Friday, October 30, 2009

Glyphs

Are glyphs profitable right now? I'd say yes. I ran an experiment. I have a 445 scribe hunter. I transfered the druid off to another server, and took basically all the gold except 100g and whatever goods were still being sold on the bank toon. I then started making glyphs. Lots and lots. At first I did only DK, then DK hunter, now I am doing DK, hunter, mage, and paladine. (First time with the last two). So essentially from 9 days ago I started with almost no gold and only two classes. I'm up to 2200g now, with only two classes and one bank toon. I'll try to get into the rest of the classes later next week and see how it goes.

My thoughts (random as always).

It's pretty time consuming to do glyphs. The profit for each is small. You need to accept that on some you wont make much profit.

You can also sell the two off-hands and scrolls and vellums. Most people ignore that, and these items give you just as much profit as glyphs and sell just as frequently.

Buy 10 stacks of NR herbs a day. The cheapest on our server is tiger lily and deadnettle. Then make glpyhs once a week. Make 5 glpyphs per stack.

Addons: Use QA2, Advanced trade skill window, and altoholic. Config QA; 24 hour post time, undercut 1s fall back 50g, minimum 2g 1 glpyph per posting (or maybe 2).

When you want to make glpyphs. Look to see how many you need by mouse over. Queue everything up. Then buy all the ink and parchment you need (ATSW willl auto-buy parchment but not ink). Burn through your queue. Helps to have 2 scribe bags on your scribe making toon and 4 such bags on your bank toon.

Then post on your bank toon. I post in the morning, 5pm, then as i log out. This ensures a steady flow. You can just post and tab out for 5 minutes (like I'm doing right now)

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Mage project closed down

I decided I didn't really want to level a mage from scratch, they are too slow. Especially on a new server. I'm still selling all of the patterns and pets I bought, and am up to 600g. That's 12x return on investment of 40g. Still its a fun server, i may revisit it someday.

For now I'm doing the halloween event, and dipping into inscription. It pays surprisingly well. I'm already up 1000g after just a few days of posting. I look forward to increasing my volume.

Volume and having the right mods is crucial. Doing it by myself using auctioneer was just horrid.
Even though the market is crowded if you are nimble enough you can get in. I dont AH camp, i just check every day or every 12 hours and see what sold and repost. Basically i'm not trying that hard. I want to use the funds to help my first toon Gibs all geared out as much as possible. Now that I have space for 3 more toons the inscription project becomes more and more practical.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Questions to ask while on a pile of gold

This is from Phase 3 Profit!

  1. How long did you spend on making gold every week?
  2. How much you earn a week ?
  3. Do you really need that much ?
  4. Where are you going to spend your extras ?
  5. Is there anyway can increase the amount you can get ?
  6. Is there anyway can decrease the time you need ?
  7. Will the method you are currently gather gold be obsolete soon ?
  8. What’s the last time you get a new method for profiting ?
  9. Is it fun at all ?
  10. Planning to share what you had learnt ?
1. I spend about 1-2 hours each day making money. Right now my Dawnbringer market has cooled and I'm just not that interested, so I am switching to my little mage.

2. Its quite variable. At the height only 2k or so per week. Most weeks less than 1k. I don't really make money for the sake of making money. At 15k now I dont see much point of making more money.

3. Not really... See #2 But as of now I still can't afford the gold-sinks.

4. I will probably leveling professions in the next xpac and hopefully use this as seed capital. One thing I've learned in WoW, you need money to make money. I spent my entire fortune on crusader orbs to reap a 2000g profit. And who knows how much things will cost in the next xpac (cataclysm).

5. Yeah I have some nice businesses, when they work it works, but its actual work, ie not fun. That takes a few hours of making and a few days of selling for 1-2 k profit.

6. Can I decrease the time. No not to my knowledge, I can't. The game doesn't allow automation.

7. Not really. I don't depend on fad items to make my gold. I stick with tried and true methods.

8. All the time. Last week. There is always something new to be learned. My colleagues are so much better at making money, that's why I peruse econ blogs and forums regularly.

9. I think its fun, but that's just me. At a certain point the rest of the game is somewhat static. I enjoy 'beating' other people with something of tangible value at stake. Yes, you may have ganked me 10x in BGs, but I just took your last cent from your stupid under-cost auctions.

10. I do what i can herein. Although since nobody reads, I guess my secrets are safe!

Monday, October 12, 2009

Is it hunter loot?



Okay, this is just too funny, and I (well almost) never call people out. But there is a polearm that drops in ramparts that every idiot seems to think is their loot. Its got str, sta, and +crit. It's called Hellreaver. It looks cool to boot. So, as a death knight it drops, and I roll. Oh the tears of anguish from the hunters.

Lets review. Stamina. Check. Crit. Check. Strength? I guess if you are a melee hunter this is your loot. But if you are playing the class as it was designed, you pass for someone which its a better upgrade. Ie a DK or a warrior. So, gratz huntards! Oh I didn't quite get the last roll in the screenie, the other hunter rolled and one won. That's right, two hunters rolled on non-hunter loot.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention, the othe loot I ninjaed? A plate belt. So, yeah i'm evil for rolling on plate and a melee weapon against hunters.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

A new deathknight tailor

After getting sick with the amount of profit wasted by the idiots who post netherweave stacks, I decided, heck with this, i'll be a major player in this market. I think I could make a small killing either making bags or making tailoring and DEing it (I'm not sure about the later, but possible). Or I could make imbued netherweave bags.

So I rolled a DK, of course a gnome! Got him out of the starter zone, sold everything I collected that could be vendored, sent the rest to the bank (including a BOE blue!). Ended up with 22g. Hmm, not much. I bought what linen cloth I could and powerleveled tailoring until the omg hell wool stage (level 100) I then decided, well now I have alot of random crap on my hands. So I learning enchanting, and decided to push that as far as it'd go. I got to about 90 I think. I then ran stockades to see what the wool drop was. Not bad, was able to make 5 items. I only have to make 20 to get out of wool stage. So a few runs will do it, and give me some more stuff to DE. My plan is to just DE what I can and hope its enough to get past the next stage, not worry about enchanting too much. I want this to be a break even power level, so lots of AOE grinding in instances. Its a damn shame I cant bring the mage!

My plan is to powerlevel the professions, hit 60, push to netherweave bag stage, and just make a ton of them.

Flipping

Flipping is when you speculate that the current lowest price on the AH is much lower than it should be, and you buy it, then (either immediately or later) place the same item back on the AH for a higher price.

The key to flipping just like in real estate is to know your market. You could easily lose all your gold quickly.

I woke up this morning to find 100g on my little mage project banker. So what to do. Well, i could just stop playing the AH, but that's not fun. I looked at my favorite market, the netherweave cloth market. I found many stacks at 2.5g, which is criminally stupid since you can make heavy netherweave bandages and vendor them for 3g each. So, apparently there are alot of morons on this server, and not alot of people caring about this market. So I speculated, given that the price does fluctuate wildly. I bought every single stack I could, and reposted for a copper under whatever the lowest price stack was. I did this several times during the day, since it was a Sunday and tons of people were on.

I just checked my auctions, and I have 170g. That's...what 60% profit margin from maybe half an hour of work. Not bad when your highest toon is level 11.

Recap:

1) Know your market, what the prices are throughout the week.
2) It's a very valid strategy to buy low on the weekends, sell in the middle of the week when prices are high. I've made thousands this way.
3) If it's not a fast moving market, dont' dump everything at once. (although I did ignore this rule and made out okay)

Short note

No real change in strategy. I did manage to sell a rage pot recipe for 20g. Bought NW cloth at 3g a stack and selling for 6g. I'm up to about 100g, gave 40g back to my benefactor. Moths still sell well. I guess I can stop working so hard on the AH for now, i have enough for both mounts I think and am only level 10. Unfortunately there isnt alot I can buy that will help my leveling at this stage. I fully intend to buy deadmines runs, so maybe I'll get some gold for that.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Diversification

Sold some more recipes from SW today, so now up to 38g. Also the random trash skins/herbs. Its only a gold or so per stack but that's huge at my level. Turned around and bought netherweave which was selling for under vendor price for heavy nw bandage (3g/stack). Talk about stupid. Then the bags are selling for 10g! I am going to make a bunch of bags via a tailor and sell most of them on AH. Then I'll go get some more pets and recipes from shat. I'd really like to get to felwood to do that, but it would be an hour of effort. The felwood recipes are bank.

Let me talk a moment about diversification.

The moths from Exodar are a prime example. There are three colors, blue yellow and red I think. It doesn't matter. The blue sells for say 10g, yellow for 4g and red for 3g. These are approximate but the point is they dont sell for the same amount. Even though the vendor price is the same.

So, buy blue right? Well... Think about it this way. Somebody wants all the pets easily for whatever reason (going back to Gevlon's M&S philosophy). So they buy all 3 colors, irregardless of cost (unless its something like 20g each, M&S aren't going to pay that much). So my point is your turnover will be faster if you buy all 3 irregardless of the profit margin. Yes blues sell for more, but buy not buying the yellow and red you are shooting yourself in the foot. I'd rather have 3 sales with 15g profit than 1 sale with 10g profit.

Same thing goes for felwood recipes. Some are worth more than others, but by buying all 3 you can diversify and sell more. What is the limit? The limit is your bag space and thus the opportunitycost. By buying low profit recipes you are limiting your bag space which could be used for high profit recipes. Since I'm a small mage and my bags are small, I am going to buy the high profit recipes from felwood since it's a PITA to go back there, and I dont have alot of bag space.

By no means am I a baron, my friend who also has a mage, I gave him 10g, at level 20 he had 1000 gold or so. Just playing the AH and running around and gathering recipes.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Tailor/herb for money (or monetizing the level grind)

These are my thoughts on how to go about making money from scratch.

Level 1-10

With all the vendor junk, you have *just enough* to train. You need money to train, its critical. So, for your first toon, you need to start picking up stuff from say level 1-10. After that, if you are smart you have two gather profs, and you have a AH alt, and you are selling all your white stuff by sending it to your AH alt. The economization at level 10 is vastly different from 80, where a SINGLE HERB is enough to fund your training for 10 levels. You can go to the herb trainer, look at the herb supplies. They often have single low level herbs, grab them. Go to the AH. Sell them. I made 1.3 g from this. Not enough to get bags, but enough to train and start ignoring the 3cp grey items.

Level 10-20
Once you are level 10 you should have several stacks of herbs. Sell them on AH at the same price as the lowest price. This may or may not be enough to buy a netherweave bag. You can buy a few mageweave bags to hold over. At this point you can start to ignore the vendor trash and focus on herbs and white items.

Buy a magic wand ASAP (also buy the level 13 wand) , and some minor mana potions. These can be had for under 50s total. The magic wand is pretty vital.

Once you have 10-20g you can start buying stacks of netherweave cloth and rune thread, and ask a tailor to make bags for you with 1g tip (if that's cheaper than buying bags).

Level 20-40

At level 20 you should have enough to have 8 bags (4 for you, 4 for your AH mule), and your mount (lol - its what 5g now?). You are pretty much set for life at this stage. Continue to accumulate white and green items, sell them on the AH. Every new town you hit, buy the recipes, sell them. Especially cooking recipes.

Level 40-60

By level 40 using this you will have several hundred gold readily. Buy your epic mount, drop your skinning prof and start to level tailoring. Buy whatever you need from AH slowly, over a period of a week or two. The trick is to buy several stack of linen, wool, silk, etc. every day. You may have to farm for wool in stockades or elsewhere. Linen and silk should be dirt cheap. I think you can start to make mageweave now, so get ready to sell the mageweave bags. Not huge money makers, but 5-10g every day isn't bad at this level.


Level 60-70

By level 60 you can finally make netherweave bags. This is your bread and butter. Know the market, love the market. Buy cloth when it's low, make bags when prices are high. You may have to wait. Cloth is cheap on the weekends, bags are expensive during the week. It never fails. You will make at least 10g a day and up to 100g.

Level 70-80

By level 70 you can start your NR tailoring and make the frostweave bags. This market is competitive right now, but you should be able to make some money. Look for the other bag patterns, and consider rep grinding to get them. For example, nobody sells herb bags any more. THey are pretty useful. (The 28 slot one sells for 600g on our server, I imagine with 100g profit) Same thing with mining bags (although I think LWs make those). Sapphire spellthread is very popular but you need exalted with wyrmrest to make them if I receall. You will burn through tons of cloth in NR, untnil you hit the bag making phase. At that point you can safely make bags until at least 440 (its still green at that level).

Irregardless, if you've been picking flowers the whole time you should have 5000g when you hit 80. Buy your mount and enjoy raiding! (You will have about 2000g from quests alone in NR without factoring in training costs, which can be huge)

The mage project day 4

Well, i got some nice tailors to make me some netherweave bags, and a port to dal. So now I can go anywhere in the world, and I have some bag space.

What's selling? Some of the recipes from Shattrath. Vendor stuff from SW...Ice cold milk for ex. And the low level herbs. Sold one for 1.3 g, bought for 1s. All my skins and herbs (just the garbage 1-50 stuff), still made 5g or so on just that stuff. Pets, can't forget pets. Now that I can go to any capital city I can invest in the pet trade. It's heavily competitive, but I just need to sell a few.

So far I'm up 28 g after a 40g investment (so I'm still down 12g). My plan is just to rush to 20, get the mount and portals, then work more on making money. I anticipate I'll have a bunch of gold from my herb sales.

Life would have been far different if I hadn't gotten a nice druid to give me 40g. The first gold is hard. ALready i've seen many AH possibilities slip by because i didn't have the funding (for ex netherweave cloth was selling for 2.9 gold and the bags were selling for 5-10g. The market fluctuated rapidly.

Anyway the hardest part is the leveling! At 10 i'm a two-hit snack for everyone in my aggro radius. Which is huge. Leveling a mage right now is very challenging, with all grey gear. What i'd like is some heirloom stuff but that's not going to happen.

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Reboot!

Our server was down the other day, so I did something really odd for me and rolled a gnome mage on a high population server. A random nice 80 came by and we got to chatting about raid progression, then he gave me 40g! So, emboldened, I ran around the world collecting various recipes from capital cities. I just posted them on the AH so we'll have to see what sells. Very exciting to start from a clean slate though!

So far got about 30g in sales, used the money to buy more pats and 5 netherweave bags. Life as a level 8 mage is hard, lots of drink, lots of dying. Hopefully things will improve. I don't even have a wand. Professions are herb/skin, already made about 5g off herb (which is a ton at this level). I find the first 100g is more useful than the first 10,000g. What i really need beyond bags is buffs; food buffs, scrolls, etc.

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