Tag Archive for 'gold'

Playing the AH on a tiny server

Published
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Yashima
on November 15, 2009
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These days I log on to my 3 auctioneers most days and to my professionals with lucrative cooldowns. The results are in and it is looking good. Just a week ago my Shaman hit level 70 and I went and bought her epic flying and cold weather flying. Before that I was at 15k and now I am already back at 13k plus I did invest more, finished leveling Jewelcrafting and have managed to stockpile more epic gems for the day that I get my first recipe ;)

My glyph business is not doing so good I thought but then I collected about 300gold this morning from one of my glyph characters which on our tiny server. I think there are about 500 active acounts left on alliance side, just heard yesterday that one major guild and another well-known minor raiding guild left the server in the last month or so. When I scan the AH there are never more than 6k auctions in there – now imagine that about 25-30% of that are glyphs … There are still 3 other major players in the glyph market right now so it is not easy earning money that way. I am thinking of reducing my time spent on that part and hoping that Blizzard will provide a solution for servers like ours in the future.

We cannot just transfer. Not as a guild. Too many people have too many high level alts and since we’re a small guild we need those alts for crafting, raiding and generally that is what we do: leveling alts. We also have lots of friends outside the guild on which we rely a lot to get our 10-mans going. We have good relations to several guilds still here and to what remains of the server community. I think the guild would just die out if we transfered somewhere. We need some other solution … like a free transfer to a bigger server.

7 methods to make you rich

Published
by
Yashima
on September 4, 2008
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status of my inscription preparationsI decided to do another post on gold making because that’s what I am actually best at in the game. So here come seven quick methods to help bring some variance into your get-rich-quick scheme.

Monday starts out easy with a classic: Gathering either herbs, leather or ores. Take the Nether Residue quest with you (near the flight master in Shattrath) and sell the mats. Personally I like flying around herbing a lot. It’s not a lot of stress either and if you can really bear to sell the mats quite profitable. You might also start saving up for Inscription. Leather and ores also sell fine. Bonus points if you make elixirs from herbs and sell them for insane prices.

Tuesday is time for dailies: Shattered Sun Dailies are an easy source of money. There are a lot of them close together and they are pretty easy to finish. Should give you about 80-90 gold in an hour if you are efficient. If you group with a friend you might be even faster than that and not get ganked in the process. Best time: early in the morning when the Isle is empty.

Wednesday is my favorite instance day. Instance farming. If you are in a raiding guild, do Kara and spend the badges on a Primal Nether. You might also do heroics or other instances – check the daily instance quests. Take an enchanter to maximize the value of each un-needed drop.  Empty your bags before the instance and loot as much as you can :) Sell everything. Doesn’t make as much gold per hour probably but it should be fun, right? Hint: do something easy so you don’t wipe. Wipes cost money! Even better if you still need rep somewhere.

Thursday is lazy and relaxed with Fishing. My all time favorite! Of course fishing itself is a bit boring all things considered. It makes good gold however. You can fish in remote spots and one is rarely bothered by other players when fishing. Nearly everything you can fish up is worth something. Combine with the Fishing Daily for added rewards. If you fish only from pools in Nagrand and Zangar I guess you could make a bit above 100g in an hour. Take the trash as well it can add up …

Friday is good to remember the old times: Nostalgia. Revisit old places like Stratholme or Scholomance. Empty your bags, you will need them. Bonus points if you are Enchanter because Shards are still worth it. Sell the Righteous Orbs and Recipe drops for outreagous prices. Takes a bit of practice or better gear than mine. If you don’t die it should makes as much money as gathering stuff. With a group of friends you could also do Zul Gurub or Ony for gold.

Saturday is the busiest day on the AH: AH Flipping. Here’s an activity with a risk. Scanning the AH is fast. There are always bargains to be had. It doesn’t take very long to buy some stuff cheaply and put it back up. It just takes nerves to do it. Bonus points if you are a Jewelcrafter and can easily buy uncut gems and relist them cut for twice the price. For Enchanters look out for cheap greens to disenchant, sometimes the mats are worth more than the items.

Sunday. Something quick and easy for the finale: Profession Cooldowns while only be able to used once a day or every few days are usually worth using. I go to the AH buy cheapest mats and transmute to something nicer. I make about 25gold everytime I do that. Of course I don’t always sell. But I should. Don’t need Primals anymore really. The amount really depends on the cooldown.

Your 12 step program to more gold – Part 2

Published
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Yashima
on August 30, 2008
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Lakshmi's AuctionsSo in Part 1 of this guide I wrote up how you can prepare to make lots of gold from your fellow players.

So if you followed my advice by now you probably have set up a banking alt, started saving your gold, got yourself some helpful addons and a few big bags full of loot.

Now what to do with that loot?

Here comes the second set of tips how to become rich in the World of Warcraft.

7. Don’t stockpile. Sell everything. When logging of for the night, switch to your bank alt, empty their mailbox, run over to the AH and just put up everything for sale. Don’t worry too much about getting good prices for your stuff or wasting money on AH fees. Selling lots of cheap stuff is better than not selling a lot of expensive stuff. Every copper counts!

8. Consider your professions. Professions are part of my personal gold making scheme. I have two characters at max level. The second one I leveled mostly because I wanted a character with maxed out Tailoring and Skinning. My main has Alchemy and Herbalism and I am leveling a third character with Jewelcrafting and Mining. The easiest professions to make money of are the three gathering professions. If you want to level another alt just choose Skining and either Herbalism or Mining as professions. From the crafting professions there are those that are more useful than others:

Alchemy: the specializations are nice because they help make the most out of materials. Use your timers if you have the time to log on. Transmutations are money makers for a minimum amount of invested time. Primal Earth -> Primal Water is my favorite. Alchemy is cheap to level I think.

Tailoring: make your own bags. Again: if you have the time to use up your timers … they all generate money. Plus there are some things that can be sold. Even when it is not Xmas the Xmas outfits sell quite nicely sometimes. I think it is nice to have a tailor to be able to use up all that cloth you find to make items for your Disenchanter (up next).

Enchanter: well most Enchanters really are Disenchanters, right? Of course you could just ask a friend to do it for you. But it is much more comfortable to have your own. But … it is a bit expensive to level this as you need to have quite a high level to be able to disenchant most things you find. But the Enchanting mats are definitely worth it on the AH. It is a good idea to use your Bank alt as Enchanter if you plan to level your Bank alt (my bank alts are level 38 and level 36). Right now on our realm you could get rich from Greater Eternal Essences and Greater Nether Essences. Illusion Dust is also very nice. (Enchantrix which is included with Auctioneer usually is very helpful to see which items will yield which enchant mats)

Jewelcrafting: Definitely not cheap to level. But Lakshmi has now reached 350+ and can sell cut gems on the AH and that makes great money. I have not yet bought a single one of the recipes for the rare stones, they are too expensive with every recipe going for at least 300 gold. It would take way too many gems to make a profit from a single recipe. There are enough “free” recipes for uncommon gems that still sell. Prospecting is also very nice. Even “simple” gems go for great profits on the auction house because most are needed for a variety of recipes and often those are recipes people will craft for their alts. I don’t think the timer for the Brilliant Glas recipe is very useful unless you get skillpoints from it and still have a huge cash of uncommon gems from the times when these sold for next to nothing.

Leatherworker: Has some nice items for your alts. For the rest it is much the same as Tailoring except that you need a Skinner for the Mats.

Smith: I have to say I never leveled a smith so I can’t really say anything about that. I much prefer to use my ores for Jewelcrafting.

I am very curious about Inscription and the new mechanism to sell enchants on the AH. I believe both will be huge in making gold. As with gems, buff food, flasks etc.  I believe that Inscriptions and Enchants are items which cannot really be obtained from anywhere but your fellow players.

My price for best return on investment for crafting professions goes to Jewelcrafting right now. Enchanting and Alchemy should be close. Nothing beats gathering professions however because everyone tends to stockpile mats for their crafting profession “just in case” which is not helping in making you gold. Just sell it!

9. Cook and fish. If you are into fishing you probably already know it’s a gold maker. Fishing has a very good time:gold ratio. On the lower levels you are better off using up only the cooking materials that you need to level and selling the rest, preferably in big batches that people who are too lazy to farm are looking for. I never thought people would buy all the Mystery Meat and stuff I found. Absolute bestseller are the items you need for the level 225 cooking quest. Any kind of pool fishing will yield an ok amount of gold. The best fishing is in the three zones around Shattrath. Zangarmarshes are usually the quietest. You can just wander around the lakes and fish out all the junk plus some fish. I like my Golden Scale Vendor Fish. When I feel like it I do the cooking and fishing dailies with my druid. Both are easy to do and yield a nice return on my time.

10. Auctioning for the Experts. At first you just sell everything for whatever price feels right. If you keep it up for a while you will learn what sells and what doesn’t. If you have a few minutes to spare on your auction runs let Auctioneer scan the AH. It stores a lot of price statistics which will help you in the long run. But don’t trust those statistics blindly! Thinking is still required. There are people who game Auctioneer users. Once you have a feeling for the market and prices you may consider doing some AH Flipping. Flipping is when you buy something cheap and sell it again for a good profit. Flipping carries a big risk. Use it sparingly and only when you are pretty sure that the price you are paying really is cheap. I think my best flip recently was buying to Shadow Pearls for 80 silver (silver!) and making them into two Necklaces of the Deep which sold for 100 gold each.

There are some weapons across all levels that will always sell sooner or later for a nice price. Sometimes you can find them cheap and resell them.

Much less risky is to buy cheap green items and disenchant them or buy cheap ores to prospect them. Buying uncut gems and cutting them also yields nice profits. But anytime you buy something to re-sell there is risk involved! Don’t be disappointed if it doesn’t work out every time. Just keep going.

Most of the time I just sell stuff I have found.

Additional Pricing resources:

  • http://www.wowhead.com
  • http://www.wowecon.com

11. Set yourself small goals. It is much easier to save up to reach 1000 gold instead of 5000.

12. Plan ahead on your own purchases. If you know that you will want certain items, plan ahead. Wait for a good deal or until you get the materials during your normal play. Having to buy stuff “now” on the AH costs a fortune usually. You will want to reserve that kind of behavior for emergencies. Finally: in this game time time equals gold. Always remember that farming most often is a boring activity that takes lots of time and somebody else may have done it for you and offer the goods you need for a price that you can easily pay when you think how long it would take to get the gold as opposed to the items.

So basically my gold making scheme  is adding a gold making aspect to a variety of in-game activities I have fun with instead of stupidly doing dailies or farming some type of ore or leather until I drop dead of boredom. It still takes (out-of-game) time (until all your wares are bought) and some spending discipline to get lots of gold, but it is not impossible even for somebody with little time on their hands to get enough money for any type of mount.

A fast mount is a good investment by the way as it allows for much faster gathering or daily questing at max level.

I hope there was something in this guide for everyone and I’d be glad to hear of your strategies for making even more gold.

Your 12 step program to more gold – Part 1

Published
by
Yashima
on August 30, 2008
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Last night I crossed the 7000 gold treshold the first time and I am well on my way to reach the 10k. Since Softthistle asked how I do it, here I deliver. This post is about how I am going about getting rich in the World of Warcraft.

I’ve always managed to steadily increase my hoard when I had that goal and I had it most of the time. Sometimes the gold was a means to an end. Mostly I wanted to buy various mounts. I still remember saving up for my very first Tiger for my very first Druid. The biggest challenge thus far has been the epic flier. As most of you will have discovered, it is not a trivial goal to reach. But who doesn’t want an epic flier? It is also very nice to just have a nicely bolstered budget for those impromptu shopping sprees at the AH: Recipes, Badges of Tenacity or weapons for your alt.  Just buy what you want, don’t let yourself be limited by the amount of gold you can beg from your guildies!

For me though the trade game is not only the means to a goal. I do have fun seeing the hoard increase just for the sake of having more gold available to spend on … well don’t spend too much. That’s the first rule.

1. Save your gold. Don’t spend gold on random stuff. Every time you buy something at the AH it must either be an important goal of yours to get the item or the item has to bring in more money than it cost very soon. If you want to become rich, the first step is to not go on shopping sprees. Tip: If you can’t manage to save your gold, setup an alt as savings account and be sure to mail him everything above a certain amount and be also sure to mail it to “Bänk” not “Bank” if you called your alt “Bänk”. (SendSelf or Postal may help here)

2. Be patient. Whatever you do, it takes some time. Try to enjoy this money-making as part of the game. Otherwise just stick with step 1. If auctions and professions are not for you, do your dailies and quest a lot to get money. Hope for valuable drops and stick to step 1, the rest of this is all about how to make money using your fellow players and playing the markets of WoW.

If however you want to get into the trade game to make gold here’s another 10 steps to get you started.

3.  Get yourself the following addons:

  • Auctioneer: it keeps track of all auctions you participated in, it stores prices and automates auctioning. It helps find out what the market is now and what it was in the past. You do not want to do without this one!
  • Bag addon: a bag addon that does categories and big one-bag inventories. I use ArkInventory. Use whatever you like, just don’t go with the default bags. Having organized bags is a big help when deciding what to sell.
  • teksJunkSeller: or any other addon that automatically sells your grey junk for you.
  • ColaLight: or any other addon that shows how much an item will be worth at the NPC Trader, so you don’t accidentally drop something big when your bags are full.

4. You need a trusted Banker: Set up your bank alt if you have not done during step 1. Unless you are playing a character that is questing near one of the big cities you really want one of these.

5. Get bags to haul your loot. Prepare your character and your alts: give them big bags. But don’t invest in bags that are too big or too expensive. Go with what you can easily obtain without spending a lot of time or gold. 14-16 slots is good. 18 slot and above is overkill. Bonus points on this step if you can craft the bags yourself or get a guildie to craft them for you. At first you don’t really need bank slots. If you go with a banker character your mailbox and bags should suffice.

6. Play the game. Oops. What? Yes: play the game! Even on an alt. You need stuff to sell on the AH and how do you get that? By playing. Getting gold has become a lot easier with Burning Crusade and I am sure it will be even easier with Wrath.  There are so many more markets, another profession and more levels.  If you haven’t noticed: more levels are good for the traders among us. And the best markets are where few people play the content. Which is not the max level content. One easy example: people pay a lot of gold for some Truesilver Ore, Gold Ore or even Silver Ore. Those are the rare metals of the early game. They pay a lot more for that than for the level 60+ Fel Iron which is abundant because so many people are in Outland. Tip: Sell the smelted bars of the rare metalls not the ores. Rare metalls cannot be prospected. For other metalls always check to see if the ore or the bar brings more gold.

Most people repeat the content at max-level over and over. Very few people play the lower level content so drops from this are rare. There is green stuff “of the falcon” going for tons of gold in all level ranges on the AH. So I say: play the game and loot, loot, loot. Take everything and put it in your big bags, then mail it to your banker and go play some more. As you get to know prices it is great to see that nearly every drop can be sold for a small or sometimes bigger profit. That’s part of the fun to see that just by leveling an alt you can easily get a lot of stuff to sell to people on the AH.

So much for the first part. Prepare yourself for the second part – coming up soon!

Goals before WotLK

Published
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Yashima
on August 22, 2008
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I want to make that 10k Gold achievement. That’s the only goal I have. Everything else is only there to help me achieve that one gold: leveling the shaman to level mining to have one more gathering profession available at max level.

My plan is to just play bit and sell a lot on the AH. Just as always. Currently I am sitting on 6.4k. I think it’s doable even with my play-time. All I need is to reach Outland with the Shaman and then start gathering and selling … I’ll just have to resist the temptation to buy me some jewelcrafting recipes – everything cool is still much too expensive.