Just My Two Copper - WoW Gold Guide

Five things you should be selling: Engineer Edition

Should I sell or should I use

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 12:01 PM

6 comments View Comments

Having just started back into running instances and raiding (my original computer could not keep up with the graphics on even the lowest setting.) I had to make those decisions that everyone from time to time have to make. Should I roll need or greed.

Myself, I've always kept a hard true rule. If I need it then I had better be willing to equip it right then and there. Many groups, especially with BOE gear that is available in Raids and instances require that you equip it right there. Keeping the people who will need on everything, even if they already have a version of it equipped. It work usually, though occasionally people will slip through the ninja cracks.

But as a seller of gold making merchandise, Is it okay to need on something that you specifically know you will not equip but are going to sell. I ran into this while running the first of the Dragon soul instances. [Bindings of the End Times] dropped for our group. Needing to make a quick decisions I went ahead and pressed greed on the item, winning the random number generation contest. A excellent 1k gold in my goblin pockets. But it did make me wonder whether I had actually won it fairly. Yes I did the right thing to roll greed knowing I was going to sell it (I run an arms warrior currently) and it was not high on my awesome list of items to get. Scrolling back through my logs I saw two people who completely passed on the item. I can only presume that they did not roll simply for either misreading the BOE status of the item, or that they just assumed I would roll need on it and did not want to waste the time.

As the DS raids and instances continue on, and the BOE items drop, presuming that someone will automatically take the item just drains possible money out of your pockets. Any run, anything drops, press greed (or if you legitimately need the item, press need). It's either that, or go ahead and send me all your money now, cause your just giving it away to someone else.

Good luck and good hunting

Five things you should be selling: Engineer Edition

Upgrade your game.. and your sales

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 3:38 PM

1 comments View Comments

I am one of those people that do not need the best of computers to play games. Listing my priorities when it comes to gaming as being one below the possibility of a good fine wine. Not something that I really need, but something that I should get at some point.

Finally last week my computer decided it was done with my wicked money grubbing ways and gave up the spirit. That left me with looking for a new computer that would run World of Warcraft at a decent frame rate (highest I ever pushed before was 9 fps on a good day). So after ordering my computer and loading it up with the software I use (including the full download of Warcraft, 20gb download really?) I jumped into Azeroth full force in it's stunning color soaked glory.

The interesting thing I found is that many of my addons worked quicker than they had before. My Marketwatch addon didn't have as much lag when it was doing it's searches. Auctioneer did what seemed like a quicker search for goodies that I could flip. And less leg getting from the AH to the bank always helps in the long run.

Which made me wonder, just how much could I upgrade my sales goals? Was I squeaking out as much profit as I could out of items. While still keeping my belief system intact. Have I been putting up all the different auctions I could to make profit from? Or had some auction areas dropped the wayside when the market become overcrowded.

When your working on your next marketing strategy for massive gold making. Do you look at how to squeak out the most from your current auctions. Skipping over the idea that adding one or two items could bring your marketing and profits to a higher level.

Would upgrading your crafting cartel by leveling up another toon with a second alchemist, or a 2nd jewelcrafter be useful in the long run?

Hopefully you are always looking to upgrade your good making skills everyday.

Good luck and good hunting.

Five things you should be selling: Engineer Edition

Cruising Around

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 12:04 PM

This weekend I decided to do something different. On my home server I have 10 base slots filled with all my professions and a few toy toons, including a couple of them holding down guild banks etc. At this point I didn't want to invest the money to start a new account and merge it with my battlenet account.

But I hadn't really had a chance to try out the Goblin and Worgen starting areas. One of the best reasons to try out new races is watching the storyline and how they join the horde/alliance. Both were enjoyable in different ways.

But as I'm running around the different starting areas, one thing that kept on keeping in my mind was how could I sell to these toons? It only takes a few moments for both toons to get to a mailbox where items can be xfered from higher level toons to lower level toons. Enchants, boosting, bags sold to both the new players and even old players who are shocked at having 6 slot bags in their inventory again.

With Mists of Panderia internal alpha just being introduced, the storm of information will be fast approaching. We know at sometime during the quests the player will decide to go either alliance or horde. The gold goblin in me wants to know how to get my items into players hands as soon as possible.

Also during this time I started looking for grinding spots. Was there anyplace I could let my mage go wild
and pick up easy gold, and easy materials. How quickly could I get those back on the market to sell?

Another thought that came to mind was how quickly could I get twink weapons and items into people's hands. The stats are still weighed low through azeroth so an item that has a +15 agi enchant ([Enchant Weapon - Agility]) into a twink players hot little hands?.

So this would seem like it's obvious to many gold goblins. But with the mysteries of how communication will happen with the opening quests with the pandas, it will be the crumbs of information we search for that will break our strategies wide open.

What questions would you like to know in regards to the starting areas of MOP?

Good luck and good hunting

Five things you should be selling: Engineer Edition

Love is in the air: By the numbers

Just call me patch Mommar

Love is in lunar fair

Didn't I just read that there?

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 1:34 PM

There are multiple amounts of gold guides available on the net. Some are free, some charge for their services. The idea is that many times we as gold writers repeat the same information. Maybe with a slight twist on what is being said. Sometimes its basic economics 101, with a World of Warcraft tilt to the view.

We strive as writers to offer our best, and sometimes our worst ideas to readers. Many times to challenge ourselves in our game playing. Always there to try to help others gain experience and gold making prowess. It's an added part of our gaming experience to share tidbits, or even the smallest of tips to I hope allow you to gain a little bit more gold in your pockets.

We are also a competitive bunch from time to time. Never anything wrong with healthy competition. Many times it brings the best out of us. Our tips become our raiding mobs in that we search for something that no one else has found. And hopefully we all celebrate when someone finds something that no one else has found before. Or has paid attention before.

We also thrive on our emails. I've enjoyed every e-mail, both good and bad from those that want to comment. Looking for specific answers to problems they have come up with. Many times looking for personal guidance in what I know, or even ideas i do not know with the gold making in warcraft.

Every time that someone reads what I write, even at times with the grammar mistakes that get by my proofreader (they have been sacked, then the person who sacked them was sacked after rehiring the original grammar checker), I get to share some of my experience, and my future enjoyment with the Warcraft series of games.

The adds, the guides, the information presented is for one thing. To allow you to enjoy the World of Warcraft on your own terms. Growing up the reality is that the only on in control of your future is you. Players who say they aren't able to make money, usually have not looked at finding the right tools to become successful. Or unfortunately are not willing to put in the time and effort to make the gold. This is not a condemnation to those that have not found the right market on their server, or time is difficult to give to a game that rewards time sacrificed. But too often it is presented that a player doesn't want to spend 30 minutes researching a sales tactic, just looking to be handed gold on the streets of Orgrimmar. Having seen it many times, trust me on the idea that the 30 minutes of research will make you 10 times the amount of gold that you will earn by just saying "I cannot find gold" and wait for it to be given to you.

Today is the end of the Love is in the air event. If you finished the dailies everyday on even one of your toons, you should be in line to have at least one mount to sell. Adding 30k+ to your coffers. Sometimes it isn't an advanced strategy that will gain you gold. It's just a daily ritual that will give you the most coinage to buy or to save for a rainy Stormwind day.

Did you learn something today? Hopefully you did.

Good luck and good hunting.

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. You can find me hanging out on the Shandris Server, chat me up and I will buy you a glass of juice.

You talk to much... losing the sale

Five things you should be selling: Cooking Edition

Five things you should be selling: Engineer Edition

Dealing with Mid Sales Blahs

Love is in the air: By the numbers

The Nerf, the nerf, the nerf is on fire

Love is in lunar fair

Just call me patch Mommar

Reducing Costs to Increase Profits

Posted by Aleithia at 8:00 AM

Five things you should be selling: Mining Blues

Often times, the key to increasing profits on the Auction House is not increasing the sale price of an item, but decreasing the cost of the materials. About a month ago, I wrote about ways to manufacture Maelstrom Crystals. The post was rooted in finding ways to reduce the cost of Maelstroms so that I could make more profit (either by undercutting competition below their cost and selling more product or just increased margins). Commenter Larns gave the suggestion of simply disenchanting the Avengers of Hyjal (Firelands Faction) reputation cloak. That option never crossed my mind since rep-based gear is often not disenchantable, so I never bothered to check it. Whoops.

Using this method, depending on your reputation and guild perks, you can actually reduce the cost of crystals to as low as 146 gold. Because I'm not exalted, my actual cost/crystal is a little higher, but it's still been great for increasing profits. Between selling the crystals (and Heavenly Shards from shattering) on the Auction House and the enchants that come from the crystals/shards, it's been an absolute gold mine.

So how do we translate this to different markets? Simply put, time spent reducing material costs will increase your overall profit margin. Here are some common ways of reducing costs:

Always keep your farming and disenchanting toons in a guild with Bountiful Bags (Level 23). This is a free 20% additional yield for mining, herbing, skinning and disenchanting. That's the equivalent of a 16.6% reduction in material costs. (Example: You mine 10 pyrite ore normally and value them at 5 gold each [50g total]. With Bountiful Bags, you'd actually mine 12. If the cost of 10 was 50 gold, then we divide the 50 by the new total count of ore [12] for a price/unit of 4.17. The original 5 gold/unit times .166 equals the savings of .83/unit [5 - 4.17].)
When purchasing vendor supplies, try to use a toon with exalted reputation (20% discount). Level 24 guilds get Bartering, which adds another 10% (for a total of 30%) to the discount. While this seems small, considering how much it saves over time with repeated vendor supply purchases like vellums, jeweler's settings and more, it can really add up. (Consider: Jeweler's Settings go for 1g 50s. At a 30% discount, they cost 1g 5s. That's a savings of 45s. Now imagine you're doing the shuffle and turning low-value gems [Alicite, Jasper and possibly Hessonite/Nightstone depending on your volume] into rings/amulets for disenchanting. For every 1,000 rings/amulets you make, you're saving 1050 gold.)
Build relationships with farmers on your server. You can often get reduced rates on goods by bypassing the auction house. Advertise in chat for bulk purchases, then start negotiating with the sellers for repeated business. This has the added bonus of driving up prices for your competition over time if they rely solely on the Auction House for their materials.
Offer to buy out competition or disenchanted players. If you're frequently in an undercutting war with a competitor, offer to buy out all their stock at the lowest price they'll post, then sell it for a nice markup. You can also advertise in trade chat for people who are tired of toiling in the market and then try to buy out their stock.
You might also check for people who are quitting the game. Offer to buy all their accumulated junk/materials before they go. Tell them the value of the items will only go down while they are away so it's better to have gold, or that they can give away the gold to their friends in-game before leaving.

What other ways have you found to reduce costs?

You talk to much ... Losing the sale

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 10:13 AM

1 comments View Comments

Take the money and run. One of many things that can be seen in sales on Warcraft.

From time to time people will offer outrageous amounts of gold for a single item. 100g for a [Golden Draenite] to hundreds of gold to have an item crafted that they have to have right then and there.

Many times these requests are found in trade chat. If the bounty to craft the item is to high, there seems to be someone more than willing to point out that the item is not worth what they are offering to buy it for. As with noses, everyone has an opinion on the worth of an item.

To be a goblin, there is a balance between being ruthless, and also understand the idea of good will. One too many times taking advantage of an unsuspecting buyer, you can end up with the reputation that will keep people from paying for your services.

Keeping an item within a reasonable level is a talent that many gold goblins tend to build with experience. They understand the starting price for an item listed, and do not post it up on the auction house for huge overinflated values. Everyone wants a profit, but an item that doesn't sell adds no profits into your coffers.

Most Warcraft players want to spend their gold. Even with the multitude gold guides that are out in cyberspace, and the popularity of tips and gold guides. Most people do not understand how to earn gold in the game. And saving enough to reach 100,000 or more gold seems to be a pipe dream. They make the gold, they want to buy items with the gold.

Repeat customers are the name of a good gold goblin rich and semi famous. It's not just a matter of one sale that profits you 500g. When your next 4 sales from the same person can profit you more, plus they tell someone else to buy your items. It's the same item that someone else might be selling, but your reputation is behind every piece you sell.

Do not lose a sale just because you have created a hole in your reputation you have to dig yourself out of. Shut up and make the sale, and keep your sales reputation intact.

Good luck and Good hunting.

Five things you should be selling: Engineer Edition

Love is in the air: By the numbers

Just call me patch Mommar

Love is in lunar fair

Liquid Assets

5 Things you should be selling: Mining Blues

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 8:00 AM

Gathering professions aren't a dead end when it comes to gold making. Over and above the running around to gather materials, mining is also capable of transforming ore and materials into different forms. Forms that can be sold for good profits to material hungry crafters.

So here are five things you should be selling:. Mining edition.

1. [Earth Shatter]

Most gold goblins would identify this as a simple conversion flip. Take one item at x cost, convert it to 10 smaller items at x + a premium price. But there are good reasons that this works. First people will farm Primal Earth and many times only get between 8 and 10 into their bags. To finish off the last of that Primal farming, purchasing one or two motes becomes "cheaper" to them than trying to farm the rest.   [Elemental Blasting Powder] is a major leveling agent and crafting for engineers as well. This ends up being in high demand and can easily double sales as new engineers are leveled.

2. [Fire Sunder]

Another of the "convert to smaller items" ideas for gold making. Fire is much more difficult to farm and ends up being in demand by both engineers and alchemist. Alchemists use the [Primal Fire] for their [Primal Might] transmutes for sales. Motes of fire are also used by multiple professions for their crafting. With the ease of leveling that has been introduced in game patches, many toons do not get leveled in mining rich areas of the burning crusade expansion. Negrand and higher level areas get skipped in the leveling progression, so these materials become more and more unavailable on the open market.

3. [Eternium Bar]

A gathered and smelted item from the Burning crusade expansion. It's highest profit margins are used by blacksmiths to make [Eternium Rod]. Converting the raw [Eternium Ore] into bars will net a good profit from sales both to blacksmiths and other crafters using the item.

4. [Hardened Elementium]

Used in high level crafting during the Cataclysm expansion, taking 10x [Elementium Bar] and 4x [Volatile Earth] can get large profits from Blacksmiths and Engineers. Used in both leveling recipes as well as the epic recipes. These will make the [Hardened Elementium] continue to be in demand even after the Cataclysm expansion has come to an end until we have moved into the panderia expansion.
5. [Titansteel Bar]

The king of all that a miner can make, and continuing into the end of the Cataclysm expansion on, will continue to be in high demand.   For one reason.   The [Mechano-Hog] (and the [Mekgineer's Chopper] for the alliance) is going to be in continuous demand.    3x Titanium, 1x Eternal Fire, 1x Eternal Earth and 1 Eternal Shadow.   All three of these materials found during the Wrath of the lich king expansion have become rarer.   Making the titansteel bar becoming more profitable.   Look for this to continue as the Motorcycle mounts become in high demand for new toons during Mists of Panderia.

Ores and converting into bars will continue to be a gold venture as more and more toons are leveled.   Keeping an eye on the market and filling in gaps in demand based selling can bring in more gold to both the novice and advanced goblin.

Good luck and good hunting

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. You can find me hanging out on the Shandris Server, chat me up and I will buy you a glass of juice.

Five things you should be selling: Cooking Edition

Five things you should be selling: Engineer Edition

Dealing with Mid Sales Blahs

Love is in the air: By the numbers

The Nerf, the nerf, the nerf is on fire

Love is in lunar fair

Just call me patch Mommar

Liquid Assets

5 things you should be selling... Cooking

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 11:49 AM

1 comments View Comments

If you missed our last episode: Five things you should be selling: Engineer Edition here is the setup for our plan to make gold.

First the rules of the road.

1. All recipes have to be obtained by either Training, purchasing from a vendor or via reputation.
2. No World drops or items that would require a larger than life grind to obtain (ala Fireland dailies)
3. Materials can be gathered or crafted, not requiring BOP dropped items or boss farmed items.
4. Each item should make a minimum of 30% profit over cost of crafting.

And now on with the show.

Cooking. From Spice bread (definitely sounded better than it probably tasted) all the way to Seafood Magnifique Feast, cooking is used for both enjoyable changes in how your toon looks. To powerful buffs for raiding and questing. For some it can be a huge money maker, if you know what recipes to grab and to sell.

1. [Small Feast]

Originally this was a mid range raid/instance food for parties to get that quick pick me up between pulls. Now it's been overshadowed by larger amounts of mana/health replenishment. But the most enjoyable part of this is that it makes your toon 30% smaller, and can stack with many of the different foods/potions/items that can change size and shape. Grab a [Noggenflogger elixir] from the tanaris questing and you can be the smallest pirate. Or the tiniest Ninja. Plus with the larger amounts of alts that will be created soon, this could be a nice money maker for just a few wrath cooking tokens and some basic materials (2x [Glacial Salmon], 2x [Nettlefish], 2x [Rhino Meat] and 1x [Northern Spices]

2. [Gigantic Feast]

The counterpart to the [Small Feast], Who doesn't want to look 30% larger. Does this feast make me look fat? 2x [Chunk o Mammoth]. 2x [Deep Sea Monsterbelly], 2x [Rockfin Grouper], 1x [Northern Spices] should sell well now and in the future for new alts created. Look for not just the feast itself, but many of the mats to be in demand as more players enter the warcraft realms with Mist's of Panderia release.

3. [Tracker Snacks]

This has sales that can be up and down depending on what it's used for. During the Pilgrims Bounty holiday it's in high demand for it's useful during the [The Turkinator] achievement. It's also valuable for non hunters who are grinding out materials or just farming for skins. 1x [Shoveltusk Flank] and 1 [Northern Spice] can bring in good gold.

4. [Chocolate Cookie]

These are continuous sellers Simply for the idea that it's used for the [[You'll Feel Right as Rain] achievement. Plus who doesn't want to bring cookies to a raid. Just do not forget the [Ice Cold Milk]. The [cocoa beans] can be purchased from the Token daily recipes in your faction major city. The [Fresh Water] and [Simple Flour] from the cooking suppliers in the same general area. Now someone make a warcraft oatmeal chew and I will be happy.

5. [Fortune Cookie]

What other food can you get both a very sizable buff (90 stamina + 90 in your core class stat) plus have a chance to win 5000g? With [Mysterious Fortune Card] on some servers going for 4-6g per, you cannot lose to buy and craft these. Costing only a couple of cooking tokens, if you have maxxed out your cooking profession these will continue to be sales all through the winding down of cataclysm and into the next expansion. Take 1 [Mysterious Fortune Card] + 1 [Simple Flour] and craft gold into your bag.

There are other food recipes that can sell well depending on the climate of your server. [Great Feast] is used for the achievement [Dinner Impossible], for your pvp achievement lovers. As well as many of the low level items that are used to keep leveling toons at their peak abilities.

What other recipes are selling on your server? Or does your cooking skills need more work?

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. You can find me hanging out on the Shandris Server, chat me up and I will buy you a glass of juice.

Five things you should be selling: Engineer Edition

Dealing with Mid Sales Blahs

Love is in the air: By the numbers

The Nerf, the nerf, the nerf is on fire

Love is in lunar fair

Just call me patch Mommar

Liquid Assets

5 things you should be selling. Engineer Love

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 8:00 AM

This week is going to be straight forward. After receiving multiple questions in my email asking me how they should make money in a specific profession. I am going to present to you five (sometimes more) things that you should be selling right now

First the rules of the road.

1. All recipes have to be obtained by either Training, purchasing from a vendor or via reputation.
2. No World drops or items that would require a larger than life grind to obtain (ala Fireland dailies)
3. Materials can be gathered or crafted, not requiring BOP dropped items or boss farmed items.
4. Each item should make a minimum of 30% profit over cost of crafting.

And now on with the show.

Deciding that the first one to tackle is going to be what many consider the most difficult to make money at. Engineering started off as being only having items that were crafted for personal playing enjoyment, with the occasional low level "toys". Rarely was engineering considered to be a "serious" profession.

With Burning Crusade, items were added to the fold to make some profits available. It opened the crafting of high level guns, scopes and even a mount that could be sold. Having rare world patterns in the mix such as the [Lifelike Mechanical Toad] as well as a few other farmable pets from gnomeregan that were made easier to obtain as the game expansions continued. Cataclysm opened a wide number of sales opportunities for engineers, combined with the opportunities from the previous expansions to present gold making diamonds in the rough.

So here is the list of engineer items you should be selling.

1. [Plans: Inlaid Mithril Cylinder]

This one is pretty straightforward. You purchase the ink and common paper from the engineering vendor, Craft, then sell to blacksmiths. The reason why it's so popular is because blacksmiths need it to craft the Inlaid Mithril Cylinders to sell right back to engineers for leveling, as well as many items including the [Ultrasafe Transporter - Gadgetzan]. The recipe is taught by your local Engineer trainer.

2. [Recipe: Goblin Rocket Fuel]

Another recipe that can be crafted and sold. It's sold to alchemists, many times for those that want to complete their collections. Goblin Rocket fuel is a good seller for alchemist for the lower level toys. It's also used for the [Firework launcher] and [Cluster Launcher] again for engineers. This recipe is also taught by your local engineer trainer.

3. [Tranquil Mechanical Yeti]

The end of a long, involved quest line during Vanilla wow all the way to Wrath. Cataclysm brought a quick shortening to the steps in the quest. It is easily completed in around 30 minutes, allowing you to be taught the pattern by Umi Rumplesnicker. There are three quest lines that have to be completed, starting with [Hammer Time] from Lillith the Lithe in Winterspring, ending with the quest [Are we there, Yeti?] from Umi. The materials are easily farmable or purchasable from the auction house, with a strong profit margin for new players as well as seasoned pet collectors.

4. Gnomish Army Knife

Another item from your trainer, this item will be a decent seller now, and will become more valuable as we get closer to Mists of Panderia. 10 Saronite bars, 1 Skinning Knife, 1 Mining Pick and 1 Blacksmith Hammer nets you a decent sized profit. I've sold these continuously from between 75g and 100g a piece, more on days that multiple alt toons are created. Giving a player access to multiple crafting tools, as well as engineers getting access to a non combat resurrection attempt. Making these very popular to have in players bags.

5. [Mechano-hog] (Horde) or [Mekgineer's Chopper] (Alliance)

The bulk of your time to obtain the pattern requires your toon repuation to get to exalted with either Horde Expedition for the [Mechano-hog] or Alliance Vanguard for the [Mekgineer's Chopper]. The easiest way to gain exalted for either factions are to run wrath level heroics without a tabard for any faction, or doing the dailies found in Icecrown, Grizzly Hills and in Argent tournament. The entire discussion on how to maximize your rep with these factions are on wowhead here.

The materials are both crafted and gathered, the large ones being [Titansteel bar] from miners. The Bind on Pickup items are only purchasable by engineers from the patrolling goblin Roxi Ramrocket found walking around the flight path in K3 in Storm Peaks. Occasionally these can be found on the AH from runs in Ulduar, engineers can deconstruct the mechanical bosses in Ulduar but are much easier to purchase from Roxi. The BOE items cost approximately 11.4k (any type of personal or guild level bonus deductions can lower this price and gain more profit). This is going to be again a big seller when Mists arrive due to the idea that many people will want this mount for their new Class/Race combination. Many servers have these selling for 22k plus.

The Extras.

There are others engineer crafted items that can be sold for large profits. The [Lil' Smoky] and [Pet Bombling] Schematics that drop from the last boss in Mekgineer Thermaplugg who is found at the end of gnomeregan. This can be a difficult grind due the low drop rate (personally it took me 20+ runs for it to drop for my engineer. Using real world materials, these tend to have a acceptable profit margin as well as the other items mentioned previously. Well worth taking the time to gain the two patterns.

I hope this will spark some profit making with your engineer. What other items do you see as making money for your engineer?

Sunday. we take on cooking. Bring your fire and your fish

Good Luck and Good Hunting

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. You can find me hanging out on the Shandris Server, chat me up and I will buy you a glass of juice.

Dealing with Mid Sales Blahs

Love is in the air: By the numbers

The Nerf, the nerf, the nerf is on fire

Love is in lunar fair

Just call me patch Mommar

Liquid Assets

There is a mote in your eye.. and more

Eat your vitamins and do your fireland dailies

Secret of my success

Exploring Old Markets

Posted by Aleithia at 8:00 AM

Early in Cataclysm, Jewelcrafting was my primary (really only) focus for making gold. Part of the reason for this is my limited amount of time I was willing to invest in the process. Because I like to do lots of other things in the game, I wasn't willing to sit and prospect, craft rings, disenchant, create scroll and post them. The process that we call "the shuffle." Or sit and mill herbs, create inks, craft glyphs and get into nasty undercutting wars. I valued my time more than that.

So what I did instead was look for smaller markets that weren't overcrowded and post there in addition to me Jewelcrafting business. At the time, these were mostly niche markets or "old" opportunities like Wrath-era markets. Well, as with all things, the "new" markets have become "old" again. With the drop off in subscriptions over the lat year, there's been a reduction in competition in some markets. Early movers who were willing to spend hours on end to be on top have tired and moved on or post with less frequency.

Case in point: I've been making good money on Mysterious Fortune Cards, something that was relatively cut-throat early in Cataclysm. It required lots of barking and re-posting to be the lowest (or at least 2nd or 3rd) and margins were thin. Now, however, there's virtually no competition. I mill herbs while waiting for my Looking For Raid queue to pop, post MFCs, bark once or twice and then run the raid.

So what markets are you able to test that you didn't want to try early in the expansion because of increased competition? Have you been back to see where those markets are at now? Is it time to get back in (or get in for the first time)?

It was about this time in the life cycle of Wrath that I started my journey to 1,000,000 gold. Cataclysm got me there. Maybe now is your time to start.

Dealing with the mid sales blahs

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 2:29 PM

Every sales goblin has it happen. The normal routine of posting sales, crafting items, raking in gold becomes a low paying second job. Waking up in the morning, signing on and going through the routine that has netted you hundreds of thousands of gold.

Events such as Love is in the air or lunar festival become just another gold grab instead of enjoying the event. The Swift Lovebird becomes another dollar sign instead of a majestic steed (yes, I said majestic with a straight face).

This is the time to adjust your views and renew some of the goals that you set aside for the love of the gold. Putting aside one of your gold making routines and doing more of the "practical" adventures of wow. Have you finished your Loremaster title on your toons? Lead a team into Icecrown to whoop a little lich king butt?

Gold Runs through old content is an awesome way of changing the tempo of your gold making business. The bonus in letting your toons get titles and enjoy the content from a new perspective.
Did you run Ulduar as a melee DPS? Try it as a ranged, or even the dreaded healing class.

Changing your pattern of gold making might not make you a ton of gold, but it will breath life into your experience when the game starts become stale.

Good luck and good hunting

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. You can find me hanging out on the Shandris Server, chat me up and I will buy you a glass of juice.

Past Articles and Readings

Love is in the air: By the numbers

The Nerf, the nerf, the nerf is on fire

Love is in lunar fair

Just call me patch Mommar

Liquid Assets

There is a mote in your eye.. and more

Eat your vitamins and do your fireland dailies

Secret of my success

Dont flip out

Love is in the air: By the numbers

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 4:34 PM

7 comments View Comments

With this years Lunar Festival and the introduction of the [Festival Lantern] and [Lunar Lantern], a gold mine was introduced to the casual player.

Almost all of the events previous, the pets and mounts were BOP and non transferable or able to be sold. The changes brought along a new commerce, one that has it's own benefits and pitfalls.

The lunar festival pets were straight forward. Go to the different areas in Azeroth, Outland, Northrend and Cataclysm areas, get 50 [Coins of Ancestory], buy the pet and sell it. If you were completely ruthless you would transfer it over to the opposing factions side to gain more gold. These have been steadily selling between the 9000 and 11000 mark on many servers (undermine has the mean avg at 11312g) on the exchange servers.

The lunar lantern showed the same amount of profit on the opposite side, easily adding 4000g to the asking price. Not a bad amount of cash for maybe an hour worth of running around (I personally used this guide here http://wow-pro.com/ with the leveling add-on to get the job done faster.

Just 3 days ago started the Love is in the air event. This added a new wrinkle to the gold making process because you could buy and sell not just the pets and mounts (Peddlefeet and Swift Lovebird). Each of the [Lovely Charm Bracelet] turned in giving you a [Love Token]. Making a bracelet required 10 of the [Lovely Charm], which was received if you had the charm making kit in your inventory and killed "level appropriate mobs". Reported drop rates were between 50% to 100% depending on the area. That means you need to kill at minimum 2700 mobs to get enough to make the 270 bracelets, turning them in (the bracelets do not stack so you will have to empty your inventory multiple times and find storage). Rough estimate would be over 4000 mobs to get enough to get enough bracelets, or more if your drop rate is horrendous.

The [Lovely Charm Bracelet] are able to be sold (but not mailed to alts, though you can drop them in guild banks and transfer them between characters that way). I've seen these going from 1g all the way up to requests of 30g a piece. They aren't able to be sold on the AH so you would be adding both time of searching for them, plus the initial cost. Here's a simple graph on how much it would cost if you purchased all of the bracelets.

Cost of Bracelet	Cost for Peddlefeet	Cost for Swift Lovebird
5g	40 x 5g = 200g	270 x 5g = 1350g
10g	40 x 10g = 400g	270 x 10g = 2700g
15g	40 x 15g = 600g	270 x 15g = 4050g
20g	40 x 20g = 800g	270 x 20g = 5400g
25g	40 x 25g = 1000g	270 x 25g = 6750g
30g	40 x 30g = 1200g	270 x 30g = 8100g

The mounts are showing to be sold easily over 20k per. Though the longer the event occurs, the more apt that you will have them being placed on the AH as well as being in trade chat. Most players are not going to want to drag their alts to farming spots. So they will depend on their high levels for the bulk of the work.

If you haven't gotten a headache up to now from the math, here is why all of that is important. Earlier in the week we talked about farming spots. The best presented as the Throne of the Tides farming spot that gave between 600-900 of the [Lovely Charm], which becomes 60-90 of the bracelets. So you can amass multiple hours farming enough to purchase the pet. Giving you a nice GPH (Gold Per Hour) profit if you have the time, and the inclination to farm. There are other spots that offer more of the tokens, as well as trash drops and BOE's. Deepholm and Icecrown have become popular farming spots. Also wrath heroics can drop many items as well. Depending on your enjoyment of farming you can get a tidy profit just from this as well. bring a couple of [Potion of Treasure Finding] if your going to be farming in Cataclysm zones.

The final way is to do the daily quests. If you do all of them (honor the 3 different horde/alliance leaders, the random perfume/cologne daily and the crushing the crown daily. Adding the boss daily that can be queued up at 84. This gives you the opportunity of between 25-30 tokens per day. For approximately 30 minutes of work per day you can have your mount by the end of the event, or multiple copies of the Peddlefeet to sell or your Swift Lovebird. Both can hold a tidy profit as the event winds down. If Blizzard continues with this practice, the cost of both items will probably drop as it gets closer to the anniversary of the event.

For myself personally, I have been doing a combination of both farming and also the dailies. Between my 85 alternates I will end up with approximately 5 mounts and 4 pets to sell. Once more information is given about the new pet battle mechanics with MOP, and what pets will be valuable I can see this being a long term investment. As far as the love flamingos, Feel sorry for them when I put my tauren butt on him and he gets squashed.

Hopefully this gives you an idea of the best course for your time and effort. Leave a message on your results.

Good luck and good hunting

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. You can find me hanging out on the Shandris Server, chat me up and I will buy you a glass of juice.

Past Articles and Readings

The Nerf, the nerf, the nerf is on fire

Love is in lunar faire

Just call me patch Mommar

Liquid Assets

There is a mote in your eye.. and more

Eat your vitamins and do your fireland dailies

Secret of my success

Dont flip out

The nerf, the nerf the nerf is on fire

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 12:17 PM

As I was working on my Love is in the air dailies (yes, looking for the big love rocket like everyone else) a couple of things popped up.

With 4.3.2 it appears they lowered the requirements for the tokens to start the fireland dailies. Originally it was 150 (which was the bulk of the amount you had to get to open up the good stuff). It's now lowered to 20. Easily opened in a day. The rest of the faction requirements stayed at 150 but it does cut out a couple of days of frustration. This should cut down at least 3-4 days of grinding to getting those patterns I talked about here.

I'm also expecting a large nerf of drop rates once again. Similar to what they did when people were running the opening of uldaur (solo gnomeblitz) for multiple item drops.

The forums on www.warcraft.com has an active lovely charm drop spot list developing here (thanks altos gold guide for the original link.

One of the nicer spots seems to be the massive amount of mobs in deepholm. When picking a good farming spot keep in mind not just ease of kills but also what else drops from each mob. Volatiles and cloth from humanoids still sell pretty regularly.

There also seems to be a bug where your drop rate is severely lowered if your carrying both the lovely charm collectors kit and also working on the [Test Your Strength] quest from Darkmoon island. Putting your [Darkmoon Adventurer's Guide] in the bank while your farming seems to fix the issue for now.

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. You can find me hanging out on the Shandris Server, chat me up and I will buy you a glass of juice.

Past Articles and Readings

Love is in lunar faire

Just call me patch Mommar

Liquid Assets

There is a mote in your eye.. and more

Eat your vitamins and do your fireland dailies

Secret of my success

Dont flip out

Love is in the lunar faire

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 12:09 PM

4 comments View Comments

his week starts the rare triple combo of holidays. We're in the 2nd week of the lunar festival,
today starts the Love is in the Air holiday, and this week the Darkmoon Island is open for inspection.

Should be a busy week for everyone. Not a lot changed with the Love is in the Air event. Only major change is that there is a mount available, the [Swift Lovebird] for 270 [Love Tokens]. This should spur continual sales during the event.

Thankfully for the goblins in all of us, the [Lovely Charm Bracelet] are again BOE this year so look to sell these either through trade chat or on the AH. Grab a [Lovely Charm Collector's Kit] on all of your questing and raiding/instance alts. They do drop in PVP as well, but you have to get the kill shot to get credit for the charm.

Every year the Blizzard powers that be tend to tweak the drop rates when someone finds a very nice
farming spot. So keep an eye for good farming spots, especially if you have finished the opening to
the fireland dailies. Craft or purchase a [Potion of Treasure Finding] and run do some farming in the cataclysm areas. My suggestion if your at level 85 is going to be based around Mount Hyjal, up and down the area close to the Sanctuary of Malorne. Mobs die quickly and large amount of fire volatiles drops.

Lower levels want to look for large amount of mobs that can be killed quickly. The wrath expansion areas still have many mobs that are within "level appropriate" to get drops of the charms. Other professions such as skinning might find the twilight highlands area a good option to skin the dragons for raw materials. Leather is still selling at a premium on many servers. If you stay withing 2-4 levels of mobs you are killing you should continue to get the drops for the charms you need to make the bracelets.

Here is a link to Wowinsder for their overachievers guide to the entire holiday. Keep an eye here for any updates we have as all three holidays continue. Also please post comments on your suggested farming spots.

Don't forget to have your [Darkmoon Adventure's Guide] for dungeon and raid instances for drops of the rare tomes and items to turn in for Darkmoon Faire tokens.

All this going on is going to keep people busy for the week.

Good luck and good hunting

[Addendum 12:07] Looks like the bracelets aren't able to be placed on the AH. so trade chat is the only [option]

Read this for blizards refund policy on buying the wrong item. Short and sweet version. Make sure of your purchases. The powers that be won't be refunding tokens if you buy the incorrect item.

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. You can find me hanging out on the Shandris Server, chat me up and I will buy you a glass of juice.

Past Articles and Readings

Just call me patch Mommar

Liquid Assets

There is a mote in your eye.. and more

Eat your vitamins and do your fireland dailies

Secret of my success