Tool of the Trade

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 1:46 PM

Research is what will drives your warcraft gold business to new heights.    Being one of the first on your server with new changes from the ptr.   Not just following blind trends on the ah but also seeing them develop from the ptrs.    Stock researchers make millions of dollars on just a little bit of information they
harvest from different sources.  

How do they do it?    By retraining their minds to not just follow the heard,  but know exactly where the heard is going.    Knowing exactly what will be bought and sold at future times.    Knowledge is power,  and to be powerful,  you have to find every little bit of knowledge available.

First thing to look at is to have the tools you need for research.   World of Warcraft gold making changes dynamically depending on information.    Nothing screams this louder than the introduction of a new patch.   Changes in manufacturing,   changes in players spells,  new armor and new weapons.  These allow the gold researcher to be ahead of the challenge.   Letting them being prepared to take advantage of changing supply and demand climates.

Information is at a premium,   and the more premium information you have at your fingertips,  the more money you can be prepared to make.  

Tools of the Trade


Wowhead

This is one of the best resources you will find for information.    Need to know where an item drops in the game?  Wowhead gives you a good amount of information not only of where it drops,  but an avg percentage of dropping chances.     The amount of time i have personally spent looking up things on wowhead is large.     One of the biggest things about wowhead is that it has a seperate ptr section.  Many of the updates become useful for changes on mobs,  as well as the expected droprates for new items
(ala darkmoon island) when the patch goes onto the live servers.   This is my personal #1 source for information

Crafters Tome

In my second month of playing Warcraft,  I was introduced to Kaliopes blog/website.   If I need a quick
guide on materials needed to craft something.   Bring up her website answers my question.    The blog has always been kept up to date,  even with new PTR items and is a good resource to have when planning out new crafting items.

Bankalt.com

Keeping spreadsheets of crafting items can become tedious.  JMTC has kept links to some well respected and useful spreadsheet links (click on links at the top on the forums and search spreadsheets). But occasionally I need a quick and dirty look at how much something will cost me to craft.   Bags are especially notorious for this.  Where a netherweave bag is an easy mental calculation (1 stack netherweave,  1 thread),  it can become a little more complicated when dealing with Imbued Netherweave bags etc.    In comes a quick calculation guide at bankalt.com   Finding the recipe,  typing in the number
of how much the raw materials cost,   and I know what they minimum cost it will be to craft that item.   Depending on this information tells me whether it's worth crafting or not.  

The Gold Queen

There are a staggering amount of warcraft gold blogs on the internet.   Recently it was surmised there was something amount 10,000+ blogs that had been started at one point or another about how to make gold.   One of the reasons the Gold Queen to me stands out is not just information,  but it does have a personal feel to it.   Generally I read her blog every other day,  and even if my job here is to find tips and tricks,  i learn things from reading her entries as well.  

Consortium

If Warcraft forums have rock stars.  This is it in the gold making circles.     Cross referenced with the forums on JMTC,  you will not find information any faster between the two sets of forums.   The speculation section on the forums have been on top of every little change that has happened (including the changes to the holiday pets,  as well as the pyrite speculation).     Always a good read to see what has changed and opinions.    Bring a pad an paper when you go to read the entries,  you are more apt to learn something everyday.

Undermine Journal

The Undermine Journal is going to be your bread and butter for pricing information.   It is also the most daunting when looking up information.   Not only can you look up items,  but you can look up your competitors to see at what times they are posting.     Unsure what to list an item at?   UJ will give you
a list of any previous listing and variation.    The site itself can be intimidating  with the pie charts and
varied amount of information.  But once you get used to reading the charts,  you will have more success in sales.  

Are there more tools to be used?   Absolutely,   JMTC has it's own forums which work very well with the consortium forums.  Many of the entries are found on both forums.   Multiple journals and blogs can be found in different spots on the web.   What I wanted to present was your starter set of tools to use.  With any tool chest,  you will add your own that become your favorites.   Share the sites you use in the comments section and why they are useful to you.

Want to get in contact with me? . Email me at Dragonbearjoe @ gmail. dOT com or find me on twitter at  "@Dragonbearjoe" or leave a comment here.   Would love to know how your experience with this tip works out.