a number, and it’s the experience that a person receives through the process of gold making that is important. Even though I had less than 100,000 gold at the time, I felt that I knew as much about making gold as anyone out there. I decided to put my knowledge to the test and set a goal to make one million gold. Setting a goal is never enough, you need to create a plan to reach your goal and commit yourself to doing what it takes to reach your goal. I decided to focus on what I know best, utilizing my profession and researching patch changes. Doing what I love in game, within the confines of my plan, helped to carry me during those days in which I did not “feel” like working towards my goals. There are several paths to reaching gold capped, but if you do not use the one that excites you, you will at some point abandon your plan before you reach your goal.

How did you learn to do it?

Only few months into the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, a friend rode up to me on his new mechano hog. I was amazed that he made that much gold so quickly and asked him how he did it. He explained that he made “stuff” and placed them on the auction house. He suggested that I do some research on the internet to find out what other people are doing. I began frequenting forums and various websites of people explaining what they do to earn gold in the game. I became a voracious learner of other people’s methods and tested many of those ideas out to find strategies that worked for me.

I am constantly reading or listening to other people to find ideas in gold making that I may need to add to my current gold making routine. Markets change frequently, so it is important to keep informed to help me make the best possible decisions for making gold.

Is there anyone or a resource you would like to thank that contributed to your success?

Speaking of resources that have helped to shape my gold making decisions, I would like to thank the vast gold making community that has developed over the last 2 years. When I began researching how to make gold, I frequented the JMTC forums and learned a lot from the many posters involved in that community. I still peek in on the “Consortium” forums where many great topics are currently being discussed. I continue to follow Warcraft Econ for gold related news and to see who else has made the Hall of Fame to read their story. I follow several gold making blogs, too many to list, but be assured that every one of you has had a lasting impact with the great information you provide for your readers.

I am a big fan of podcasts, and my first gold making podcast that I still look forward to is Euripides’s “Call to Auction” podcast. I would also like to thank Flux, from the “Power Word: Gold” podcast for nurturing a gold making community, which encourages people to share gold making ideas that are current.

What were some of your early mistakes? How would you do things differently if you had to go back and redo them?

Everyone can look back and see things that they could have done better. When I began utilizing the auction house for gold making, I believe that I frequently undervalued the items that I posted. I often thought I needed the fast sale and would undercut by 20-50%. After studying gold makers, I found that people buy items for a variety of reasons. The theory of “supply and demand” has helped me to understand how to value items that I am placing on the auction house. It took me a while to understand that I can price certain items much higher than minimum auction house listings and it will still sell.

The other early mistake I made was in not understanding the value of time. I spent a lot of my early days grinding mobs and gathering raw materials to sell. Looking back, if I spent more time researching the items I was grinding or gathering on the auction house, I could have saved so much more time by farming the auction house, which is what I do now.

How did you go about getting to this gold amount? Any creative or original ideas?

Seeds of Gold Making – There are several gold makers that have reached a million gold faster than I have by using a variety of methods. For me, I have a passion for professions and decided that this is how I would focus my gold making endeavors. I took advice a long time ago from the “Call to Auction” podcast to research all professions and find where the synergy exists to put them to their best gold making potential.

I have all ten characters on my realm with maxed professions, covering them all. Prior to the release of Cataclysm, I made a point to get every profession maxed and the characters to level 75 to take advantage of each profession through level 525. After looking at what was being developed through professions in the Cataclysm beta, I decided to carry 2 jewelcrafters and 6 alchemists, all transmute specialized.

Maximizing My Research on Professions – Regardless of what you decide to do in making gold, I believe that it is important to take the time to research what method of gold making you want to use. The time spent looking at patch notes, listening to others, or participating in the gold making community can help you save time, gold and frustration. I have utilized the 2 jewel crafting dailies to allow me to gain recipes faster this expansion to gain a greater a share of the gem market. I had continued to spend the 1-5 minutes each day to get jewel crafting tokens to take advantage of the epic gem market. It turns out that this market is not what I had hoped for on my server, but those excess tokens have allowed me to have a store of Chimera’s Eye that other jewelcrafters have been buying from me in bunches. There is always a way to make something positive happen, even when your speculations do not pay off as you intended.

Transmute alchemy for me was going to be king in Cataclysm, which lead to my decision to carry six of them. I knew that Transmute Volatiles, Pyrium Bar, and Truegold were all going to share a cool down, so it was necessary to carry multiple alchemists to take advantage of this ability every day. Volatiles are used in most of the useful Cataclysm recipes for all other professions. I wanted to take advantage of volatile procs in the various zones to produce a continuous flow of volatiles into the market. At times, Pyrium was less expensive to create through transmutation than to smelt directly from pyrite ore. It was good to have this option available if I was out of volatiles or needed pyrium for Truegold on another alt. Truegold was where the gold profits were at on my realm. I could utilize my other alchemists and buying materials under my purchasing value on the auction house to gain a large supply of Truegold that I have been able to sell consistently this entire expansion.

Value of Having All Professions – The value of having every profession available has been immense. I strongly believe that having many options in every aspect of utilizing your professions is a key component to successful gold making. If a raw material cannot be used for profit in one profession, it is possible that the same item could create profit in another profession. Having options helps to minimize your risks associated with an item and maximize your profits. While several other gold makers have mentioned being stuck in a rut on their gold making techniques, I have been consistently able to generate profit every week. When someone moves into a market I currently have items listed, I can decide to fight for the market or leave it for a while to work another market. For example, I produced a number of tailoring spell threads and bags, but when I got undercut, I would hold my stock and move to the gem market. I never got hung up on selling one specific item. For me, I can hold an item and be patient to sell it at a price I want to list it for on the auction house. By being a participant in your auction house, you can learn the patterns of your server’s market and the players involved. This has helped me to know when the best times to post for sales and when to buy items, as well as, the patience to let an aspect of the market play itself out.

What is your master list?

This list has changed several times over the last 18 months of gold making, based on the value of items I have at the time of posting:

Last 6 months of Wrath expansion: all cuts of epic gems, eternal belt buckles, flasks and potions, spell threads, and enchanting materials.

Going into Cataclysm, I had a stockpile of items that I quickly sold out of in the first 4 months: Burning Crusade ores and herbs, tons of Netherweave bags and profession bags from BC, Wrath level profession bags, Frostweave bags, and Eternals.

I leveled a miner/herbalist early in Cataclysm from 80-85 only through gathering and sold everything on the auction house, after I used items to level some professions. Herbs, Ores, Volatiles, Bars, Embersilk Cloth, all went for very high prices for first 6 months of Cataclysm.

Currently, I have been selling the following consistently: Cut Red, Orange, Yellow, and Purple gems; Flintlocke’s Woodchucker; Pyrite Ore (paid 60 g a stack, selling for 170g or more); Hardened Elementium Bars; Volatile Air and Volatile Water; engineering pets; ilvl 377 PvP gear from tailor, jewel crafter, and blacksmith; Spell threads; all forms of tailoring bags; Truegold; Pyrium bars; arcanite bars; and all forms of enchanting materials.

What items are on your shopping list?

As you would expect, my shopping list is mostly for raw materials that I can use towards crafting. I do also tend to look at the crafted item as well, because it lets me know if it is still worth my time to craft an item, or that I can flip the item later. I use Auctionator for buying, so I list the item by partial words to scan all forms of it on the auction house. For example, I search “elementium” to see the current prices of ores, bars, hardened elementium, and crafted elementium items.

Elementium

Obsidium

Pyrite

Volatile

Embersilk

Netherweave

Jasper / Hessonite / Alicite / Nightstone

All specialty cloth (for making bags)

All cataclysm herbs

All BC ores and herbs

All Wrath ores and herbs

What addons, if any, do you use to help you make gold and why are they needed?

I use Auctionator to buy and sell items on the auction house. I know that there are other addons out there that make a more efficient use of time, but I prefer to get a current picture of what is out there and control my own pricing on the items that I post.

I use Skillet and Lil Sparky’s Workshop to help me craft items and see the current value of items that I scan on the auction house. I have looked at other crafting addons, but I feel most comfortable with this set up at this time. I do want to continue to look at other addons, and will change if I find it more comfortable to use.

I use Panda to help with prospecting, disenchanting, and milling on my characters. I like the interface and how it shows current auction house values of what is being broken down.

I like to use Altoholic to help locate item that I have on other toons that I can them mail to the appropriate toon for crafting.

Finally, I use Postal to help me with mailing items and opening mail.

Are you still going for more gold? If so, do you have a new goal? Are you close?

I am going for more gold, but not how I originally intended. I wanted to go for the 2 million gold and was at 1.3 million, but life changes have gotten in the way. Mainly, I have a new job that will require more of my time, but also my guild has fallen apart on our server and the few of us that are left want to find a stronger raiding community. We have no decisions as of this writing where we are transferring to. I think I will begin fresh on that new server and try to again reach 1 million gold with testing out different ideas from the gold making community. Whether I make another million gold or not, I know that I have reached this achievement and I am happy for the experience that it gave to me. It is an exciting time for me to be moving into a new phase of my life and WoW seems to be moving that direction with me.

Do many people know you have this amount of gold?

A few friends that are left in my old guild know of this and a few people who have followed me on twitter, @brejapriest. It was fun when my friends would open up trade and ask me to put all my gold in there to trade. I would and when we accepted trade, we both got the message “at gold limit.” This is hilarious and I suggest that you do this at least once with a real friend in game.

Did you spend your gold on fun things? What have you bought? What things would you like to buy?

I am currently spending my gold on mounts and pets for my main raiding toon. I have also bought several items for friends and given gold to them as well. I am buying high ilvl items for my raiding toon as well.

I kept joking with my friends that I need a million gold to buy the new mount that Blizzard will give as a gold sink. It’s going to be Horde Zepplin with full bar and vendors for all members of my guild to be able to use. It comes complete with my own monkey in a fedora piloting the zeppelin, because fedoras are cool.

If you were the professor of a gold making 101 college class, what would be some things you would talk about?

I would start with the basic tools all good students need to succeed. They would be taught how to research data and examine the usefulness of the information being provided. There are a ton of tools in game and on the internet to help you make decisions, but you need to learn what the information means to you. I would also include a lesson on how to develop goals and create a plan to achieve those goals. It is difficult to succeed in anything in life without having a clear goal and a plan of action.

How about an advanced gold making class?

In the advanced gold making class, we would start examining several microeconomic concepts. The Quantity Theory of Money would examine why gold has a different value for people within the game and why items have differing values on several servers. The Elasticity theory would help us to examine what happens to goods placed on the auction house and why people will buy items that shift in value; and also why some items never sell when the prices move up or down. Finally, the theories of supply and demand are a must to understanding why people will make their decision to purchase items or to sell them in the server’s marketplace.

Do you have any good farming strategies or spots? If you don’t farm, please suggest something to farm if you had to pick the best items and locations.

When I do farm, I prefer to combine my farming efforts to save me some time. I prefer to farm for herbs and ores on the same toon in Twilight Highlands and in Deepholm for the obsidium and elementium ores, Twilight Jasmine, and Heartblossoms. I also like to drink a Potion of Treasure Finding and grind out the Twilight mobs between Victory Point and Crushblow for the tiny treasure chests and loads of embersilk cloth.

What are your future plans with WoW?

Currently, I plan on finding a new guild and server to call home. I then plan to prepare for Mists of Pandaria by researching beta changes and acting accordingly with my new toons. I love this game and plan on continuing to play this for some time to come. I will only take a break to play Diablo III, when it is released.

What are you predictions for the future WoW economy?

I think that Blizzard finally plans to bring the wow economy under a closer examination than they have in the past. I know that they have recently been looking to add a professions designer to their development team. My hope is that this person is given the opportunity to closely examine the professions and overhaul them. There are points in the leveling process that are still major choking points. Also, value of items introduced must been scrutinized more closely, Obsidium shuffle at the beginning of Cataclysm anyone? Blizzard spent the entire expansion trying to fix the value of uncut gems and the impact easy shuffling has made on the economy. I hope to see more exciting changes to the professions with customization of gear or providing more fun attributes to all professions. I plan to spend time looking into the professions specifically and seeing what is done over time to add variety, while maintaining accessibility to players.

What are your favorite artists, songs, movies, shows, or streams to watch while you are making gold?

I love to listen to podcasts while I am making gold. It is fun for me to pop on my iTunes and listen to Convert to Raid, All Things Azeroth, Auction House Junkies, Call to Auction, Group Quest, Horde for Life, The Instance, Legendary, The Mana Cooler, The Obscurecast, Power Word: Gold, Rawrcast, Twisted Nether Blogcast, WoW Insider, among many others. When grinding mobs, I like to listen to music because it keeps me constantly moving and makes the grind more fun to do.

Thank you for taking the time to do this interview for Warcraft Econ. Do you have any last words?

First, I would like to thank everyone who has taken the time to build the communities involved in gold making. All of you have valuable information and a passion that shines through your efforts. It is people like you who create the atmosphere for people like me to prosper, and for that I thank you.

I would like to thank each of you readers for taking the time to read my story. Enjoy the journey and when you set a goal, keep working towards it. Hard work and perseverance will overcome many obstacles. See you around Azeroth!

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