10 Rules To Price My Golem.

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 12:40 PM

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Mommar here.

Okay,  I will be honest that there really isn't going to be 10 rules.   But I happened to like the ABC show and felt it worked with the title.

The Sky Golem is the second high cost mount that was introduced with the Mists of Pandaria expansion.   Similar to the Jewelcrafting Jeweled Onyx Panther,  this mount will end up being a high expense/high profit mount for the profession.

So on with the rules

1.   It takes 30 days to make enough materials to make this mount.

Assuming you have both an Engineer and an Alchemist you can make these materials yourself.  Both are set on a 24 hour timer with the Jard's Peculiar Energy Source being BOP.  Now there is a work around using a Spirit of War for an accelerated crafting time but they are so expensive that it would be a waste to use these to get the item one day faster.  The Living Steel can be purchased from the AH but,  if you are already needing 30 days to craft the Energy Source it makes just as much sense to use that time to make your own Living Steel Bars.

2.   It's going to be in high demand.

 Everyone wants a fricking transformer.  Even someone starting out in the game and seeing this fly around will want to know how they can get it.  Supply and demand decide the prices on items.

3.   There are many more engineers out there than most people know.

Many players have alternate toons that have engineering on them.  Between Cataclysm and MOP very useful and profitable items were introduced.  Plus those wonderful toys that early engineers get can make the game enjoyable.

4.  I can make it and you can't.

This may sound rude, but Warcraft is not a popularity contest.  Where I believe you can be honest and generous most of the time,  it is not my job to provide someone with cheap items.  The Jeweled Onyx Panther required a player to obtain exalted status with the Order of the Cloud Serpents plus purchase the materials.  The main material that was BOE (you can always buy and bring your own) was the Orb of Mystery. Unless you were one of the lucky ones that had it drop for you the upfront money was between 72,000g and 80,000g.  That by itself prohibits the Jeweled Onyx Panther to be a cheap mount to purchase.  Instead of needing the reputation to craft this you need to have the pattern drop and then remember your daily timer for 30 days.  Players who purchase this item are paying for time instead of up front materials.

5.  Players will craft the Sky Golem for themselves first.

This goes hand and hand with supply and demand.  Starting with the Mechano-hog (or alliance version) from Wrath of the Lich king,  engineers finally got a cool item for themselves.  Alchemist received a cool mount during the Cataclysm campaign.  This is another status item for Engineers to be able to show off with.  So this will limit just how many will be available for the 'normal' non engineers.

So why is it important to know how to price your Sky Golem?  Because we are about halfway through to where the first ones will be born.  Players are already looking to have ones crafted on the cheap.  When the Mechano-hogs were first crafted and it cost 14k in materials players would want one crafted for 9k,  10k,  12k not realizing just how much of a loss that would be.  Even today I will get messages asking me to craft a Mechano-hog bike for 10k.  I explain to them the reasons why that isn't possible and they usually will nod in acceptance.  I have had some that argued with me that I was just trying to rob them and that I wasn't being fair.  Usually I laugh and place the hog on the AH waiting for another sale (I have sold 3 since the end of Cataclysm for 10k profit).

See,  I told you I wouldn't make it to 10 rules.    But I think it's just as important to know now as when the golem first roll off the production line of just where to price them.  Some players will look for a quick profit not knowing the goldmine they sit on.  If a player can afford to buy a mount for 50k,  with just a little bit more work they can afford to buy it for 75k.

Keep this in mind when your ready to craft that first of many transformers to add into your family.  How much is your time and effort worth?   How much do you think is too much profit?

Good Luck and Good Hunting

Want to get in contact with me? . Email me at Dragonbear @ 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. 

Timeless Isle Tagging Is For Rich Chumps
Bring Me the Alchemist
Welcome To Loot Pinata Island
Last Minute Buys and Sells
Patch 5.4: Mental Preparation
You Found What????
Hearthstone:   The Beginning
Patch 5.4: Budgeting for the Patch
Get thee To a TradeSkillMaster 2.0
Patch 5.4 Prep:  No Sleep til Brooklyn
Customer First
You're Squishing My Items
The Ways of The Force Are Strange
It's a Date.. Maybe?
Kill The Death Knight.. Kill It Now
Time to Remodel The Financial House
Sense Of Entitlement

Archealogy: Digging up stuff for gold

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 1:13 PM

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Mommar here.

Patch 5.2 is going to be bringing some changes to our favorite red headed stepchild profession Archeology.   Leveling Archaeology became a little bit more interesting (a little bit) with the additional digsites per area and some of the trinkets.  

One of the changes that have been dug (get it dug hee hee) out of the testing realms is the addition of another type of fragment.  The Mantis history will finally begin to be discovered.   Where there isn't a lot of information involved,  I would look to see a lot of new history to the bug wars as well as some new toys and even a few new weapons to find and clean up.

Undoubtedly with the new mantis fragments there will be some high requirements to obtain.  I would expect that the majority of the fragments won't be available to anyone that hasn't reached at least 525 on their Archeology (same as minimum level for digging things up in Pandaria).  Also the odds are that since the Klaxxi Kingdom is found mostly in the Dread Wastes you should have at least the majority of quests done in the area to have access to the phased areas.

If you did any digging during Cataclysm you remember that some of the dig sites were obscured due to the unlocking of some events in Uldum.  So if you're like me and love the lore you should get a head start on having this area cleaned out of quests before the 5.2 Patch.

Get ready to grab your pick and hit some rocks.  

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

Phoning It In....
Daily Quota Buying
Who Are You Feeding Sales Too?
Taking Advantage of 5.2 PVP Gear Changes
Patch 5.2 Prep:   Will players be returning?
Sales Triage
Lost In The Guild Traffic
Finally the end of Cataclysm
Preparing For the Future:   Alts 101
Anonymous Gold Goblin 
Eyes On The Auction House Prize
Self Motivation: The Key To Success
BMAH Blues Return
How Not To Make Gold
Time Management With Faction Grinding
Receipt Isolation Sales
Breaking Through The Wall
Transmog Me First

Leveling Interest

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 7:00 AM

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Mommar here:

I'm finding something interesting as I level up my Shaman goblin goddess.   I placed three pieces of BOA gear giving her a 30% boost in her XP rate.   As I was finishing up Azshara I was noticing that most of the quests ended up being low level giving me a lot less xp than I expected.

Some of this is due to using the Random Dungeon Finder to level as well.   This is giving me a large amount of XP as I'm racing through the goblin controlled territory.   I use an add-on from WOW-pro.com as my leveling source (it goes step by step,  hits all of the quests in an area,  and best of all it's free).

Having the tendency to stay on track when using a leveling guide I was hesitant to jump to another area and leave quests unfinished.  Most of the gear that I received during the quests were vendored for cheap cash.   It surprised me just how quickly that my leveling outdistanced the quests in the area.  

Cataclysm had its own base of BOA gear with xp boost technology.   This gives a strong advantage 
to players as they level their next crafter or gatherer.   It also puts them to have to pay attention to make
sure they are getting as much xp as they can.    If you have run through the quests in Vanilla Warcraft as 
well as the Burning Crusade and Wrath expansions,  jumping ahead into different areas when the quests 
turn gray can become beneficial.   Adding up the biggest bang for your buck is just as important in 
Experience points as it is in gold making.

My goal is to have my shaman hitting 85 by the end of next week.  Not sure if I will make it simpler
because time is not on my side.   But that sense of urgency of wanting to get a task done is starting to 
build again.  So hopefully I will reach my goals and have my own MOP prep done.

I will keep you posted

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

Hype Hype Hype
No Shirt No Service
Too Much Stuff
MOP Prep:  PokeWOW Part 1
MOP Prep: PokeWOW Part 2
Time to close businesses..
Would You Save World of Warcraft?
Tips for the Junk Impaired
Its not being lazy,  it's being unmotivated
Lost Pets for MOP
Leveling Digging, Grass Picking O My
Is it Worth It?
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

The Death and Life of Truegold

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 4:20 PM

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The alchemist dream all through the Cataclysm expansion was the Truegold transmutation.   Processing three volatiles ([Volatile Fire] [Volatile Air] and [Volatile Water]) could create mini fortunes for players. This was one of the most in demand crafted item during Cataclysm.

Fast forward to today and the lull between the Cataclysm expansion and the introduction of Mists of Pandaria.  Truegold demand is down,  as well as the profit margins in the material.  If you read the article I posted called Tipping Point I discussed the switch between production of Truegold and crafting volatiles.   All of this was dependent on your server and crafting demands.

A reader of the journal brought up an interesting point to me.  They had decided to start to collect Truegold for the MOP expansion.  Being honest I read his explanation and found that I had made a judgement error.   Interesting enough he used the same logic that I had to collect materials for another item during Mists of Pandaria.

In another article I discussed 5 things that an engineer should be selling.   One of the big money making items was the Mechano-Hog.   A new batch of players wanting cool and interesting mounts,  and whats better than a Motorcycle.  Well the reader brought up that there was one more ultra cool mount that might be in demand.  Vial of the Sands is the mount that turns a player into a two seated dragon.  This was in high demand during the Cataclysm expansion,  but at an ultra high cost.  Most servers had these at 41k plus,  or even higher.   With the rarity of the pattern on many servers (grinding out 525 archaeology and the right pattern from Uldum deterred many players from obtaining this).

So this brings us to an interesting dilemma.   Is there a 3rd tipping point between production of Truegold for quick profit sales  Production of Volatile Water or Volatile Air,  or collect Truegold for resell during Mists of Pandaria.   It was a very interesting theory that the reader had created.  So lets do a little math.

(all numbers provided by Theunderminejournal.com)

Truegold (median) = 332g


Volatile Life = 4.5g
Volatile Air (median) = 11g
Volatile Water (median) = 7g
Volatile Fire (median) = 6g
Pyrium Bar (median)  = 8g



To currently craft a piece of truegold it will cost you

Volatile Air x 10
Volatile Water x 10
Volatile Fire x 10
Pyrium Bar x 3

====================================

Total of 264g 

Selling at 332g

Profit margin of 68g

Now take 15 Volatile Life at 4.5g (67.50)

Transmuting 

15 Volatile Air (teleporting to Uldum)

15 x 11g = 165g 

165g - 67.50 = 97.50g profit

(yes,  I realize that you can proc a second set of elements.  This is the low side profit if there is not a 2nd set given)

15 Volatile Water (teleporting to Vashjir)

15 x 7g = 95g

95g - 67.50 = 27.50g profit

Now these are numbers for the current cycle between the Cataclysm expansion and Mists of Pandaria.  They will change once MOP is released and there is an upswing of demand for these volatiles.  Right now would be a wise idea to change your transmute to Volatile Air to save towards Mists of Pandaria profit taking.

Now a second option would be to start buying Truegold and if the materials are inexpensive 

and continue to use your Truegold timer.   Much of this depends on your current cost of materials, and also the selling point of your server.  These investment opportunities give you multiple variations for a long term investment for your Mists of Pandaria gold making project.  

Good Luck and Good Hunting

Time vs Gold Investment
Return to your Essence
Harmony - We Don't Need Harmony
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
Jewelcrafting dailies or something
Its All Attitude

It's the Little Things

The Doh Club

Psychology of Selling

Managing Inventory as Cataclysm Winds Down

Posted by Aleithia at 8:00 AM

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How do you calculate the cost of an item? Without getting into opportunity costs, let's assume all raw materials have a cost associated with them, even the self-farmed items. We'll use Dragonscale Leg Armor as an example as it only has two components: 1 Pristine Hide and 20 Blackened Dragonscales.

Figuring out the cost is easy enough for the Dragonscales: look up the data on the Auction House, your favorite pricing addon (ie, Trade Skill Master, Auctioneer or Auctionator) or at an independent auction site (The Undermine Journal, AH Spy). All will return different prices most likely, but you'll be able to get a good sense of what it's worth.

Pristine Hides are a bit trickier, because they can be purchased at three different levels:

• Buying 50 Savage Leather, converting them into 10 Heavy Savage Leather and trading for a Pristine Hide from the leatherworking supply vendors.
• Buying 10 Heavy Savage Leather and trading it in.
• Buying 1 from the Auction House.

So you calculate a cost for that Pristine Hide, add it to the Dragonscales and you've got the cost of one Dragonscale Leg Armor. Except it's a little more complicated than that. Here's why: raw goods aren't always worth what you paid for them, but rather what it would take to replace them.

Prior to patch 4.3, I purchased large amounts of Savage Leather to turn into leg enchants for sale after the patch. My average price was around 3.75 gold/leather, or 187.5 gold/Pristine Hide. The Blackened Dragonscale cost me around 14 gold each, or 280g/stack. Add in the cost of the hide, and I was able to make the armors for 467.5g each. Post-patch, they were selling for roughly 800g on average after the initial surge in pricing, for a profit of 333.5g. Not too shabby.

The problem is that replacing them costs much more now. Savage Leather is sitting around 6g on average (300/hide) and Blackened Dragonscale is actually down a bit at 13.75g or 275/stack. The cost of producing them now is 575g and the average sale price has dropped to around 700g. That's a profit of ~125g—Still nice, but not as good.

Of course, right now there's not a real problem because I'm still making a profit on the leg armors. But what if prices for finished goods have dropped below the cost of your materials? This is a very real possibility the longer 4.3 lasts before Mists of Pandaria comes out. Raid Finder has been great for business, but soon the large uptick in business will fade and prices will begin to dip lower and lower. So what to do?

Well, I've not been as aggressively restocking my large supply materials (Leather, Ores, Herbs) as aggressively, instead waiting for prices to drop and my inventory to dwindle. Some items will continue to hold value into MoP, but many won't. Rather than gamble on a large overstock of something, I'd rather use up my inventory and then restock as needed.

I'm also only restocking my limited supply items (enchanting mats) in small batches to better control my costs. The last thing I want to do is purchase 500 Maelstrom Crystals at 200g each, only to see them drop back down to 150 or 125 as more gear from raids and 5-mans starts getting sharded again.

The Cataclysm is far from over. Best case scenario, MoP arrives in May or June. More likely it's August or as late as December. But with the launch of Star Wars: The Old Republic, declining subscriber numbers and Dragon Soul fatigue soon to set in, it's time to start thinking about ending in a good position to start the next big surge with the release of Mists of Pandaria.

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.

Every Wow Server Varies

Posted by Markco at 8:00 AM

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Written by: Brandon.

We all know that on EVERY server the price for items varies. One week the items can be so outrageous and then another cheap as dirt. There are lots of ways people take advantage of this, and I would like to share mine.

My strategy is sorta different than most, but I guarantee it to sell stacks of product at a time! It all revolves around the fluctuation of the market. And by my strategy you do all your work at once, and sell it at once instead of stockpiling.

When the market is cheap and prices are low, people say that is when you buy mats....IT IS! But in my eyes, it is also the time to sell. Do not let that sentence fool you as I will further explain later. When prices go down, everyone buys mats and so forth, then wait for prices to go up and sell right? Well, that is a good strat. but it just takes too much work having to undercut so often or using tricky marketing tactics that require a lot of work just to sell a few of that item.

Click to Continue Reading...

Investing in Wow Gold Research

Posted by Markco at 8:00 AM

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Author: Aleithia.

I feel like I know the Jewelcrafting industry inside and out. My first character, started in the middle
of Wrath, was a JC. It feels pretty straight-forward to me, though it does have some hidden gems to
discover as well. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist the pun!) I did a lot of research as I was learning, which led to a more profitable business.

Offline Research

Spending some time out of game can help you increase your sales. If you’re reading this article, you
already know the value of reading gold blogs. While the specific tips you learn here will last for a while, it’s the strategies and broad-reaching concepts that will serve you well over time.

The recently redesigned WoWPopular.com does shows what gems, enchants, gear and glyphs are
popular. Sites like WoW-Heroes.com or AskMrRobot.com give gear, gem and enchant suggestions for
players. Raiders and casuals alike use sites like this to maximize their characters. Plug in some people
from your realm to see what they recommend for various classes.

Major forums and guides give similar suggestions. As a Paladin, Maintankadin.FailSafeDesign.com is
invaluable for me as I look at gems/enchants to use. ElitistJerks.com has gearing/chanting/gemming
guides for all classes. WoW-Professions.com has profession leveling guides. Find the choke points for
various professions and try controlling the market by buying out materials and relisting at a higher rate, or spend some time farming for those hard to find skill-up points.

In-Game Research

Click to Continue Reading...

Diversify Wow Gold (Part 2)

Posted by Markco at 8:00 AM

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Author: Aleithia

Last time we looked at diversifying our investments for short-term churn and 2-3 week investments.
Now it’s on to the longer term investments, including the next expansion!

Patch-Time Stock

Prices tend to decline over the life-cycle of a patch. They are strong in the beginning as people gear
up and need new enchants. There are fewer sellers as casuals go back to more time playing than gold-
making, coupled with more people buying: Auctioneer Win! I like to start stocking up on these items
when it feels like we’re 6-8 weeks away from a patch. This might include some of those same items in
our short-term churn category, but they might also include finished goods.

As we were nearing the end of 4.1, I stocked up on already cut Inferno Rubies from my competitors who were selling too low. The bump in price with 4.2 allowed me to turn a profit with almost no work. Nearly all base-line materials were affected when 4.2 came out. As they say on Battlestar Galactica: “All of this has happened before. All of this will happen again.”

This category is a little more risky. You might hit it big (Infernos), or you might miss big (Volatile Fire/Earth anyone?). This is not quite throw-away money, but it’s certainly not anything I’m counting
on getting back completely. Don’t invest too much here if you can’t sustain the earlier investment
categories. Don’t cripple your business investing here.

Long-Term Speculation

Click to Continue Reading...

Diversify Wow Gold (Part 1)

Posted by Markco at 8:00 AM

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Author: Aleithia

I recently wrote an article about investing in research here at JMTC. Another form of investment is
physical product. I treat my physical investments a lot like I do my real-life retirement account: diversify, dividing it up among low-, middle- and high-risk stocks. Similarly, we need to diversify our in-game investments. Your levels of investment might differ depending on your situation, so here are some areas

I look at:

Short-Term Churn

These are very short-term investments. It’s ore for prospecting, herbs for milling, mats for crafting on a regular basis. These are the items you will burn through quickly and turn a nice profit on. This group sees the most ups and downs in cost as the market ebbs and flows.

2-3 Week Investments

Some of my favorite investments are items that need a buyer and seller willing to do a deal. Bind-on-
Equip epics are the best example of this. There is some risk involved with this, especially as a patch
winds down, but also some good return. The middle months of a patch are the best time to try this,
when supply has driven price down a bit (lowering risk), but more people are getting into the content
(increasing demand).

Click to Continue Reading...

Using Pyrite Ore to Make Gold

Posted by Markco at 8:00 AM

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Guest post by Brit of Arrows of “Gold” Tips

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1-2k Gold Per Hour Twilight Highlands

Posted by Markco at 8:00 AM

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Volatile Fire Farming

Enslaved Inferno x13% Chance
Unbound Emberfiend x14% Chance

These two mobs are the best spawn rates / drop rates that you can find for volatile fire I've seen in Cataclysm. Even my little blue geared prot warrior could take these baddies on quickly and efficiently.

Guide to Farming Spot Finding

So why farm volatile fire? First off, it's probably the most frequently purchased volatile element. It's popular for both leveling several major professions as well as producing their best items. This and volatile air are the top elements to farm in cataclysm. Finding mobs with good drop rates and spawn rates can be a problem, and more often than not you'll find someone else farming your favorite location. For this reason alone, I recommend looking up on wowhead.com just like I did for these mobs and doing the following:

1. Type in the name of the item you'd like to farm in the wowhead.com search bar.
2. Click on the link to the item in the search results.
3. On this page, if you did not get a single item, click on the one that you are interested in. If you are looking for embersilk cloth, for example, you will have to clarify embersilk cloth and not bolts of embersilk cloth.
4. Look at the following options for the item and check them all out:

• Dropped By
• Fished In (if applicable)
• Mined From (or other gathering methods)
• Reagent For
• Comments

When sorting through the Dropped By, fished in and Mine from categories, be sure to check the approximate percentage chances for the item to drop. Click on these mobs, pools or nodes and check out their locations with the maps that wowhead provides. Then you can jot down a couple of farming spots for you to try out, which will make sure that you always have a back up in case of overcrowding in one area.

Don't forget to check out why you're farming the reagents, especially because this will aid you in deciding how best to sell them. Maybe you'll want to diversify and sell stacks of 1, 5, 10 and 20, or maybe 2, 4 and 8, but you need to see why people buy these items before you can make an educated decision.

I Can't Get Past XXX,XXX K

Posted by Markco at 8:00 AM

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Stuck... Stuck... STUCK!!!!

Yes, it's the dreaded "stuck" scenario that you all hear so much about from fellow players and maybe you yourself have experienced. I wrote about dealing with being stuck in the past, but I thought that today I'd share some more thoughts on the matter since inflation has changed so much about the way players accumulate gold in cataclysm.

XXXX Gold

Have you found yourself saying "I can't get past a hundred, a thousand, a hundred thousand gold"? With inflation these days, I doubt that people at level 85 cannot get past a hundred gold, and most will probably get past a thousand with questing. If you are stuck at a thousand, you need to really consider the idea that you are probably spending too much. Cut back and see what happens. Just doing dailies should be enough to cover the base expenses of your character as well as normal upgrades to gear. If you want to go beyond that point then you need to learn the auction house.

Addicted to Buying

Perhaps you know how to use the ah and you are getting stuck because you buy too much in order to make more gold. Guess what people, if you are always putting your excess earnings into buying new items then you will never have more gold than you started with. Yes, your net value will be higher and higher each day, but the number of coins in your pocket will not grow alongside this number. If you find yourself in this situation, then please, try not buying for a week. If you have the stockpiles to survive more than a week without buying new items then do it and you'll be amazed at how much money you pull in. Go back to what you were doing the next week and then try to get into a more balanced ratio of buying and selling that perhaps even favors selling over buying.

Poor Investments

Another reason you could be stuck making gold is because you make poor investments or you don't utilize your professions correctly. Re-evaluate your strategies and go elsewhere to find additional opinions on the matter. I've seen people who shuffle dead wrong but when they are told the correct way to do it they tend to ignore the advice and continue failing. Be open to new ideas and try everything at least once until you get into a system that works on your server.

Ask Questions!

For more professional advice on professions and making gold, as well as access to a forum where you can ask questions to many experience players, try the Cataclysm Gold Forums.

Staying Above the AH Dog Pile

Posted by Markco at 8:00 AM

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Markco here with another one of those fancy-smancy new terms about the AH for you to think about.

Dog piling is my fancy term for when a player sees a great opportunity on the auction house and they dump all their product at once for the lowest price at the moment. This is almost always going to result in a fail, even on patch days. Look, you may sell a few but it is certainly not the best utilization of your resources. Why is Dog piling not a good idea, especially since it usually results in a few sales?

1. Dog piling results in way more supply which counters the demand of the item. If there is one item on the auction house and you post three more, you've quadrupled the supply. If the demand has not quadrupled then yours and your competition's items will not sell completely.

2. There is a psychological effect that takes hold of people when they see a hundred of your item for the cheapest price and a handful of others for slightly more. I kid you not, some people will buy theirs because they feel that you are trying to monopolize the market. Crazy huh? It happens every day.

3. The funny thing about dog piling is that everyone seems to see it and get drawn into it, hence why I call it "dog piling." You could also probably call it the bandwagon, but I like dog pile because of the urgency that participants feel towards getting on the pile. Once someone sees you dumping your items, there is a chance that they will do the same. Undercutting wars follow.

4. Especially with items that people buy in designated stacks, such as hypnotic dust, you're better off selling it in those stacks than individually because of how fierce the dog piling is. What's more, you can actually sell for slightly more than the individual price per item and still have happy buyers. I call this staying above the dog pile.

5. If there are a handful of items on the market and demand is high, you can safely assume that your  normal priced items (even if they aren't the lowest) are going to sell eventually. Why spam a bunch of items and ruin the market by encouraging dog piling?

"Buck"ing Up: The Transfer Question

Posted by Markco at 8:00 AM

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Hey there ladies and gentlemen, Markco here with another outside the box question for you about making gold:

Should you transfer from a server because you aren't making enough gold?

Nope. Next question? What? Where you expecting a long winded explanation? Ok ok, I'll provide some reasoning behind my answer.

$25 For... What Exactly?

You're going to spend $25 to get access to a new server and ditch the old one. Maybe you'll be doing some cross server arbitrage of common and high priced goods? Especially on a large scale, it's possible to buy out hundreds of stacks of normal priced common trade goods and resell them one item at a time on the other server. If you're transferring from horde to alliance, you can also do some really cool stuff with cross faction trading.

Reasons for Leaving?

While I agree with you that there are many ways to capitalize on the differences in prices between two servers, what happens after you've made your money and are now "stuck" on the new server? Obviously, if you're changing servers for any reason other than simply for the gold rush, you will have something else to do. However, if you were changing servers because of competition, what happens if you run into it again? Wait six months and transfer a second time? No, no my friends, this is not the JMTC way.


Learn and Dominate

You have much to learn about competition and learning is exactly how you should be handling the situation. You should be made aware of the fact that experience is worth far more than gold, so take some risks in order to learn more about the auction house and how competition wars work. Here are links to places where you can and should learn more...

Competition Links

• Talk with the Competition
• Auction Sniping
• How to Spreadsheet to Profit
• Why You Should Be Using Old Strategies
• The Markcovian Philosophy

P.S. The recording of last nights meeting will be posted later in the day - check back for it later!

Woah.. Woah.. Woah..

Posted by The Lost Meeple at 8:00 AM

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Yesterday while browsing/reading some of the blogs I stumbled upon a very interesting post. It was a real shocker to be honest. It's a very interesting post to be quite frank, and it definitely caught my attention. The post I'm referring to is a post over at Venture, LLT.

To sum up the post, Stede believes that epic gems won't be coming from Pyrite, there are far too many things that lead up to Blizzard possibly adding a new Zone ( and possibly a new ore ). Patch 4.2 is being ran through the pipes and a new zone/daily quest hub location is on it's way so it got me thinking.

My thoughts on this? I ended up doing a ton of research, going back through a million MMO-Champion pages, flipping through data mined stuff/content from the Cataclysm beta and you guys won't believe what I found. It's been right under our noses this entire time! We've been worried about stockpiling Pyrite Ore... but I think I've found the new Cataclysm ore that will yield epic gems.... Black Iron Ore.

I'm fairly certain that this will be included in patch 4.2 - If Blizzard had any chance to add in a new ore 4.2 would be the perfect timing, a new zone - a new ore. It just works. There are a couple comments there hinting that this ore will yield epic gems - which makes stockpiling pyrite ore almost a ticking time bomb.

What do you guys think? Could it be possible?

Do you have too much ore?

Posted by The Lost Meeple at 8:00 AM

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A frequent question that is being asked around everywhere is what do I do with all of this ore? Everyone and their friend is now doing the Obsidium/Elementium Shuffle - and botters just keep posting and posting the ore for cheaper and cheaper, to the point where it's so cheap you'd be stupid NOT to buy it.

There are two main things that you simply have to know when you're buying ore from the Auction House. The first if that you need to know the floor price ( the amount of gold a stack of ore will yield you when you use X strategy ). The floor price for Obsidium is 54g, the Floor price for elementium is 44g. Knowing that, you can safely buy any amount of ore under those prices and you simply know that you're going to be making profit.

The second thing that you need to know is what you're going to do with the Ore and finding out if the method you chose is profitable.. Are you going to prospect it? Smelt it into bars? Craft JC jewelry and disenchant it? Transmute the prospected gems? Transmute meta gems? I've made a nice little picture for you guys to help you out if you have too much ore and don't know what to with it.

Woops! Forgot the Yes -> Buy ( just assume it's there! )

If you bought the ore below it's floor price cutting and vendoring the common gems will always give you your initial investment. Vendoring gems is like your safety net, which is something that is always great to have in case a certain market tanks.

Click to Continue Reading...

Best Gold Tip You Will Ever Read

Posted by Markco at 8:00 AM

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Photo taken from zuzana_baranova of flicker

This is you right now, spinning your gold making wheel. Cute, Determined and Comical, aren't you? As the wheel spins, you will continue to follow a very simple pattern running from site to site looking for that one gold making strategy which will make you untold thousands of gold in world of warcraft. With each strategy or tip you find which makes some gold or fails miserably, you simply return to running faster and longer on the hamster wheel to continue your search.

Stop. Running. Start. Learning.

Click to Continue Reading...

New Cataclysm Engineering Market

Posted by The Lost Meeple at 8:00 AM

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There is a new Cataclysm Engineer Market, do you know what it is? Any idea? Cogwheels.

You read right, cogwheels. I got this idea from the ventrilo meeting that I held last friday night, we were throwing ideas out on how to make gold, and one user ( I wish I could remember who ) threw this idea out:

1. Buy Obsidium Ore/Bars off the AH
2. Turn them the Bars into as many Handful of Obsidium Bolts as possible
3. Head to Twilight Highlands and turn the bolts in for Cogwheels. 

There are a total of three cogwheels that can be bought by using this method, there are more than 3 cogwheels in game, but they require harder to obtain/craft materials and some of them aren't really worth it. The three cogwheels that you can obtain by buying them with obsidium bolts are:

• Quick Cogwheel - +208 Haste
• Smooth Cogwheel - +208 Crit
• Subtle Cogwheel - +208 Dodge

Using this method you're turning 20-40g into something that Frank Natalecan be sold upwards of 400g. The great things about selling these cogwheels is that engineers don't only need one, they need two different cogwheels for their helm. This means you'll be selling the cogwheels in pairs instead of singles.

The vendor are located in Twilight Highlands, Frank Natale sells them for the alliance while Zim Bamzabble sells them for the horde.

Thank you very much to the user who brought this up during the last JMTC Ventrilo Meeting.

Click to Continue Reading...

Patch 4.0.6 - Buying Items With Justice & Honor Points

Posted by The Lost Meeple at 8:00 AM

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Blizzard recently told us of one change that is currently on the PTR, and that is:

• The Honor Commodities and Justice Commodities Vendors now sell raw tradeskill materials. These are not intended to be a cost-effective source of these materials, but an option for players with lots of Justice or Honor Points who have already purchased all of the gear that interests them.

What does this mean? Could it be a way for Blizzard to control the prices on some markets? What items will be able to be bought via Honor and Justice Points? Could it be volatiles? Could it be cloth? Could it be Leather? Chaos orbs? Rare Gems?

This could be a HUGE gold making Opportunity, if you're one of the firsts to sell whatever Blizzard has in mind, you could make thousands upon thousands on gold in an hour or even less. I personally have 3800 Justice Points just waiting to spend ( my mage is already decked out in gear ). I'm thinking Blizzard with add another Frozo The Renowned type of vendor, only this time the currency that is being traded are Justice Points and Honor Points. Either way this little addition to the game will heavily affect the prices of the items that you will be able to obtain.

This is one of the biggest and most interesting change since Cataclysm has hit. I wonder what type of items blizzard is going to allow you to buy with Honor & Justice Points, What are your thoughts?