How Does One Measure An Economy?

This post has been submitted by Xsinthis. Please leave a comment letting us know if you'd like to see Xsinthis write again here at JMTC.

This has been a question that has been plaguing me for a while now, how does one put a server’s worth into tangible terms. Is it even possible? Is it within a player’s ability to calculate? Could even the fine folk at Blizzard solve this? In the real world we have many ways to quantify a countries economic status. GDP, stock markets, average income, quality of life etc, no such thing in World of Warcraft. That information either has no warcraft parallel (no true stock market warcraft) or isn’t readily attainable (GDP, average income).

So How Do We Go About It Then?

While working on my Economy Quantifier Program these past weeks, several ideas have been going through my head while working on the data The Undermine Journal so generously provides.  The sum of the purchase price of an auction house is one of the first that came to my mind, but after a few days of processing the data I realized how prone it is to being manipulated. Some days I’d see a spike of over 20% in the AH worth for a 48 hour period. Obviously someone put up some rare item(s) for large sums of cash, but that event screwed up the stats for the two days because they obviously didn’t sell since the spike lasted exactly 48 hours, and since they didn’t sell it had no real effect on or from the economy, probably just some idiot overpricing their items. Good stat to track either way (just in case) so I started recording the averages, left it in, and moved on.

The number of listing on the AH is another stat I started recording, but even from the get go I realized it was in no way a proper measurement for an economy, since those listings could be listed for coppers of thousands of gold; still an interesting stat to track though, so I left it in.

After some work I managed to calculate how many listings were posted per hour. Not how many were sold, and not the change in the listing numbers, but how many auctions were created per hour. This turned out to be an excellent stat – but not for what I intended.  This number provided an excellent measurement on how busy the server is, and so far is one of the most important stats I’ve been able to pin down, but again it has no meaning on the actual economy of the server.

One last figure I’ve thought of is the average price per item. Very good stat to measure the economy, but two major problem with this, along with every other method I’ve gone over so far: First, this doesn’t distinguish between items that sell and items that don’t, it’s  the average price items are posted at, not sold, so it is polluted. Now while it should be a very minor pollution, anything other than 100% is pointless for this exercise. Second, all these are based from the auction house solely, and while it is a major source of economic interactions, it completely misses out on face to face interactions, and even C.o.D. interactions. I can’t even begin to fathom how much gold changes hand this way.

In a Perfect World, How Would We Measure It Then?

If I could request any data for Blizzard to make available, within reason, it would be what auctions actually sold.  This would lead to an explosion of analytical information in the World of Warcraft blogosphere, we would finally be able to measure not only how many auctions get sold, but what the average cost is, and even how much gold changes hand per day! We could even calculate how much gold bleeds out of the economy from AH cuts. This would still leave out face to face interactions, but it would be a huge step in the right direction and any other information that would include face-to-face would be too hard or simply impossible for Blizzard to provide.

It would also provide much more useful and relevant information to sites like The Undermine Journal and we’d be able to calculate the average sale cost of items, not just listing price, and more! Yes I think until Blizzard releases this information we can get closer and closer to fitting a server’s economy with a number that defines it.

What is the Point of Collecting These Stats?

Many people might be questioning the point of collecting all this data and that’s good, it is always good to question! I have many reasons why I want this data, and I’m sure there are some people out there that could come up with more.  Besides general curiosity and labelling purposes (my server’s got a small economy, my server has a big economy etc) the main use would be theorycrafting, trend tracking, trend predicting etc. We’d be able to predict short term trends (when does most business happen during the day,  long term trends (when does the most activity occur during the week)  and trends across seasons and patches (what effect do different holidays have? What patches in the past have had the most effect on the economy?). It could be a very powerful tool to predict future market trends once we can study past effect. Of course we can only start now tracking these trends, but the longer we do, the better we’ll be able to predict future ones, and imagine what we could do with our gold then!


Do you want to write for JMTC? Send in a post to Markco and if it makes it past the initial screening process then I will publish your submission on the blog. JMTC pays 50% commission to writers on the day that their post goes live.

Saving Gold in Azeroth #5

Be Brilliant At The Basics
Guest Post By Adam " Sinku " from The Addicted To Azeroth Podcast.

Before I begin I would just like to thank Markco for giving me the opportunity to write for Just My Two Copper. Also, if I may, there is a lot of great information that goes beyond this website. If you like listening to podcasts on the go check out Addicted to Azeroth!

When I was younger and playing football in high school I always had a coach who would preach to me:
“Adam, be brilliant at the basics. “

This is a sentiment that I believe is always been useful even beyond high school and sports. So, to carry this belief into my post I decided to write an article for mages saving money series highlighting that very sentiment as a gold maker.

One of the things that I was taught, and I would imagine you were to, early on in my life is that you have to crawl before you're going to walk. In almost anything that we do in our lives we are taught the basics before the most advanced techniques of what we are doing. This is because if I don't know the basics of something it really doesn't matter what the endgame is. Making gold in wow really isn't any different. It's not the monster sales of fortune cards or gems that you hear about that make someone a great gold maker.  It is that person's ability to spend as little as possible on what they are buying and turn around and sell it for as much as it can possibly get for it. Is their ability to save extra amounts of gold in small little increments that make someone a great gold maker.  Let's say on the auction house for instance. One of the gold sinks that we encounter each and every day our when we sell our items on the auction house. That magical number that every time we sell an item is automatically subtracted from our profits. So why not eliminate that number altogether? Why not keep that extra 5% – after all it's your gold.

As a magical number for the sake of example I will say 10,000 gold. My competitor has our magical item listed at this price. Knowing I want to get rid of it I really have two options. I can undercut them which means I'm going to make less golden they will. Or on the other hand I can undercut them and make more gold than they will. It really doesn't seem like a hard choice does it? 

I know that 5% of 10,000 is 500 gold – Duh.  With that knowledge I can undercut my competition to not only make my price more attractive to a buyer but also – you guessed it – save money! I will sell my item anywhere in the range of 9,500 gold to 10,000 gold and I will walk away with anything between one and 500 extra gold. Had I opted to sell my “magical item” on the auction house my profits were automatically cut down to 9,500 gold before It was even sold.  Use the same method each and every day for a month and you have the potential to walk away with an extra 15.5K worth of gold!

The very essence of making gold comes from the little things that we pick up over time. We take those small lessons every day and burn them into our brain until an automatic reaction just occurs without us having to stop and analyze each and every situation like it was our first time seeing it. In other words – we become “brilliant at the basics”!

What is your most devious gold making strategy?

Pass the twinkies, beer and arctic fur coasters, it's time for the Wow Gold Blogging Carnival! Come one come all, Markco the gold guru with the most commonly misspelled name of all warcraft legends has gathered together quite a collection of wow gold articles from across the Azerothean blogosphere! We have everyone from gold aficionados to common players all mixed together into a smorgasbord of information. Pass the popcorn and enjoy the vast range of topics and cataclysm gold lovin' goodness. Feedback is greatly appreciated and be sure to comment on articles you enjoyed reading. Also let the author know that you found their link via my site to promote collaboration among bloggers. That's the goal of a blogging carnival after all, besides providing excellent content.

Be sure to check out past carnivals and give feedback in the comments on what you'd like the next carnival to be about. If you are a gold blogger and looking for additional ways to generate traffic for your site between carnivals then take a look at Traffic Blogger.

What is your most devious gold making strategy?

WoWMogul
Size. Yes, you heard me right – patience and size. Let me explain: Patience - Building your crafting capacity - toon by toon, profession by profession. Patiently levelling up and getting things ready. Slowly and surely; Patience - Calmly building your Auctioneer data via daily scans so when you strike it will be from a position of knowledge; Patience - Hauling your arse around Azeroth dealing with time wasters as you create your guildbank(s), yes, you will definitely need more than one;

Bangkok Bill's World of Goldcraft
My most devious tactic is generating extra buzz for my sales with my second account. Because I have two computers and two accounts I am able to play two toons at once. I use this to my advantage by having my second toon talk about the item in trade. This works exceedingly well for Mysterious Fortune Cards but I've also been using it lately for other high value items.

The Gold Queen
The title of Mageshadow’s JMTC Blog Carnival calls for bloggers to reveal their most devious gold making strategy. I rub my hands with glee because it would be a perfect time for me to preach my own “be nice!” strategy in contrast. Devious adj not straightforward, shifty or crooked, subtle, cunning, crafty, artful, sly, not sincere or candid, deceitful, underhand, ”a devious scheme to acquire wealth”.

Neckar Unrivaled
The first thing that came to mind when I read this months blogging carnival over on JMTC, which is; “What is your most devious gold making strategy?”. The first thought that came into my head, after I read all the comments was one simple thing. How? That’s where it came down to for me when I wrote this post out. Yes your gonna read about some of my most devious markets, but I wanted to cover a more in-depth idea of how would you be able to target something that is devious vs something that is not. Shall we start


Bids And Buyouts
This is actually a hard post as I am not a very devious person, but this I guess falls into a somewhat devious plan.It started a few months ago when I noticed another gold making banker(who this blog is named after) on my server and started chatting with him a bit, we threw some ideas around and formed an in game friendship. We both wanted to explore new markets and mainly wanted to get into Arbitrage. I wont go into much detail here because there is a ton of info already blogged about for cross faction trading. Faid has put up excellent post about this topic.

Brits Gold Tips
One of my most devious gold making strategies isn't one that is devious per say but it is just taking advantage of what people will do. I will usually post various enchanting mats of the current raiding tier then I will link my enchanting in trade chat. This will usually get people to purchase my mats in order to get the enchant they want made and after I make it for them they will usually tip also. This gets your mats sold and a tip as well for 5 minutes of work. You can of course use this for any profession.

Just My Two Copper
Personally I love my own and special favorite gold making strategy of turning in Sulfuron Ingots for the plans for the Sulfuron Hammer. It's a very devious strategy as I buy the ingots for 500-800g per turn them in and sell the plans for triple and sometimes quadruple of what I paid. I've sold a number of them in the past months totaling for up to 46,000g in profits. The only downside to this method is that you can only turn in the ingot once per character and they have to be 55+ in order to enter BRD.

That's all for this month folks! An excellent set of submissions from the blogosphere, be sure to drop by and leave a comment or two on their blogs! Also be sure to check out the past JMTC Blogging Carnivals for even more great stuff to read!

Note: Bloggers don't forget about the upcoming carnival! The topic is What's your favorite old world method of making gold. Please get your submissions in early! I sent out e-mails 3 weeks ago - if you wish to participate but did/are not receiving the Blogging Carnival newsletters please e-mail me at Artsytorres AT gmail DOT com and I'll send you the info.

Patch 4.2 Pyrite Ore and No Epic Gems

This post was submitted by Jack. If you'd like to see more from this author, just leave a comment after reading!

Pyrite Ore – Fools Gold?

Hello readers of JMTC I am here today to talk to you about the wonderful world of speculation.

For a couple of months or so I’ve been stockpiling pyrite ore, now there is a couple of reasons for this but the largest by far is the thought that in a couple of months time I could be sat on a stockpile worth many times more than what I’ve been paying for it now.  I am of course talking about epic gems!

Now before you stop reading thinking this is another post telling you to buy, buy, buy on pure speculation it isn’t, I am here to simply suggest just a couple of ways to give yourself a fall back should things turn sour with the pyrite or you decide you need to convert some of it back into liquid quickly. (By the way as a little side note, if you didn’t already know, the mineral pyrite, is in real life is also known as fool’s gold and that is defiantly worth noting)

So, are we fools for stockpiling now, maybe... However come patch 4.2 if you decide to off load some of your ore to reduce your risk then I have some good news! It’s not a bad time to do so. With the demand for gems, belt buckles, the new introduction of crafted epics (Requiring 8 true gold each) along with an increase in active players which generally follows a major patch should increase the demand for pyrite ore to higher than usual levels.

My first observation when I looked at the PTR version of wowhead was that pyrium bar will be the currency for the new blue crafted pvp epics. That’s 6 new recipes each costing 10 x pyrium ore and so I think bars will sell like hotcakes come patch day. Especially since the set itself only costs elementium bars and a selection of volatiles, this means even the laziest of blacksmiths will be able to craft from AH mats, so where do you think they will buy the pyrium bars used to buy the recipes?

Now as a raw mat pyrium bar is pretty exclusive, you only have four options. The first option comes from alchemy, in the form of your truegold transmute, demand is going to rocket approximately 36 days into patch 4.2. It will take 31 days to unlock the first of 3 recipe vendors and a further 5 days to unlock another. Which means that by day 36 some people will have unlocked 2 vendors others just one but why is this so important?

Well that’s simple they sell recipes which require a staggering 8 truegold each, note to self that’s 48 pyrite ores. I would suggest you use your own truegold cooldown now and take a visit to outland to make sure you are a transmute master because for a couple of hundred gold it’s well worth the visit. It’s not difficult simply visit the trainer who taught you your current specialisation and then fly your backside up to Netherstorm and speak to the transmute trainer.

If you’re not lucky enough to have an alchemist, and your too lazy to level one which by the way costs no more than a few thousand gold and is well worth it, your other options with pyrium bar are dependent on blacksmithing, you have 3 options, first up the classic ebonsteel belt buckle, the recipe uses 8 x pyrite ore, 8 x elementium ore (AH Bots I thank you) and guess what 4 x Volatile Earth which I am sure you have got plenty of from prospecting all that pyrite ore you decided you no longer need. Not much needs to be said about this item, demand will increase with all the new gear 4.2 brings and they are already big sellers with an average profit so it’s a great way to use up some of your stockpile but expect established competition if you are new to this market.

The last two items are questionable, pyrium weapon chain, it’s used occasionally in PVP, don’t expect demand to be massive but on the up side it is cheap! Costing just 2 pyrium ores you should be able to make a hell of a lot more than you will sell so be careful.  Finally we have the pyrium shield spike, again not a massive seller and costing a lot more, 10 ores to be exact. However neither of these requires any other materials and so if you’ve got a glut to clear then this is the best option as it requires no further investment, plus the added demand from the acquisition of new shields and weapons which are included with patch 4.2 will help boost sales.

Ok so we’ve covered most aspects of pyrium bars, it’s up to you where to go from there if you have alchemist available then make good use of the transmute in the 31 days between the patch and when the recipes hit the live servers.  If your lucky enough to also have a blacksmith I suggest you attempt to corner the buckle market, look at the pyrium shield and weapon enchants but be wary if you have little experience of this market and remember you don’t have to craft 200 to see if they sell, go easy and test the water by crafting no more than 1 stack.

Now let’s look at raw pyrite ore, so as we discussed earlier the belt buckles provide a good use for some of the volatile earth which you will receive from prospecting the ore.  The demand for volatile earth will increase quite substantially in the first month or so of patch 4.2 for the following reasons:
  • Demand for the new leg enchant for tanks, produced using leatherworking which requires 25 x volatile earth this should therefore cause the price to rise slightly.
  • The new leatherworking PVP cloak requires 4 volatile earths to craft.
  • The new jewelcrafting PVP jewellery costs  8 x volatile earth each to craft but it also requires 4 or 5 inferno rubies so this is likely to reduce the effect as the limited factor here is more than likely going to be the rubies.
  • The new mining bag also requires 20 x volatile earth however demand for this will not begin for at least 31 days into patch 4.2 but you should be prepared for this.
The demand for hardened elementium will increase and each bar smelted requires 4 earths, there are an incredible 15 new recipes which require varying amount of hardened elementium, however some of these come from the new raid instance and others from the new vendors so expect demand to be staggered a little depending on your server progression.

Moving on from volatile earth let’s look at the rare gems which you will receive whilst prospecting, there’s around a 3% higher chance you will receive a rare gem when prospecting pyrite compared with elementium. This coupled with the demand for rare gems come 4.2 should give you a healthy supply to cut. You should expect the sales of red gems to increase dramatically along with a less exciting increase in demand for ember topaz and demonseye as people attain the new gear.

Also bear in mind you will receive carnelian which can be used with an alchemist transmute and will provide you with a great source of inferno rubies during the spikes of 4.2 so stock up heartblossom now. The gems which are not profitable to transmute can always be used to produce enchanting mat,  which if sold as scrolls will lead to further profits, this has actually one of my best sources of income during 4.1(from prospecting elementium of course), and inevitably with new gear the demand enchants will only increase.

So there you have it a variety of uses for the pyrite which is stocked up in your guild banks all around Azeroth, now for me personally the “prospect” that patch 4.3 might finally bring us those epics we have been craving and our “fools gold” might suddenly become the most in demand item in game is too much for me to sell up now. My plan is simple I will use some of the pyrite ore I have stockpiled and I will turn it for a half decent profit come patch week, the next 2 months however will be spent using the profits from this endeavour  to buy up all the cheap pyrite ore that becomes available between now and 4.3/4.4?

And who knows maybe blizzard will throw a curve ball and come patch 4.4 pyrite ore will be exposed as useless and drop to 50s each on the AH and I will have lost almost everything! Oh well at least it’s only a game...

Do you want to write for JMTC? Send in a post to Markco and if it makes it past the initial screening process then I will publish your submission on the blog. JMTC pays 50% commission to writers on the day that their post goes live.

Patch 4.2 Preparation Questions

Hey Mageshadow/Markco
I had a few questions approaching my first "stockpile" venture!

I'm currently just messing around with Volatiles to get a good idea how a patch-stockpile "goes down" since I've never really been at a level to pay attention to it before! I'm buying small amounts of them when they get below a certain price I'm setting as "my threshold." Mostly V-Fire and V-Earth w/a bit of V-Life (since they are always cheapest).

Some of the fire I've been selling (if I buy them for under 20G and the price soars to 25G, I sell in a stack of 200 to make a good profit), and then use a percentage of those earnings to buy more low-price V-Fire and V-Earth (saving the Earth and sometimes selling batches of V-Fire).

QUESTIONS:
When do people post auctions prepping for a patch?
The night before (in a 48-hr auction)?
The night the patch drops?
Or later in the week, after it drops and prices begin to rise?
How do you sell the items (12/24/48hr? large batches or small?)

Any other advice? I'm not large scale stockpiling, by any means; just a few Air and Water, maybe 600 Earth, 400 Fire, 200 Life.
-Imperiexo

A great set of questions to ask relating patch stockpiling Imperiexo! I'll try to answer them to the best of my abilities!

When do people post auctions prepping for a patch?  The night before (in a 48-hr auction)? The night the patch drops? Or later in the week, after it drops and prices begin to rise? How do you sell the items (12/24/48hr? large batches or small?

What I tend to do is post my stuff the night before the patch, I post my stuff for 48 hours so when the servers are back up I'm the only posted of whatever I posted. You can utilize this to your advantage and reset the market ( to an extend ). Post some of your stock, but not all of it as you do not want to flood the market. More on this below.

One tip I can offer you is don't sell everything the day of the patch. Try to sell items at their "high point", this might be a little difficult to determine but if you sell your items at the correct time you'll yield larger profits on everything. What typically happens on patch day is let's say a guy logs on and post his stuff, then the next guy comes and undercuts the guy who just posted X item and so on. This continues on until the price of X item is now below it's average AH value. Don't panic and sell your items at a loss instantly, prices tend to go everywhere around patch days. Try and determine when the high point of the item you're selling will occur and sell said item then.

With things like volatile in 4.2 you'll want to hold onto those for a bit, the main reason you're stockpiling them is to sell to people who will be crafting the new profession craftables. In order to obtain the pattern/recipe for the new craftables they'll first need to complete the new firelands daily area which I suspect won't take 2-3 days but instead a week or two. This also applies to other items such as Truegold, Pristine Hides, Etc. There will be a slight demand for them as people gather the materials to craft X item but you'll definitely notice when people start to obtain the pattern & recipes for the new craftables as the auction house supply will dwindle down to a couple postings. This is when you'll want to sell your stockpile as the demand will be there but most likely the supply won't be.

Holy Patch 4.2 Stockpiling Batman!

This post was submitted by BigNick, please leave a comment on whether you'd like to see more from this author!

For those who aren't aware, Patch 4.2 is upon us. While the exact date is still unknown, it's all but locked in for June 28th. Since it's all so close, I'm going to let you guys take a break today. I've done all the hard work and calculated everything you're going to need to craft the new items coming in 4.2. Let me tell you now, prepare to be dumbfounded. This list includes all the mats to craft one (1) of each new profession recipe/plan. I did not include the gold or mat cost to purchase the recipes themselves because......well hey I did everything else, quit being so lazy :P!

Now I don't know about you guys, but I consider myself a true crafter in WoW. I'm sure you're all thinking, hmmm Nick, what does it mean to be a true crafter. Simply stated, when I look at a material needed for a crafting recipe, I see the base mats needed to craft the item. I've got too much Goblin in my blood to pay the marked up price for anything I can make myself (cooldown mats excluded, but only when I don't already have a nice stockpile of them). Basically, when I see a recipe call for 8 Truegold, I see 48 Pyrite Ore, 80 Volatile Fire, 80 Volatile Water, and 80 Volatile Air. Well that's exactly what I did with these new recipes, I broke them down into their base mats and have listed them all for you here. So let's get started!

The first profession I'm going to cover is Blacksmithing. Let me tell ya now, there's a ton to cover here. There are, according to several different sources, 8 new weapon plans, 6 new armor plans, and also all 16 of the craftable PVP gear plans are being updated. If you didn't know already, the PVP gear will be upgraded in 4.2 and will now be ilvl 358. If you have the old gear already, it will not be converted, only the plans will change. Currently the weapon plans will be rewards for the appropriate rep level with the Guardians of Hyjal, the new Firelands faction. The armor plans are going to be drops from Firelands raid bosses and trash, which will assumably be BoE, but that remains to be seen. I know you're all tired of reading by now, and are screaming at me to get on with it, so here we go.

The mats needed for the new BS plans (including the updated PVP gear plans) are Hardened Elementium Bars, Truegold, Elementium Bars, Chaos Orbs (confirmed to go BoE soon, I'm expecting this patch with the sheer number needed), Volatiles, a few rare gems, some Heavy Savage Leather, and Living Embers (the new Primordial Saronite type drop from raid bosses). Now to the numbers.

  • Hardened Elementium Bars - 79 needed (or 1580 Elementium Ore and 316 Volatile Earth)
  • Truegold - 64 needed (or 384 Pyrite Ore, 640 Volatile Fire, 640 Volatile Air, and 640 Volatile Water)
  • Elementium Bars - 194 needed (or 388 Elementium Ore)
  • Chaos Orbs - 58 needed (see why I think they'll go BoE this patch?)
  • Inferno Ruby - 2 needed
  • Ocean Sapphire - 3 needed
  • Ember Topaz - 1 needed
  • Jasper - 2 needed
  • Volatile Fire - 318 needed (aside from the 640 for the Truegold)
  • Volatile Water - 110 needed (aside from the 640 for the Truegold)
  • Heavy Savage Leather - 8 needed (or 40 Savage Leather)
  • Living Embers - 24 needed

And there you have it folks. The numbers are staggering as I said, and I look for the first few days of 4.2 to be insane for Volatile prices. If you're lucky enough to get your hands on one of the raid patterns early, go ahead and learn it, because you'll be one of the few who are prepared to craft it. Why? Because you've listened to my advice (seriously this whole wall of text was my advice telling you to save save save) and stockpiled your mats. I'll be continuing this series with the rest of the professions in several more posts over the next few days, but this is a good start for now. So tune in tomorrow for more.....same Bat time, same Bat channel!

BigNick


Do you want to write for JMTC? Send in a post to Markco and if it makes it past the initial screening process then I will publish your submission on the blog. JMTC pays 50% commission to writers on the day that their post goes live.

Put Your Gold To Work in Patch 4.2

This post was submitted by Terroot. Leave a comment letting us know whether you'd like to see more from this author!

With patch 4.2 quickly approaching (June 28), now is the time to put your gold to work.  With this next patch brings the opportunity to make what I like to call "easy gold".  I call it easy, simply for the fact that it requires no extra work other then just buying things off the auction house and and reselling selling them shortly after.

Let me start with the obvious things you want to look for while browsing the auction house. In patch 4.2, the current Valor and Conquest gear will become purchasable with Justice and Honor Points respectively. This may seem like a small change, but in reality, it's something that we can take advantage of.  Many people will be purchasing this new gear and this is where we come in.  With such a large spike in new gear, the jewelcrafting/enchanting market's are likely to also see that same large spike.  By knowing this ahead of time we can begin stocking up on raw gems and enchanting materials.

Even if you don't have an Enchanter/Jewelcrafter you can still capitalize on these markets.  If you've been following your server's market at all, you'll have a general idea of what heavenly shards, inferno rubies, and other materials go for.  Picking these materials up for even what they normally go for can still net you a profit.  With demand for these products at a relatively low point, you shouldn't have a problem creating a small stockpile in a week's time.

Now for those of you that want exact specifics.  All Cataclysm Enchanting goods including Hypnotic Dust, Heavenly Shards, and even Maelstrom Crystals should be a good investment at this time.  I say even Maelstrom Crystals because the supply should go up with the introduction of all this new gear.  The gear from the Zandalari Randoms will now be disenchanted at a much higher rate due to better gear becoming more widely available.

Even with the increase in gear supply, the increase in demand should keep the price up.

As for Jewelcrafting, Inferno Ruby are your number one bet.  Expect for them to see at least one large jump in price towards the beginning of the patch.  If you are able to cut them or have access to someone that can, you will have no problem getting rid of these come patch time.  The other gems may also see an increase in price but don't expect them to be anywhere near as profitable as Inferno Rubies.


Do you want to write for JMTC? Send in a post to Markco and if it makes it past the initial screening process then I will publish your submission on the blog. JMTC pays 50% commission to writers on the day that their post goes live.

New Podcast After Patch 4.2

Hey Everyone! We just wanted to give you all a heads up on the Addicted To Azeroth Podcast—or more or less fill you in. We are now seven episodes in and have really begun to find our groove. The feedback is really beginning to reflect that! We have gotten nothing but positive feedback on the format that we use. We are the ONLY World Of Warcraft Podcast that routinely has at least four people on each episode. We do this because we have found that with this format we can give you, our listeners, much more information from many more brains than we could if it were just two of us talking.

In the near future we have lined up some great guests that we are incredibly excited to record with! We believe that we will be able to give you guys some fresh new ideas that haven’t been written about before. With the group of people that we have we are now able to talk about things that go beyond just making gold; yet we still know that making gold is an important and interesting concept to most people and it is something we will never go away from. We’ve actually found that by talking about PVE and PVP we have even increased our knowledge of ways to make gold and are confident that you will too!

I am happy to announce that Addicted To Azeroth will soon be featuring daily episodes in addition to the currently weekly podcast!

Each day we will pick our favorite post from any one of the many blogs and give you the audio version of it as well as a short discussion about it from some of the best gold makers around. This won’t be a complete episode, but a quick 10-15 minute daily discussion devoted only to gold making.

Keep up to date with Addicted to Azeroth by going to our website or following us on twitter @addictedazeroth we will begin involving all of you fine readers and listeners here at JMTC more and more as we continue to put out new episodes! Be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes and if you enjoy the show shoot us a review. That’s the only way we know if you enjoy what we are doing.

Sincerely,

Rich Fisher @HFLPodcast

Alto @Altosgold

Chris Imme – PR A2A

Ruth Anderson – PR A2A

Mageshadow @mageshadow

Jaime Macclay – PR A2A

Adam Doll @dollada06

Patch 4.2 Youtube Wow Gold Tips

Been a long time coming but JMTC finally has a new youtube owner who can create wow gold tip videos!

Allow me to proudly introduce Kynalla:



Kynalla is a established video creator who has "it." The "it" I'm talking about is the fundamental understanding of an idea that propelled JMTC to the front of the gold making scene. "It" is the belief that simply disseminating information and curating the ideas of others is not good enough. Kynalla instead likes to dive deep beneath the surface of the initial information and come up with amazing gold making strategies. He's not like any other youtube video guy I've seen regarding wow gold and I think that he is going to become a super star within the next year or so.

Due to his excellent credentials and willingness to produce consistent content on his channel, Kynalla will be the defacto guru for wow gold videos here at JMTC. Below, I'd like you to check out his most recent video on Patch 4.2 stockpiling...

Recommendations from Kynalla:

Shattering Abyss Crystals:

Patch 4.0.6:

I also have a twitter account that I do use if anyone on JMTC wants to communicate with me, I plan to use it a lot in the future.

http://twitter.com/#!/kynalla

FYI: Kynalla's channel is jointly dedicated to hunters and gold makers, so don't be shocked if you see pve guide videos right next to gold making ones.

Patch 4.2 Niche Market

This post is a submission by Ferrick to become a writer here at JMTC. Please be sure to leave comments and feedback to let Ferrick know what you thought of the post.

Patch 4.2 Niche Market for Levels 77-79

The hard reset in itemization with the Cataclysm expansion has created a great niche market for selling BOE’s to leveling characters from 77-79. The level 80 requirement for quests in the Cataclysm zones and to queue for the new dungeons means that characters in the level 77-79 range can only get Cataclysm gear off of the Auction House. I regularly sell these items for 200g on my server, and some of the items can easily go for 500-800g.

Leveling in battlegrounds is fairly popular in this level range, and the level 77-79 Cataclysm greens are vastly superior to the alternatives. Most of the characters leveling in the 75-79 pvp bracket are still decked out in level 70 pvp epics. A few characters will have Northrend dungeon drops that are only marginally better. The few characters decked out in Cataclysm gear absolutely destroy everyone else. Winning battlegrounds in this bracket comes down largely to which team has more people with Cata gear. Aside from saving these items for the Auction House when you get them while leveling, right now is a great opportunity to get into this market.

With the upcoming 4.2 patch, a lot of people are going to be finishing up the quests in Hyjal to unlock the new content. The influx of people into the zone should temporarily increase the supply of the level 77-79 green BOE’s. Now is the time to pick up some of these items cheap if you didn’t earlier in the year. After the initial spike and tanking in the price when the expansion was released, prices have been steadily increasing as fewer people are spending time in Hyjal and Vash’jir. Based on the limited supply of these items on the Auction House, I would guess that most of these items are getting disenchanted. Even the less desirable greens sell for 200g on my server, and I sell almost all of them without having to repost. 

Barring a major change in the future to itemization in this level range, the risk is very low for buying these items cheap now. I expect these items to sell well throughout the current expansion and during future expansions. You can occasionally snatch these items from the Auction house for 20-30g when unaware players price them in the range of level 77-79 greens from Northrend, and I frequently flip Cata greens priced around 100g for 200g. It would not surprise me if the average price dropped down to 100g or lower temporarily after the 4.2 patch.

In my experience, the items that sell for the most are the level 77-78 greens with the appropriate primary stats for the majority of classes using the armor type (intellect for cloth, agility for leather, strength for plate). The level 79 gear will still sell, but not for the same premium as gear that can be used in this pvp bracket for more than one level. The blue dungeon-drop BOE’s are also likely to be a good long-term buy as more people move from the old dungeons to ZA/ZG for their valor points. Plate with strength tends to sell for the most since it seems to be more limited in supply on my server. Mastery isn’t useful as a stat until level 80, so items with mastery won’t sell for much of a premium. Although helms, cloaks, chest-pieces, and shoulder-pieces will sell well, gear for the other slots tends to sell for more since there aren’t any heirloom substitutes. Some people will sacrifice stats to keep the experience bonuses on the heirloom armor. 

The only items that don’t sell well are the rings since the crafted jasper rings are plentiful. Although the crafted blue quality rings will sell for 200g, I haven’t figured out yet if the market for the crafted green rings is worth the trouble. I’ve been able to craft and sell some of the green jasper rings for 30-50g, but too many don’t sell the first time and the AH deposits will quickly eat all your profits. 

If you aren’t making gold off of these items yet, now is a great time to get into this market. The 4.2 patch should create a great buying opportunity to flip these items in both the short-term and for the long-term.

Do you want to write for JMTC? Send in a post to Markco and if it makes it past the initial screening process then I will publish your submission on the blog. JMTC pays 50% commission to writers on the day that their post goes live.

Addicted To Azeroth Episode #7

Hey folks just wanted to throw this post up and let you guys know that there is a brand new episode of Addicted to Azeroth for you to listen to. I will also be using this post to discuss some things about the JMTC Weekly Meetings.

A2A:E07 - I Just Stuck A Dime In My Belly Button And Can’t Get It Out!
Follow The Show on Twitter @addictedazeroth and follow us on Facebook! You can also find us on Itunes - please be sure to leave us a review if you like out podcast!

CAST:

  • Adam Doll - Sinku
  • Chris Imme - Azoly
  • Jaime Smith - Ari
  • Rich Fisher - Armada
On this episode we talked about the upcoming patch. Also we talked gear, gems, add-ons and lots of other interesting things. we also introduce another one of our new members to the show Arhi!

Thank you for checking out the show!


Reagarding the JMTC Weekly meetings- as some of you have noticed We've hald them for the past two weeks but the attendance simply isn't there. I need you guys to attend in order to produce a decent quality meeting. I'm putting my effort into these meetings but I can't do it without you. I'm not doing the meetings to help myself, the meetings are there to help you guys, get your questions answered by pros who make thousands of gold every day. With that being said I'm going to change one of the main problems - the way the meeting is announced. From now on I will announce the meeting every Monday morning at 11am EST, I will also follow up with another post every Friday at 11am EST as a "reminder". Hopefully by doing this I can get you guys involved.

I hope to see you guys at the next meeting, this Friday June 24 at 9PM EST. Enjoy The Addicted To Azeroth Episode posted above in the meantime!

Saving Gold In Azeroth #4

Today we have a tip from Jack, who's got several tips on ways you can save gold in Azeroth, read the e-mail he sent in below:

" Hi, I read your email this morning and it prompted me to think about ways to "save" gold during leveling.

1. I always make sure I have an add on such as Auctioneer which will add the vendor price to an items tooltip - This helps in 3 ways, whenever I complete a quest which rewards 3 items  which i I don't need to improve my gear it allows you to select the most expensive vendor item to sell on. For example if a quest rewards a cloth belt, leather chest or a fist weapon and my twink needs none of these items I will always pick the the one which Auctioneer tells me in the most valuable to vendors, generally speaking weapons will be more expensive by a long way followed by legs, chests and heads.

Secondly, if I have no choice but to destroy an item (I know I know always make sure you have bag space when questing), it allows me to see which item is worth the least, either using auction price or vendor price for greys. 

Finally it shows you which items which you would once consider vendor trash are worth mailing to your AH dump character. For example taking the time to check Spider's Silk value whilst questing in Tekorra Forest allowed me to spot that an item I was about to vendor to mere silver was in fact worth at least a couple of gold, and the fact that Auctioneer has seen 50 of these items for sale shows me it's well worth listing it.
2. Low Level rare drops - Looking back it's amazing how many times I must have let a rare recipes slip onto the AH and a stupidly low price. Any recipe that drops should be checked to make sure it isn't super rare! And if it is then have patience if a rare enchanting recipes comes up for sale there will be many people with it on the their snatch list, and many crafters who regularly check for these patterns manually, take advantage of this, shout about it in trade, without spamming, and generally build some hype about how rare it is and how good the price is and you will sell it for what its worth or at the very least with a little discount you should be able to get someone to buy it just for them to flip it later.
3. Balancing Questing with Grinding - Now this might be the most effective way to level or even the best way to make gold but I have found that when I am griding quests sometimes it reaches a point where I need to close the gap slightly before moving onto the next zone, I used to trek about finding quests I have missed, however I now take a look through my bags and check which items are worth the most at Auction, or indeed any items I know will sell well such as volatiles, eternals etc. I will then set myself a couple of hours aside to grind level approiate mobs which drop these items. It's a great way to fill the gap left by any missing XP from quests and it's an ideal way to top up my gold by selling the items I have been grinding. "
- Jack

These are some great tips! I especially liked the third tip. It's a great way to make gold while also leveling up efficiently. It's also a nice change from the typical questing. One thing I love doing is AOE pulling a giant amount of mobs ( okay more like 6 ) and mowing them down on my feral druid. It's fast, efficient and a great way to earn some gold.

Remember folks if you have any tips and or tricks that you'd like to share be sure to write up a post and get paid for it! Send in a post to Markco and if it makes it past the initial screening process then I will publish your submission on the blog. JMTC pays 50% commission to writers on the day that their post goes live. 

Optimizing Gold While Leveling

This post is a submission by Aliethiawow to be a writer at JMTC. Please let Aliethia know what you thought of the post in the comments section.

I recently started leveling my bank alt again. Usually, this happens because I need to get to a certain level for some benefit. First it was Level 20 to get a mount. Then it was 40 for a faster one. Supposedly Netherweave Bags are a good item to sell, so it was off to 50. Cataclysm hits and I need to fly around Stormwind; level 60 here I come. Patch 4.1 drops, opening the new recipes to level 75s, so I’m off again. Slowly, I started looking to optimize and speed up the process of earning gold while leveling.

Maximizing Quest Rewards
Always grab the highest value reward if there’s nothing to improve leveling speed. For me, the threshold is a 10+ increase in my primary stat (Str, Agi, Int). An Addon like Vendor Bait highlights the most valuable item to vendor.

Automated Vendoring
The first problem I faced was all the grey quality items in my bags. Enter Sell-O-Matic 2. Any time I hit a vendor, it sells all my greys. In addition, it can also sell any BoP items that your class can’t use (great for clothies!). Over time, this adds up in both time saved and money earned. Every time I find a vendor, I click it and sell junk, freeing precious bag space for more items.

Auctioning Drops
Once my bags are clear of the junk items, it’s time to hit up the Auction House. After a leveling session, or when I’m low on bag space, it’s time to prep for the AH. Thankfully, Trade Skill Master has us covered. You’ll need to have been using it for a week or so, getting several complete AH scans a day to have a good average price for items for this to be effective, but that shouldn’t be hard for auctioning types. If you need help with TSM, check out Basil’s basic or advanced tutorials.

Initial Trade Skill Master Setup
I don’t want to re-list random items frequently because it interferes with my regular AH business, so I price things to move. The first thing I do is make a few categories based on the stack size I want to sell items in. I use “Market 1″, “Market 5″ and “Market 20″ for my categories. All of them use the same settings except for stack size. My settings are generally:

  • Minimum Price: 75% of AuctionDB Market
  • Maximum Price: 150% of AuctionDB Market
  • Stacks of 1, 5, 20
  • Click “Per Auction Cap”. This will allow TSM to post up to your stack size. For example, if I have 7 medium leather selling in stacks of 5, it will post one stack of 5 and one of 2 if I check this. If you don’t check it, it will wait until you have at least 5.
Creating Groups
Finally, create a group for each item. Navigate to the screen for creating groups, then drag an item into the box where you would type the name. TSM will automatically create a group with the item name and add the item. Do this for all the items you wish to sell.

Before heading to the Auction House, add each of the groups to one of the categories. Click on a category, then choose the “Add Groups” tab. Make a best guess for which stack size to use—you can always change it later. I put rarer items in Market 1, meats and frequent drops in Market 5 and farmables (ore, herbs, leather, volatiles, cloth) in Market 20.
About That Banker…

New recipes in patch 4.2 you say? Guess we’re off to 85…

Do you want to write for JMTC? Send in a post to Markco and if it makes it past the initial screening process then I will publish your submission on the blog. JMTC pays 50% commission to writers on the day that their post goes live.

Using Pyrite Ore to Make Gold

Guest post by Brit of Arrows of “Gold” Tips

Pyrite Ore is the uncommon ore of the Cataclysm expansion.  It can be used in various professions so it’s hard sometimes to figure out which profession would be the most profitable to use to make gold with pyrite ore.  

The first thing we are looking at is the elephant in the room, speculation of epic gems.  Is it worth it more to hold onto your pyrite ore in hope that epic gems will come from prospecting the ore or is it better to use pyrite ore immediately for your purpose. Only thing I will say about epic gems is that I personally think that they will come in 4.3 based on what happened in Wrath.  Deciding if you want to save your ore for epic gems is all dependant on how profitable the other stuff that can be made with the ore is on your server.

Prospecting pyrite ore is another way of using the ore. Prospecting the ore grants you 4 uncommon gems, 8-10 volatile earth, and 1-2 rare gems. This can be very profitable if the price of volatile earth on your server is relatively high.  You can also craft the uncommon gems into jewelry and then de it into enchanting mats or transmute said uncommon gems into rare gems which may be profitable for you.

Pyrite ore can also be smelted into bars and sometimes these bars will sell for more than the pyrite ore that it took to make them.  People buy these bars to trade for a few blacksmithing recipes, to make truegold with, and to make a few blacksmithing recipes with. I usually sell the bars in stack size of3 aiming for the people who use it to make truegold.

Pyrium bars can be used for a couple blacksmithing recipes which include pyrium shield spike, ebonsteel belt buckle, and pyrium weapon chain.  On my server, pyrium shield spikes don’t seem to sell at all while pyrium weapon chains will sell every so often and of course belt buckles sell like hotcakes.

Overall pyrite ore can be used in multiple ways but it is up to you to assess your server and figure out which way can make you the most profit.

That’s it for now, thanks for stopping by.

Glyph Changes: Patch 4.2 Speculation

This post was written by Brendon as his application to become a contributor at JMTC. Are you interested in reading more posts by Brendon? Leave a comment with what you thought of the post!

Glyph Changes 4.2 : Speculation Per Class

We’ve heard about all the news about stockpiling Truegold and Pristine hide but glyphs have been getting the raw deal. Here’s a quick and dirty guide to glyph changes that will change the game! Please note that changes in character abilities will cause many more changes in the glyph market that may not be as noticeable at first. Keep your eyes on ElitistJerks to find updated guides for each class and compare their theorycrafting recommendations with popular glyphs from 4.1. When new guides are written you may find a more gradual change in select sales. Always have an idea of what sells most and keep your post counts updated appropriately!

Warlock

NERF Glyph of Soul Swap now applies a 30-second cooldown to Soul Swap, up from 15 seconds.
Affliction warlocks should already be using Soul Swap but this is a small nerf to a very popular ability. You may see a slight decrease in sales for this glyph but don’t worry about it too much- the ability is still damn awesome and will be used frequently.

Shaman

HIGH Glyph of Unleashed Lightning (new Prime glyph) allows Lightning Bolt to be cast while moving.
GET. THIS. GLYPH. It will be imperative that you cash in on this gem and it will require 3x ink of the sea per craft. My suggestion is to have a few stacks of cheap inks ready and some inscription books. Log off your scribe right in front of the trainer and be ready to create and post as many of the glyphs as possible right off the bat.

Paladin

MED - Glyph of Seal of Truth expertise bonus now also works when Seal of Righteousness is active.
Many ret paladins, but not all, use Glyph of  Seal of Truth at the moment. Seal of Righteousness should generally be used for ret dps and although it’s just a simple fix the change in this glyph may warrant ret paladins who haven’t used the glyph before to start using it.

Druid

LOW/MED - Glyph of Berserk duration increase is now 10 seconds, up from 5.
Ferals are the new awesome. Kitty form is getting a huge buff in almost all of its abilities and druids who haven’t been having luck in pvp may be enticed to move toward feral. Bears are getting some nice buffs too. This is a glyph all ferals should already have in their pvp spec. Some druids may try feral for the first time so they may try it out.

MED- Glyph of Ferocious Bite has been redesigned. It now causes Ferocious Bite to heal the caster for 1% of maximum health for each 10 energy used.

This would be amazing if it were bear- but for kitty? The only use for this is to slightly decrease healer strain (and only a small percentage if that at the cost of energy). Ferocious Bite is getting a damage buff, to be fair, and it does quite a bit of damage already. The area this glyph will shine is in PvP. Currently ferals have been using the very-nerfed Glyph of Entangling Roots only because they have nothing else to put in the slot. A self heal that goes for 2-5% of a druid’s health multiple times in arena without taking the healer’s mana at all could potentially be a game saver. Hardcore raiders may switch to the glyph as well to do the same. This glyph has great potential and you should be prepared for it.

NERF - Glyph of Innervate now causes the druid to gain 10% of his or her maximum mana over 10 seconds when Innervate is used on a friendly target, in addition to Innervate's base effect.

This glyph has gone down 10% from 4.1 but druids don’t have a lot of options in that tier for resto. The only option is really glyph of healing touch, which just doesn’t make it in most environments. Expect very little change if any. 


No other glyph changes are known for 4.2. Make sure you get on top of that new shaman glyph and take advantage of the Ferocious Bite buff!


Do you want to write for JMTC? Send in a post to Markco and if it makes it past the initial screening process then I will publish your submission on the blog. JMTC pays 50% commission to writers on the day that their post goes live.

Saving Gold In Azeroth Tip #3


Get Auctioneer or a good auction house addon!!! No seriously, addons will save you both time and money. This tip goes out to everyone that is starting to become a goblin in wow. Addons such as auctioneer and auctionator will show you the lowest priced goods on the auction house without having to scan through pages and pages of items.

As you can see below I'm using auctioneer, it alters the auction house window to show a thing called "PCT". PCT stands for Percent, it tells you at what percent an item is priced at according to it's Market Value. There are four different colors, red means the item is priced above it's normal market price thus you probably shouldn't buy it. Yellow means that it's priced at it's normal market value ( 100% ). Green means it's a tad below market price and is a great deal. Last but not least we have blue, meaning it's an awesome deal.



Above is an example of what I'm taking about. Notice that I'm trying to buy some Dense Stone to turn into the Darkmoon Faire. The first page shows me Dense stone in stacks of 1 at 284% Market Value - It's heavily over priced so I won't buy that. The next screenshot shows page 2 with 2 postings of dense stone at 47% Market Value - I will instantly buy that because it's extremely cheap ( There were roughly 40 stacks before I took the screenshot, I left 2 stack so the market wouldn't reset! ).

Without auctioneer I would of probably thought that the first page of Dense Stone was the cheapest when it actually wasn't. By using auctioneer or a similar auction house addon you're going to be saving yourself a good amount of gold.

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