Hello and welcome to Markco's Corner, it's a place where you can feel comfort in knowing that I am happily making your life less boring and educating you simply by gracing you with my presence!
Real Life
I hit a sushi bar on monday... oh man I'd never tried it before and it was awesome!!! Had a great weekend with my girlfriend (new girlfriend) and we watched some weird movie about bomb squads in Iraq but the bomb squads were not all that successful and I was offended by the way they portrayed the army guys in the movie. I have three relatives in the marines so I don't take kindly to movies which display our service men and women poorly. Weight loss has plateaued at 65+ pounds since I've been slacking a little with the diet but that's the life of a busy man, whatcha' gonna do? I am participating in the broad street 10 mile run in Philadelphia this sunday so if anyone would like to meet up who is also doing it feel free to send me an email. It's crazy, seven months ago I would have never imagined that I would be doing something like that. (for you grammar haters, I know I know I deserve it, I didn't use of in that sentence hehe)
I've really enjoyed the number of emails I've been getting from blog readers the past two weeks. For whatever reason I've seen about a 30% increase in the number of emails that hit my gmail each day. Gold tips, player stories, and just people saying hello or thank you. This community is really special and I'm really happy I was lucky enough to be the catalyst which brought it all together.
Wow
I actually played wow this week by breaking up each day into a different character to make gold. My alliance toon had surprisingly great success selling eternal fires and faction pets which I had moved over from the horde side earlier in the week. She also sold some arrows and bullets for remarkably high mark ups... individually of course hehe. My other toons were much more exciting... icethorn down to 6 gold per stack??? MMMMM!!! YUMMY!!! I made over three thousand gold on my scribe, selling everything from glyphs to runescrolls to vellums to off hands for outrageous profits. My tailor decided to focus on netherweave bags and frostweave bags... both sold decently well with the netherweave bags making about 600 more gold during the week than their frostweave cousins. He also sold a glacial bag for 500 gold which was a nice little bonus :) . With regards to my scribe, since I was able to get herbs so cheap (I also had a guild bank tab of left over herbs) I was able to sell glyphs for 2 gold a pop and still make money, so I made three of every glyph worth more than 2 gold and sold a large amount of them. Obviously there were some glyphs going for 60 gold but the vast majority sold for around 10. My blacksmith sold some enchanting rods but not many eternal belt buckles; that was a downer because I was hoping to make more with that. My Jewelcrafter had some luck prospecting saronite ore and I made a decent amount of money selling cut rare and common gems. I didn't have the time to cut and post epics so I didn't bother. You'd be surprised how much people pay for the rare stamina cut gem though haha! Finally my miner smelted cobalt bars for 30% profit compared to the price I paid for the ore.
Overall I was pleased with my time played and gold earned but obviously I didn't have the time to get into every market. Maybe next week :) Some of the areas I was unable to hit were: enchanted vellums, engineering pets, alchemy stuff and leg armor kits. It's so much work though and with one hour a night I just couldn't manage to even finish each gold making area that I did have time to get into. Gotta love quick auctions 3 though, luckily all my settings are still there so my time was really only focused on crafting and posting.
I also started a mage on Kel'thuzad with Thunderer and Jhaman making a rogue and priest for our new 3's team. I may use some of my leveling/gold making skills for posts on the blog as well as youtube videos. I really enjoy solo'ing instances on my mage so we'll have to see what happens. Everything comes down to time, something I really do not have enough of these days. Using the early level tips in my gold guide I actually have made over 47 gold in the first 13 levels over the course of 6 hours of play (I did the auctions on the same toon that is leveling). Keep in mind we don't have any bind on account gear so 13 levels in 6 hours is actually really good! The easiest thing I did to make gold was buying enchanting mats from the enchanting trainer every time I passed him and then resold them on the auction house. I've also been keeping a look out for guild signatures but no luck so far while I've been running through major cities. Playing the auction house flipping items was how I made most of the gold but the enchanting mats allowed me to get some quick gold to get started with. Not to mention the meats off of mobs I collected so far gave me about 10 gold. Finally, I picked up enchanting and mining to make easy gold in the earlier levels, and I'm going to need it because I am probably going to be providing most of the funding for our characters. With no BOA gear we will need gold to grab new weapons and fill in gaps while leveling even with the new LFD tool.
Speaking of LFD, I'm looking forward to making gold with the dungeon finder next week when we all hit level 15! I also need to set up a toon to be my banker on that server, but all in good time.
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Undercutting is an art form in its own right. Some players undercut by 1 copper, others by 10-50% of the original price. Some use the Quick ...
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Hey Markco, Just wanted to tell you another gold tip. With patch 3.1 the JC pattern Citrine Ring Of Rapid Healing no longer requires 2 eleme...
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Cataclysm has been out for quite some time now. People are tired of heroics and are now running raids, this creates a demand for one item th...
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Guest Post By Deepcut From Warcraft Gold Analysis My name is Deepcut, and I currently play on the Eldre'Thalas realm. After seeing al... -
So I've recently started up a new game; Runescape. Now don't be all like Mageshadow, WoW is better than Runescape because I know tha...
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Update: Silly me didn't read the fine print and Blizzard slid a low ball in, You can't stockpile valor for 4.2 as it will be conver...
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Scott Alan Smith is a Crook! Edit: Screen shots and proof/explanation of the cookie stuffing Scott has used in the past are present a... -
Hey Marcko, Was soloing Dwarfageddon earlier today and I noticed the dwarves you kill drop the Lovely Charm. You get 10 of these and tur...
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No, it's not. Buying low and selling high is supposed to be easy and intuitive. However, for many world of warcraft players it just d... -
Post by Kammler from Kammler's Korner One of my favorite movies is the 2004 King Arthur (Clive Owen, Keira Knightley) Not only is it...
"I would just say thanks a lot, your blog, podcast, and also jmtc forums helped me hit the gold cap, something i thought was unattainable. but after i read your 22 steps to using auctioneer i started making insane amounts of gold. Got my travelers tundra in 5 days :D
The key to becoming a good auctioneer in the world of warcraft is taking an understanding of how the different economic components in this fictional world all interact with one another and then apply analytical reasoning to this environment. Many players try to jump into discovering strategies and trying out strategies without understanding how all the pieces fit together. Same goes for pvp and pve, and it's this lack of foundational knowledge which leads to "noob" mistakes that seem perfectly rational at the time. Everyone is at a different point in the process of developing gold making strategies and so I tend to write for the largest audience: those in the middle who grasp the fundamental concepts but fail at organization and implementation. However, it is important to take a step back once in a while and provide valuable starter information.
Let's begin with how money moves in world of warcraft. Players accumulate new wealth (money that has never previously been owned before) by slaying mo nsters and completing quests. Money is lost through purchases from NPC's and repairs/spells. The game is designed so that players will easily gather more money than they spend interacting with the game world. The way that players get rich in world of warcraft is by getting other players to give them excess gold. To earn another player's gold you must offer items or a service which they value and do not want to provide for themselves due to time and/or limitations of access. An example service would be a mage teleporting a group to a major city, a player slaughtering all the monsters in a dungeon for a lower level character, or a blacksmith building a set of armor for pvp. Obviously the more professions you obtain (2 major professions per character is the limit) the more services and opportunities for making gold you posses.
This is why I stress leveling characters in order to increase your options. Keep in mind that max level professions have far more ways to make gold than one which is not maxed out yet. Your professions and character's abilities are how you provide the services, but you must also understand the two ways in which you can offer them to other players: Trade chat and the Auction house. By building an understanding of how both the trade chat and auction house function as well as how other players can impact your dealings on these mediums you will be better equipped to manage how you sell your services.
For me, making gold is the same mindset I have for making money in real life with my blogs: Provide a service people want and they will pay you for it. So how do you take what I've discussed today and apply rational analytical thought to start making gold with your characters? The answer is the same answer to the following question: What services do other players want and can you provide them?
As you answer that question, think back to how the different parts of world of warcraft interact and figure out where the following actors fall into play: the farmers, the crafters, the trade chat sellers, the auction house campers, the noobie levelers, the pvp nuts, the pve nuts, etc. Start asking yourself more and more questions and with each answer you'll slowly be building a business model for your characters.
Here is an example of this at work: What Netherweave Bags Teach Us about the Auction House
Check out the newest episode of Castaclysm... featuring everything from pve to pvp to getting explorer at level 1! Enjoy guys and girls :)
Episode 9 - The Triple Dot?
"Hi Markco,
I just wanted to send you a thank you, for showing me something so new
to me and fun in WoW, mainly making tons of gold! I've been reading
your forums, and picked up your guide a few months ago. Also been
listening to Call to Auction and Castaclysm, both a great deal of fun.
Awesome job!
I've used your tips mainly for jewlcrafting, but have expanded to belt
buckles, netherweave bags, leatherworking patches, as well as general
item flipping, and any profit I can find.
I just hit 100k this week, which was my goal before cataclysm, when I
began just under 3 months ago. Now I'll try to reach gold cap before
cataclysm. (Rewarded myself with a battered hilt for my druid, and
gained it all back in less than 5 days).
So anyway, a big thank you, you showed me something new and exciting
in the game.
Lodger, 80 Troll Death Knight (Blood Tank)
Medivh"
Thank you for the email Lodger, good luck :) People don't tend to realize that the call to auction archive of posts (although not all that many yet) have some awesome information, particularly when we went through individual professions for gold tips. You may want to add enchanting rods to your arsenal though, just saying :)
Love the blog.
I tried one suggestion which was to buy ore and convert it into bars - with the understanding that it is 1-1 transfer unlike other metals of that level.
Well mate, someone on my server is buying a lot of cobalt bars - and I don't know why. It is making me rich however.
Here is the maths:
1. I buy a stack of 20 cobalt ore at roughly 20g
2. I turn it into bars
3. I sell the bars: 5 bars for 19g......... or 76g a stack
4. Some guy logs in and buys the lot a few days later!
5. Got back to the AH and buy all the ore you can and sell it for bars.
It is working well for me, and I have made about 1500 gold in the last two weeks.
Thought you might like to know!
Andy"
I'm going to try something new with Just My Two Copper's blogging schedule and I hope it gives more information to the community on a whole than the old suggestion box friday's did. Since there is a wow gold forum and so many other ways to interact with the JMTC community, I think that suggestion box friday had a good run but it's time to do something different.
Here is how the new blogging schedule will work:
Every day of the week except friday will be normal posts, but from now on I will be writing more posts that are "Community Spotlight" or "Suggestion" style posts to fill for the retirement of Suggestion Box Friday. Because of the way I write my posts (two to three weeks in advance unless there is ground breaking news) it makes sense to just scrap the friday posts and roll up what I would of written into future posts.
My plan for friday posts is to change their name to "Markco's Corner" and make them consist of whatever I'm doing in wow as well as the JMTC community or beyond. I will avoid writing a bullet-ed list of items and instead will give a brief analysis or description of my actions during the current week.
Any feedback regarding this decision is greatly appreciated and I am grateful for the emails/comments on last week's post. As far as comments are concerned I will leave them the way they are for now, it is possible that I will convert from the blogspot account (let's face it this is way overdue) and move to wordpress to increase my options for comments and site interactivity.
I was shocked to come across this post on the JMTC forums about accounts getting suspended for trading gold! Poor guy was minding his own business and buying amazingly cheap goods (10% PCT) from someone apparently clearing their bank. Well the deal was not as innocent as it seemed because the suspended player eventually found out that the account he was trading with was a hacked account, and that was why he was getting such great deals! What made matters worse is that he traded some gold not long after that to other characters on his account, which just doesn't look good in blizzard's eyes. I hope everything has worked out and that he has his account back, but it is an important lesson for those of you buying and selling on trade chat.
So what is the lesson which you should learn from this? When it comes to current game high end materials (such as abyss crystals), do not buy them by the thousands for less than 60% PCT! Now I normally don't shy away from any deal, but anytime someone is selling at that bulk amount they are either a complete fool, a guild leader looking for vengeance on his guild mates, or a hacker. There are plenty of other ways to make gold in this game that you don't need to participate in those kinds of methods. Be wary, play smart, and most importantly have fun :)
"Hey Marcko,
Just had a little idea and wanted to see what you think. When I was buying the epic arrows on the AH with my hunter, and half of the time it could not find it, probably because so many people were mass buying out the arrows to fill their quiver. I decided to try to get into the arrow business, bought a stack of 20 eternal shadows for 44g, broke them up into 200 crystallized shadows and had a guildie make me 100 stacks of the epic arrows. On my server they range from about 7-13g a stack. I listed them all on the AH for 12g 56s 87c
They all sold within a day (I posted them on Monday night). So overall I made 1,256g 87s. Minus the 44g spent on mats and the 30g tip I gave my guildie, I made a net profit of 1,182.87g. I am new to your website but have found it very helpful, I'm really considering buying your guide as well. If you have already talked about this strategy, I'm sorry for having wasted your time, but hopefully you will find this as a useful tip.
Keep up the awesome website
-A big fan"
Here you have a perfectly normal player with a normal amount of play time making extraordinary amounts of gold. There are several little things that can be learned from this example:
1. You don't have to have a profession to profit from it.
2. Don't knock something until you try it out.
3. If you can't find the items you need then odds are there is a demand for those items which you could fill.
I've noticed that book of glyph mastery's price has been plummeting for quite some time, down all the way from 200 gold at the release of wrath to 16 gold on my server. What does this mean? It means that now is the perfect time to get an inscriptionist if you haven't already and pick up the vast majority of glyphs relatively quickly at max level. I can still pull in an easy 1,000 gold from glyphs per day with my scribe, vellums, runescrolls, and off hands without posting more than once. If you babysit I'm sure you can pull in 3,000 or more.
What have book of glyph mastery prices been like on your server? I contribute the gradual drop in price to the looking for dungeon tool, as well as the lack of demand for the items by serious scribes who have been around for more than three months at max level.
Castaclysm 8: I'm Sorry, Your Paladin Updates are Overdue... oops
During the episode I misspoke and said that you needed a horde and alliance toon to do cross server auctions. Since you cannot buy your own auctions (regardless of alliance or horde) from other toons you must also have these characters on separate accounts (either your own or a friend helping out). We didn't notice the mistake until after post production unfortunately :(
Other than that little error the episode was pretty good in my opinion. Go get some Castaclysm!
Today's actual blog post is on farming small radiant shards.
Small Radiant Shards are used in enchant Firey, an enchant which I believe will be just as popular as crusader for leveling toons in cataclysm. Be sure to pick up as many shards as you can for creating these enchants! If you aren't interested in making the enchant Firey scrolls, feel free to sell the shards as well as the cloth you get from this instance. Keep in mind that you don't have to have an enchanter in the area to get the disenchant option, you can simply invite someone with enchanting of the appropriate level to the group from any area in the game and you will see the loot option whether they are in the instance or not.
Seriously! Alcohol is such a fun part of this game, especially having your character drink while you drink while playing. Turn up your settings and after drinking it will feel like you turned them down. What's more, if you hold your camera in one place and keep drinking it will float away for forever... allowing for some pretty crazy distances.
Now, why isn't alcohol more of a commodity to the player base? How cool would it be if there were more achievements with it thus promoting bar-like settings in wow? Then maybe someone will actually buy beer off my mammoth!
Brewfest was a really great idea and I love the opportunity to hop a ride on the gnomish transporter in booty bay and gank outside of ironforge, but Blizzard, please give us more reasons to drink! There definitely should be more alcohol in places we never use it now... like getting 10 wins in arena while 'under the influence', winning each bg while never getting sober, hardmodes, etc.
I'm calling it now, there will be some drinking achievements in cataclysm. In fact, since so many blizzard employees read this blog, my prediction is bound to come true. Hey a guy can dream can't he? Besides... who isn't looking forward to the opportunity to sell beverages on the ah? Maybe you could make it a part of cooking, being able to mix drinks for achievements, etc.
My brother actually noticed this as well Josh, but I hadn't gotten around to writing an article and since you did such a great job summing up the market, I thought your email would be a worthwhile read for everyone. I noticed that infinite dust prices being so cheap really helped to contribute to the large profits margins with these bags. Thanks!"This may have been mentioned already, but i don't think it has as far as your blog goes... I am a tailor, and though i have recently lost my ability to profit well off of the cloths that i could make (moonshroud, spellweave, and ebonweave) I have recently discovered that the glacial bag still sells incredibly well at its reduced price! I just sold one today after around 90g in mats, for 450g instantaneously after making it. I think i could get somewhere in the neighborhood of 600g had i waited. This may be even more profit than the cloths used to be!
--
~Josh"
Phase Three Profit came up with an interesting article here on making gold off wow blogs such as JMTC and other big names in the wow blogosphere.
I've touched on this idea, particularly with wow.com 's and mmochampion.com 's articles regarding making gold. What happens is people see an idea, follow it blindly, and create the opposite situation of what they actually wanted. Since so many people disenchant, prospect, farm, etc. they actually create more supply then demand for whatever item they are trying to sell, and thus the profit margin plummets at or below zero.
So what should you, the wise auction house guru do instead? Just as P3P suggests: become the supplier of these goods. Another way to take advantage is to look ahead at this as an opportunity to buy up the goods that people are making worthless and then use those to make items for resale later on. If gems are going to drop to super low prices from thorium then make rings and disenchant. If people are buying cobalt bars to make greater cosmic essences take the essences and sell enchanted vellums.
On a side note, I still think it's funny my blog isn't on P3P's blogroll. QQ lol.
Do you have any examples of items which you've taken advantage of because big name blogs said they would be a good way to make gold? Did you think one, two, three items down the line to snag a profit from your amateur competitors?
My first instinct for what glyphs will be needed at the start of cataclysm was to say pve dps glyphs. But with the advent of the looking for dungeon tool, it is entirely possible that players will not be questing to level if they are healers or especially tanks. Therefore, many players may pick up tanking/healing pve glyphs.
Either alts or classes which can fulfill all three roles will possibly have a reason to re-glyph their characters for leveling purposes. It would be wise to have a decent stockpile (at least 10 of each glyph that you intend to sell) ready to go for cataclysm, as well as armor vellums for the enchanters trying to pump out enchants for leveling characters. Anyone with a min/max attitude will want to pick up enchants on their new gear but may not want to fork over the overinflated prices of level 81-85 enchanting scrolls. Therefore, it would be wise to sell the armor vellums for enchanters looking to fill this demand for enchants. Runescrolls may also be a great seller for those doing the looking for dungeon tool, and that goes for all raid or party enhancing buffs such as leather working drums.
Use wow-popular to decide on what glyphs you'd like to sell!
Armor Vellum III's and Snowfall inks (sold in offhand and runescroll form) are an excellent way to make money with inscription without having to get into the mess of posting glyphs. There are much less organizational skills required and your products sell very quickly with a decent amount of profit. Combine this strategy with glyph sales as a scribe for maximum profits."Greetings Markco,
I have followed your blog for quite a while and i am fascinated on how effective most of these hints are.
I wondered, if there might be a possibility to add a search function to your blog.
Sometimes I get lost within all your posts when I am searching for a new way to get some coins into my pocket.
Some weeks ago, I was looking for a new way to get money and I looked at all those glyphs my Priest can produce.
I searched the AH for some valuable stuff, but got bored pretty fast. So I decided to make some Armor Vellum III for a friend.
When I offered them to him, he said, he already got enough, so I listed them in the AH.
I bought about 100xAdder's Tongue to make the ink and got about 60xArmor Vellum III and 5xSnowfall ink.
These cost about 10-15g/stack so I payed about 70g for this. Plus 40s Paper for each Armor Vellum III (2xPaper for 2xVellum).
Everyone who knows the prices for Snowfall ink and/or Armor Vellum III might know where this is going.
I list 1xArmor Vellum III for 5-10g on the AH. 60x5g=300g...minimum...300-600g just for all Armor Vellum III.
Each Snowfall ink produces 5 Runescrolls, which sell for about 5g each (40s/paper each runescroll additional cost).
As many enchanter need those to sell their stuff on the AH, they won't go down with the price. I sell about 40-60 individual Armor Vellum III together.
estimated profit: 70g(ressources)+20g(paper)=500g(est. 50xArmor Vellum III)+125g(est. 5xSnowfall ink) / 90g(investment)=625g(profit)
I hope you can add some suggestions of yours to this.
Thanks,
SeelenGeier
PS:I'm playing a Troll Priest named "Luzianus" on Todeswache (EU) if you ever want to chat"
A two hour special podcast on 9 of the 10 class changes for cataclysm, as well as comments, reviews, emails, and phone calls.
Check out www.Castaclysm.com for more info and start listening today!
I found a thread on the JMTC forums about guild bank names. Wanted to port it over to the blog and get some comments with your favorite alt guild names for your bankers. Read it and pick your favorites from the thread... all my guild banks were purchased from other players so I didn't pick the names, except for Markcovia for my paladin scribe/jewelcrafter.
Shadowmourne Questline Extra Rewards
These quests have finally appeared on live servers and the rewards from this questline are actually Shadowmourne extra rewards.
When you kill the Lich King with a player wearing Shadowmourne in the raid, you will get an additional item - Unsealed Chest. After bringing the chest to Darion he will open it up and let you bring the items back to their respective owners to get your rewards :
- Reins of the Crimson Deathcharger - A brand new mount that looks like the Death Knight's class mount.
- Muradin's Favor - A 10-minute Frost Dwarf transformation.
- Jaina's Locket - A portal to Dalaran on a 1-hour cooldown, you finally have your own pocket mage!
- Tabard of the Lightbringer - A tabard with a very shiny on-use effect.
- Sylvanas' Music Box - A music box that plays Lament of the Highborne.
Watch as around 50-60 level 1's compete for 20,000 gold by safely opening trade with Faeglas of the Call to Auction Podcast. This was no easy task as my 3's team was prepared to stop them! Euripides helped run the event and the Castaclysm team (thunderion and jhaman) were the members of my arena teams who showed up to wreck havoc upon the unsuspecting throng of level 1's. At the end we raided iron forge and storm wind while those truly loyal listeners stuck it out and ran around with us.
Discussion
For today's suggestion box friday I'd like the fine JMTC community to throw into the comments section their favorite gold making (or wow in general) youtube channels. Great chance for self promotion guys and girls :)
Community Spotlight - Shadow Ashey
"Hey Markco,
I was amazed to find that my strategy of moving eternal fires from horde to alliance was still viable after weeks of not using it (particularly after the frozen orb to eternal fire change), but low and behold... eternal fires are going for 25 to 48 gold on the alliance side and 9 to15 gold on the horde side.
Even if I didn't have the ability to transfer from horde to alliance I could still buy eternal fires with frozen orbs on the alliance side and resell them for moderate profits, but going from horde to ally has yielded phenomenal results.
Check the orb prices and eternal prices on your server to see if either horde or alliance are worth buying orbs for the purpose of turning them into eternals.
"Hi I just wanted to say a personal thank you . I have recently discovered your forums and pod cast and it has reignited my passion for wow, I have a disability that has effected my wow time that I can no longer raid sitting down for 3-4 hours+ in a chair without moving about no longer possible but I have just made my first 10k from picking up the info from your podcast and forums all the people are friendly and helpful. so soon I hope to buy your guide. so again a big thanks to you for opening my eyes to another part of wow that I'm currently really enjoying!
Yours Sincerely Raymond."
I read this message and immediately gave him a free gold guide. Thank you for the message Raymond, it came at a time when I really needed it. Enjoy the forums and the great community here.
Currently enchanting has no daily quest for making gold or discovering recipes, instead you can buy all the recipes (pre raiding) for dream shards. These dream shards have dropped to the point of being ridiculously cheap thanks to the random dungeon finder tool. Due to the low price of dream shards, a player can quickly get an enchant every vendor recipe available in dalaran and start their enchanting business. Now obviously there are some enchants you definitely want to get from the old world but the point is that all vendor recipes are quickly available if you have the bank account to mass purchase dream shards. That being said, if you don't have an enchanter then now is the time to get one and easily stockpile the dalaran recipes for the cataclysm expansion.
What would happen if dailies were implemented for enchanting similar to jewelcrafting? If they are implemented: enchanting will become like jewelcrafting is now, difficult to get into but amazing if you start with it from the beginning and do your dailies every day. I believe there will be dailies implemented in cataclysm for all professions that don't have them currently, even gathering.
What do you think?
Tip #5: Investing Long Term and Selling Short Term
Initially, there will be a huge rush for items and you should try your best to get everything you can up there for maximum profit. Relist your stock a lot and often. You don't have to get into bidding wars, but watch for people pushing your stock by multiple pages of items. Setup QA3 and go nuts during cataclysm's release.
You will want to keep about 20% of your stock (unless you are just making an absolute killing) for inflation. Although you may think you are making killer amounts of gold, there is a chance that inflation will set in and become even better than what you're selling during release week. I sold fade leaf for 45 gold a stack during the crazy days of inscription's release week, and yet now I see it sell for 50 gold + some days. Inflation is an amazing tool, use it and don't ignore the possibility of it occurring over time. By making 80% of your sales early on, you will cut all your investment losses and be healthily in the black. But trust me on this... what you think is a lot of gold at the start of cataclysm will be a small amount of gold, however you have to take advantage of the demand and sell off most of your stock or you'll be left with mats until the end of cataclysm! Especially if you are planning on stockpiling like I am.
Tip #4: What not to do... that you think will make sense
Mithril spurs and any other patterns.
At first you would say... oh boy recipes will help people level faster! Especially those recipes that are perfect for saving money while leveling a profession like the famous mithril spurs! Wrong. Well, sort of. Most likely wrong. Here's why: Blizzard is changing the way we level professions in cataclysm, so odds are those recipes will no longer be necessary, while the materials we would be using to power level anyway will always be necessary for leveling.
Skinning knives
Worgens use their claws... don't try to sell skinning knives...
Wrath, bc, old world shards (as discussed in tip #3)
As discussed before, these will not be used in bulk by the enchanting leveling population.
Saving Up Gold
You may think it makes sense to build up a nice pile of gold in preparation for cataclysm but you would be incorrect. Investing will make more gold per hour right now than continuing to craft and sell your normal goods
Tip #3: Enchanting Mats (old world, bc, but not wrath)
I originally stated in an old post that I would hang on to all wrath mats, I've decided against "all" wrath mats. There will be new recipes that will remove the need for wrath mats, except for dust and essences. Get those if you want, but don't focus on any shards,old world, bc, and especially wrath ones.
The dust is the main seller, followed by the essences for all levels of enchanting. The shards are usually rarely used and only a handful total throughout the leveling process become necessary to level to the current max (this is because mostly chest and weapon enchants require shards of any kind). In order to get your enchanting materials, instead of just looking at the dusts/essences themselves, try to look into buying up greens and disenchanting them. This will give you the highest return on investment from enchanting materials.
When I say stockpile... I mean bloody guild bank tabs.
Tip #2: Gems and Ore
BC Ore, Old World Ore/Gems
The reasoning behind BC ore and old world ore/gems is Jewelcrafting. JC and enchanting are probably going to be the best combo of abilities for arenas, particularly if Jewelcrafting gets special gems that are better than whatever blue gems we are given at 85. While waiting for the epic gems JC will have a leg up against other professions for arena and pve min/maxers.
Therefore, expect many players to powerlevel Jewelcrafting to go along with their alchemy or skinning depending on whether they chose a Goblin (yey) or Worgen (boo).
Mercurial adamantite is going to be the big seller, as well as mithril and thorium ore. The gems associated with these ore will also go for a pretty penny, particularly the ones from mithril. Stockpile these like crazy and you'll be rolling in money. I highly suggest buying these for 100% normal value or less, since inflation and insane initial demand will take care of increasing the price.
I expect cataclysm to be the greatest chance for wealth we've seen since inscription was introduced and those of us (chuckle) who stockpiled thousands of herbs sold them for hundreds of gold per stack.
Today is the start of a new gold making series, and no this isn't an april fool's prank like last year. I'm going to show you how to invest, starting now, in order to make one million gold in cataclysm. That's right, one million gold.
You can join the forum discussion on cataclysm speculation as well.
Let the lessons begin!
Tip #1: Herbs and Goblins (Plus bags!)
Specialization bags for herbing as well as straight netherweave bags are going to be huge sellers for Goblins (the netherweave bags for Worgen as well but they would probably prefer skinning bags instead of herbing bags!). All herbs from the old world and outland are going to be huge sellers for people leveling their alchemy, and since Goblins get an alchemy bonus you can bet your boots that many will pick up herbing along with alchemy.
How can you start preparing for this? Start buying the mats on the ah, even for full price now (but not more) and stockpile like crazy. So you'll want herbs, netherweave cloth, and some profession bags. You can also focus on infinite dust and frostweave cloth for frostweave bags, since those will most likely sell almost as well as their 16 slot cousins.
There is no way that you will be able to stockpile enough.... so go nuts. I'm going to invest huge percentages of my income into these items, in the hopes that inflation and insane demand early on will make me literally a million gold from cataclysm. I would think that if you have 100,000 to 200,000 gold ready to invest you can do the same, and if you get really lucky on your purchases do something similar with only 50,000 gold. As long as you have the bank space and make the right purchases you are going to make a killing.
