The Art of Negotiation: Warcraft Style

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 1:23 PM

0 comments View Comments

There are two sides to every deal.  The buyer and the seller.  Seems simple enough, doesn't it?   You have the buyer who wants to obtain something for the least amount of resources (gold,  time,  effort).  You have the seller that wants to get the most resources for the item/time they are offering.

I added gold,  time and effort into the equation because in the negotiations of World of Warcraft all three become commodities.   Your time and effort can easily replace gold simply from questing or running raids/instances.   Effort is just how much you will go somewhere to obtain what you want from the other person.

I ran into this yesterday as I was in negotiations to purchase another guild.  I needed one as a hiding place for a couple of my up and coming toons.   It was a 4 slot guild that had 'some items' still in the bank.   Not going into specifics the seller offered in general chat the guild for x amount of gold.

There are certain questions I always ask when purchasing the guild.

1)   What is the name of the guild (don't really like inappropriate names for guilds I own)
2)    Does anyone else still belong?  (This is important because there have been some guilds that were sold
       Without other members knowing until they logged out the next day.)
3)    What level guild is it?   (The higher the level of the guild the more lucrative that the benefits can be)
4)    What items still exist in the guild bank (if they are good items you can easily recoup your investment)

So I offered what I considered a fair price opening up the negotiations.  Generally, I half the price that they offer unless it is an extremely good opening salvo.   They counter offered and then I accepted at about 75% of the original price they wanted.  Win/Win right?

So I logged over to my toon that would take over the guild I contacted the seller.  After a delay they informed me that someone had offered full price.   Disappointed that the seller didn't keep his word as far as the deal for a measly couple of gold I just thanked him and went my merry way.

But here is the thing to keep in mind.   I have said it many times that your word is your bond.  It may seem very fleeting when dealing with online gaming.  Players do not have the direct attachment to their toons that they have to their real lives.   If I make a deal with someone, then I expect them to keep up with them.  That expectation goes both ways.  I have sold items that others came along quickly and offered me twice as much gold.  I had to tell them the item was sold simply because my word was more valuable to me than ethereal gold.

I'm also someone who believes in Karma.  If you do good things then good things will happen to you.  If you do things that are questionable, then the questionable things will occur.  This may seem like an old concept, but it is one that has ruled both my gaming and my real world life for years.

So the moral of this little story?   There really isn't any.  Not everything needs a moral,  unless you want to add one of your own.  

Good Luck and Good Profit Hunting

Cooking For Fun and Profit
Cycle of Life
Road to WOD:   Finish Your Chores
Some Day I Will Learn
Garrosh Is My Friend
You Lost That Alpha Feeling
Too Many Coins On My Hand
We All Make Mistrakes
World Without The Auction House
Not So Smart Loot

Cooking For Fun and Profit

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 12:20 PM

0 comments View Comments

The basic sales techniques to make gold in Warcraft is crafted through either Jewelcrafting,  Leatherworking,  Blacksmithing, Inscription or even the Tirion of professions,  Engineering.

But many gold goblins forget that you can make a lot of gold, leveling and selling cooking supplies.  Middle level buff food as well as max level raiding food was making gold by the bucketfuls for many players.  It took time,  supplies and some farming obtain enough points with all of the different Halfhill residents to get the best recipes.

We already have rumblings that there will be similar gold making strategies with cooking during the WOD expansion.  There is already some ideas of just what raw ingredients will be needed and combined for in demand recipes.

So that's the good news.  The bad news?   Remember how you have never leveled fishing on any of your toons?   From the alpha notes and others who have played the game,  fishing is going to be heavily linked to your cooking.  Again the same happened with the Mists of Pandaria expansion..  It was possible to level your cooking without needing a high level fisher,  but it became that much more expensive.  

The other not so fun news is that many of the already revealed recipes have components that are obtained via Herbalism.  Most players who have inscription have an herbalist running around grasspicking,  but the others gold goblins abandoned Herbalism to level a more profitable profession.  

Warlords of Draenor are lining up to be a different headed beast when it comes to making gold.  Less mass production and more selective production of items.  If this trend continues, then a skilled gold goblin will need to learn how to mix and max professions in their toon army to keep profit margins high.

Still having 3 plus months of Pandaland exploration to go there is plenty of time to maximize your secondary professions on multiple toons.  Fishing and cooking could easily become the hidden goldmine that gold goblins exploit to their advantage.

Good Luck and Good Profit Hunting.

Cycle of Life
Road to WOD:   Finish Your Chores
Some Day I Will Learn
Garrosh Is My Friend
You Lost That Alpha Feeling
Too Many Coins On My Hand
We All Make Mistrakes
World Without The Auction House
Not So Smart Loot
It Was A Great Day
WOD:  Prepping For The Storm
Special Brand Of Stupid
Silver And Gold Have I None

Worth What Someone Will Pay For It

Pilgrim's Bounty, For The Educated

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 2:34 PM

0 comments View Comments

Mommar Here.

It is that time of the year that we should start being thankful.   Thankful that we have a game we can play,  and that there is gold to be made.

Well,  not quite exactly when it comes to the Pilgrim's Bounty holiday.    Blizzard has made this holiday very achievement heavy for players with very few physical rewards.  Players can get a new Holiday themed suit,  and a new turkey pet (sorry gang it's BOP so no selling it seems).   There are a few chances to be able to make some quick gold if you catch people at the right time.

One of the achievements is called The Turkinator.  This is one of those achievements that will come easy for some classes,  and other classes it will drive them batty.   The basic idea is to go to Elwynn Forest or Tirisfal Glades to kill turkeys all over the area.  You have to kill 40 turkeys killing them one at a time to keep the buff you receive up and running til you hit 40 (it will drop off in 10 seconds if you don't kill another turkey).

Most players found that this can be annoying if you end up with a lot of players in the area.   But one item the Tracker Snacks gave non hunters a huge advantage to finish this achievement.   Now that many players have this achievement under wraps it isn't as large of a market as it had been previously.  Still cooking and placing a few on the Auction House will net you some gold.  Especially for players who are just getting used to the market it is a good test without a large amount of investment.

For those that enjoy the pain of non food enhanced turkey combat.  There is a macro that the genius group on the boards came up with that will help with killing turkeys in no time.

/tar Wild Turkey
/run if not GetRaidTargetIndex("target") and not UnitIsDead("target") and UnitName("target") == "Wild Turkey" then if turkey == nil or turkey == 0 then turkey = 8 end SetRaidTarget("target", turkey); turkey = turkey -1 end;

If you have a busy server I usually suggest killing them either early in the morning or later in the evening.   The turkeys become easier to find and less farmed for holiday themed cooking items as the event continues.

Now for the juicy part (hee hee) of the event.   This is going to be a perfect time to take one of those alts that you have ignored their cooking and get it up to almost 400 cooking on the cheap.  

Here is how you perform this cooking miracle

Learn Cooking + spiced Bread (1s 10c)

• Learn Cooking + Spiced Bread (1s 10c)
  Make 100 Spiced Bread (overkill, but easy to calculate with) (7s)
• Buy the Bountyful Cookbook (1s)
• Make 100 Spiced Bread Stuffing (Remember to learn Journeyman cooking between 50 and 75) (2s + 5s)
• Make 100 pumpkin Pies (Remember to learn Expert Cooking between 125 and 150) (10s + 1g)
• Make 100 Cranberry Chutney (Remember to learn Artisan Cooking between 200 and 225) (10s + 2g 50s)
• Make 100 Candied Sweet Potatoes (Remember to learn Master Cooking between 275 and 300) (12s + 10g)
• Make as many Slow Roasted Turkeys as you need to get to 350 Cooking, and then learn Grand Master cooking (35g)

Grand Total cost of getting to 350 cooking**: 47g 98s 10c* 

If you want to go higher,   you can start to kill turkeys in the above mentioned areas to craft Slow Roasted Turkey up to the 400+ mark.   Most of your investment in this is time and energy.   But the buffs from the turkey are very nice for long term usage.

(All credit goes to the Wowhead Forums,  give them some link love)

Icy-Veins have a walk-through for all of the achievements for Pilgrim's Bounty so if your a little behind on your achievement hunting they are the guide to hit to get things done quickly.

Don't let the holidays distract you from your normal gold making procedures.  You never know what opportunities might appear if you keep your ears open.   From soloing Sekketh Halls for the Terrokar Turkey Time achievement to get lower players a chance at the achievement.  To players dancing on mailboxes for gold tips.   Thinking outside the turkey box might net you a few extra gold this week.

Someone tell Blizzard central it's time for a turkey centric boss.   I would go for that for next year.

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

Previous Entries

Is Your Cartel Happy?
Brawlers Guild: Your Killing Us Here
Change of Scenery
Mists of Pandaria in 5 words
Prepping For The Future
Eyes On The Prize
Pattern Farming With Your Jewelcrafter
Lorewalker This Way
Brawlers Guild Blues
Prioritizing Your Daily Quests
BMAH Strikes Back
Trick or Treat JMTC Style
Steel Negotiations
For Whom Does The Songbell Toll
To Level 90 and Beyond
Tales of a Gold Goblin Bully
Chess Pieces Taking The Field

Smell the Bacon and Eggs from Azeroth

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 7:00 AM

0 comments View Comments

Good Morning Azeroth (I told you I was working on new intros here).

I enjoy cooking for others.   Whether it's whipping up a light snack for visitors.  Or a good supper among friends.   Where I doubt I will be making an appearance on Masterchef anytime soon,  I can make a mean Quiche (yes,  real warriors eat Quiche).

Cooking in Warcraft tends to be forgotten by the masses til they absolutely need it.  Many raiding guilds require that your cooking profession is at its maximum.  Others players just enjoy making the different items that are available in Warcraft.  Still others just feel it is necessary to maximize all of their professions.

If you have been a faithful reader I've discussed with you my plans for the cooking profession during Mists of Pandaria.  If not,  read Dinner Improbable here.  But now we're going to talk about low and middle level foods to sell.  

The Mists of Pandaria expansion is going to open up a large amounts of players that will be leveling quickly.  The Blizzard developers intentions are to get both new and experienced players into the Mists of Pandaria content as soon as possible.  Lowering level experience requirements are going to do that very quickly.  What it will also do is make lots of normally found cooking food much more scarce.  Zones that normally were heavily played such as Winterspring and Shadowmoon Valley will not be as highly travelled as normal.   So food and materials normally found in these areas will become less and less available.

A good strong strategy while you're leveling a new class is to sell food on the open market.   This applies mostly to food that's used for raising your cooking professions,  but all food can be sold.   Where it may not make you a fortune,  you will be surprised at what items can bring a nice amount of gold into your goblin coffers.

All along I have said that gold goblins plan ahead.   Small eggs sell very well during certain yearly events.  They are also camped out to extinction during those days where gathering small eggs become next to impossible.  But now players are not looking ahead to those times.   So as your leveling or running around,  killing a mass amount of birds and saving the small eggs.  Even buying them from the AH now at a pittance can obtain good profits later during the holidays like Childrens week.

You will even find the basic food you can get right out of the main cities by killing pigs can rack up a nice sized profit.   Players who are leveling their cooking professions generally do not want to take the time to farm their own.    And remember,   goblins are very thankful to the unmotivated.

A good solid strategy is to use what you need,  and sell the rest on the auction house.  Your pocketbook will thank you in the end.

Good Luck and Good Quiche Hunting


Want to get in contact with me? . Email me at Dragonbearjoe @ gmail. dOT com or find me on twitter at "@JMTCMommar" You can find me hanging out on the Shandris Server, chat me up and I will buy you a glass of juice. 

Previous Entries

It's not the size of the equipment 
It's fun to say Arrrrrghh
Zombie Auctioning
The Tripping of Theramore
You want to do WHAT????
KFC Ain't Got Nothing On Me
BMAH Blues
I am No Dunce
Hype Hype Hype
No Shirt No Service
Too Much Stuff
MOP Prep:  PokeWOW Part 1
MOP Prep: PokeWOW Part 2
MOP Prep:   Enchanters Pt 1
MOP Prep:  Enchanters Part Deux
MOP Prep: What to save for the Pandas Pt 1
MOP:  Powerleveling Leatherworking in the Vale
MOP Prep:   Prepping the Farmer
MOP Prep:  Get to the Points
MOP Prep:  Reduction in Inventory
MOP Prep: Stuff to Gold,  Gold to Stuff
MOP Prep: Setting the Lineup
MOP Prep: Setting up the Cartel
MOP Prep:   Zero Balance Investment

Prepping for MOP: Dinner Improbable

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 2:33 PM

0 comments View Comments

Next to First aid,  Cooking tends to get ignored unless your a raider,  or in the gold making business.   Most players who decide to level their cooking will level one,  maybe two of their toons to maximum and then the rest end up getting ignored.

With the introduction of Mists of Pandaria this idea may have to change.  Especially if you have a gold goblin heart like mine.   MOP is introducing specialization into the mix.   There is limited information but all the comments from the developer posts point to at least 5 different specializations.   Any time specialization is mentioned,  or limited recipes.  The goblin should look at how to get to those recipes the fastest.

Ultimately one toon will be able to specialize in everything (possibly even an achievement).  But that will take a dedicated amount of time.   But now is the time to plan ahead to grab those recipes and be one of the first on the market.

We have approximately 2 to 3 months til the introduction of MOP.   That gives at least 40-50 days to level up cooking.   Most players by now have leveled multiple toons up to 85.  So now is a good time to firm up your cooking (and even fishing) skills to make sure your ready to finish the new cooking dailies in MOP.  Even if you don't level that toon immediately,  Cataclysm opened up the ability for a lower level player to gain cooking points through the dailies.  Having your alternate toons begin to level cooking through the daily cooking quests in Orgrimmar and Stormwind will place you in the drivers seat to be able to continue on.   Using the dailies (and the Darkmoon Faire cooking quests) will give you the cooking points,  without the need to use items you are saving for MOP (many of the foods will still be in demand come MOP for leveling cooking on new players).

If you haven't done the Darkmoon Faire cooking quests.  Just pick up 5 [simple flour] from one of the cooking vendors in your home city,  then go to 52,6.68 on your mini map at the Darkmoon Faire. Batter the frogs,  throw them into the pot and you have your 5 easy earned cooking points.

The goal is to end up being around the 510 mark for cooking before Mists arrive.   Being at max cooking (525) will open up more opportunities and should be very easily finished.

Here is some of the base information from the betas on the cooking.  More can be added or subtracted
as we continue to get closer.

(courtesy of MMO-Champion)

Recipes on Beta Servers

Recipe: Great Pandaren Banquet - Well Fed: +275 in a useful stat.
Recipe: Pandaren Banquet - Well Fed: +275 in a useful stat.
Recipe: Black Pepper Steak - Well Fed: +300 Strength.
Recipe: Sea Mist Rice Noodles - Well Fed: +300 Agility.
Recipe: Mogu Fish Stew - Well Fed: +300 Intellect.
Recipe: Steamed Meat Buns - Well Fed: +300 Spirit.
Recipe: Chun Tian Spring Rolls - Well Fed: +450 Stamina.
Recipe: Eternal Blossom Fish - Well Fed: +275 Strength.
Recipe: Hozu Stir Fry - Well Fed: +275 Agility.
Recipe: Braised Wolf - Well Fed: +275 Intellect.
Recipe: Fire Spirit Hot Pot - Well Fed: +275 Spirit.
Recipe: Twin Fish Platter - Well Fed: +415 Stamina.
Recipe: Charbroiled Tiger Steak - Well Fed: +250 Strength.
Recipe: Jade Forest Fried Rice - Well Fed: +250 Agility.
Recipe: Swirling Mist Soup - Well Fed: +250 Intellect.
Recipe: Shrimp Dumplings - Well Fed: +250 Spirit.
Recipe: Forest Pheasant Roast - Well Fed: +375 Stamina.
Recipe: Pandaren Meat Ball - Restores 100000 health over 10 sec.
Recipe: Fish Cake - Restores 100000 health and 100000 mana over 10 sec.

Known Food Drops

Black Pepper
Mogu Pumpkin
Ox Ribs
100 Year Soy Sauce
Sirloin Steak
White Turnip
Pink Turnip
Aged Pink Turnip
Tender Brisket
Minced Meat
Pheasant Breast
Forest Boar Meat
Raw Tiger Steak
Scallions
Tough Wolf Flank
Goat Chops
Juicycrunch Carrot
Rice Flour
Red Blossom Leek
Yak Flanks

The object of this is to allow each of your 5 maximum leveled cooking toons to follow one of the other paths to give you access to all the recipes as soon as possible.  Later on once you have learned one line of cooking,  you can start to pick up another and begin to retire your other cooks.

Access to recipes as quickly as possible will become important to obtain sales to raiders and players
as they run through dungeons and heroics.  Adding more gold into your goblin hearted pockets.

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 Entries
Random Dungeons:  A Concert of Errors
Patterns
Save the children.. Save Azeroth

Grey,  the new purple

Have you posted epics today?

Netherweave Cloth: It's math time

Time to Invest... Invest in Time

Thinking Outside the Old World Box

Pricing A Guild... Pawn Star Style

Noblegarden:  It wasn't that lucky for the rabbit

1% Rule

Ore report ... dig dig dig

5 habits of successful goblins

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

Farming Deepsea Sagefish

Posted by Aleithia at 8:00 AM

3 comments View Comments

There are lots of ways to improve your character's performance in dungeons, but one of the most common is eating food. For much of Cataclysm, casters have been using the Fortune Cookie to get their +90 Intellect food buff. But oddly, I've found there are lots of people who prefer to use the fish-based buff: Severed Sagefish Head.

The thing is, the cost of a fortune cookie has been about 50% less than the Sagefish version of the buff, plus you get a fortune card from the deal. As a market savvy raider/dungeoneer, I've always preferred the cheaper fortune cookie. But surprisingly, not everyone goes that route. Maybe they don't know it exists. Maybe they think their "other useful stat" won't actually be useful, instead trusting a tooltip that lists the exact stat. I'm not sure what the deal is.

But here's what I do know: For most of the expansion, I've been selling the Severed Sagefish Head at about 100% profit (in other words, doubling my money). Prices were consistently high because the fish could only be caught by fishing in open water. There was no pool available to give a guaranteed Deepsea Sagefish. That is, up until last week.

A recent hotfix (see December 20 note) has removed the Algaefin Rockfish pools and replaced them with Deepsea Sagefish. This means you can more reliably farm them by fishing in pools, no matter what your fishing level as pool-fishing is a guaranteed catch. Prices are down a bit on average, but their still better than the fortune cookie.

And despite the higher cost, they still sell. If you don't have much gold, or just enjoy killing time while waiting for a queue to pop, head out to Twilight Highlands for some easy gold.

Making Gold with BC meats

Posted by Alerick at 8:00 AM

8 comments View Comments

Making Gold with BC meats

Hi guys, Alerick here once again, and today I'm going to be talking to you readers about making efficient gold by way of Burning Crusade cooking materials. The ones we will be concentrating on today are the Serpent Flesh, Buzzard Meat, Chunk o' Basilisk, Clefthoof Meat, Raptor Ribs, Talbuk Venison, and Warped Flesh. Now I came across this gold-making niche market when I began working towards my Chef title. I'm sure a lot of people are interested in getting this title, and there are a few achievements in the meta that require involvement with the old Burning Crusade cooking daily quests. By completing these dailies, you have a choice between a Crate of Meat or a Barrel of Fish. I always chose the Crate of Meat, because it had a slightly higher chance to drop the recipe for Stormchops, which was the last section of the last achievement I needed for my Chef title.

Each crate has a chance to drop between 5 and 16 of the meats listed above. Needless to say, with a sub 2 percent drop chance, I ended up doing quite a few of these dailies, and amounted quite a stash of the meat. I knew that with all of the cooking materials I had, someone would eventually need to use them to level their profession, so I put a few on the AH, careful not to flood the market, and watched them all sell. I found that by only putting a select amount of the meats on the AH, whenever a character leveled their cooking profession through that level range, basically all of my meats would sell out. There's a shortage of these meats on the Auction House simply because a lot of players power level their characters through Burning Crusade dungeons, and either don't bother to even loot the mobs they kill, or consider the meat to be worth next to nothing. That's where us resourceful players make bank ;).

Not only are these meats required for every player leveling their cooking past the Burning Crusade expansion, but they're a component for completing the cooking dailies themselves, and the Achievement "The Outland Gourmet", which requires at least one of every meat list above. This achievement in itself puts the items in a high demand for all of the achievement hunters out there. It's very simple to hop on one of your characters one day, head over to Shattrath City, and finish up one of these dailies. You can get a good amount of BC meat to sell on the AH, as well as complete some components of easy achievements in the process. Good luck putting the tip into action and I hope it makes everyone plenty of gold!

You can get in touch with me through my Twitter: @AlerickF

Children's Week & 4.1 Achievements

Posted by The Lost Meeple at 8:00 AM

3 comments View Comments

Morning Folks! I was originally going to write a post on children's week but I've decided not to do so. There are multiple other blogs which have already cover the topic and I don't really want to over saturate the event/gold making opportunity. Instead of making a post head over the The Gold Queen's blog and read her post on how you could be making gold from Children's Week. It's a well written in-depth post that shouldn't go un-noticed.

Any who, as most of you know patch 4.1 has dropped and it's been out for a couple days now. The patch brought a couple achievements that can and are currently making me a killing. I'm going to list the new achievements and explain what you could be doing to make gold off them.

Cataclysmically Delicious
 This achievement requires people to eat one of every cataclysm food. People are actually starting to take notice of this achievement and are buying the foods off the AH. Some of them can be crafted for a couple silver and listed for 10-25g per. The profits here are immense and the competition can range from low-high as not everyone will have every single cooking recipe. Definitely give this a try.

Drown Your Sorrows
Another awesome achievement that you can make gold off. It requires you to eat some pretty silly/weird stuff that can be crafted for a couple silver yet they sell at the AH four several gold pieces. Some of the items are also drops off mobs and other are vendor bought so if you don't have the recipes at least go out and buy some of the vendor bought stuff and or kill some mobs and list the materials at the AH.

You'll Feel Right As Rain
This achievement is rather interesting and simply awesome for making gold. It requires you to eat 91 Chocolate cookies in order to obtain the achievement. The recipe is obtained by turning in three Stormwind chef's awards. Profit off this achievements are simply HUGE as the materials are vendor bought and they cost almost nothing. I would get into this market asap before it gets flooded.

100 & 125 Pet Achievements
Another recently added achievement. Quite obvious to be quite frank. People will be buying pets like no tomorrow. Remember how I told you to stockpile elementium geodes? Well the price on my server jumped from 200-300g to 800-900g. Pets are in high demand right now. Be sure to check the prices of the newly added pet; Winterspring Cub. It is obtained in winterspring and is sold by a vendor for 50g.

Sandstone Drake Achievement
A long awaited achievement that was again added in patch 4.1. You could see a small spike in the demand for this mount as people will buy it solely for the achievement ( the achivies hunters ). Use your bartering perk and possibly goblin racial to reduce costs and craft for normal/high and sell the mount for tremendous profits.

That's all for now folks! 5 brand spanking new achievements that you can use to make gold from! What are you waiting for? Go get into these markets before they're flooded!

Children's Week

Posted by Markco at 8:00 AM

5 comments View Comments

"Markco,

Just thought I'd share a quick strategy. I'm rather new to the whole gaming the AH thing so I'm still getting my feet wet. However with children's week currently on I figured I'd try to corner the market on small eggs, of which 8 are needed for the delicious chocolate cake that is part of an achievement.  I'm alliance and happen to know a great place deep in horde territory where you can get stacks and stacks of small eggs with minimal farming. Most people don't know about this because they drop off low level neutral monsters (who kills low level neutrals?) right outside silvermoon city at damn near 100%. Probably 50-60% of the time they will drop 2. They are the neutral dragonhawks. I farmed them for about 20 minutes and had 7 stacks..that's 140 small eggs. My hunting farmer is an engineer so I pulled out a portable mailbox, mailed the eggs to my AH toon, and switched to her.

As predicted, a couple sellers were selling small eggs at 999% market value. I'm talking 10G per small egg and full stacks for obscene amounts of gold. I had found my customers. I did a test batch of 2 stacks of eggs at around 90S per. They nearly all insta-sold, most of them by the other small egg sellers. Hmmmm.  I posted the rest and flooded the market at 1g50s and called it a night. The next morning I woke up  and had sold nearly all of them for quite a nice profit for 20 minutes of farming. I went back to my farmer and quickly farmed  more stacks to leave on the AH before I went to work for the day. Came home and my inbox was full once again.  So far nobody seems to be putting up small eggs in the AH other than the people inflating the hell out of them so I plan on doing this all week. I might creep up the price slowly to see if I can maximize my profits. Selling them 1 at a time seems to work best and it enables my product to show up pages before anybody else's.  Sure, a tiny bit of farming is involved but so far I've made about 400 G doing this (in a couple days), which is a nice supplement to my other AH efforts. 

Thought you'd like to know. Next year in preparation for this event I'm going to pre-farm dozens of stacks of these eggs in advance and flood the AH with them the night before children's week starts. I'm starting to realize that high volume, low prices is what makes a lot of money in the AH. I'm Walmart. Side note: selling the dalaran sweets needed for the children's week achievement, and even cold milk and mild spices is yielding ROI's of 300%+ for lazy people who like to do one-stop shopping on the AH, which I'm sure you know.

 - Mike"

 Nice example of taking advantage of the mentality of other players who THINK they are making a good decision buying you out to relist. Actually they probably are making a decent profit, but your strategy allows both you and them to make large amounts of gold for the time invested. Their strategy has more risk as well.

Don't be afraid to actually bake the delicious chocolate cakes and sell them as well! Should be worth quite a bit more than selling the eggs.

Sweet Spot for Cooking Gold

Posted by Markco at 8:00 AM

5 comments View Comments

Cooking, like every other profession has what I like to call 'sweet spots' that make leveling it difficult because materials are no longer farmed on a regular basis.

For Blacksmithing this is thorium bars, for tailoring it's bolts of netherweave (largely due to bag makers buying up the cloth), etc.

When I was going through auctioneer I noticed something peculiar that really surprised me: Burning Crusade fish going for 60 gold a stack. At first I thought it was just some fool dumping his guild bank, but after watching the market for a week I noticed that it was actually pretty active with about six sellers and obviously more than one buyer. Since the food from these fish weren't appearing on the auction house I had to assume that it was for cooking. Having leveled my only cook during BC I never knew this market existed until now!

Spotted fel-tail and Crescent-Tail Skullfish seem to be the real money makers, possibly for the 330 and 335 cooking recipes that these are required for.

Definately add these to your snatch list as they can easily sell at 2-3 gold a piece.

Farming in Prot PvP Gear

Posted by Markco at 8:00 AM

5 comments View Comments

A lot of people have been asking me about prot pvp and since this video is both a farming spot as well as an example of my dps, I figured it would be a good fit. I am currently gearing for armor pen while slowly removing my block value except for t9 prot helm and shoulders. I will eventually switch to the 75 badge helm and t9 prot legs. Currently I'm wearing the t9 dps chest and gloves. As you can see from this video my burst is almost as good as shield slam damage but my dps has doubled.

This method of gearing for dps instead of shield slam has drastically changed both my playstyle and spec. Perhaps I'll save this part of the discussion for another day, now for the video :)

Farming Clam Meat from Nagaa in Zoram Strand

Posted by Markco at 8:00 AM

3 comments View Comments

Check out this great farming spot for clam meat and small lustrous pearls.

Boar Ribs - The other White Meat

Posted by Markco at 8:00 AM

21 comments View Comments

This post ranks right up there with one of my favorites of all time because it's simple, effective, and gets you lots of gold. Thanks to Will of wowconfidential for this tip :)



I just finished a video on a farming spot I make 500+ gold from an hour.

The video is based on the cooking market. Most players wait until the level cap to start power leveling their professions and the fact that cooking really isn't necessary until you start raiding (for making your own food stat buffs) it is easy to understand why people hold off leveling cooking.

Many of the ingredients needed for power leveling cooking are found in the old world and level 80's don't want to go through the hassel of travelling back and finding the most efficient spots so they just buy the meats from the Auction House.

After analyzing all the meats needed to go hit the cap I've noticed that "Boar Rib's" are consistently in demand and in low or no supply on the AH.

I've sold Boar Meat now for 2g 95s EACH, and given that I can farm 180 an hour this comes out to 531g an hour.

Here's a video of the best route:

Thanks for reading

-Will

www.wowconfidential.com

Learning to Learn

Posted by Markco at 8:00 AM

5 comments View Comments

As you've seen in my previous e-mails and posts (I post as "Bill") I've appreciated your advice and wanted to let you know how well its worked out.

After a couple of months I now have 30k more cash than I did before. Plus I've raised an alchemist to 300, an Inscriber to 420, Leatherworked to 390, Jewelcrafter to 445. I already was doing Tailoring and Blacksmithing. I've bought an Ice Mammoth (the 600g one, but apparently my uber raiding newphew thinks this makes me "rich"), the Red Drake and the mounts needed for the Albino drake. I've also dropped over 5k on purple upgrades to help me get ready for raiding. Although I made some from quests, most of it was farming and selling.

I'm not uber rich. But probably because after I broke 20k in cash, I got lazy. I CAN buy any of the expensive items I want. Or drop several hundred gold on twink gear, fast mounts, etc. I guess I like looking at my gold total more than a motorcycle.

Things that worked for me:
- Eternal Belt Buckles, Enchanting Rods, Weapons chains.
- Netherweave Bags, Spellthread, 28 slot Herb and Shard bags.
- Raid food
- Saronite Bar singles.
- When I get bored I farm various spots in Storm Peaks for Relics and other stuff.
- Transmuting Mithril to Truesilver and Thorium to Arcanite. Who needs a max level skill to make money? :)

I have the resources to make more from jewelcrafting and inscribing. But tailoring and blacksmithing is much easier to make money with at the moment. But when I decide I want to spend a little more time making even more money that's my choice.

So thanks for the advice and opening my eyes. Although I have a lot to learn, learning how to learn was the first step.

--bill

Two points here you should take from this email:
1. Max level skills are not required to make a lot of money.
2. The items he sold are still valuable in today's market.

Thanks for the email bill! Your contributions to the site have always been thoughtful and appreciated.

Boar Meat Farming Spot

Posted by Markco at 8:00 AM

9 comments View Comments

First of all I would like to say thank you for making your blog, it is amazingly helpful.

I remember a while back that there was a post about farming boar meat to sell. Earlier today I came across a great place to farm it while I was on a newly created alt. This place id The Stonefield farm in Elwynn Forest coordinates 33-85. After spending around half an hour killing the boars then skinning them, i had made approximately 20g in leather, boar meat, vendor trash and the occasional green. The boars re spawned amazingly quickly, had roughly a 50% drop chance of boar meat and were easily killed in a few hits. Feel free to take credit if you wish as you gave me the original idea to farm and sell boar meat.

Celand of Arathor EU

Here's the original post, and I'm glad that Celand took the time to email me this great spot for farming the boars. Just outside of orgrimmar is a great spot for Horde.

WOTLK Farming Spots - Sholozar Basin Gorillas

Posted by Markco at 8:00 AM

8 comments View Comments

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the Gorillas of Sholozar Basin!

Stats: Easy to kill mobs with quick respawn rates and lots of closely packed groups.

Drops: Chilled meat and furs. If you need either, I suggest farming here. The grays are decent too.

See video for location, Good Luck!

Pass the Cake Please, It's Delicious

Posted by Markco at 8:00 AM

28 comments View Comments

Here's a great reader submitted email that just might make you hungry:

Hi,
First off, I like your blog and is making a lot more gold now and by just standing in Orgrimmar!

Now for the tip:

I looked through some upcoming World Event achievements and saw that the achievement "Bad Example" requires a Delicious Chocolate Cake. I predict there's some gold to make off this because a lot of people are obsessed with achievements and especially the World Event Achievements.

I have already bought up all the cheap small eggs and mageroyal on AH and have a full bank of these, so I am just waiting. Unfortunately these don't stack so a lot of space will be taken.

The recipe for Delicious Chocolate Cake is a rare drop from ZF off of Sandfury Witch Doctors.

Good luck farming these, you'll make a killing off this achievement if you can manage to get the recipe. Cakes go for 10 gold a pop right now... imagine how much they will be worth during children's week (May 1st - 7th).

Borean man O'war getting a little extra kick in 3.1

Posted by Markco at 8:00 AM

14 comments View Comments

Choice wrote:

I have just seen that a currently worthless fish is getting a recipe in 3.1 that will have better health AND mana regen than any in the game right now. This fish even has existing pools right now and people fish these up a ton just on accident and put them on the ah for cheap.

Borean man O' war will be able to be made into black jelly which restores 18000 health and 15000 mana over 30 sec. The next closest only gives back 1500/1290 over 30 sec.

Well it looks like the choice is obvious, (pun intended!) buy out those Borean Man O'wars while they stay super cheap!

If you're looking to fish these then Howling Fjord or Borean Tundra are your best spots. They do drop occasionally in some of the mid level zones as well.

EDIT: I'd like to clarify on one point if I may, based on the comments so far. DO NOT cook these fish immediately after the patch! Instead, try selling the fish to those that want to cook it themselves, and vary the stack sizes (1, 5, 10 , 20). I have no idea if these will sell better cooked or as raw fish, so only cook them if the market is strong and otherwise sell the fish raw. Atleast if you avoid cooking them after the patch you will have an option.

Boar Meat is Made of Gold?

Posted by Markco at 8:00 AM

8 comments View Comments

Level 6-10 boars drop boar meat (who'd of thought), which sells for 2-10 gold PER STACK!

Nothing a lowbie can farm beats this, and the best part is there is never much competition so your stacks sell the same night you post them. My level 11 shaman that I just made dropped 15 of these off at the auction house and sold them 1 gold each that same night. It was nice having more gold than the level of my character at level 11 :)

Each starting area has comparable meat to the orc one, such as lynx meat for bloodelves.

As you level there's another meat that sells equally well in the auction house for a similiar price: Clam Meat.

You'll get these from clams dropped by the turtles of the barrens (as well as small lustrous pearls). You can farm these outside of wailing caverns and camp the rare spawn hydra which drops an awesome offhand weapon as well as a sword. While there you might as well fish up some deviate fish from the schools nearby, since the price of deviate fish has gone up on most servers with so many people leveling and so few farming.

I'd suggest being atleast level 15 before you farm in the lake. Miners and herbalists will be pleased with the numerous nodes scattered throughout the lakes in the barrens as well.