Do You Know The Muffin Man?

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 12:25 PM

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Leveling cooking on alternate toons can be tedious.   It is exciting with your favorite toon because you get to check out new recipes and new 'tastes' that an expansion brings.  Even leveling cooking on your backup can be just as exciting.  Mists of Pandaria offered all of the different 'ways' of cooking that you aren't locked into leveling one direction to hit the maximum profession level.

When it came to leveling that 4th or 5th toon,  leveling their cooking because as exciting as watching paint dry.  The great search for another point towards getting him (or her) to be able to cook rice pudding or anything.  

Thankfully, there is a method to the madness when it comes to having maximum leveling in cooking.  The new Warlords of Draenor expansion are going to be tied much closer to having all of the professions being useful.  Many of the foodstuffs that are showing up on the PTR's have active ingredients that are tied to other professions.  Fishing will also become a very important part of a well rounded character progression.

Guilds will be emptying their storehouses in the coming months.  A shrewd gold goblin will be keeping an eye for large bargains of food items, not just to finish leveling their own toons,  but sales to up and coming players who do not want to take the time to farm their own materials.  Where the daily food quests cut into the need to buy all of the materials continually,  there will still always be a demand from the impatient player who wants to get that cooking leveling done now.

So watch both the Auction House and trade chat for players emptying their banks and personal collections of raw cooking materials.  A small investment now can both both personally edifying (your quarter word for the day) and add to your bankroll in the upcoming months.

Good Luck and Good Profit 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.


WOD:  Saddle Up Your Horses
Light At The End of The AH Tunnel
Grinding Gold Through The AH
WOD:  The Next Step To Beta
Warlords of Draenor Beta: You Have Been Chosen
Patience At Ganking:  All Respect to An Alliance Hunter
Midsummer Festival - Combine those tasks
Gold Making Is An Artform
What I did on My WowCation
Old Vs New:  The Great Debate
Soap Box Derby
Discipline:  The Most Hated Word in Gold Making
Crashing The Market
Pet Battling For Profits

Strengthen Your Google-Fu

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 12:59 PM

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Mommar here.

As a Gold Goblin I fully admit that I prey on the lazy from time to time.   It would be just as easy for someone to collect the materials together to have an item crafted.   Just as easy for a player to let their miner convert ore into bars.   There is a profit margin in fleecing the lazy.

Information is a little bit more difficult to obtain profit when it comes to MMORPG's.   All a player truly needs to do is pop up another browser,  do a quick search and they have that information without any need to pay for it.   Unfortunately there is little profit in the laziness of someone asking for the umpteenth time how to find this rarity on the Isle of Thunder.

But where ethereal profit is not found in the sale of information in World of Warcraft,  a sense of piece and removal to want to choke someone who keeps on asking the same question over and over can be just as pleasing.   Even a little good will can be spread by giving a quick link to a site that gives an overhead map of where each rare is found.

Having attempted to spread that idea that profit in World of Warcraft isn't just about the gold that you collect from your sales but your overall experience;  the next time that someone asks some question,  give them an answer free of snark and snottiness that happens far too often in Trade Chat.

We were all newbies at one time.

Good Luck and Good Hunting


Go To Sales
Weekend Warriors
Possible Glyphmas With Patch 5.3?
The Green Parade
Lions,  Tigers and Cooldowns O My
Snakes in the Playground
Craft Me Some Pants.. Or Something Else
Flipping the BMAH off
Dear Blizzard:   Noblegarden Edition
Throwing A Line
Prepping For the Death Of PVP
Patience is a Virtue.
I Choose You....: Reputation Choices
Thunderforge Ready for Business

Patch 5.2: New Leatherworking Pattern Dailies

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 12:40 PM

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Mommar here.

For anyone that leveled a jewelcrafter during Mists of Pandaria they are very familiar with obtaining patterns for blue level cuts.   For those that don't,  you were offered two choices.  You had one daily cooldown that allowed you to craft one of the prisms to crack open for a recipe.   You also had the option of spending a Spirit of Harmony to bypass the daily lockout.   Fun for all the boys and girls as they were leveling.

With patch 5.2 Leatherworking gets to enjoy this same system for adding new recipes.   There are two new patterns added that are drops from mobs around Mists of Pandaria.

Magnificence of Scales

Magnificence Of Leather

Both are strong necessary recipes to obtain the new patterns.  Basically you burn your daily and have a chance of learning one of the new recipes.   Pretty easy right?    And can be very good for the skinning profession.  If you take a look at the math you'll see that making one Magnificent Hide with the cooldown will have half the cost.  Then any other hides that day that are crafted will be at the full price.   This really feels like a Blizzard version of buy one get one at half price plus a recipe.

There are a lot of benefits to this type of system,  especially without any type of override from a Spirit of Harmony.   This will slowly add the patterns to each realm (look for lots of advertising in trade chat looking for specific items).  It will also give a good boost to a depressed market that both the Leatherworking and Skinning market have become.  

So this means that farm skinning will become very important before and after patch 5.2.  Not just to sell but also to obtain the patterns themselves.   A player who is sitting on a large pile of unprocessed skins will put themselves far up the gold goblin pile.

For the leatherworkers themselves,  it's important to have a stockpile of both the raw skins as well as some of the hides themselves.    Each of the new patterns requires a large amount of the Hides and will be in high demand.  Especially for players wanting to jump-start alt's.   The first two to four weeks will determine just how much profit players will be able to obtain just from providing the raw materials.

Don't ignore a side business of just flipping conversions of hide products for players.  Many players to avoid paying a higher price for the Auction House will gather their own materials that are BOE and then pay less to have the item crafted for them directly.   Just keep in mind your time and effort are at a premium.   We've talked previously about tipping vs charging a fee.  In this case,  charge them a fee (if they aren't happy,  they can sit around and find someone else to do it or negotiate a better price.).

Patch 5.2 could easily jump-start a sagging Leatherworking economy.  Be one of the first on the server to get into the goods.  And wallow around in the profits to come.

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

Patch 5.2 Prep:  Farming the Auction House
Patch 5.2: Jewelcrafters
Patch 5.2: Thanks Uncle Blizzard for the Valor
Something Stinks In The Air
Get a Grip On Your Pricing
Patch 5.2:  Prepping for the rush
How Do You Effect The Market?
He's So Great He's A Fivefather
Patch 5.2:   Farming For Rep.. With A Farm?
Archealogy:   Digging up stuff for gold
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 

Three rules for Barking in Trade

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 4:00 PM

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Selling your professions on the open trade channels can be tricky.   There are a lot of traps that new players (and even experienced players) will fall into.   Here are a couple of the ones I've seen that can tank a new trade chat career in a heartbeat.


1.   Know what your selling.

This may seem like an obvious idea.  But listing "have everything to craft" usually do not get people to drop what they are doing and run to your feet.  If you have Jewelcrafting,  offering a blanket statement of 'I have everything' ends up falling flat.   Specifics will drive the market towards you.   Rewriting a statement to 'Epic Cuts,  250g a piece' gives much more definition to what you're selling.

2.  Watch grammar and spelling mistakes

We all fall into the grammar and spelling trap.   Getting excited while typing and hitting the enter key.  then discovering that the misspelling monster has escaped and ransacked your brilliant advertisement.  Having your normal advertisement in a macro will help keep from basic mistakes.   Having multiple barking messages will keep things from being busy.

3.   Timing and humor is everything.

Some of the best trade channel barking adds I have seen included a small amount of humor.  Naming your 'business' or taking on a character will allow you to stand out in the crowd.   Also don't get into the habit of spamming your advertisement every 10 seconds.  Advertising dozens of times a minute only ends up making you look desperate.  It also tends to bring on the ire of the trade chat community. Their appreciation of massive amounts of blurred typing on their screen is sorely lacking.

Bonus Rule

4.   Scan out your competition and the demand.
Barking your trade at 3 in the morning will not have as much success as plying your professions in the middle of the busiest time on your server.  The more access to customers you have,  the better your profits will be.

Bonus on the bonus rule

5.   Sell for a set price and not just 'for tips'.

There are generous players out there.  Ones that over pay professions for crafting items.  Unfortunately they are few and far between.   You have more players that tend to have the belief that they do not owe anything but a small amount of gold because 'it didn't cost you anything to make it but a few seconds'. What a player is paying for is the opportunity to have something crafted without them having to wait for hours and hours for someone to make it for them.  Or it to appear on the AH.   Opportunity and convenience always cost money in the real world.

There are more things that can be learned from Selling your profession items in trade chat.  Just keep in mind the things that work,  and eliminate the things that do not work.  And you will be dominating the gold making scene in trade chat as well.

Good Luck and Good Hunting

Previous Articles

Breakfast Briefs

Post Patch Weekend Arrives

An Open Letter To Inscriptionists

That Thing You Do

1500 conquest points and nothing to put on

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
Long Term Vs Short Term Profits
Two Accounts.. Twice the Profit
Thanks Uncle Scrooge McBlizzard
Goblins, Pandas and Blood Elfs O My
The Secret For Investing for MOP
I know what the Rock is cooking (in PVP Gear)
How Much Effect Do Bloggers Have?
The Death and Life of Truegold
Time vs Gold Investment
Return to your Essence
Harmony - We Don't Need Harmony
Jewelcrafting dailies or something
Its All Attitude
It's the Little Things
The Doh Club
Psychology of Selling

Life with no AH

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 1:37 PM

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If you have been reading my articles and ramblings here,  then you probably have put together that I have been splitting my playing time between Diablo 3 and Warcraft.    If you haven't caught on,  then I have been splitting my playtime between Diablo 3 and Warcraft. (Now your caught up).

Last night the Diablo 3 Auction house was disabled for commodities.   Not going into a large amount of details (if you want more info on Diablo 3 AH go talk to Markco here).   This downtime did make me wonder about a few things when it comes to the Warcraft Auction House.

What would players do when it comes to making gold if there was no auction house.   The auction house has not always been there.  And definitely it has not been as advanced as it is now.   So what would you do if you had no AH to play around.

Here is a quick list.

1.   Sell in trade/listen in trade

Still many times there are buyers and sellers in trade chat looking for specific items,  or linking to a crafting Profession.  got an epic wand of smackiness?  Nothing wrong with announcing that your crafting it for a set     amount of gold with the buyers materials.

2.   Archaeology

Yes it's slow,  yes it's tedious.  But your flying around anyway.  And some of those items can fetch a pretty   penny or two.   Where it won't make you swimming in gold,   it can pay the repair fees once you get high    enough.

3.   Quest/loot/

One of my favorite off AH ways of making gold.   Everytime I see an 85 begging for gold in orgrimmar the temptation to renounce them from the Horde strikes.   Level 85 quests are double the gold.  Some of the ones during cataclysm were putting 50-100g in my hands just for a little effort.   Bored?   grab an alt and cash in the easy way

4.    Random Dungeons/Heroics

This one is truly a no brainer.   You get gold each time you run a dungeon heroic.  You also get valor points for the first 7 runs a week (limit of 1000 per week).   After a week and a half of running,  you have enough to buy one of the bracers that people are continually asking for.   Advertise in trade chat and count your gold.   Justice points are also rewarded and you can sell the lower versions of the bracers as well in the same manner.

Thankfully we still have the warcraft auction house available to sell items and gain goblin gold dominance.  But you never know,  someday the AH might come to a screech halt for " maintenance ",  will you still have gold flowing or will it come to a stop?

Good luck and good hunting

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

Past Entries
Yakity Yak
The Auction House Blues
O Brother Where Art thy professions
Come Back Players... Come Back
Measuring the AH of a "Wow Killer"
Gold: It makes a player better
Get thee to an Engineer
Darkmoon Faire Returns....  Much rejoicing
Prepping for MOP:   Dinner Improbable
Random Dungeons:  A Concert of Errors
Patterns
Save the children.. Save Azeroth

Grey,  the new purple

Have you posted epics today?

Netherweave Cloth: It's math time

Should I pay or Should I Gold(bank)

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 8:00 AM

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Financial investors will always tell you it's better to have your money work for you than to have it sit in the bank. This advice applies even in the Warcraft economy as a whole. One way to do this is by investing your gold wisely and continuously.

An example of having your money work for you is to create your own mini guild of crafters from your contacts. Grab the mats from your bank or your alts then decide what will sell on the Auction House at a decent profit (I always work with a 20% rule above cost of the crafted item).  Send a crafter from your personal network a request  to make the item and then give a tip, selling the item on the AH for a profit.

Most of the large money makers on a server will have their personal list of material farmers; providing supplies to their crafters. A steady supply of ore, leather and herbs will fill their needs many times over.  At certain times you will run into a situation where you don't have a specific pattern.   Such as the enchanting pattern of Blood Draining from Uldaur, that just never dropped for your crafter.

Here is  a breakdown of one such item: (Masterwork Elementium Deathblade)

With an investment of 7400 gold (5 chaos orbs at 300 a piece + 4 hardened elementium at 100 per + 2 ocean sapphire at 5g per + 8 truegold at 650 per = 7110g in materials + 200g tip = 7310g)  for a Masterwork Elementium Deathblade.     Selling for 9500 on most of the warcraft servers.   This is one example of many that this method can be used to increase sales on recipes that you don't have in your personal character crafting list. 

When we talk about networked crafters we are not speaking just about alts, but about friends, guild members,  or random trade chat members selling access to their wares. As the saying goes "any port in a storm". Same thing goes for auction house power-sellers. Take a minute while you are looking for that random trade chat link someone posts up and see what recipes they have that you don't. Send a message requesting to work out a deal.  Then you're bound for the Auction House to rake in the profits from just a little preplanning. 

There are almost always a crafter or two peddling their wares in the Trade channel looking to sell their orbs. A little planning and you end up with a large profit for just a little work.

One final thought.  Be honest with your crafter mini guild members. Most crafters want a piece of the profits for their items. So keep this in mind and do not alienate them by low-balling your "tips" to them.  If they were to see their items at a much higher selling price,  knowing you gave them a small tip.  You may have created your competition for that item next week.   Treat this as your new golden rule.  Tip as you would want to be tipped.  Its always a good idea to keep your crew happy and working for you than against you. That extra 100g tip you offer might keep your competition off the market and allow you to bring in that much more profit.  

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