2 Nerfs Because of Just My Two Copper?

Posted by Markco at 8:00 AM

Two areas of the game have been nerfed recently and I believe that they are a direct result of my postings on the world of warcraft forums.

Before this site gained popularity in the wow community I was posting on forums to try and attract visitors. My most notable post was in the guide section of the forums.worldofwarcraft.com and recieved something crazy like 14,000 views. It detailed how to disenchant cobalt chest peices to make unlimited amounts of gold. Within three weeks it was stealth nerfed in a patch.

My #1 best WOTLK farming spot was possibly stealth nerfed in the most recent patch. I went there yesterday and noticed a distinct drop in eternal airs and relics of ulduar.

Thankfully the post I made on relics of ulduar being sellable did not cause them to get nerfed into being account bound as one blue poster suggested. Eventhough my idea received a blue post and was covered by every major wow site.

Needless to say I will not be posting on the world of warcraft forums any more, eventhough it's probably too late as the Blues do read wow related blogs.

I find all of this very disturbing. Blizzard has taken an interesting view on farming locations in the game. Instead of providing players with interesting areas to farm they have tried to limit every location in the game to one type of drop. If you farm this elemental you only get eternals. If you farm these humanoids you only get cloth. They have effectively killed multi-item farming and this probably is a direct attack on gold farmers. What do you guys think?

These actions by blizzard have helped influence me into writing my own gold guide, except with a twist. I'm going to create a guide which doesn't focus on "do this here, farm this there" but rather explains HOW I find gold making tricks through my professions, thus allowing people to find out new niches regardless of which patch it is and what has been nerfed.

Expect my guide to come out in the next couple of weeks, or as Blizzard loves to say... *SOON*.

23 comments: on "2 Nerfs Because of Just My Two Copper?"

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Anonymous said... February 17, 2009 at 8:45 AM

lol that is very stupid on blizzard.. but first of all its stupid o your part.. lol NEVER POST ON WOW SITE! lol... with that said i stilll like your work.. and plan to stick around... ill go try out that #1 farming spot on my server see if it really had been nerfed then ill post back here.
Kring said... February 17, 2009 at 8:49 AM

The chest was even in the patch notes (material for some cobalt receipts increase - we know which one they were talking about) and it was clear that the receipt was to cheap to level up blacksmithing with.

Maybe they noticed the receipt because of your post but I don't think they cared about disenchanters.

I payed 3g pet Cobalt ore which resulted in 12g per chest. This made me a fortune.

Now, with 3.0.8. Prices for Cobalt dropped. 1g is not uncommon. Price for Eternal Water dropped (possible because of the alchemy change?) to 12g a piece.

A chest does now cost 8x1g + 12g/5 = 10.4g

Yes, the chest costs me now 1.6g LESS to make, although I cannot produce the same quantity as before. Otherwise I would drive Cobalt prices up.

And the prices for dust doubled on my server, I can sell them for 6-7g a piece. Prices for GCE dropped but who cares, dust is the way to make money at the moment.

Since 3.0.8 I can make more money out of these chests.

The Juwelcrafting rings were not changed and can easily be produces for 12g.

(I bid 12g on every green level 75+ in the AH. I don't care if I win it but it makes it impossible to destroy the market with cheap dust because everyone now has to pay the same amount. That might be important for my approach.)
Anonymous said... February 17, 2009 at 9:53 AM

Ah well =/ Havent checked the scions recently but the relics on my server fell from 3.5g-ish to 2.5g-ish and unfortunately at the moment I dont have the capital to buy all of it out. although that could be a good thing, as there could be people who have it horded and were expecting a nerf

Anyways... I'm assuming you are going to charge for your guide. any idea on the price?
Anonymous said... February 17, 2009 at 10:15 AM

I don't think he will Myro, Markco is more awesome than that. He isn't here to make money, hes here to help people. Though, I wouldn't blame him if he wants to charge for it since its his time and effort creating it.
Markco said... February 17, 2009 at 10:18 AM

Kring: On my server the chest piece is profitable from disenchanting around 75% of the time. On a monday you can snatch it for 1 gold each but normally it's 2 gold +. There's more to it then just the chest piece increase though, the price of infinite dust and greater cosmic essences have not increased much since the patch.

You are correct that they wanted to up blacksmithing requirements, as the cobalt required for 450 was something ridiculous like 105 bars instead of the 300ish that it is now.

I'm trying to raise the question that possibly blizzard is making an effort to remove farming spots from the game because they don't want people getting more then one drop type per mob.

Myro: Haven't decided yet. I'm around 70% finished and it's hard because I want it to be affordable yet not so low that people will think it's garbage. It will all be viewable online and updated with each content patch/expansion, which makes it pretty worthwhile imo.

It's around 75 pages right now, pictures included.
Markco said... February 17, 2009 at 10:29 AM

Bitwise: You're correct I love to help people and that's the purpose of the blog :)

As far as the guide goes I see it as an option for people who are struggling or those that want to see how to improve their auction house game to maximum performance. Because I have to pay for a high quality server to host the guide and it's (expected) high traffic I will be charging for it.

I feel that many people on this blog don't need more than the free guides (based on the number of success stories I've received) and I'm trying to figure out some kind of discount for my readers. (working on it with my hosting site)

Don't worry it will definately be affordable. I'm not going to charge $47 + $35 like most guides do (normal price + special offer). It'll be one price and cover both the guide + lifetime membership to updates.
Kring said... February 17, 2009 at 10:33 AM

> I'm trying to raise the question that possibly blizzard is making
> an effort to remove farming spots from the game because they don't
> want people getting more then one drop type per mob.

But, that was my answer to your question. I think they wanted to
nerv "leveling blacksmith" and not to nerv "disenchant chests".

I don't have an idea about your farm spot because I don't enjoy
farming.
Anonymous said... February 17, 2009 at 10:46 AM

Same as Kring: it cost now less gold to make the reinforced items. Dust went up from 4g to 7g on my server. GCE same : who cares ? Dust wins. Cobalt price is below 1.5g when supply is present (weekends) but goes above 2g weekdays. Bottom line - you make more money now, with the new recipe changes. But you know what's curious ? People stopped doing it. They didn't quit making money, but they just stopped doing the reinforced thing (from 14 pages listed in the past down to 3 in the present). For me is to much waiting time involved (you make fewer items now, for the same amount of materials). The same competitors I had on dust and GCE business have moved on the enchant scrolls business (so have I). And it makes sens e : why bother selling dust and essences when I can make scrolls and sell them for the market price of mats + profit. Scrolls also don't take deposit fee.
jose said... February 17, 2009 at 10:47 AM

i was actually going to make a comment about this before. i was farming the relics earlier today and i noticed a great decrease in the amount of relics that i got. being a melee class, in an hour i was able to get 45+ relics in an hour of farming and between 4 - 6 eternal airs. i now only got 19 relics and 1 1/2 eternal airs. T_T
Phizuol said... February 17, 2009 at 11:02 AM

The real value of farming comes from converting played time into an item that is wanted by others. There will always be "best" places to do that no matter what nerfs come around.

I think it's good to even things out so that no matter where you go there should be things you can find to sell for a reasonable amount. I hate when farmers all get jammed together in one spot, that's where you really see some nasty personalities.
Markco said... February 17, 2009 at 11:59 AM

Question, how are the chest pieces still 100% profitable on your servers? If a chest piece costs 8 gold for bars (minimum on my server) and 3 gold for crystallized water (minimum on my server) what happens when you get 1 infinite dust? On my server I would lose 5-6 gold because dusts are only going for 5-6 gold. If I get 2 dusts then I either break even or make a gold.

Server economies play a big deal but I'm shocked that you guys are still making great amounts of gold off this. Maybe some of it has to do with the number of people who read my blog from my server, and also decided to disenchant the chest pieces (there are 7 pages of infinite dusts at any one time).
Emily said... February 17, 2009 at 12:45 PM

i really love your blog but i think it's fairly conceited to think that your ideas impact blizzard to that degree.
Markco said... February 17, 2009 at 1:27 PM

Honestly it's not that far fetched, my posts have recieved blue posts on the forums and blue attention... those guys pass EVERYTHING up to their superiors.

Several people have already suggested possible reasons for the nerfs besides my babilling and it's entirely reasonable to believe those were the only reasons behind their decisions.

(sarcasm)I am the most humble person in the world!!!(/sarcasm)
Anonymous said... February 17, 2009 at 1:35 PM

Reinforced Cobalt Chestpiece cannot disenchant into just 1 dust. It will always be between 2 and 5 dust.

Also, Horned Cobalt Helm disenchants into 2-5 dusts, but doesn't take crystallized water.
Markco said... February 17, 2009 at 3:14 PM

To Anonymous: I could of sworn I'd seen them disenchant into one before (I haven't done it in weeks) but I checked multiple sources and it appears that they must disenchant into atleast 2 dust.

Thanks for the tip, I'm excited to start doing this again! I'll try taking my mats and putting them into scroll enchants as Kring suggested.
dsarge said... February 17, 2009 at 3:24 PM

Hey Marcko will you be charging for the guide you said you would be making "Soon"
Markco said... February 17, 2009 at 4:00 PM

Dsarge I gave a half answer to this question in the fifth comment from the top, but I still really don't know what I will charge for this monstrous pile of information that I'm calling a guide. I will be charging something as I have it hosted on a very nice webserver that I had to pay premium price for because I expect a very large number of people to show interest in getting the guide. Also the guide is going to come with a lifetime subscription to updates and be viewable online 24/7.

I think next week's poll will be how much you guys would like to see it going for. As stated previously it's around 70% done and I hope to have it out by the end of february.
Anonymous said... February 17, 2009 at 4:51 PM

Just curious... when your guide comes out will you still do your blog? or will everything basically be focused on updating your guide?
Anonymous said... February 17, 2009 at 4:56 PM

Forgot to put this in my previous post, but although i have also noticed a severe nerf in the froprates for these elementals, the elementals that are around fjorns anvil drop a TON of Eternal Fires. I was farming here for about ten minutes and i got almost 3 Eternal Fires and about 10 relics of Ulduar. Eternal fires go on my server for around 20-24g a piece and relics go for around 4g a piece so thats about 100g in 10 mins so not a bad spot to farm at all.
Markco said... February 18, 2009 at 8:50 AM

Mangelus: Of course I will still write on my blog :)

This place is too fun to pass up!

Your farming spot is really nice for low-med pop servers who don't have people running around doing the daily there 24/7. Great tip :)
Anonymous said... February 18, 2009 at 7:57 PM

I personally can't wait for the guide!
I've been doing fairly well following things you have posted about but am not very good at finding market trends (besides obvious patch note things) etc

If I understood you then your guide should help a lot

and thank you Mangelus for the tip, will have to try it out
Anonymous said... February 19, 2009 at 9:37 PM

Hey i've been following your guide since you started it and i was thinking if your considering making a guide maybe you could offer it for free for one day to your current blog readers. Just a thought at least so that the people who have really appreciated your blog can still follow it for free.
Markco said... February 20, 2009 at 12:00 AM

I'm trying to work with clickbank to have the price initially at half cost for the promotional period, mainly for my readers.

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