On a hunch I posted all of my wrath of the lich king meta gems on the second day of cataclysm. They all sold. ALL OF THEM. Especially the chaotic skyflares (dps meta gem) which were rolling out at 97 gold a pop. Speaking of wotlk jewelcrafting items for sale, uncut epic gems are selling to all those players trying to get easy skill ups as well.
Other "old" world items have been doing sensationally well such as your standard set of glyphs which people left to buying until the last minute. Makes me wish I had sold LESS during glyphmas because I have never seen so many glyphs going for 200 gold EVER. The first glyphmas was great but lacked the sense of urgency that this one has in the buyer base.
Speaking of inscription, have you been selling all your snowfall inks to scribes trying to get some easy skill ups from darkmoon faire cards? I sure have!
That's the selling end... what about the buying end? Well I've been purchasing dirt cheap abyss crystals and converting them into dust/essences to sell to levelers.
I have only leveled Markco to 82, after which I realized that leveling and crafting just isn't worth the time at the moment. You're better off getting your farming time in and selling as much as possible. How you sell is important as well, because I'm seeing a lot of people forgetting their Markco-vian economics course already.
Cataclysm Economics 101
- Don't try to be the lowest seller.
- Factor in the demand for the item as well as the supply.
- Post a few gold above the lowest person or post right at the middle of the pack.
Interestingly enough, Blizzard has nerfed the oh too numerous amount of ore in Uldum which is a shame because I found that mining route to be the best by far. I'm curious to see if ore gets higher due to this change and also the surge of players entering cataclysm for the first time this weekend.
Have you been playing the auction house or are you spending all your time leveling? What are you up to at the start of cataclysm?
Guide Update: The best skinning spots, volatile locations, overall farming spots and much more have been added to the gold guide. In the wotlk version of 20k leveling I steered clear of farming spots but in cataclysm they will be added to the guide for those of you who would rather farm than play the auction house.
16 comments: on "Markco's Guide to Making Gold in Cataclysm ... with WOTLK!"
Deepcut said... December 10, 2010 at 9:06 AM
There's a ton of ore in Deepholm too, but I'm not sure if they nerfed it. I leveled from 470 (Had gloves with mining enchant) to 525 in about 30 minutes while questing. There were tons of nodes!
Unknown said... December 10, 2010 at 9:15 AM
Welp, my plan worked. With the mining maps i posted on a different thread, I just farmed and farmed for the first couple days. And boy, was my time off work well spent!
Here's my story. Before cata went live, i had about 1.5-2k gold. I was DESTINED to make some mad money come this expansion. So, I used that money to buy netherweave cloth, saronite ore, titanium ore, and Eternals.
I made an even 100 netherweave bags, and sold them all by the second day for 12-14 gold each. they had about 5g worth of mats each. so almost 300% profit on those. I wish i had made a lot more.
As for all of the Saronite and Titanium ore im saving that for either the 2nd or 3rd week of Cata release. Because thats about the time that old WotLK mats are gonna be running low. which means time to make a hefty profit. oh, as well as the eternals.
BUT!!! Here is where i made my killing. As of RIGHT NOW, im at 34k gold. I have never owned more than 7k gold ever, and I made all of this in the First 2 Days! I went mining and herb gathering on my druid. I chose him simply for the fact that he gathers both ore and herbs and being a Tauren i gather herbs very quickly and dont have to dismount from bird form to gether herbs.
Obsidium ore was selling for around 900 gold a stack because of how little there is spawning. also some nodes in Hyjal were bugged. Elementium ore was seling for 300-400 gold a stack. Then all the volatiles were selling pretty decent at about 30g a piece. (not worth 30g a piece but it was fun!) The Hyjal herbs were selling for about 120 gold a stack. But the CRAZIEST sale i had was an Elementium Geode. I found it within the first couple of hours of live, and it took be about 1 hour to sell in trade chat. 10k gold! can you believe it?
anyway, i had the time of my life making gold this expansion, and by no means am i done. I am shooting for 50k. i choose 50k because half of that is what its going to cost me for the "Vial of the Sands" then i will still be at a nice 24-25k.
So there is my story, what is yours?
Anonymous said... December 10, 2010 at 10:09 AM
blizzard just fixed the Celestial Essences/Hypnotic dusts problem. Armor now gives dust and only small amounts of essences.
So in time dust will be cheaper than essences.
TLDR: sell your dust now
tator2k said... December 10, 2010 at 10:22 AM
On my server I haven't seen the jump in the prices of many things. I'm not a super high volume glyther but I just don't see the prices people are talking about. I'm been stockpiling ore, cloth and pets and I'm not seeing the demand yet. I off all my classic rare/epics and they're not selling much either.
I'm making a killing on all types of bags.
Darth Solo said... December 10, 2010 at 10:41 AM
I've made 10K the first day after Cata and 15K the second. All of it from selling ore/herbs and some glyphs thrown into the mix.
Anonymous said... December 10, 2010 at 11:27 AM
Hi Markco,
They nerfed ore and herb nodes in Twilight Highlands, as well as Uldum. They removed over 50% of the nodes in TH. Expect this to significantly impact supply if Blizzard doesn't scale it back. I made a post on this today at venturellt.blogspot.com
As for Glyphmas - I see glyphs selling at about 3-4x the normal rate. It's more like a Glyph-Hannukah for me. Sustained, steady sales - not a huge event. That may be more just my server, with all its cutthroat competition in glyphs since the blogosphere starting using the word Glyphmas, but I haven't seen quite what you're describing.
As for ore, my story is so close to Ricky's that it's scary. I was at 2k before Cata, am at 35k now, and made most of it selling prospected gems, then glyphs, then ore, then leveling gear, then Cata JC skillups. By spreading out from ore into the gems & bars market, I really made some money.
Wish I had some more luck with the Elementium Geode, though. I'm going for 100k by the month's end.
Saorse on Sentinels said... December 10, 2010 at 12:58 PM
Netherweave bags went crazy, from averaging 6-7 gold per bag on the weekend before release they are up to 25 at the lowest price with the upper in the mid forties this morning.
I rode that wave (averaging about 36 bags sold per day) with the many stacks of bolts of netherweave I had stored up and am now just starting to have to buy more at the new prices for netherweave cloth. Pre-release a stack of netherweave cloth was 3.5-4.g gold now the buyout price is in the 12g range. Still lots of room for profit but I'm only buying enough for a days worth of bags so I don't get caught out too badly when the trough after the wave comes.
I've also been buying up the saronite ore being dumped below vendor pricing for the bars. I suspect people are making room for the Cataclysm materials in their personal/guild banks. I hope to ride the wave for saronite ore when it arrives. If not I have a miner who is almost ready to get skill-ups for smelting the ore, and then vendor the bars or perhaps have my jewelcrafting alt prospect the ore for the skill-ups/gems.
My mage/bank-alt has been doing the Stormwind fishing and cooking daily and hit level 60 on release morning. She was the first of my characters to get the Flight master license and spent a good twenty minutes just flying around Stormwind looking at the scenery :o)
Unknown said... December 10, 2010 at 2:56 PM
I haven't seen much about this so far, so I figured, probably to my own detriment, that I should post it. Regarding mining Obsidium in Hyjal... the profits are great if you just do routes over the whole zone, but you will see massive improvement with one little step forward... well a few steps. Go through and do the quest lines to phase the zones into the newer version of Hyjal, where the trees are growing again etc... The nodes are plentiful, and the competition is scarce. The logic, most farmers arent questing, they are actively hunting nodes, as I did the first day. I haven't made a ton of money off of them, b.c. my server (the scryers, horde side) is low pop, and sort of financially confused. I have been retaining my obsidium for my JCer who is waiting on 75.
Deiomene said... December 10, 2010 at 3:42 PM
My server (Darkspear EU) hasn't seen a massive uptick in auction sales, as far as I can tell. Total number of auctions has actually dropped, and I've been able to use auctioneer's /getall at peak times (which usually dc's me) because the population in the cities is so low. The glyph market isn't actually all that crazy, although I suspect many scribes are stockpiling for the weekend rush of new toons and prices for many low and mid-level mats are through the floor, perhaps because of the glut of nodes and the increase in low-level characters. Bag prices are up about 20% and fairly stable. I think a lot of stockpilers have been dumping stuff too early and driving prices down - I'm hoping to take advantage, buying up now and selling in a few weeks when people want to start levelling professions!
Wiggin said... December 10, 2010 at 5:43 PM
I guess I'll be the debbie downer.
I have had TERRIBLE luck in Cata. Of the 500 or so auctions I have posted over the last 4 days, probably 90% have expired.
What did sell: Netherweave bags, but I only had 20 or so. My tailor connection fell through and my new one isnt looking any better despite a good rapport that was built up.
What did sell: Cata mats, stupid prices, 10-15g per ore, 50-150g per green gem, volatiles from 15-75g, just wish I could collect more.
What didnt sell: everything else! haha, unfortunate I made such a huge investment (time and bag space wise) for things that arnt selling or dont seem likely to return in value.
Mithril ore bottoming out at 9g per stack, while for some reason, thorium is 30-40g (when it was 12-15) yet the supply is just as boutiful as mithril (go to swamp of sorrows, so much rich thorium).
Mithril gems: citrine, jade, aquamarine. Thorium gems: large opal, huge emerald, azerothian diamond, star ruby, blue sapphire. Adamantite gems: all the green gems and dusts. NONE of it has moved at all :(
It is possible it will move later, but it has been depressing. Ive been buying cheap eternal earths (1g) and crafting rings to vendor just to bad my income. Ive probably made less than 2000 gold since the release and my entire bank/bags were full of vanilla, BC and WotLK items :(
The Gnome of Zurich said... December 10, 2010 at 6:38 PM
yeah, no glyphmas for me either. I did not have full glyph mastery books (or any, since my scribe is only 375), but I posted at least 5 of every single glyph I knew on the ah with a threshold of 25g and fallback of 69g (posted at fallback if stuff was below), the night before cata. It was at least 5ea. of all 160 glyphs I know, and 10-30 of the popular ones. about 2000 glyphs total.
Had about 1500g worth of sales total before they expired.
with reposting these, I'm getting maybe 1000g per day. This is almost all profit, since I practically covered my herb costs with snowfall sales -- but those aren't glyphmas level profits, they are just what I'd expect on a continuing basis if I'm going to stay in the glyphmaking business, instead of just selling off inks, or even getting rid of inscription entirely should none of the new cata stuff prove worth making.
all in all, the cata transition is proving very disappointing. I prepared much more thoroughly than I did for wrath, and expected to make some real gold, but all I've really done is keep from losing much.
Thalendil said... December 10, 2010 at 7:30 PM
About half an hour after cata went live, I decided it was too busy for me to enjoy questing, so I spent 45 minutes farming in hyjal on my herb/mining alt. I had roughly 2 stacks of obsidium and 2 stacks of cinderbloom and a couple of volatiles. They sold for over 10k.
Wukam said... December 11, 2010 at 1:06 PM
I'm actually decently happy with my profits, considering I haven't been spending too much time auctioneering. (stupid exams...) I think I'm up ~15k gold since before cata, and that's including power-leveling alchemy from nothing to 525 as well as slowly leveling JC and Enchanting. Just bought my meta gem cut, and already sold one for 1k. I think I'm the only one with it (healer meta) so I'm hoping to control that market for the next few days at least. Alchemist is xmute, and I got super lucky with a 5x xmute of truegold! Haven't sold any yet, but that is just pure profit right there. Other than that, most of my income is from DEing and selling dusts / essences and selling raw greens.
I've also been quite happy with my glyph market, actually making a few thousand a day off of it. I think most scribes are more focused on leveling or non-glyph means, so I'm able to sell a decent amount of glyphs at over 150g each.
Geckomayhem said... December 12, 2010 at 7:17 PM
I spent the first night mining Obsidium ore. Not one piece sold and I posted up about 25 stacks less than eight hours after the expansion hit. It feels like I wasted all those hours farming for nothing, since our realm has been absolutely flooded with ore and I can't hope to afford to buy any of it for reselling.
Glyphs are hardly selling. I've tried to set my threshold low and adjusted my fallback to be pretty reasonable, but I end up getting hundreds of glyphs back in the mail and it is a great effort to repost them.
Netherweave bags aren't shifting either, which is something else I invested in. For some reason either there is far too much on the market or people are keeping the prices low.
Levelling blues and epics that I stockpiled are costing me money to post only to have them returned to my inbox the following day.
There is still hope, though. I will continue trying to sell glyphs and BoEs and will look into selling all the Saronite ore I have stockpiled. There is also the possibility of prospecting all these stacks of Obsidium ore that have cost me a great deal in posting fees and a big headache in clearing from my mailbox.
Have yet to find the right niche, as everything seems to be covered. But once I start getting sick of archaeology and can spend a little bit of the very limited time I have to play getting my professions up - especially JC and ench - things will look up. I am determined to get something right!
Anonymous said... December 14, 2010 at 10:43 AM
My realm is so so as well. I have made about 5k selling cut epic gems, some twink items which were greens, saronite bars and some BC enchants I had left over.
I have been able to sell some of the new ores but as bars or the new baby cut gems but again not at the Wrath prices of old.
still considering I am up to 20k I am ok with the slow buildup of gold rather than nothing.
Kali
Anonymous said... December 30, 2010 at 6:21 AM
Markco
Since its been about3-4 weeks since cata hit prices in the AH are crazy, i know prices will bottom out with time but the undercutting going on is ridiculous, peeps are selling stuff like obsidium bars for 60-70% of the market price, i just wanted to know if its worth buying out these auctions or will the prices drop out more leading me to a horrible loss. otherwise i make about 1k a day doing prospecting, smelting ores which are far less expensive than the same amount of bars (fools...) but i cant seem to break into the enchanting scroll market... anyways love the site
CHEERS
Jenks
Post a Comment