Perhaps it wasn't really such a great idea. About 3 months ago I lent 2000g to a guild member of mine. I wasn't sure if I would ever get the gold back, and I was upfront in saying that he could pay me back at his leisure in the next two months. A month since then has passed and I have yet to receive even a "hey I have almost made enough to pay you back". I guess I should explain my reasoning behind this experiment.
Back in the Burning Crusade I was broke, and didn't really have any need for gold, until one day when they introduced the netherdrake flying dragon mounts. I looked at that and it was instant love, and it would have been instant purchase, except for the 5000g training cost and the reputation grind which couldn't even be started until after epic flying training.
So I needed 5000g. As a warlock I could solo grind mobs relatively easily, and so I started the primal water grind for gold. Some 2500g and about 10 hours of grinding later I was bored and tired and honestly not sure if I wanted to continue. As I mentioned my plight within guild chat, a friendly guild mate whispered me that he would be willing to lend me the remaining 2500g if I would repay him as soon as I could.
I thought about it and then accepted his offer. This happened just about the time that the Isle of Quel released in patch 2.4, So with my now 280% flying mount I proceeded to grind the SSC dailies and the Netherwing dailies. For one week I did every daily I could and within 7 days I was able to repay the 2500g I borrowed. I was also able to hit exalted with the netherwing, and I believe close to revered with SSC. The main point being that I worked really hard to make sure I could repay my loan asap.
Interestingly enough this is the trigger for my start down the road of being an AH Trader. I really disliked the grinding, disliked doing the same quest over and over, and I thought to myself, there has to be a better way. I ended up dropping tailoring and I took up Jewelcrafting and by the time wrath had come out had accumulated over 30,000 gold on my character and bought just about every BOE jewelcrafting recipe available (they sold for 500-1000g each).
So as I lent this 2000g to a fellow guildy, I wondered would it have the same effect on him? Would this gold ever get repaid? Or would I have to ask over and over and then only get my gold back after months of effort on my part to hold him to an agreement that he promised to fulfill?
So it has been three months, currently I have contacted him one time, a month ago to ask how things were going. As of yet I have had no further contact with him, and no gold has been repaid. Currently my lending policy is one person at a time, so should I never get my 2000g back I shall never lend another gold to anyone else. It will be interesting to see where this goes as 2000g is relatively easy to repay. Heck just doing 6 AT dailies for 2 weeks would allow you to repay it, a total time investment of about 4-5 hours.
I was curious to see what my readers thought of my actions, do you think I was foolish to lend tho gold, or that it was the right thing to do? What are your thoughts?
Read more!
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Monday, May 25, 2009
Professions
A big decision for your character is what profession to choose. All professions can be broken down into 3 categories. Gathering Professions, Armor Professions, and finally Accessory Professions. The exception to this in Engineering, which has elements of all three, but does none of them especially well.
Each category has it's positives and negatives, and I wanted to talk to you about how to choose based on your play style and which professions produce the most for your time from a gold standpoint.
Lets start off by breaking down each category.
Gathering professions are skinning, herbalism and mining. They offer a set bonus dependent on skill level and allow you to pick up (essentially) gold from the ground. While personally I find flying around to be painfully boring, if you out questing in the wilds often this might be the choice for you. Skinning requires dead mobs, so it is something you must consider if you choose it. Between mining and herbalism, both seem to be selling for about the same amount stack wise in the auction house. As herbs are more plentiful in the wild, between the two I would probably recommend herbalism. Profit potential, 300-600 gold per gathering profession per hour. (this guy claims 1000 gold an hour with both mining and herbalism: Link)
Armor professions are your Leatherworking, Tailoring, and Blacksmithing. These allow you to put extra stat adjusting items on your gear, and allow you to craft gear. However as no level 80 gear is BOP anymore, there is no real point to these professions. They dont give you any stat adjustments that another profession wouldn't give you, and they dont allow you to wear gear that another profession wouldn't. Any items you could craft with an armor profession, you can take the raw materials and find someone else in your guild to make for little to no extra cost. So from a money making standpoint, and for character developement, they are pretty much a waste of a profession choice. (should you decide to go this route I recommend looking at producing twink gear on a regular basis)
Finally there are the Accessories Professions Category. These include Inscription, Jewelcrafting, Alchemy, and Enchanting. Alchemy is interesting in that it can be profitable and the self buffs from potions and flasks are greater due to mixology. The downside is that the other accesory profession buffs dont expire. One you socket a gem or put those shoulder enchants on they dont dissappear in an hour, or if you die. The profitability of Alchemy is also highly dependent on the raiding community of your server, so your mileage may vary.
Jewelcrafting offers profit in prospecting, cutting gems, and probably the best profession for making stat allocations with it's in built buff to your character. The special Jewelcrafter only gems allow jewelcrafters to allocate hit, or any other stat they want far better then any other profession in the game. So as you progress in the game, jewelcrafting is wonderful for allowing you to equip that new piece of gear even if it doesn't have as much of X stat as the old piece did.
Currently Jewelcrafting is a bit low on the profit scale, on top of this cut gems dont stack, which is a real pain. The fact that the number of pieces of gear in northrend with gem slots is proportionetly less then back in outland, makes the future looks dim. There is one positive yet to come, should new content be hard like the dev's have promissed, people will need to do more min maxing, increasing the need for anything that can give them a better chance. Epic gems have yet to be introduced, because of this there may be lots of profit in the future.
Inscription is gold at the moment, and so far I haven't seen a sizable decrease in business despite the release of dual specs. There have been 58 new recipes introducd with the most recent patch and the shoulder enchants which allow you to skip having to get exalted with the Son's of Hodir are worth their weight in gold alone. So all in all, Iscription is good for making gold. The downside is what the future holds. While Jewelcrafting has epic gems to look forward to, I can't see them releasing yet more inscription glyphs before the next expansion. After the next expansion, I am still at a loss as to how the profession could be changed, its not ike they can continue to release more and more powerful glyphs, so who can tell where this is going.
Finally Enchanting. Enchanting is still one of the most annoying professions to make gold from. It is very possible, through disenchanting, to make gold, and there is the ability to place enchants on scrolls to sell on the auction house. But wow... it is a pain, each scroll must be individually made, and there is no way to look at the tooltip unless you have one in inventory. This prevents you from checking how many you have in inventory, and to see if they are currently profitable (sales prices seem to fluctuate wildly). The pluses are of course the ring enchants, and the ability to disenchant your soul bound gear, which is rather nice. Personally despite having a level 450 enchanter, I usually don't bother because of the very large investment in capital per scroll and pains of maintaining stock and getting my hands on enough gear to disenchant for enchanting mats. There is money here, there is also more work here, so take from this what you will.
I hope this give you a better idea on how the different profesions breakdown and perhaps gives you an idea as to what you may want to pursue. Personally if your not level 80 recommend the two gathering professions (herb and mining), which you should use to pay for your epic mount flying training, dual spec, etc, and then save enough gold to powerlevel 2 of the accessories professions. After that go kill the auction house and proceed to rob it blind. This is Miy saying may your gold flow like the blood of your enemies and for the horde. Read more!
Each category has it's positives and negatives, and I wanted to talk to you about how to choose based on your play style and which professions produce the most for your time from a gold standpoint.
Lets start off by breaking down each category.
Gathering professions are skinning, herbalism and mining. They offer a set bonus dependent on skill level and allow you to pick up (essentially) gold from the ground. While personally I find flying around to be painfully boring, if you out questing in the wilds often this might be the choice for you. Skinning requires dead mobs, so it is something you must consider if you choose it. Between mining and herbalism, both seem to be selling for about the same amount stack wise in the auction house. As herbs are more plentiful in the wild, between the two I would probably recommend herbalism. Profit potential, 300-600 gold per gathering profession per hour. (this guy claims 1000 gold an hour with both mining and herbalism: Link)
Armor professions are your Leatherworking, Tailoring, and Blacksmithing. These allow you to put extra stat adjusting items on your gear, and allow you to craft gear. However as no level 80 gear is BOP anymore, there is no real point to these professions. They dont give you any stat adjustments that another profession wouldn't give you, and they dont allow you to wear gear that another profession wouldn't. Any items you could craft with an armor profession, you can take the raw materials and find someone else in your guild to make for little to no extra cost. So from a money making standpoint, and for character developement, they are pretty much a waste of a profession choice. (should you decide to go this route I recommend looking at producing twink gear on a regular basis)
Finally there are the Accessories Professions Category. These include Inscription, Jewelcrafting, Alchemy, and Enchanting. Alchemy is interesting in that it can be profitable and the self buffs from potions and flasks are greater due to mixology. The downside is that the other accesory profession buffs dont expire. One you socket a gem or put those shoulder enchants on they dont dissappear in an hour, or if you die. The profitability of Alchemy is also highly dependent on the raiding community of your server, so your mileage may vary.
Jewelcrafting offers profit in prospecting, cutting gems, and probably the best profession for making stat allocations with it's in built buff to your character. The special Jewelcrafter only gems allow jewelcrafters to allocate hit, or any other stat they want far better then any other profession in the game. So as you progress in the game, jewelcrafting is wonderful for allowing you to equip that new piece of gear even if it doesn't have as much of X stat as the old piece did.
Currently Jewelcrafting is a bit low on the profit scale, on top of this cut gems dont stack, which is a real pain. The fact that the number of pieces of gear in northrend with gem slots is proportionetly less then back in outland, makes the future looks dim. There is one positive yet to come, should new content be hard like the dev's have promissed, people will need to do more min maxing, increasing the need for anything that can give them a better chance. Epic gems have yet to be introduced, because of this there may be lots of profit in the future.
Inscription is gold at the moment, and so far I haven't seen a sizable decrease in business despite the release of dual specs. There have been 58 new recipes introducd with the most recent patch and the shoulder enchants which allow you to skip having to get exalted with the Son's of Hodir are worth their weight in gold alone. So all in all, Iscription is good for making gold. The downside is what the future holds. While Jewelcrafting has epic gems to look forward to, I can't see them releasing yet more inscription glyphs before the next expansion. After the next expansion, I am still at a loss as to how the profession could be changed, its not ike they can continue to release more and more powerful glyphs, so who can tell where this is going.
Finally Enchanting. Enchanting is still one of the most annoying professions to make gold from. It is very possible, through disenchanting, to make gold, and there is the ability to place enchants on scrolls to sell on the auction house. But wow... it is a pain, each scroll must be individually made, and there is no way to look at the tooltip unless you have one in inventory. This prevents you from checking how many you have in inventory, and to see if they are currently profitable (sales prices seem to fluctuate wildly). The pluses are of course the ring enchants, and the ability to disenchant your soul bound gear, which is rather nice. Personally despite having a level 450 enchanter, I usually don't bother because of the very large investment in capital per scroll and pains of maintaining stock and getting my hands on enough gear to disenchant for enchanting mats. There is money here, there is also more work here, so take from this what you will.
I hope this give you a better idea on how the different profesions breakdown and perhaps gives you an idea as to what you may want to pursue. Personally if your not level 80 recommend the two gathering professions (herb and mining), which you should use to pay for your epic mount flying training, dual spec, etc, and then save enough gold to powerlevel 2 of the accessories professions. After that go kill the auction house and proceed to rob it blind. This is Miy saying may your gold flow like the blood of your enemies and for the horde. Read more!
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
AutoMagic, autoselling your junk.
So today I am going to discuss another section of the Auctioneer Suite, known as Automagic. The module is designed for selling items to vendors automatically, well sort of. Like anything in the game the developers want abilities to be triggered by keypresses, so you'll have to hit a confirm button. This is a very cool module, it save alot of time, and comes with some cool functions. We will start our discussion on how to turn Automagic on or off in Auctioneer's Config UI.
Breakdown:
1. Enabling/Disabling AutoMagic
2. Selling Junk (Greys)
3. Selling Junk to You (Whites)
4. Selling Items Bought from the AH (for Profit)
1. Enabling or Disabling AutoMagic:
This is pretty simple, we start by pressing the gold pile icon in the Auctioneer Slidebar (or push the config button when at the auction house). This will open up our Auctioneer Configuration menu, and by clicking on the AutoMagic option in the Util Modules we can turn it off or on and configure the different options available.
Once enabled AutoMagic will allow us to do a variety of things such as,
2. Selling Junk (Greys):
This is primarily what I use AutoMagic for. It works by opening up a confirm sell list once you click on a vendor. Click yes to sell, and whala, all you grey items have been sold. There are a few competing Mods on the market such as SellJunk which add a button to the Vendors UI to do something similar. However after having tried both I am firmly convinced on the usefulness of AutoMagic. AutoMagic is more flexible, is proactive vs passive, and sells everything in one go. SellJunk has a limit, and occasionally needs to be pushed multiple times to sell all the greys in your bag.
Add in the fact that Automagic is built into Auctioneer which if your an AH Trader your already using and you get a win win situation. AutoMagic also goes one step further. While SellJunk will sell everything grey named in your bag, AutoMagic has a feature that allows you to,
3. Sell Possible Junk (White level Items)
White named items in the game have some use or another, but most of them are now pretty pointless. There are a number of glyphs that eliminate the need for regents (which are white items). There are a variety of food items that drop from mobs, but we really want to carry around 1-2 full stacks of food, not a dozen stacks of one of each different food item. Add the things like stones, and rocks from mining, and there are quie a few items that can be used... but are probably better to sell and clear up that bag space.
AutoMagic meets this need by allowing us to add items to the Autosell list, so you do alot of mining, grinding, etc and get alot of the same white item which you always sell anyway? Well add it to the list and bother with it no more!
4. Auto AH Vendor Sales
Finally AutoMagic has one other funtion, there is the ability within Auctioneer to buy items on the auction house to sell to a vendor for a profit (the poster posted it for less then the Vendor will buy it for). But often if your buying a variety of items it is easy to forget which items were bought to be sold to the vendors. This is where AutoMagic come in again. AutoMagic will automatically remember the items you bought to be sold to the vendor and the next time you open a vendor window the confirmation box will pop up to sell those items! It is a big time saver, especially if your searching that auction house for vendor sales on a regular basis.
So get out there my loyal readers and start AutoMagicing away! Save your self an extra 2 minutes every time you visit a vendor!
Read more!
Breakdown:
1. Enabling/Disabling AutoMagic
2. Selling Junk (Greys)
3. Selling Junk to You (Whites)
4. Selling Items Bought from the AH (for Profit)
1. Enabling or Disabling AutoMagic:
This is pretty simple, we start by pressing the gold pile icon in the Auctioneer Slidebar (or push the config button when at the auction house). This will open up our Auctioneer Configuration menu, and by clicking on the AutoMagic option in the Util Modules we can turn it off or on and configure the different options available.
Once enabled AutoMagic will allow us to do a variety of things such as,
2. Selling Junk (Greys):
This is primarily what I use AutoMagic for. It works by opening up a confirm sell list once you click on a vendor. Click yes to sell, and whala, all you grey items have been sold. There are a few competing Mods on the market such as SellJunk which add a button to the Vendors UI to do something similar. However after having tried both I am firmly convinced on the usefulness of AutoMagic. AutoMagic is more flexible, is proactive vs passive, and sells everything in one go. SellJunk has a limit, and occasionally needs to be pushed multiple times to sell all the greys in your bag.
Add in the fact that Automagic is built into Auctioneer which if your an AH Trader your already using and you get a win win situation. AutoMagic also goes one step further. While SellJunk will sell everything grey named in your bag, AutoMagic has a feature that allows you to,
3. Sell Possible Junk (White level Items)
White named items in the game have some use or another, but most of them are now pretty pointless. There are a number of glyphs that eliminate the need for regents (which are white items). There are a variety of food items that drop from mobs, but we really want to carry around 1-2 full stacks of food, not a dozen stacks of one of each different food item. Add the things like stones, and rocks from mining, and there are quie a few items that can be used... but are probably better to sell and clear up that bag space.
AutoMagic meets this need by allowing us to add items to the Autosell list, so you do alot of mining, grinding, etc and get alot of the same white item which you always sell anyway? Well add it to the list and bother with it no more!
4. Auto AH Vendor Sales
Finally AutoMagic has one other funtion, there is the ability within Auctioneer to buy items on the auction house to sell to a vendor for a profit (the poster posted it for less then the Vendor will buy it for). But often if your buying a variety of items it is easy to forget which items were bought to be sold to the vendors. This is where AutoMagic come in again. AutoMagic will automatically remember the items you bought to be sold to the vendor and the next time you open a vendor window the confirmation box will pop up to sell those items! It is a big time saver, especially if your searching that auction house for vendor sales on a regular basis.
So get out there my loyal readers and start AutoMagicing away! Save your self an extra 2 minutes every time you visit a vendor!
Read more!
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Stocker I Choose You!
Stocker I choose you! Or I would if there was such a add-on. I think the biggest waste of my time each week in my glyph sales is in the restocking of sold glyphs. Each week I mill several dozen stacks of herbs, and then craft several hundred bottles of ink and finally create a queue in ATSW based of what needs to be restocked.
As I had mentioned in a previous blog post I was irritated by having to push mill four times for every stack of herbs I mill. I thought it would be awesome if in a future patch Blizzard changed WOW to allow one click milling of all of a single type of herb in your bag. I am always looking for ways to make my routine faster. Today I wanted to talk about an add-on, that actually doesn't exist, but maybe it should, because if it did, it would definetly make me faster.
I would call this add-on 'stocker'! Advanced Trade Skill Window is a wonderful add-on. It allows me to make my own categories (currently unprofitable, profitable, and highly profitable). It allows me to go down my skills and queue a list of items to be made. I wish it did one more thing.
You see once I have created this list it is just a matter of pressing the process queue button each time it is available to continue production of items I need to restock on my auctioh house alt. However the creation of this list each week takes time. This is where I see an opportunity to save time.
Bagnon my bag mod allows me to see how many of an item I have in stock. So When I create my production queue lists, I mouse over an item, see how many I have in stock, and queue items in lots of 5. If a add-on can tell me how many I have in stock, why not have another add-on intergrated to auto create a queue'd list to bring my stock up to a preset amount?
Here's the basic idea. Within ATSW for each item you could create, a slide bar is available and a check box. If you check the box, it becomes active for the auto queue process, then it is a matter of selecting a in stock amount with the slide bar. Say we want to always have 20 glyphs of blah in stock. We grab the slide bar and set it to 20. Once we have chosen which items we want to have auto queue'd, and the stock amounts, we push the auto queue, button. ATSW, or Stocker would then take our stock number, minus our in stock amount (which we know from our bag mod) and creates a list of production. A couple clicks of process queue and whala, we are ready to send our items to our auction house alt for restocking.
Anyway, at the moment such a add-on doesn't exist. I wish I had the skills to write one since it seems doable within the lua/scripting commands available within the wow interface. It I did create it I would have to say, time savings was a triumph, I am making a note here, huge success. Aperture Science FTW.
Read more!
As I had mentioned in a previous blog post I was irritated by having to push mill four times for every stack of herbs I mill. I thought it would be awesome if in a future patch Blizzard changed WOW to allow one click milling of all of a single type of herb in your bag. I am always looking for ways to make my routine faster. Today I wanted to talk about an add-on, that actually doesn't exist, but maybe it should, because if it did, it would definetly make me faster.
I would call this add-on 'stocker'! Advanced Trade Skill Window is a wonderful add-on. It allows me to make my own categories (currently unprofitable, profitable, and highly profitable). It allows me to go down my skills and queue a list of items to be made. I wish it did one more thing.
You see once I have created this list it is just a matter of pressing the process queue button each time it is available to continue production of items I need to restock on my auctioh house alt. However the creation of this list each week takes time. This is where I see an opportunity to save time.
Bagnon my bag mod allows me to see how many of an item I have in stock. So When I create my production queue lists, I mouse over an item, see how many I have in stock, and queue items in lots of 5. If a add-on can tell me how many I have in stock, why not have another add-on intergrated to auto create a queue'd list to bring my stock up to a preset amount?
Here's the basic idea. Within ATSW for each item you could create, a slide bar is available and a check box. If you check the box, it becomes active for the auto queue process, then it is a matter of selecting a in stock amount with the slide bar. Say we want to always have 20 glyphs of blah in stock. We grab the slide bar and set it to 20. Once we have chosen which items we want to have auto queue'd, and the stock amounts, we push the auto queue, button. ATSW, or Stocker would then take our stock number, minus our in stock amount (which we know from our bag mod) and creates a list of production. A couple clicks of process queue and whala, we are ready to send our items to our auction house alt for restocking.
Anyway, at the moment such a add-on doesn't exist. I wish I had the skills to write one since it seems doable within the lua/scripting commands available within the wow interface. It I did create it I would have to say, time savings was a triumph, I am making a note here, huge success. Aperture Science FTW.
Read more!
Friday, May 15, 2009
AH Trader Segment #8
Notes for the latest AIE Podcast Segment, AH Trader #8:
Talking about the Auction House Alt, and how it can save you time and gold.
Title: AHtrader 8
Opening: Hey and welcome to AHtrader 8, your segment of Goblinish gassy goldy goodness. This is Miy, spelled M. I. Y. and today we will be talking about the AH alt, aka the auction house alt.
Current News:
AhTrader.blogspot.com is my new blog where I am now posting all my notes from these segments and other wow gold related advice.
You may have noticed my absence for the last few podcasts as I took a break to try and figure out what direction I wanted to go with my podcast segments and blog posts. After a few weeks of random writing and thorough brain storming, I have decided to focus on simple beginner tips in the podcasts segments and slightly more advanced tips for saving time on my blog posts. So again my new blog is AHTrader.blogspot.com, please visit and check it out.
Main Topic:
So today’s main topic is the auction house alt, it is a very simple time saving technique that was developed many, many, MMO’s ago. The auction house alt is simply a level 1 character stationed at a major city near an auction house and a mailbox. The purpose of the auction house alt is three fold.
First, the auction house alt saves you time. Your alt will keep your main character from having to run into a major city every time you want to sell something on the auction house. This time savings really adds up, and allows you to use your hearthstone for more important things.
Second having an auction house alt can make it a little easier to manage your gold and items. By having all your investment gold and Items for sale on one character, you may find it easier to track where your gold is going, and how much you are actually making each week from your different activities.
Finally an auction house alt saves you bag space. Personally I post close to 400 glyphs on the auction house a day, if I kept these on one of my main characters; I wouldn’t be able to loot anything. My auction house alt have 4 of the large Inscription bags which allow me to store them all in one convenient place to make batch posting items simple and quick. I also use my auction house alt’s bank as a place to store stuff I have no use for presently but might be able to use in the future.
Final advice:
Choose a race/class you won’t be tempted to play, the purpose of this character is to stay in the major cities near an auction house, if you’re not there it defeats the purpose. On another note, if you having issues with computer performance due to memory, it can be useful to have auctioneer and other similar add-ons activated on your auction house alt only.
Closing: That concludes this segment, the notes on this can be found at ahtrader.blogspot.com, as well as other gold and auction house tips. This is Miy saying may your gold flow like the blood of your enemies and for the horde.
Read more!
Talking about the Auction House Alt, and how it can save you time and gold.
Title: AHtrader 8
Opening: Hey and welcome to AHtrader 8, your segment of Goblinish gassy goldy goodness. This is Miy, spelled M. I. Y. and today we will be talking about the AH alt, aka the auction house alt.
Current News:
AhTrader.blogspot.com is my new blog where I am now posting all my notes from these segments and other wow gold related advice.
You may have noticed my absence for the last few podcasts as I took a break to try and figure out what direction I wanted to go with my podcast segments and blog posts. After a few weeks of random writing and thorough brain storming, I have decided to focus on simple beginner tips in the podcasts segments and slightly more advanced tips for saving time on my blog posts. So again my new blog is AHTrader.blogspot.com, please visit and check it out.
Main Topic:
So today’s main topic is the auction house alt, it is a very simple time saving technique that was developed many, many, MMO’s ago. The auction house alt is simply a level 1 character stationed at a major city near an auction house and a mailbox. The purpose of the auction house alt is three fold.
First, the auction house alt saves you time. Your alt will keep your main character from having to run into a major city every time you want to sell something on the auction house. This time savings really adds up, and allows you to use your hearthstone for more important things.
Second having an auction house alt can make it a little easier to manage your gold and items. By having all your investment gold and Items for sale on one character, you may find it easier to track where your gold is going, and how much you are actually making each week from your different activities.
Finally an auction house alt saves you bag space. Personally I post close to 400 glyphs on the auction house a day, if I kept these on one of my main characters; I wouldn’t be able to loot anything. My auction house alt have 4 of the large Inscription bags which allow me to store them all in one convenient place to make batch posting items simple and quick. I also use my auction house alt’s bank as a place to store stuff I have no use for presently but might be able to use in the future.
Final advice:
Choose a race/class you won’t be tempted to play, the purpose of this character is to stay in the major cities near an auction house, if you’re not there it defeats the purpose. On another note, if you having issues with computer performance due to memory, it can be useful to have auctioneer and other similar add-ons activated on your auction house alt only.
Closing: That concludes this segment, the notes on this can be found at ahtrader.blogspot.com, as well as other gold and auction house tips. This is Miy saying may your gold flow like the blood of your enemies and for the horde.
Read more!
Monday, May 11, 2009
Batch Posting, Time Saver, Gold Maker.
I wanted to go into detail about batch posting, but first I wanted to discuss slightly the path I have taken to finally understand and use batch posting effectively.
I think there are phases in the life of an auction house trader. The first phase is being a buyer. You don’t sell, buying things you need when you have enough gold from questing or dailies. At some point perhaps due to lack of gold, or frustration with grinding you decide to try earn your gold through the AH.
This starts phase two, which is when you start to actively participate within the auction house economy. Generally you would start with one or two items, trying to sell them. Perhaps they are crafted items or something you gathered, regardless you are a seller of a couple items, and eventually you track and understand these items well.
This phase is somewhat of a turning point. It allows you to realize the potential for gold by participating in the auction house, or you get frustrated and go back to phase one. Some people will never leave this phase, content to be worker bees and gather herbs and such. All economies need workers, after all the gold in our wow economy comes from people doing quests and grinding mobs. The auction house merely redistributes this gold. The auction house of itself is actually a gold destroying function of our virtual game. It creates no wealth, just wealthy players.
As time passes for those that find some success selling, they evolve to carry more and more items, and usually end up specializing in one area or a couple of limited ones. The main difference between this and the second phase is primarily quantity and activity. At this phase AH Traders are posting on a pretty much daily basis and sell 30-100 items a day. I would say that the average income for these people would be 100-500 gold a day for spending 30 minutes putting up auctions each day, and perhaps another hour or two for restocking goods once a week.
The problem that arises is how to breach the time barrier. This is the primary problem for making it to the final phase. As always in this blog I believe time is the most important thing. Sure you could make more gold off the auction house, but it would require more and more time spent in front of the auction house click on the post auction button in auctioneer, and more and more time researching those items you are carrying to make sure you are making a profit off them. More math, more time, and more spreadsheets. Time becomes the limiting factor in the amount you can make on the auction house.
There are dozens of ways to make gold off the auction house, but each way requires a certain amount of time. So then we ask ourselves how are people like Gevlon making 10,000 gold a week? Is he spending 10 hours a day staring at his auction house screen? The answer is no, it comes down to a revolutionary way of selling, a change in your mentality. It is called batch posting.
The problem with batch posting is that it posts all your auctions, If you posting 1000 items a day like Gevlon, it would take forever to check each item to make sure it was going to sell for an appropriate price before clicking on the batch post button. At that point what’s the point, I may as well just click post auctions when I check each auction anyway, I mean Auctioneer will queue the auctions anyway so why bother with batch posting?
The answer is really simple, Gevlon, and myself as well, we don’t check the auctions we are going to list. I post 400 auctions a day. I do a scan of the auction house than I push batch post. It takes less than two minutes of my time. I window out of WOW and read some blogs, and check back in 15-20 minutes later and turn off WOW. I repeat, I have no idea what my auctions are selling for. I don’t check, by this phase you should be intimately familiar with Auctioneer. If you have set up the configuration correctly it will sell your items for approximately for what you want it to. Here is the kicker, at this point you may even be losing gold on some of your auctions. There will be errors when you first start this method. Items that you forgot to click on a match function, or that auctioneer didn’t have correct data on and they sold for ridiculously low prices. Sometimes you will be losing because you did the math wrong. Some items will be posting for too much, other for too little, adjustments will be made, but this one little function is the key to wealth, more than anything else.
After the first few weeks you can do an assessment with auctioneers bean counter and find out whether an items is making you gold or not. Batch posting is not for the new AH Trader, ideally it for those people who have gotten to the point that they are selling literally hundreds of items every day, and have the gold to back up mistakes while they convert to this new way of thinking. Batch posting allows an AH Trader to breach the time problem. Batch posting has allowed me to enter into fourth phase. It has allowed me to make an average of 1000g a day, every day. This is the final phase, or at least this is as far as I have made it. Perhaps there is more beyond this, but I am still searching for that next level myself so obviously I can’t tell you about it.
Ultimately, Batch Posting will save you time, and when it comes down to it, that’s all that really matters.
Read more!
I think there are phases in the life of an auction house trader. The first phase is being a buyer. You don’t sell, buying things you need when you have enough gold from questing or dailies. At some point perhaps due to lack of gold, or frustration with grinding you decide to try earn your gold through the AH.
This starts phase two, which is when you start to actively participate within the auction house economy. Generally you would start with one or two items, trying to sell them. Perhaps they are crafted items or something you gathered, regardless you are a seller of a couple items, and eventually you track and understand these items well.
This phase is somewhat of a turning point. It allows you to realize the potential for gold by participating in the auction house, or you get frustrated and go back to phase one. Some people will never leave this phase, content to be worker bees and gather herbs and such. All economies need workers, after all the gold in our wow economy comes from people doing quests and grinding mobs. The auction house merely redistributes this gold. The auction house of itself is actually a gold destroying function of our virtual game. It creates no wealth, just wealthy players.
As time passes for those that find some success selling, they evolve to carry more and more items, and usually end up specializing in one area or a couple of limited ones. The main difference between this and the second phase is primarily quantity and activity. At this phase AH Traders are posting on a pretty much daily basis and sell 30-100 items a day. I would say that the average income for these people would be 100-500 gold a day for spending 30 minutes putting up auctions each day, and perhaps another hour or two for restocking goods once a week.
The problem that arises is how to breach the time barrier. This is the primary problem for making it to the final phase. As always in this blog I believe time is the most important thing. Sure you could make more gold off the auction house, but it would require more and more time spent in front of the auction house click on the post auction button in auctioneer, and more and more time researching those items you are carrying to make sure you are making a profit off them. More math, more time, and more spreadsheets. Time becomes the limiting factor in the amount you can make on the auction house.
There are dozens of ways to make gold off the auction house, but each way requires a certain amount of time. So then we ask ourselves how are people like Gevlon making 10,000 gold a week? Is he spending 10 hours a day staring at his auction house screen? The answer is no, it comes down to a revolutionary way of selling, a change in your mentality. It is called batch posting.
The problem with batch posting is that it posts all your auctions, If you posting 1000 items a day like Gevlon, it would take forever to check each item to make sure it was going to sell for an appropriate price before clicking on the batch post button. At that point what’s the point, I may as well just click post auctions when I check each auction anyway, I mean Auctioneer will queue the auctions anyway so why bother with batch posting?
The answer is really simple, Gevlon, and myself as well, we don’t check the auctions we are going to list. I post 400 auctions a day. I do a scan of the auction house than I push batch post. It takes less than two minutes of my time. I window out of WOW and read some blogs, and check back in 15-20 minutes later and turn off WOW. I repeat, I have no idea what my auctions are selling for. I don’t check, by this phase you should be intimately familiar with Auctioneer. If you have set up the configuration correctly it will sell your items for approximately for what you want it to. Here is the kicker, at this point you may even be losing gold on some of your auctions. There will be errors when you first start this method. Items that you forgot to click on a match function, or that auctioneer didn’t have correct data on and they sold for ridiculously low prices. Sometimes you will be losing because you did the math wrong. Some items will be posting for too much, other for too little, adjustments will be made, but this one little function is the key to wealth, more than anything else.
After the first few weeks you can do an assessment with auctioneers bean counter and find out whether an items is making you gold or not. Batch posting is not for the new AH Trader, ideally it for those people who have gotten to the point that they are selling literally hundreds of items every day, and have the gold to back up mistakes while they convert to this new way of thinking. Batch posting allows an AH Trader to breach the time problem. Batch posting has allowed me to enter into fourth phase. It has allowed me to make an average of 1000g a day, every day. This is the final phase, or at least this is as far as I have made it. Perhaps there is more beyond this, but I am still searching for that next level myself so obviously I can’t tell you about it.
Ultimately, Batch Posting will save you time, and when it comes down to it, that’s all that really matters.
Read more!
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
The Evolution of the most Profitable Tradeskill
I think about WOW economics alot, and how the market affects the game. Today I wanted to hash out some of my thoughts about the past and the future of WOW professions. This is primarily related to what professions offer the most potential for profit.
Through the last 3 eras of the game, Vanilla, BC, and Wrath, each has had a dominant profession. By dominant I refer to profit potential. In the original vanilla WOW, I believe the most profitable profession was enchanting. In BC, it was Jewelcrafting and now in Wrath it is Inscription. Each profession is still very profitable, but with each new expansion a new king has come forth.
There are many factors that affect professions and their profit potential. These are the ones that come off the top of my head.
1. Application
2. Cost
3. Turnover
Application is how many uses does a profession have. Enchanting, JC, and Inscription have the most uses out of all other professions. To be a little more clear, lets take a look at the current king Inscription. Many of the low level glyphs are in demand for level 80s and level 15 characters as well.
This is not true with most other professions. Enchanting has minimal use for low level characters with the exception of twinks, and low level spells are useless to high level characters.Your not going to put +1 spirit on your level 80 shaman are you? No I didn't thinks so. Now take Jewelcrafting, you won't even see a gem slot till level 60 gear, and sadly enough the amount of gear with gem slots after level 70 has sharply declined. (evidence of this can be found by comparing the blue gear dropped in instances in Outland vs Northrend).
So how many applications a profession has, or how many items that can be produced for profit greatly affect the potential profit of a profession. Despite Enchanting and Jewelcrafting not having as many uses as Inscription, they still far outstrip everyother profession in application.
Cost is a factor in the ability to make items and sell them. I guess what I am saying is the percentage of the sales price. 'Glyph A' costs me 2 gold to make, and I sell it for 10 gold, my cost is 20%. Another reason that Inscription is King at the moment is that cost is almost non existant. Glyphs are subsidised by Snowfall Ink sales, make them for silver and sell tham for gold. Jewelcrafting would be next in this list with a very low cost of production, at least for common level gems. Enchanting however is actually rather pricy.
Finally Turnover, or how often are these items are being replaced. Repeat sales are the bread and butter of all normal businesses. If you cant sell it a second time, it makes it hard to make an effective living. One of the problem with Gear Professions, is that once someone has bought your epic crafted helm, they are never going to buy it again. Generally speaking, no one needs two helmets. But should they get a new drop, they will need new gems, and a new enchant, regardless of that fact that their old gear already had these. This is turnover.
So those are some of the factors that affect profession profit potential. It is interesting to note with each new expansion that the new profession instantly becomes the new most profitable profession. Makes me want to keep an alt ready for the next expansion so I can get a jump on whatever new profession is announced at Blizzcon. Anyone want to bet it will be based of leather or cloth?
One of these day's I return to this post and rewrite it with the correct economic terms, but I am lazy today.
Miy Read more!
Through the last 3 eras of the game, Vanilla, BC, and Wrath, each has had a dominant profession. By dominant I refer to profit potential. In the original vanilla WOW, I believe the most profitable profession was enchanting. In BC, it was Jewelcrafting and now in Wrath it is Inscription. Each profession is still very profitable, but with each new expansion a new king has come forth.
There are many factors that affect professions and their profit potential. These are the ones that come off the top of my head.
1. Application
2. Cost
3. Turnover
Application is how many uses does a profession have. Enchanting, JC, and Inscription have the most uses out of all other professions. To be a little more clear, lets take a look at the current king Inscription. Many of the low level glyphs are in demand for level 80s and level 15 characters as well.
This is not true with most other professions. Enchanting has minimal use for low level characters with the exception of twinks, and low level spells are useless to high level characters.Your not going to put +1 spirit on your level 80 shaman are you? No I didn't thinks so. Now take Jewelcrafting, you won't even see a gem slot till level 60 gear, and sadly enough the amount of gear with gem slots after level 70 has sharply declined. (evidence of this can be found by comparing the blue gear dropped in instances in Outland vs Northrend).
So how many applications a profession has, or how many items that can be produced for profit greatly affect the potential profit of a profession. Despite Enchanting and Jewelcrafting not having as many uses as Inscription, they still far outstrip everyother profession in application.
Cost is a factor in the ability to make items and sell them. I guess what I am saying is the percentage of the sales price. 'Glyph A' costs me 2 gold to make, and I sell it for 10 gold, my cost is 20%. Another reason that Inscription is King at the moment is that cost is almost non existant. Glyphs are subsidised by Snowfall Ink sales, make them for silver and sell tham for gold. Jewelcrafting would be next in this list with a very low cost of production, at least for common level gems. Enchanting however is actually rather pricy.
Finally Turnover, or how often are these items are being replaced. Repeat sales are the bread and butter of all normal businesses. If you cant sell it a second time, it makes it hard to make an effective living. One of the problem with Gear Professions, is that once someone has bought your epic crafted helm, they are never going to buy it again. Generally speaking, no one needs two helmets. But should they get a new drop, they will need new gems, and a new enchant, regardless of that fact that their old gear already had these. This is turnover.
So those are some of the factors that affect profession profit potential. It is interesting to note with each new expansion that the new profession instantly becomes the new most profitable profession. Makes me want to keep an alt ready for the next expansion so I can get a jump on whatever new profession is announced at Blizzcon. Anyone want to bet it will be based of leather or cloth?
One of these day's I return to this post and rewrite it with the correct economic terms, but I am lazy today.
Miy Read more!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
