If you don't have Time...have Patience

Posted by Markco at 8:00 AM

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Guest Writer For The Day : Bozzor

Most WoW players have limited time to play.They have jobs, school, families or another real life
activities that limits their time to play.Those players have a low gold income and many of them struggle
to sell whatever they farm or craft, and when they manage to sell, they are doing it with low profit.

So, if you are one of those players, what can you do? You can't spend more time to make gold because you want to enjoy the game, doing heroics, raids or pvp, and those activities are consuming most of your game time.

The answer is in the title : if you don't have Time...have Patience.

Patience is the key to make as much gold as possible, even if you can play 12 hours a day.It is a
known fact that the WoW economy have ups and downs, prices go up and down all the time, sometimes on a daily basis, sometimes weekly...and this is chaotic for anyone who is not a serious AH trader.

At this point in game, after more then 6 years, its safely to say that most of the players have at least
one character with two professions.It really doesn't matter what professions, all of them are good to make gold. However, the more professions, the better chances to make gold, but also the more time used for farming or crafting.

I am personally against farming, its not worth the time.However, if you don't have enough gold to start using the AH for making profit, keep farming until you have a small capital to invest (3-5k is more then enough).Once you have this capital, start making a schedule and stick on it.

Use your time wisely, because its limited.If you don't have an AH addon, install one.Auctioneer and Auctionator are the most used ones.Do AH scans twice a day , for couple of days (preferably for one week) before you start your AH endeavour.Once the scans are done, start buying the materials you need, just be sure you don't buy more then you can process with your limited time, but buy as much as you can if the price is low.

This should take 2-3 days, before you start processing the materials you have gathered.

If you are a JC, there is no point to buy 10 stacks of ores, prospect them, cut the rare gems you got and selling them along the uncommon ones.You should buy until you have a bigger stockpile before start prospecting.

Once you done prospecting, cut the rare gems into the most used ones , save the Nightstones and Jaspers for daily JC, save Hessonites also (they sell quite good atm) and vendor the rest.If you have an Enchanter or an Alchemist, use Carnelians to craft Carnelian Spikes and disenchant them, or use them to transmute them into Inferno Ruby.

Also, do not pass the opportunity to buy Chimera's Eyes for tokens and sell them.

If you are a Miner, buy ores when low priced, smelt them into bars and wait when those ores are either high priced or they are missing / low supplied in AH, then start selling them.Do not go for high profits, just 20-25% above what you have spent for the ores.Don't do it only with Cataclysm Ores, smelt as many types of ores as you possibly can.

For LW, there is the option to buy Scraps or Leather and craft them into Heavy Leather.

All types of Heavy Leathers sells good.A good option is to buy low priced Savage Leather, craft them into Heavy Savages and trade them for Pristine Hides.Wait for when the price for Heavy Leather is high and sell the Pristines.Go for a small profit, just 20-25% above your cost for 10 Heavy Savages.

If you have more time, buy low priced Dragonscales and Volatile Fire and craft the Epic Leg Armor Kits.Sell them for low profit also, 20-25%.

Tailors should buy low priced Netherweave, Frostweave and Embersilk, craft Bags, add a small profit of 20-25% and sell the bags.There is the option of Leg Enchants, just stick to same profit mark.

Blacksmiths should focus on Ebonsteel Belt Buckles, Enchanting Rods, Weapon Chains and when a new patch that brings a new PvP season gear, have materials ready to craft that gear.Go for small profit also, 20-25% above material cost.

Alchemists.Those who have access to a JC, be transmute masters.Use the daily transmute always.Both Truegold and Living Elementals nets same gold profit, but i prefer Truegold due to more market stability (nobody ''farms'' Truegold, but there are plenty Volatile Air farmers).Use the Carnelians from prospecting to transmute them into Inferno Ruby.

If you don't have a JC, be elixir master.Buy low priced herbs and additional materials to craft flasks, wait for the raiding days and sell them.

Inscription.I retired from Glyphs market after Cataclysm changes, and went for PvP relic and Dust of Disapperance. Both sell good, PvP relics 2-3 / day, but high profit, and Dust in hudreds, but low profit.Be sure you add a small profit for Dusts and high for relics.

Engineers should craft engineering mats : Khorium Power Core, Felsteel Stabilizers, Adamantite Frames, etc. Along those, sell also scopes of every type.Do not underestimate also the Companions.Just add a small profit, 20-25% above material cost.

If you have enough patience to wait for buying at low prices and wait to sell when prices are high, your patience will be rewarded.And the reward is not only gold, but more important the trust you gain in yourself.

Even if the profit mark is not high (15-20% - there is always 5% AH cut), the income will be higher if you wait and sell in larger quantities. Don't go greedy, stick on your schedule and your profit marks.

Once you decided to sell, post your items for 48 hours.With the low profit mark you have, you will sell almost everything. Don't be afraid of the AH campers.They will have only two options if you post for 48 hours : they either let you sell or they will buy your items.AH campers are greedy and have plenty of time and gold to choose the above options.You will not be competition for them, because you sell once or twice / week due to your limited time to buy, craft and play the AH.

Remember, any profession is good, but try to have as many professions as you can, preferably a profession combo that allows you to diversify : like JC and Alchemy, JC and Enchanting, Mining and Engineering or Mining and Blacksmithing.

The options i wrote about are not even close to what a player can do.Those options are only for players who have limited time to craft and sell in AH, usually under 30 min / day.But even those with a lot of time to play should learn that Patience is probably the most important factor in making gold.

If you don't have Time...have Patience.

Peace,

Bozzor, Gold Multimillionaire.

If you like this article, feel free to visit my gold making blog.

Transferring to a New Realm

Posted by Kynalla at 8:00 AM

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Hey there JMTC,

Kynalla here and today I'm going to be showing you some of my absolute favorite items that I used recently to transfer realms. This is a fairly quick and simple list of ideas, but may have a few here and there that you don't know, so without further adieu here is the video!

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Spending Real Money on Virtual Goods: Is It Worth It?

Posted by Markco at 8:00 AM

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Guest Post By: Susan of Discount Sofa from the Eternal-Wow server.

Since its advent a few decades ago, gaming has remained consistently popular. From kids knocking
a pixelated ball across a black screen in the 80s, to the legions of adults playing on the blood-soaked
battlefields of modern First Person Shooters, it’s been quite a journey. Whilst single player gaming has
remained a popular pastime amongst countless people across the world, nothing had quite such a huge
effect on the gaming world than the internet. Since it became a mainstay in homes across the world, the internet has allowed us to battle (or help) each other in thousands of multiplayer games. Perhaps the most popular genre of online gaming is the MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game), and the heavyweight title in that arena has to be Blizzard’s World of Warcraft.

Welcome to the world

Built from the ground up to support many thousands of players at any one time, World of Warcraft
provides a completely open-ended world for people to explore. It’s possible to spend limitless hours exploring the many towns, villages, fortresses, and settlements of the region of Azeroth, Players can pick a side then fight either other players or computer-controlled opponents. Thanks to the fully-fledged economy of gold within the game, World of Warcraft has a huge amount of turnover, both in ‘in-game’ currency and in ‘real’ money. And here is where people begin to get concerned: is it acceptable for people to buy and sell virtual items for real money?

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Enchanted Lantern Gold Tip

Posted by Markco at 8:00 AM

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Hey JMTC!

Kynalla here, and today I am proud to present you with my new video displaying an enchanting gold tip that I have been using for a little while now. This is the Enchanted Lantern.

The Enchanted Lantern has been in the game since Cataclysm launched, and while many of us primarily use Enchanting to disenchant items as our main means of making gold, this is an excellent addition to our arsenal of techniques. While there are people who create these lanterns, many are not aware of the gold making capability of selling this pet. I personally love making the Enchanted Lantern, as it is very very simple to create, and also profitable.

Enchanted Lantern Materials:

Click to Continue Reading...

The Cool “HWHIP”

Posted by Markco at 8:00 AM

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Hello folks! I'm Imperiexo from "News 4 Newbies." Since I began playing WoW while living in the desert sands of Las Vegas, I was left to figure things out for myself. My goal behind starting my blog, News 4 Newbies (#N4N), was to educate newer gamers on how to be Newbies instead of a N00B. In the first month, I wrote several posts about how to get going and how to slowly immerse yourself into the World of Warcraft (without getting burnt out or frustrated). In the future, #N4N plans to delve into the many, many ways to make GOLD in Azeroth. I hope you'll all give us a read! We enjoy helping others and making the WoW community a little more fun and friendly. /salute!

Since the arrival of Patch 4.2 not too long ago, I have been “reconfiguring” my daily routine which I first developed after my main, Imperiexo, reached Level 85.

After first reaching the level cap, I began to level my reputations in order to get all the reputation enchants by reaching Exalted with each faction necessary for DPS. It was back in this day that I began to develop my daily routines which I will discuss in #N4N’s first installment of:

The Cool “HWHIP”—How/What Have I Played—a little tribute to our friend, Stewie Griffin.

Click to Continue Reading...

IGold: Remote Auction House

Posted by Markco at 8:00 AM

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Written by Razz. If you'd like to see more posts from Razz, give a thumbs up in the comments!

This post will teach you how to make a lot of gold even though you’re not online. Or well at least not
in game. Picture yourself doing 5-10k extra every day while you´re in school, at work or with your
time-consuming girlfriend. Awesome right!?

I call it Igold, it`s not a revolutionary way of making gold, it`s just a new way of using your old skills
in a modern way. Whenever I`m at work, going to work or just slacking with my girlfriend I can just
pop up my AH remote on my iPad and put some Gems, Enchants or just materials like Volatiles etc
up. With the AH remote I can adjust my auctions to the markets ups and downs and in just that way
make 1xxxxx of gold in a few months.

I´ve been using the AH remote since the start of 2011 and made 1,45M G which is pretty good in my
world. Note that I only possess Enchanting, JC and low inscriptions so I have limited tools but I use
them very well. And I only started with a couple of hundred G.

I start my day by taking a coffee by the computer and prospect some ore if needed, shuffleshuffle,
and then I cut all gems I can, enchant some scrolls and then I’m off to work. This is like 25-30min
work and will generate $$ later on.

By reading the earlier post made by all the pros you can find all the tools that are needed for Igold
too, but here is a bullet list that I put together. Of course you can dig deeper in each one but this is
the key bullets that I use to make it as efficient as possible:

-The best time to sell is 7:00-9:00 , 16:00-20:00 and 00:00-7:00. (At my server)

-Make sure you know your competitors i.e. you know how they sell and when they do it.

-Don’t over flood the market i.e. you only have 200 ahs so make sure you use them right.

-Take advantage by knowing what to sell and how much you need for example crafting
Dreamcloth.

-Have as many different auction up as possible during the time periods mentioned above,
not meaning you should put up all crap you have but all gems, enchants, volatiles etc.

-If you can, control the market i.e. if it`s only one auction up and it`s cheap, buy it and re-
post it for a good price.

-Earlier posts always talk about patience, this way of selling is really demanding in that way.
You will not get rich in one day, a week or even a month. You have to keep those ahs up and
try to avoid your competitors when they over flood the market.

-Think of Igold as the extra icing on the cake, not your major income (even though it has
become that to me)

So to sum up Igold it is a way for you who see yourself as a goblin and want to earn that extra gold
when you usually make zero/nada. But it can also be helpful tool for you who hardcore raid, play a lot
of pvp and don’t have time for ah-leechin. Or maybe you do play 4-5h a day, but you just don’t want
to spend them at ah. In either way you can make extra by just keep your ahs on top and sometimes
use the fluctuations of the market.

I hoped you enjoyed the post and I`ll be happy to write more on how to really use the Igold more
efficiently.

Best regards

/Razz

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

The Cooldown - Understanding Truegold Demand in 4.2

Posted by The Lost Meeple at 8:00 AM

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Guest Post By Stede of Venture, LLT.
Let me just start by saying that I wrote this Guest Post for JMTC rather than my own blog, Venture, LLT, simply because I wanted to enrage a larger audience. So, lock & load your peashooters and take aim - and by all means, feel free to skip down after the next sentence to the comments and flame me, you lil volatile fireballs.

Oh poor Truegold - despite its efforts to remain the superhero of 4.2 stockpilers across the world, it is crippled. Yes, I said it - you guys with Truegold stocked up will end up selling them at marginal profits - not the through-the-roof prices you probably hoped for. There's a good explanation for this, but first, let's set the foundation:

First, there's gold in Azeroth - lots. As evidenced by the page hits Markco sees, more and more people are coming to the dark side and embracing their inner goblin. Blizzard has had to nerf the shuffle by an incredible 1200% to reign in the amount of gold that entered into the economy. This leads to competition when it comes to stockpiling. And Truegold is an easy target - 10 seconds of work for an item that everybody is gonna need. Why not grab some volatiles on the cheap and start stocking up on them? With margins as thin as 50g going into the patch - a lot of folks saw a big opportunity.

So, before I get that one guy that says, "I have the market to myself, Stede - you're an idiot," allow me to say: grats, sir - you may be excused to skip down to the blogroll (Markco - this guy needs your blogroll reposed - plz man, plz) to find more stimulating / less irritating reading. For everybody else who saw some teenage dude camp all your markets on TUJ while you were working your 9-5, read on.

So, we have our premise that the supply of Truegold is not anemic. I won't say it's inflated, but it is, at the very least, quite perfectly normal. Which brings us to the point that will bring much wailing and gnashing of teeth - the demand spike will not come. Any industrious goblin knows what will use Truegold - crafted epics. Namely, 365 Blacksmithing-Crafted Weapons, and 378 Crafted Gloves & Boots. These fall into their own two distinct classed.

The Weapons are purchased via the new daily Firleands questing currency - Marks of the World Tree. While the exact timeframe seems to have been a moving target to some degree, the survey says that we'll be 21 days into 4.2 before these recipes can be purchased. The good news is that they don't require any Living Embers (the new, unbound 'crusader orb' that drops only from new raid bosses). The bad news is that 365-359 = Six. Let that sink in. Six. Twenty-one days into the patch you can buy a new weapon at a ~5k+ crafting cost for an extra 6 ilvls.

But hey, why not, right? I'm reminded about the 346 Blacksmithing-crafted weapons in the last tier. Those didn't sell at all. Of course, 365 weapons don't drop from anything like heroic dungeons this time around, either - so, maybe, I'll be wrong, but 6 ilvls just seems so small. In any event, this doesn't seem like it will be a raider's cup of tea.

But what about that 378 gear? Well, that stuff requires a handful of those Living Embers I was telling you about - the ones that drop only from raid bosses. Which means, that for every 4 or more raid boss kills there are, there is an opportunity to craft one of these items. The bosses in Firelands on Normal difficulty drop the same 378 gear (Ragnaros drops 384, iirc). If you can down four of em, it shouldn't be that far-reaching to think that one may drop gloves or boots.

However - T12 gloves will be available for Valor Points, and will count towards your set bonus, and will be 378. The boots are different. We all recall the T11 Valor Boots, but you'll notice that there aren't any T12 Valor Boots. So, the boots recipes will probably be popular, but we're talking about 1 set of boots a week - tops, for every guild capable of clearing 4 bosses. There will be demand, but there will be enough of a bottleneck as far as Living Embers as to restrict demand for this gear considerably. I'm convince that demand won't be able to live up to the expectations most have (particularly when you consider the competition), and you'll see that reflected in stagnated Truegold prices.

The last point I want to make is that 359 epics will no longer be crafted and sold in any quantity worth considering. Nobody is gonna spend triple the crafting cost on 359 gear when T11 raids are nerfed to puggable facerolls, and 358 pvp gear is avilaible for 1/3-1/10th of the price. Well, maybe some poorly-informed, loaded noob who's in a rush to lvl his BDK so he c4$|-| !N on $w337 100t$ in Firelands will, but... on second thought, maybe that is a good market.

Of course, by extension, this makes all the BoE epic 378 hands recipes you noobs were trying to sell on Day 1 for 25k, are quite worthless. Although that's another story entirely, and good-effing-game if you managed to sell one for 25k, I'm certain that by the time this post pushes it's way to the front of the line that we'll all know that the drop rate on these is so high that even 5k is a gouge.

From where I sit, if you're sitting on more than 2 or 3 stacks of Truegold (maybe more if you're on a high pop server), and you're scratching your head at the indifference of your AH prices, it may be a good idea to start using your cooldown for living elements. Volatiles are going to stay in demand. Though some of that demand may seem transient, Fire and Earth are safe bets - strictly because people always need new leg armor - this will drive true market volume. If you stockpiled Volatile Life when it was low - start putting it to work. Keep an eye on things, though - they always seem to change if you don't.

Saving Gold in Azeroth #5

Posted by The Lost Meeple at 8:00 AM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Optimizing Gold While Leveling

Posted by The Lost Meeple at 8:00 AM

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Minimum Price: 75% of AuctionDB Market
• Maximum Price: 150% of AuctionDB Market
• Stacks of 1, 5, 20
• Click “Per Auction Cap”. This will allow TSM to post up to your stack size. For example, if I have 7 medium leather selling in stacks of 5, it will post one stack of 5 and one of 2 if I check this. If you don’t check it, it will wait until you have at least 5.

Creating Groups
Finally, create a group for each item. Navigate to the screen for creating groups, then drag an item into the box where you would type the name. TSM will automatically create a group with the item name and add the item. Do this for all the items you wish to sell.

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

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

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

Alliance Starter Gold Guide

Posted by Markco at 8:00 AM

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Greetings Just my Two Copper Gold Blog Community!

My name is Rip and I am an avid WoW player, gold maker, power leveler, and profession guru on the game of...you guessed it: World of Warcraft! I am here today to bring to you my first ever gold idea making post/guide to help the new players out, and it may even make some broke 85s a few bucks too. =P Below is a starter guide for the Alliance! If people like this one well enough, then I shall continue to write more guides, and I will make one for the Horde side as well! Here's to the community and to all you hard working gold makers! /cheers

Alliance Starters: Making gold for your low level expenses!

It never fails that I always see low levels running around Stormwind talking in either trade or whispering me and many other people saying, "Hey I need gold for my mount at level 20!" "Is there a guild charter I could sign for just  few gold!?

I need my mount!" "Hey can you give me ideas on how to make gold? I'm broke and I'm new to WoW!" Well I am here to say this to you my Alliance "newb" friends! YOU CAN MAKE ALL THE GOLD YOU NEED FOR YOUR LEVEL 20 MOUNTS!!!

Now some of you are probably thinking, "Yeah he'll tell us to go farm ore, skin, or herb for 50000000000 hours on end and then I get to try to make the money to post it on the auction house, and then I have to..." I know who you are, and I know EXACTLY how you feel! Which is why I am here to say: NEVER AGAIN!!! No more hours of grinding, no more hours of slaving away, no more hours of misery in trying to make gold and failing, HOWEVER, it will take some time! :D

The first thing you want to do is make a banker toon and post him/her at the Auction House in Stormwind (Dwarven District or Trade District). Then you need to make two more alts that will be "gatherers". One of the alts you need to run to the Inn (Pig and Whistle Tavern) inside of the Old Town District in Stormwind and park him next to Kendor Kabonka. Why you ask!?!?

Well what a wonderful question!!! Let me explain:

In WoW there are many different people, but most of them are lazy when it comes to recipes, pets, mounts, and other items, and they don't bother to use tools, resources, or take the time and effort to save themselves gold. So what do they do? They hop on their jolly old mounts, prancy up to the auction house, and say, "Hello my dear auctioneer friend! I have come to be kicked in the butt by the newbs that are ripping me off royally and I don't give a weasel's hiney!" Which is what they might as well be saying! So you're going to buy the recipes and repost them on the AH for up to 20 times as much as what you paid for them!!!

Now a little tip/hint on this to help you make maximum profit. Make sure that: 1. You do NOT buy the Bind on Pickup recipes, or else you've wasted money! 2. Write down all of the names of the recipes (On toilet paper, a post it note, or you sister's blanket! Although if you get a whoopin' then it's not my fault! :P) and check to see which ones are going for the most! Also look at the supply of them on the Auction House. If someone is posting 5000 Westfall Stew recipes, then he's obviously an ignorant moose, he is blatantly letting the other people know that it's easy to get, and he doesn't care to make a profit. So be wise, and do not over flood the auction house! NOW!!!...on to the SECOND alt!

This one will be a little bit harder to get to where he needs to go, but it is definately worth it! You need to run the level 1 alt down to Booty Bay! WHAT ARE YOU CRAZY THERE ARE LEVEL 20 AND 30 MOBS DOWN THAT WAY! THEY'LL ROFL PWN ME UNTIL I'M CORPSE

DUST! Yes, you will die MWAHAHA, BUT....it will be well worth it! HOW IS IT GOING TO BE WORTH IT!?!?!? What a wonder question! :D

I'll be happy to explain!

In Booty Bay there are 2 key NPCs that will help you make money along with the Neutral Auction House. Those NPCs are Kelsey Yance, a cook/recipe vendor inside The Old Port Authority building, which is the first building you come to on the docks when you come down the ramp from the tunnel out of STV on your left. He sells many recipes that are for fishing, and many people know now that fishing and leveling up your cooking go hand in hand! So once again the high ol' jolly prancing weasel "master" of WoW is going to go to the Auction House and say, "Yes dear sir give me that fishing recipe and take my pocket book! Go on and throw it out the window! I don't care!" What

does that mean for YOU!?!? You get lots of moolah, money, gold, dough, pay, cash, etc. You get the idea! Now on the next important NPC!

The next NPC is in the SAME building right beside Kelsey Yance! That person's name is Narkk! 

What's so special about him!? Why he sells the most fantastic birds you ever did lay your eyes on AND he also sells a limited pattern of: Pattern: Black Swashbuckler's Shirt! What is so

wonderful about that? Well everyone makes a banker toon, some people like to Role-Play (NO WAY GET OUTA HERE!!! Yep...it's true!), and some people like to just run around when they are bored in different outfits! What better way than to wear a pirate shirt, get a hat, and run around with

a parrot on your shoulder me hearties! YARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!

Now the general idea here is that you want to check the recipes of the fish on the Alliance Auction House and see what they are going for and if anyone is flooding the market with the recipes! Check and do the same thing that you did with the Pig and Whistle Tavern Recipes from Kendor Kabonka. Only buy what is going for up 3-5 times what you paid for the recipe and post it to sell it! The idea here is that you want to make maximum profit and if you flood the market, then you make people think that it's easy to get, and they will check. If you only post one or two of a recipe though then most people usually go like this, "OH MY GOSH THERE'S ONLY A FEW! I'D BETTER BUY IT QUICK!" That means you get lots of money!

Now I am sure that you are all thinking, "This is a wonderful idea!....but how do I get the money to buy these recipes when it can cost up to a gold!?" That is a wonderful question indeed! Let me help you out there as well! Since you're new, you'll be leveling up a character of course, and as

you level up a character you're going to make money from quest rewards, and you will see many animals, ore veins, and flowers to be picked as you quest in your merry adventures! Now before you wig out and go, "I THOUGHT YOU SAID HOURS OF FARMING WAS OVER!!!" let me explain. As you are leveling up your professions you are questing. You don't need to go way out of your way to find herbs, ore, or animals to skin. Just make sure that once you reach level 5 (or whatever level it is you reach whenever you are out of your INITIAL starting zone) that you get a gathering profession that you think will be beneficial to you in the long run. In example: Mining = Stamina bonus if you're going to tank, Herbalism = Haste bonus if you're going to be a healer or caster, Skinning = Critical Strike Bonus if you're going to be a hunter, rogue, or maybe even an Enhancement shaman. As you continue to quest use your profession to gather materials that you can send to your Auctioneer Alt to sell for money which can then be mailed to your gatherer alts to purchase the recipes.

Now I am going to do you a HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE favor and tell you how to save money, and make even more as you're leveling! Do NOT, yes I said NOT, buy gear EVER until you're level capped at 85 (Even then make it, farm regulars, do heroics, the new "Zeroics", or PvP

Battleground

Grind to get gear to save gold)! Now I am going to tell you a tip to get you more gold! When you come across armor that is Bind on Equip that you do not need do NOT just vendor it! Send it to your Auctioneer Alt, sell it fairly cheap, and make a profit off of it. Do the same with any cloth that you find as you are leveling, unless you have Tailoring or First-Aid that you are leveling. Many people want to level their professions fast, and cloth is a fairly commonly purchased item that can give you a decent bit of gold. There is one more secret that I will teach you to master as a new player in WoW that many people don't ever do, or that they learn many ages later! That is the secret of "Confucious say:" Arbitrage! What is this Arbitrage you speak of you say!?!? Well let me tell you! -Rocks in a rocking chair and shakes a cane- Many years ago...oh...

Arbitrage is this: "In economics and finance, arbitrage (IPA: /ˈɑrbɨtrɑːʒ/) is the practice of taking advantage of a price difference between two or more markets: striking a combination of matching deals that capitalize upon the imbalance, the profit being the difference between the market prices. 

When used by academics, an arbitrage is a transaction that involves no negative cash flow at any probabilistic or temporal state and a positive cash flow in at least one state; in simple terms, it is the possibility of a risk-free profit at zero cost." HOLD ON THERE I'M NOT AN ENGLISH TEACHER!!! Don't worry I'll tell you in SIMPLE terms!

When you Arbitrage on WoW you're going to take advantage of a market! The Cross-Faction Market! I already here you asking "What is the Cross-Faction Market?!" This is a market that involves you taking an item that is only purchasable by one faction, putting it on the neutral Auction House

and allowing the other faction to purchase it, thereby making it accessable to the other faction! Now you are wondering, "What kind of items are those!?"

It is a simple answer that I shall say that will devistate you: PETS!!! Yes, you heard right pets, companions, animals, kittys, owls, birds, rabbits, and more that are only accessable for one faction unless put onto the Neutral Auction House. "Where can I get some of these!?" you ask!? Well that is to be revealed next:

You must go to a distant land! The land of Elwynn Forest, right outside of Stormwind, and make the perilous, dangerous journey to the dreaded, horrible, money making, schemeing, evil Donni Anthania <Crazy Cat Lady>. She resides in a cozy little cottage right outside of Northshire! As you are leaving

Northshire there will be a tiny little cottage, house, on the right hand side of the road with a fence around it on the side. Inside is Donni Anthania who sells cats, has cats, wears cats, and let's hope she don't eat her cats. The cats cost about 50 silver a piece from her, but when you acquire some, mail them to your "gatherer" down in Booty Bay, and put some on the Neutral Auction House for up to 10-20 times as much as what you have paid for them. I have sold the cats sometimes for as much as 60 gold a piece! That is roughly 30 times as much as what you paid for them! If you want to be safe, then log on to your Booty Bay gatherer and see what each cat is going for, or if there are any on the Auction House. If there are none, then you get to name your own price and don't go 

too low! As I have said, I have sold them for 60 gold a piece!

Well my friends this is just an Alliance starter guide for gold! Feel free to leave any comments, feedbacks, suggestions, or more ideas below! This is a community, so work together, improve, come up with more ideas, and expand your epic bank and become richer! If you like this post/guide then let me know and if so, then I would be happy to make a starter guide for the Horde side as well! Thank you, God bless, and happy gold making! :D

Sincerely,

Rip the Shaman

Supplying Profession Levelers

Posted by The Lost Meeple at 8:00 AM

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Hey everyone this is XanderEragon from Xander's Goldmine. Feel free to visit my blog. And I just want to say thank you to Mageshadow and to Markco for allowing me this opportunity!

Within this post, I want to talk about supplying players that are leveling their professions. The main professions you want to focus on are crafting professions. Now I’m not saying making leveling kits as they do sell, but you will see a better return from selling it individually then selling them in bulk. There is a great resource that will help you find out what items are needed to level each profession if you haven’t been there before then you should definitely check it out because this is the best profession leveling resource out there. You will want to visit www.wow-professions.com and you will see how to level every profession the fastest way possible. It even tells you how to level the gathering professions.

Now when you go to the website and click on any crafting profession and scroll down, you will see a list of approximate materials you will need to level from 1-525. Now as you scroll through this list take notice of certain items that you can obtain by doing your daily routine whether it is from questing, farming, or farming the auction house. I clicked on Leatherworking and as I’m scrolling down the list I’m taking notice to items like Volatiles, Eternals, and even the Crystallized Waters. Now if you enjoy farming herbs and ore you can make a great deal of profit from selling them. Now think about this for a minute, if you target specific players with what you are selling, then you can make a lot of gold faster than the average player.

What I mean by this is if you are an ore farmer and your main focus is on the big ore like Obsidium and Elementium ore than you have noticed the price change as of 4.1 and you are thinking mining isn’t as profitable as it used to be. Now what I want you to do is go to www.Theunderminejournal.com and have a look at the mining page and see what ore is selling for how much. If you notice, there are some low level ore that sells for up to 5g each; that’s 100g a stack! And it doesn’t take much to get 20 stacks and sell them in the auction house. I’m also noticing by a quick scan over this information, the price of the Obsidium and Elementium bars are at about triple the price of the ore.

If you go and look at the Blacksmithing profession leveling guide you may notice that you need 166 Obsidium Bars and 344 Elementium Bars. Now if you scroll farther down the page you can see what is what. Looking at this you will see what items you should make to level the fastest way possible. You will also notice how many mats are needed for each item. If you think about this for a minute, the first thing that should come to mind is the stack size you are posting. You don’t want to sell 344 Elementium bars in stacks of 1 because you are flooding the auction house and you are killing yourself in sales if someone comes behind you and sells in different stack sizes, you will notice they are getting the sales and you are not. Now why is this? Because most WoW players are lazy and would rather click once then click 20 times to get a stack of ore, since it saves the player time.

So in conclusion, this “market” is nearly untapped for certain items that are hard to obtain because there is not very many players leveling/questing in the lower to mid-level zones. So this opens up a whole new market for you, and with just a little work you can see what is needed on your server to make it easier for those players to level their professions.

How to make heroic runs profitable

Posted by Markco at 8:00 AM

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Guest Post By: Cataclysmic Wow Gold Blog

Today I am going to tell you about a little known technique that will allow you to make Heroics profitable AFTER you have spent all your justice points. Of course Heroics are fun and when you are doing them to get those justice points for gear they are well worth it but after you have got the gear you need what then?

Well most people find that they run heroics to help other guildies and you might well find that you are running them well after you have anything to spend the Justice points on!

I know loads of people that have their justice points capped at 4000 and they are just sitting there!

Well they have all the gear they need so they don’t need the points right?

Here Is How You Can Make The Most Of Those Unspent Justice Points:

If you have lots of Justice points to spend then you should head over to Stormwind or Orgimmar as there are vendors there that will sell gathering or enchanting materials for these points!

The beauty of this is that all it costs is time and since you would normally be spending that time in heroics anyway, either for dailies or valour points, helping friends or just boredom it is well worth doing.

Advice:

Remember to compare materials on the Auction house before choosing your item to buy!

Options include leather, ore, enchanting materials and herbs however the herbs you receive are random and if you get unlucky you might not make anything much from them at all.

So that is something to bear in mind!

The herbs have the highest price per item in points as not all the materials have equivalent pricing!

However if you need to spend those Justice points then head over to your capital City and get them spent...

For more techniques on how to make gold in WOW check out the Cataclysmic WOW Gold blog.

You're (Not) Going to be Rich!

Posted by The Lost Meeple at 8:00 AM

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Guest Post By Deepcut From Warcraft Gold Analysis
My name is Deepcut, and I currently play on the Eldre'Thalas realm. After seeing all the fuss about "Blizzard Sanctioned Gambling" in World of Warcraft, I decided to see if I could help the community by running an experiment of my own. I emailed Markco of Just My Two Copper with my idea, and with that decided to start with my first gold-making blog.

Statistically Speaking
I am a finance major here at the local university and I also enjoy spending my time in World of Warcraft making gold. I was recently inspired to see if I could successfully perform meaningful statistical analysis on Mysterious Fortune Card. I was inspired by the blog World of Warcraft Fortunes.

The House Always Wins

What was I setting out to do (besides lose a ton of money)? At the basic level, I wanted to be able to predict the expected value when flipping a Mysterious Fortune Card with reasonable accuracy. Originally I had estimated I could calculate within 70-75 silver, however, I didn't take into account what the 5,000 gold card (I actually got one!!!) would do to the analysis. I also wanted to see if I could figure out any rhyme or reason to the possible drop rates of any individual card.

 

So, over the course of a couple of weeks, I gathered up over 8,000 Mysterious Fortune Cards and then tried my luck.  Here's the statistics rendered from flipping the cards:


Crunching the Numbers

What does this data mean? Well, it means after flipping 8,062 cards, I am 95% confident (which is pretty good), the expected value of a Mysterious Fortune Card is 2g28s27c +/- 1g27s53c (1g0s74c to 3g55s8c). At a cost of roughly 11g each, there is hardly a profit to be made from flipping the cards.

Also it shows that I made back a paltry 18,402g on my nearly 90,000g investment. Here are the percentages of the flips:  -->

Click to Continue Reading...

King Aurther and Opportunity Cost

Posted by The Lost Meeple at 8:00 AM

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Post by Kammler from Kammler's Korner
One of my favorite movies is the 2004  King Arthur (Clive Owen, Keira Knightley) Not only is it told with an interesting twist on the Arthurian legend but it also contains one of my favorite movie scenes of all time.

Arther and his knights are escorting a Roman noble and his family to safety ahead of the invading Saxons. They must complete this task to earn freedom from their servitude to Rome. In his benevolence, Arthur chooses to escort the noble's vassals in the evacuation. This act of kindness slows their escape dramatically--what with oxen pulling carts, elderly and nearly crippled peasants and the only horses belonging to Arthur and his knights.

Unencumbered and hungry for a fight the Saxons march all night and at a much more war-like pace. Finally, the Saxons are nearly upon Arthur and the procession as the escape route runs smack into a frozen lake in the mountain pass. With no way around, they must cross it--slowly, because the combined weight of too many knights in one spot may crack the ice and plunge them to their deaths.

Arthur sends the noble and the remaining procession forward to Hadrian's wall whilst he and his knights stand to battle the Saxons upon the frozen lake. Outnumbered 25-1, the knights prevail with only one casualty.

But what does this have to do with opportunity cost?


In its purest form, an opportunity cost is the loss of an alternative course of action that occurs when a different course of action is chosen. Most often we think of opportunity cost in terms of financial choices--investment, jobs, or even earning gold in WoW. But it also applies to Arthur in this movie scene.

His choice is to stand and fight despite being horribly outnumbered. His opportunity cost is that of moving closer to reaching safety at Hadrian's wall. Other choices were also eschewed--setting traps for the Saxons, waging guerrilla warfare against them as they marched, slowing the invaders so that the caravan could make it to safety, etc.

The Challenge
Similarly, our choices of how to earn gold in WoW are zero sum choices--the are mutually exclusive due to time. One cannot both gather herbs AND craft glyphs at the same time. The choice to do one or the other makes the one not chosen the opportunity cost of the other selection.

Because in WoW we can gather herbs and THEN go mill them, make ink, buy the parchment, craft the glyphs and list them in the AH many players get confused by thinking the materials did not cost them anything. No gold was actually expended, right? These players believe that since they gathered the materials themselves they "saved" the cost of purchasing them on the AH. And this line of thinking can also further degrade the AH economy by leading players to dramatically undercut auctions, which can hurt everyone.

Here's a simple example using one stack of Elementium ore. Two players are involved, both starting at the SW auction house. Who earns more?

Two Paths Diverged in a Lonely Wood....

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Full Scale Jewelcrafting in Cataclysm

Posted by The Lost Meeple at 8:00 AM

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Guest post by Stede from Venture, LLT
I’ve been promising my readers a guide for nearly two weeks.  During that time, I’ve been posting on topics that have finally culminated in what I hope will become a worthwhile resource for the community.  Enjoy.

Part I – Preliminaries

   IA – Preface

   IB – Intro

Part II – Theory

   IIA – Ore

   IIB – Gems

   IIC – Minimizing Waste

   IID – Crafted Jewelry

Part III – Execution

   IIIA – Buying

   IIIB – Selling

   IIIC – Shuffling

   IIID – Keeping it Together

Part IV – Wrapping Up

I. PRELIMINARIES

IA. Preface

This guide is written mainly for top-level Jewelcrafters who want to get the most out of their business.  I’ll be presuming prior knowledge of how Jewelcrafting works, and that you know how to use add-ons to list your wares.  I’ve tried to avoid math wherever possible.  I feel this is more easily demonstrated & understood when working with a spreadsheet than reading a wall of text & numbers.  I recommend using my take on Sterling’s spreadsheet, which you can download and play with here.

IB. Intro

If you’ve read my blog, you’ve heard me talk about PIE – the amount of gold people are willing to spend on your server today.  It changes every day, and it moves between market segments based on demand.  We don’t directly influence demand; we profit off it.  To make gold, the avid auctioneer will research where PIE is going, leverage diversity to follow it there, position himself for the sale, and then rely on a bit of luck to snag it. 

I put the key words in green and bold.  I won’t drag you through a lecture on economic philosophy, but if you’re into that sort of thing, checkout a few of my blog posts.

Jewelcrafting is primarily an enhancement profession.  It provides a way to add stats to gear.  We all understand the importance of enchants, gems, flasks, and food – a little bit here and there adds up to a noticeable difference.  In this guide, you’ll probably find a lot of stuff you already know, but there will be that little bit here & there that add up to a big difference.

II. THEORY

IIA. Ore

The blood of every non-gathering profession is materials.  For jewelcrafters this is primarily ore.  In previous expansions, jewelcrafters also relied on bars to craft settings, but now settings are bought from an npc.  Bars are used only in crafting higher level jewelry (which also uses volatiles and Chimera’s Eye).

Gems hardly drop off nodes in Cataclysm, though I think I have seen it happen (could have been a Red-Bull-induced delusion, though).  So, ore is your best, and almost always, cheapest source of gems.  Let’s have a quick look at the average yield rates from prospecting at stack of each type:

Obsidium: 6 uncommon gems, 1/3 rare gem

Elementium: 4 uncommon gems, 1 rare gem

Pyrite: 4 uncommon gems, 2 rare gems, 8 volatile earth

IIB. Gems

So, what can you make with this stuff?  From a basic perspective, rare gems can be cut and sold on the AH and crafted into higher level jewelry.  Uncommon gems can be sold raw, cut and vendored, and crafted into lower level jewelry. 

Throwing a couple professions into the mix adds a couple options. With access to an alchemist, you can transmute uncommon gems into meta gems, and with access to an enchanter, you can disenchant the low level jewelry into enchanting mats.  Diversity is good.

Now, let’s break this down a bit further so we’re all on the same page here.  There are a handful of main uses for raw uncommon gems:

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Define Your Niche and Know Your Market To Guarantee Long-term Profits

Posted by The Lost Meeple at 8:00 AM

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Guest Post By Aliciana from Adventures in Warcraft

Image Credit: Nerf Faids

In any business professional marketers and economists will tell you that the best way to guarantee continuous long term profits is by defining both your niche (area of specialty)  and your target market (who you want to sell to), and then dominating that particular market.  As a person who has owned multiple businesses over the last two decades and who has also applied this principle to making gold in World of Warcraft, I can vouch for the fact that defining your niche, and continually operating within that niche,  is the absolute best way to make steady recurring profit. 

The easiest way to begin to define your niche is to start with whatever professions you are leveling. What materials do you gather or what items do you craft that are consistently in high demand?  Are there any other uses for a particular crafted item? You may also want to look at items that drop consistently while you are questing? Once you have the above figured out, then you can begin to build up your base inventory which consists of staple items that sell consistently at a guaranteed price point over the long term.

A great example of staple items are bags. Every single person in the game needs bags to carry their materials and inventory and each crafting profession has several bags that they can learn to craft. However, some bags sell better than others so as a seller you may have to monitor the Auction House for a short time and go through a little bit of trial and error to figure out which ones sell the best on your server. 

Once you have your base inventory of staple items established, then you can add additional items to further increase profits. Just remember that while specialty or trending items may sell for a lot more gold, their sales and price points are typically sporadic. That is why it is imperative to have this base of consistently selling items.   

The next step is to determine your target market. Figure out who is going to buy these items and why? It is also beneficial to know when your target market is most likely to purchase the items. For example, if you decide to focus on your Alchemy profession your niche and target market might look something like this:

• What = flasks and potion
• Who = players who are running instances and raiding.
• Why = the flasks provide useful buffs that increase their stats.
• When = what nights are the most popular raid nights on your server?

By focusing on a specific niche making gold becomes much easier because the seller becomes an expert who:

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Making Gold With Archeology

Posted by The Lost Meeple at 8:00 AM

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Guest Post By Miss Mediocre, from her blog, Miss Mediocre

Greetings JMTC readers, I am Miss Mediocre. I wanted to write a guest post about making gold with Archaeology, because I believe the majority of players who are interested in making gold have yet to give Archaeology a shot. At first glance it really doesn't appear to be a good gold maker, and I don't believe Archaeology could take the place of any of your main professions, but it can be a nice way to make some gold while you're out doing other things!

In case anyone is unfamiliar with Archaeology, I'll briefly explain the basics. It is the new secondary profession, meaning like cooking, fishing and first aid, anyone can train it at any level in addition to your two main professions. You do gain experience when digging up fragments from dig sites, which are shown as little shovels on your map, so it can be a viable way to level without questing, even past level 80. You also have a chance at finding 6 Bind to Account level 85 epics with an item level of 359 which now that epic gear is a bit more difficult to obtain, makes Archaeology slightly more appealing.

The best thing about Archaeology is that you can just do it as you're doing other things. The dig sites on your map are only available to you, so there's no rush to get to one before another player cleans it out. This means you can just stop at the dig sites whenever you happen to be in the area. I like to work on Archaeology as I'm mining or picking herbs or waiting in que for a battleground or dungeon. It can get pretty tedious going out and doing it for hours and hours on end, so unless you're set on finding one of the BoA epics, I'd avoid that approach, and just work away at it whenever you can.

Just a note in case any of you expect to read about the Vial of the Sands in my post, I'll clarify quickly as to why farming the recipe isn't a good way to make gold with Archaeology. The Recipe : Vial of the Sands is Bind on Pickup and can only be seen in a canopic jar (which is a Tol'vir relic) by Alchemists. The thing that was changed to Bind on Use was the Vial itself. Even finding a canopic jar is a feat, as Tol'vir dig sites only have a chance to appear once you've reached 450 Archaeology, and then there's only a chance the canopic jar will be the relic you have to solve. Plus, the recipe has a fairly low drop rate from the jar as well.

Now onto how to actually make some gold! While you're out finding fragments at dig sites, you also have a chance of finding uncommon keystones. There is one type of keystone for each race, and if added to certain relics with keystone slots, one keystone can take the place of 12 fragments (roughly one dig site's worth).

Keystones :

• Tol'vir Hieroglyphic - Tol'vir, Uldum
• Vrykul Rune Stick - Vrykul, Northrend
• Nerubian Obelisk - Nerubian, Northrend
• Draenei Tome - Draenei, Outland
• Orc Blood Text - Orc, Outland
• Dwarf Rune Stone - Dwarven, Mostly Eastern Kingdoms
• Highborne Scroll - Night Elf, Mostly Kalimdor
• Troll Tablet - Troll, Mostly Eastern Kingdoms

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Farming Spots In Hyjal

Posted by The Lost Meeple at 8:00 AM

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Guest Post By Altolycus from Altos Gold"ish" Advice
First off, I would like to thank Markco for getting me started in my quest for gold in the game of World of Warcraft….. Most of you know me as Alto from over at Alto’s Gold”ish” Advice - The Worst WoW Blog Ever! I am grateful to have this opportunity to have a guest post at JMTC. I am going to be talking about a spot that I have been farming now for some time, stumbling on it by complete accident.  Here’s the story:

I was questing in Hyjal some time back, and got completely bored of the content (second toon leveling there, already saw the new content, so not impressed anymore…).

I decided at that point to bust out the trusty fishing pole, and farm a few pools for the Volatile Fires (2-4 per pool). There are a few that spawn randomly here, so within a few minutes work (and a little luck), you can hit 500g quite quickly. (FYI-Don’t forget to use your find fish to assist in finding the pools of fish easier….)

So after farming up the pools (and waiting for the respawns), I decided to look for a few pockets to pick (for the Flame Scarred Junkboxes- and the slim chance of getting an epic drop),  I ended up right next door (where my cursor is sitting in the picture) in Ascendant’s Rise, finding  some ripe mobs that were in need of getting their pockets emptied by yours truly.

Twilight Subjugator (tauren, troll, and what seems to be a humanoid type) were all on the list. After picking them, I would smash the mob, and very quickly, as they have very low health for 81 mobs. To my surprise, they started to double spawn right on top of me. Literally…. The spawn rate was so fast that I could barely run through half of the town before respawns, if they didn’t already. They drop decent loot, around 1g per in cash, Embersilk Cloth (about 15% I gather), greens (around 5%- great for D/E’ing- not so much for AH sales anymore), and plenty of greys that vendor for 2-6g each.  To the left is an example of a loot that I obtained from one Twilight Subjugator.

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The best fishing spot in Cataclysm? The desert of course!

Posted by The Lost Meeple at 8:00 AM

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Guest Post by Wes from Capped By Cata

 The best fishing spot in Cataclysm?  The desert of course!

One of the most underrated money making skills right now is undoubtedly fishing.  There are a couple reasons for this.  For the most part, fishing is a love it or hate it skill.  There isn’t much of a middle ground.  For some, fishing is a bore that they will never be interested in.  For others, it’s a nice way to pass the time while playing WoW.  Relaxation of sorts.  Combine this with the fact there is so much new content to be focused on, many have forgotten totally about fishing.  But not me.

    I have fished since day one of Cataclysm.  Missing realm first by about 10 minutes.  But that is neither hear nor there.  The point is, fishing has received a lot of changes that have made things more exciting. If all of the new changes aren’t enough, then maybe finding out the right way to go about fishing will help.

    To make the very most of this expedition you need two skills*.

    * 500 Mining - 475 is the minimum, but 500 to make the most of rich veins
    * 1 Fishing - That’s not a typo.  Just go to the trainer and learn fishing.
    * *Epic Flying and 100 Fishing skill make things easier, but are not necessary.



Here is how the process works.  Head to Uldum.  Turn on Find Minerals and Find Fish (100 Fishing Skill needed for this. If you don’t have 100, don’t worry about it.  That’s why I made the map.) Head to the North Western most part where there is an oasis.  Here you’ll want to saddle up and get to fishing.  What you’re looking for are “Blackbelly Mudfish Schools”. I have found them to be the most populated in the circled parts of the map.  These are “Sweetspots” if you will.  Usually two to three pools clustered together with little to no competition.  You can pull anywhere from 3-5 fish out of each pool. The best thing about fishing from the pools are that you’re guaranteed to never catch any junk no matter what level you are.  So you won’t be wasting any time, just fishing for profit.   Fish the nodes until you have exhausted them.  Then mount up and get ready to mine.

The mining spots circled are two of the very best “Sweetspots” in Uldum.  These are spots where you can usually find anywhere from 2-5 nodes clustered together.  If you hit them at the right time, you can snatch up as much as two stacks of Elementium from these two spots alone.  After you have exhausted those, return to the oasis and more fishing pools should have re-spawned and by ripe for the picking.

    From that point forward the process is simply rinse and repeat.  Your results may very depending on how many people are mining on your server.  That’s the only tricky part, as I’m certain no one will be competing for you fishing nodes.  Now, I know what your thinking.  What does the money look like?  Good question.  Here is a breakdown:

On a perfect 10 minute cycle with all “Sweetspots” up.  (This is the spawn time I have seen. Your results may vary as I think they are zone population dependent.) I’ve been able to average one stack of Blackbelly Mudfish and a stack and a half of Elementium ore.  Currently on my server Blackbelly Mudfish are going for just a hair over 100g a stack and Elementium Ore has leveled out at about 100g a stack.  So my average ten minute take is 250g.  Now spawn rates are not always perfect and you won’t always get those “sweetspots” but in a perfect scenario you could be talking about 1500g an hour.

The key here is using fishing to subsidise your income.  While mining may be your main money maker, adding fishing to the mix will allow you to make the most out of your time.  Instead of flying around the zone following that one Alliance Paladin or Horde Deathknight wait in the middle of the “sweetspots” and fish your bags full of money.

I look forward to seeing you in the desert. Maybe even on a horse...with no name. (Horrible pun)

Arbitrage: What is it and why aren't I doing it?

Posted by The Lost Meeple at 8:00 AM

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Post by Faid of Nerf Faids

Arbitrage is, quite simply, buying things from the opposing faction's Auction House, or the neutral AH, to sell on your faction's, or vice versa.  It's a pretty simple concept that seems to be lost to a lot of auctioneers.  Why? It can be very intimidating, the pure logistics of moving the items across factions was daunting enough to scare me away for a long time.  Many players assume that the prices they pay are the same the opposing faction is paying for the same item, but it rarely is.  Don't be scared, and don't be fooled: Arbitrage is a gold mine.
What's so great about arbitrage?
Arbitrage . . .

    * . . . requires very little time. You're profiting from the farming of others!
    * . . . will help develop your goldological imagination.
    * . . . is not as cuthroat as other options. It's an intimidating practice to get into and so competition is low.
    * . . . is extremely fun and profitable!


Why now?
Arbitrage is not a new thing, people have been doing it for quite some time and certain addons, such as Auctioneer, actually have built-in tools to help in arbitration.  So why focus on it now? Fluctuation!

New Cataclysm items have flooded the Auction House and demand for everything is high.  Be it something as simple as Whiptail or Volatile Air, or be it a big ticket item like a Crossfire Carbine, there's a lot out there for people to purchase.  Factions can value items very differently.  How much gold is available, how much farming is happening, how much demand there is for raid consumables, and many other factors can influence how much an item is worth and, so long as players prefer their AH to the neutral auciton house, these factors are unique to each faction, not each server.

The overwhelming demand for anything coupled with the uncertainty of item values makes this a prime market for arbitration and you should be taking full advantage.

How do I do it?
The bare bones of arbitration requires a bit of gold on both factions.  If  you're looking to buy a big ticket item, expect to need a lot of gold on the purchasing faction's side.  If you're going for smaller items, like pets or trade goods, sometimes just 100g can be a good start.
The other requirement is a way to move these items across faction lines.  You are not able to buy the auctions of a character on your account. I personally use a second account but often you can request the help of a friend, guild made, or even tip someone from trade (if you trust them) to buy the auctions for you.

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