Euripides: Gold Capped and Insider Trader

Posted by Markco at 8:00 AM

Before I get into the review of my friend, Euripides, I'd like to go over some news bits for the community.

• The Carnival, "Cataclysm Gold Strategies", is scheduled for December 2nd, so get your posts published onto your blogs and then send me your links asap. The posts are featured in the order that they are received.
• A cataclysmic change is coming to JMTC in the form of a new community manager! This already famous blogger is being trained to fullfill your gold making needs and prepared to start on December 1st. As we get closer to that date I will be giving you more information, so stay tuned!
• Friday posts are "Markco's Corner", where I talk about anything I'd like to talk about related to wow instead of just wow gold tips.
• Cataclysm Gold Guide efforts continue and I am working towards developing strategies for Cataclysm's professions and cross professions. I expect that these will be released on and around December 7th, with updates coming fast and furious throughout the expansion.

Now for the review...

There are two names everyone in the gold making business of world of warcraft know who are serious about being informed: Euripides and Markco. You know who I am, but perhaps you don't know who Euripides is? Even if you do, this review of Euripides and his efforts in the gold making community will be well worth the read.

Wow.com Time is Money

One of the largest world of warcraft news sites, http://wow.joystiq.com/, the then wow.com (this is before it became wowinsider.com), created a column called Time is Money a couple of months after JMTC was founded. This column was meant to be focused on gold making ideas with lists of helpful gold making tips for the various areas of wotlk. Unfortuneately the column died out and there was a temporary hole in the gold making world. This void was what Euripides decided to step in and fill.

Who is Eurpides?

Euripides is one of my cohosts, along with Bigjimm from Phase3profit, on the call to auction podcast and we all manage gold oriented articles every week. Euripides has access to a wider audience covering everyone from people who don't care about gold making to those who make it their only mode of play and I have a more focused audience of players in the range of mediocre to excellent ah skills. Although we write for slightly different groups our content is excellent and we both get the job done when it comes to covering wow economics. Our goal is to show you how you can play the auction house to the best of your abilities and have fun doing it. And yes, we both get paid to do it, which is a good thing because that forces us to work to the best of our abilities and provides you with the most powerful content possible.

Euripides is not my twin however, as we disagree on several parts of the auction house. What we do agree on are the principles of economics and the parts we disagree on are merely the details of how you go about implementing these core ideas. What makes our interaction so unique is due in part to Euripides' willingness to look at gold making from all angles and all points of view. He does a phenomenal job of writing for the audience at wow.joystik.com and he tries very hard to bring relevant, powerful content to his readers with his gold capped and insider trader columns. I highly recommend that you read his stuff, and take the time to go into the archives of both columns.

One of the biggest fallbacks to Time is Money was the lack of medium to advanced auctioneering concepts. These would be things like addon manipulation and ah pvp. What Euripides has done with his columns is bring these less talked about concepts and simplify them for the masses. With the recent boon in auctioneers this game has seen, both myself and Euripides have come at the perfect time to provide all of these recent thrill seekers with the knowledge and encouragment they need to become successful.

Euripides invited me to do the call to auction podcast with him and you know me... something new? How could I resist? What surprised me was his inate understanding real world economics which lead to some interesting conversations about product value. For instance, we discussed on our inscription episode how you distribute the cost of your herbs into primarily glyphs or snowfall inks and essentially make one of them cost you nothing. These kinds of discussions are what absolutely made the show in the early days when it was just him and me. I still kind of feel that Euripides needs to shake the bonds of some of the real world economics he tries to apply to wow but that's a story for another day. The point is that his involvement in the community has been helpful not only for me but also for all our listeners and his readers.

Where can you get in touch with Euripides?

You'll find Euripides lurking in the JMTC forums and constantly on the IRC chat if you'd like to ever get in touch with him. You can always leave comments on the call to auction podcast or email the show. He hosts a hunter blog, hunter podcast and of course his previously mentioned gold capped and insider trader columns.

Wow Economy Book, Wait What?!

I've been mentioning to Euripides that we should co-author a book on world of warcraft economics. Not a guide but an entertaining piece on relating real world principles to wow's ah ruleset. I think it would be fun to watch us fight on the details and provide you with some thought provoking content. Probably wouldn't be more than 10,000 words but a decent novel nonetheless.

Would you like to see us do this? I'm thinking that it would be called something like "The Perfect Economy."

(HINT: I'M TRYING TO CONVINCE HIM WITH YOUR COMMENTS)