They Love Me in That Tunnel!

They must do by now, I've done it twice this week! Timbermaw rep, that is. The talented Alto posted on Sunday about gaining Timbermaw reputation which is something I had been meaning to do for ages but didn't fancy the grind that I thought it was. His post mentioned 30mins- 1hr so I thought I'd give it a go with my holy priest enchanter. Took me a little longer even though she was already almost honoured with them but it still wasn't the long laborious trek I had expected. The Timbermaw Quartermaster has lots of recipes, the only two that I'm really aware of as being still relevant are the Enchant Weapon - Agility & the Enchant 2H Weapon - Agility. He also has leatherwork, blacksmith & tailoring recipes but I guess those items don't have the staying power that the Enchants do.

The only problem with both these Enchants is the mats - Essence of Air is as rare as hen's teeth & twice as expensive whilst Large Brilliant Shards seem to have almost disappeared off the AH too.

Bring on my 2nd run through the Timbermaw Rep - my paladin was my main for a long time so she is my Achievement Queen & I just had to get her the Exalted rep. She is also my favourite alt for random farmings so once she was Exalted (1hr 5mins from hostile to exalted, btw) I sent her off to Silithus to farm for the Essence of Air.

I must admit, I was kicking myself most of the time I spent in Silithus. I'd read somewhere, pre-Cata, about stocking up on these Airs & had managed to grab about 10 of them for 20g each pre-Cata. The bit I either missed or forgot, was what they were used for! So almost as soon as Cata hit, I also sold them - for about 85g each - nice profits but nowhere near as nice as if I'd hung on to them until now!

Anyway, 1 hour in Silithus netted me 9 Essence of Air, 20 or so Elemental Air & 12 Breath of Wind as well as 30-ish Twilight Encrypted Texts & a few Core of Earths. When I got back to Stormwind, I put a few of the elemental airs & breath of wind on the AH for 15g & 25g respectively - most have sold so that was a nice little side income as well as the 100g or so of vendor trash. As for the Twilight Texts, I had no idea what they were for - Cenarion Circle reputation apparently so I've shoved them in the bank for later.

Next stop - find out where to get Large Brilliant Shards - oh look, the lovely Kuja Klo just posted 'how to make gold in classic instances' & there's a whole bit on brilliant shards! How very timely! Only one problem for me - I hate to admit this but I've never done Black Rock Spire on any of my alts! I don't do that many dungeons whilst levelling up so somehow, I've missed this one completely. I think that having fallen in the lava off those chains so many times on my paladin (early days, oh such early days!) that I have subconciously avoided the whole place.

Edited to Add: Kammler also has a great post re the shards in his Keystone Enchanting Materials post & Faid has a video run through in her Faidian Slip #14. I didn't see these before I posted so adding them now for future reference :)

For now, I already have 8 brilliant shards & 8 essence of air so I can produce 2 of the 1H weapon scrolls - there's only 1 on our AH this week so far - at 1500g. I'm going to wait a while to see if it sells or the same guy just keeps posting the same scroll but at that price, I figure, if they are selling, then an hour in Silithus might actually be quite profitable especially if I go back to work on my Cenarion Circle rep too.

Do you guys ever go farming for those super expensive, rare mats or do you just snatch them off the AH when you can?

What's Been Selling This Week?

It's been a fairly normal week apart from the fact that hubs has been off work & enjoying WoW almost 24/7! Quick bit of maths tells me I spent about 22500g this week to make those sales of 56k but looking in more detail at what has sold, tells me that a lot of what has sold this week was effectively paid for the week before! So that gives me liquid gold increase of about 34k & I bought 6k of ore the day before this screenie was taken so at least a 6k increase in stock too. That took me to 333k liquid on this server so exactly 1/3 of the way to my target 1 million gold.

All enchanting mats have come from stock as has the netherweave for the bags. Lower down the list (and not showing!!) is some lowbie leatherworking items I made for a different blog post (coming soon) and also to clear some bank space down. That sort of back fired when I bought all that ore so I had to invest in another tab for my guild bank.

The JC daily has been Sparkles 3 times this week & Elemental Goo for 3 days so sales are down on the jasper/nightstone/zephyrite front but the inferno rubies are selling well. I'm sure I could sell even more if I had them but even with transmuting carnelians, I just can't keep up with demand. I've decided to just post when the prices are a bit higher to give myself chance to build a little stock.

In other news this week, I thought I'd found myself a farmer but deliveries have been sporadic to say the least. Even when I asked him to COD me 40 stacks a day if he had it & made it clear that if he wanted to miss a day or whatever (I'm not a slavedriver, after all), that would be fine - he would COD me for 2 days then start barking his stocks in trade again. I'd whisper him after a bark & we would deal there & then, dicuss COD, he'd say fine, mail me stock for another day or two, then go back to barking in trade!

I'm not quite sure what to make of it to be honest - he's perfectly happy to trade there & then. Sometimes he says hello as soon as I log on & we have a little chat with no trade mentioned although I do tease him a little about 'needing a new mining pick soon' and stuff. He noticed when my DK hit 85 & whispered a gratz & he feels like a new friend so I guess I'll just have to take what I can get whenever. I was hoping for a regular supply but never mind.

So business continues as usual although I am slowly exploring a few other avenues. I've just maxed my tailoring at long last so I can start working there once I get a feel for the various markets & I think it may be time to double check my alchemist - see if the market for potions & elixirs is improving at all.

Just gotta get my blacksmith & engineering alts up now - gonna be a while though, one's at 42 & the other at 62!

Glyphs - Sorting Out a Tanker? Help!

I've been watching 2 names in our glyph market recently who seem intent on dropping prices to below 20g or even 10g across a range of glyphs. The first guy (let's call him Epie) used to be a fairly regular, top end of the market guy until about 3 weeks ago when he started posting glyphs in 'walls' of 5 or 10 singles at 10g each - across the board with no exceptions. Now I'm not talking about those glyphs with normal sale prices below 25g like Maul or Soulstone, nope - I mean Rejuvenation (usually 185g) or Explosive Shot (usually 228g)! At first I thought he was just dumping his low end stock but as the weeks have progressed, he's casting his net wider across the market.

Then we have the second guy - I call him Mo - he is mainly hitting the low end stuff but again, posting in 5 or 10 singles at a time across about 40 different glyphs. Mo has pretty much owned the Mysterious Fortune Card market - he posts about 100 single cards at a time for 10g & he keeps them topped up. He doesn't bark in trade (that I've seen) but they sell. At first I bought a few to flip because mine had been selling quite happily at the 25g mark without even barking but he just lists more & more, making it very hard work to bark & sell through his listings. I must admit - I gave up on MCF - I still have some & I list late at night if he's let his auctions lapse but sure as eggs is eggs, his wall of 100 cheapies will be back the next morning!

So I'm in a quandary - I've taken a dislike to Mo just because he's bugged me so there's no way I want to buy him out to try to reset the market. He is working the lower price glyphs so I'm not hurting myself by letting him play there.

Epie on the other hand, is spreading his cheap glyphs to the higher price ones. I've had a look & I can't see any other auctions under his name so I'm guessing this is his glyph alt or his only alt (it is an 85). I could buy all his cheap glyphs & hope he doesn't have a bottomless pit or I could ignore him for a while & see where it goes.

I've not really tried to 'beat' competitors like this before - I tend to go with the flow & post when I like the prices & don't post when prices are low but as I'm expanding my glyph business as my main source of income, I don't want to let a couple of dodgy geezers ruin my party!

So I'm looking for suggestions/opinions/advice please - will be much appreciated & any results will be reported here at a later date!

What's Been Selling This Week?

I've had a busy week gearing up & rep building this week so my gold making has slowed a little. Add to that a severe shortage of Outland & Northrend herbs at even vaguely reasonable prices & you can see the effect on my sales.

Doing a bit of maths & I've worked out that I spent around 27k on various stuff so total increase in cash is only 20k but out of that 27k - 8k was for fast flying for 2 alts & 3k for a set of Terborus's bracers so it would have been 31k up :-)

I did a bit of excel wizardry too - I thought it might be interesting to see where the bulk of my cash is coming from.

Inscription - mainly glyphs - 21.3k

Jewelcrafting - 15.9k

Enchanting - 6.1k

Leatherworking - 1.5k

Tailoring (Netherweave bags) - 0.6k

Random other stuff - 2.1k

So although there's only 1 or 2 glyphs showing up at the top of the leaderboard, the sheer variety of glyphs adds up to my best sellers overall.

I've also expanded my LW'ing a little - I've made a full set of the Bloodied Leather agility pvp set & some of the well known lesser blues such as Toughened Leather Armor. As each piece of pvp gear sells, I'm making another so I always have a full set listed. The lesser stuffs aren't exactly flying off the shelf but if I pick up the mats over time at very low prices, then it's almost pure profit. I want to give the market a bit more time before I report fully.

This week, I've also been working a bit more on my Tailoring - I'm at 510 now & run out of my cheap volatiles - being the skinflint that I am, I'd rather wait to level further until I can get some more cheapies rather than pay silly prices at the AH to get those few points now!

I've also been selling a few bits & pieces from my mid level Blacksmith but for some reason, they haven't shown up in the MySales report. I guess I've not activated the addon so I'll need to fix that before next week!

With Leatherworking, Tailoring, Enchanting and Inscription either at max or close to max level, I really need shedloads of volatiles. I'm wondering how you guys get enough for your needs - do you buy at AH, transmute volatile lifes or do you farm them?

I feel the need for a second max level alchemist for the extra transmute - lifes are still the cheapest - but for now I just don't have a viable profession slot. My next highest alt is my mining/BS warrior at 62 & after that, I have a bunch in the 40's. Maybe I should just focus on one of those & try to level her as fast as possible - still gonna be a while though :(

Two Little Addon Tips - Auctioneer & Altoholic

Somewhere in the last week, I stumbled over 2 little corners of my addons & managed to change a setting or two by accident!

The first one was trying to set up my Dealfinder list in TSM - if the item wasn't in my bag or on the AH, how in heck did I add it to my list without alt tabbing to wowhead every 30 seconds? The answer was buried deep in my altoholic configuration - that pretty picture of a cog in the top right hand corner - in there is a whole range of stuff I'd never even looked at. The best thing is I now have item ID numbers in my tooltips - so when I'm building my dealfinder list, I get the itemID from my profession window :-) It also comes in handy for using itemID in macros

The second stumble was whilst looking for the first one! I'd managed to turn the itemID on without even really thinking about it so when I mentioned it to Hubs, he wanted to know how to do it too - oops! Should have made a note to self maybe? Anyhoo, in trying to find it again, I stumbled over a way to reset my Auctioner scan database.

I'd been thinking about clearing out all the old data anyway because I've been scanning for almost a year & the prices that I set up in my snatch list are all skewed by pre-Cata data or by the very high prices of Cata at the beginning. Prices are beginning to settle to some sort of recognisable level now so I figured it would be an ideal time to reset.

If you type /auctioneer help you get a whole list of commands, one of which is /auctioneer/cleardata/faction/server/all - just pick the one you want to clear & hey presto, it's done!

I still have my beancounter data for sales & purchases which I was a bit nervous of losing as well but seemingly the good people at Auctioneer development thought of that.

Just a quick post today but one I thought may be helpful. Yes, I've got a week or two of scanning to do now but at least the prices should be more representative of the current markets & hopefully will make it easier to spot a good deal.

What's Been Selling This Week?

Last week was probably one of my best ever weeks - shifting those Maelstrom Crystals certainly helped my numbers but I've continued with the cut gems albeit still on a fairly small scale.

I also had a brainwave & managed to work out roughly how much I'd spent in the week - 18k spent so that's 47k profit which puts me nicely over the 250k mark - next stop 500k please :-)

I mentioned the Rogues Decks last week & as you can see, they made in onto my leaderboard this week. The only reason the Swords Deck isn't on there is that I ran out of decks to sell! I'm going to hang on to my 'green' inks & try this again next month. I've always sold a few rogues &  swords decks but never this many - I guess there's an 'Insane' achievement underway for a few people on my server.

On the JC front - we had the nightstone daily 3 days in a row then 3 days of the zephyrite daily. The jasper daily hit on the weekend - I have trouble selling gems on the weekend due to very active undercutters but I suppose I can let them have a little bit of space to play!

It surprised me when I looked at these figures as I've actually not been paying so much attention to gold making this week - my little jc/inscription DK who sat at lvl 77 for about 6 weeks has suddenly grown on me & I hit lvl 85 on her on Saturday after a week of solid questing & I was actually brave enough to do some random dungeons.

My poor pally has been sitting around since she hit 85 as I was really embarrassed by her poor DPS - I've been struggling with the changes brought in pre-Cata but I spent a lot of time on various websites reading up, made a few changes & risked taking her through a dungeon last night too. I was pleasantly surprised when her DPS turned out to be about 2-3k higher than I expected - still not brilliant but it's a start in the right direction!

So for the coming week, I'm still data gathering for my blacksmithing project & I've got a shedload of medium leather so I'm going to try TSM on my LW'er. I've now got 2 plate wearers to gear up so I'll be questing & dungeoning for rep & gear for them & my rogue needs to get more guild rep too so I'm going to be busy this week!

TSM - Part Two - Crafting & Posting Glyphs

So here we go - part 2 & I hope this doesn't get confusing! I'll try & run through it in the order that I run as part of my routine so it will involve a little jumping around :)

First off, go to the Auction House & open your usual browse window. In the top right hand corner, you'll see a new box marked TSM - this is your open/close button for the pop out menu, shown below. Button 1 is your Post, button 2 is your Cancel, button 3 is the Scan menu, button 4 is the milling/prspecting shopping button & button 5 is your Shopping - crafting mats. The ones I haven't labelled are ones I don't generally use & certainly not for part of my glyph process so I've left them out for now.

I numbered the buttons from top to bottom but actually the first one I use is Button 3! This is the scan button which brings up its' own sub menu, shown below. If you have more than one profession set up for use with TSM you can click as many or as few of these categories as you like. I tend to scan just for the craft I'm working on as it's quicker & then my data is current for the relevant craft. Scanning for inscription only will look at all herbs, pigments, inks & glyphs, as well as any of the other miscellaneous items used for relics, tomes & decks. I'm guessing but this scan takes maybe 1-2 minutes at the most.

Before I go any further, I touched on this in yesterday's post - I preset my ink prices so that each ink/glyph group can have it's own threshold. In the window below, you can see I have Midnight & Lion's Ink preset at 5g per ink - this means that my threshold for these glyphs can be as low as 17g (3xink + parchment + AH 5%). This price shows up later in the process when shopping so I always know how much my maximum ink price is for any given set of glyphs.

To set these prices, go to the main TSM window (from your minimap icon), press the inscription button on the left hand side then choose Materials from the list. You have to put a tick in the Override box then enter your maximum ink price & hit 'okay'. Done! This is a preset so you only need to change it when your server prices for herbs change or if you find you under/over estimated ink costs.

After scanning, close down the AH window & open up your usual Craft window. At the top left, you will see a button for Open TSM Crafting, which opens this restock window. At the left hand side, you will see your ink categories (which we set up yesterday). If you hit the big 'Restock Queue' button, it will produce a list of glyphs to craft (on the right hand side) and a shopping list at the bottom left. In the last day or so, this module has been updated to included Inks & pigments in your shopping list so that makes life a lot easier!

The one thing I haven't quite worked out is why it didn't add in Glyph of Flame Shock & Glyph of Immolation Trap - it says they meet my profit criteria & I don't have any on other alts or anything either. All I do with these is a quick double check at the AH. Close down Craft window, reopen AH window & browse for these two - if they are still at profit & not too many of them, I add them to the craft queue manually.

To add or remove glyphs manually, you just left or right click the glyph name in the left hand list.

So we now have a list of glyphs required to restock & it's created a shopping list for us - time to go shopping! When I am having a buying/crafting session, I use button 5 the 'Shopping - Crafting mats' button. Open your AH browse window, open the pop out menu. It imports my shopping list to the bottom half of the window & searches the current listings for inks, pigments & herbs - sorted by the cheapest first. Your preset ink price is shown alongside the ink in the bottom window - in this screenshot it says 6g (old screenshot - I've updated since then!!).

Alongside the big BUY button, it shows how many available & price as well as the price per ink - watch this price & click buy for as long as it stays below your preset price. Once the ink price goes above your preset price, you can either make an executive decision to continue buying or you can hit the 'Skip Current Item' button at the very bottom of the window. If there is enough supply to fulfill your shopping list, it will skip to the next ink type once you have enough of this one.

At this stage, it's time to collect your herbs from the mailbox & do the usual milling routine. Then re-open your Inscription window, reopen the TSM page & hit the big 'Craft Next' button. If there weren't enough herbs available at your preset price, you can narrow down the list of glyphs by clicking the 'On Hand Queue' button. I'm not 100% positive but I think the parchments may be a limiting factor here so go get what you need before you shorten the queue!

With the recent change, actually making the ink is now part of this queue so it's time for a quick coffee/smoke break if you have a lot of inks to craft. I sometimes prefer to do this the old fashioned way so that I can process the inks by volume - i.e biggest workload first while I go get coffee then sit through the smaller ink craftings. Unfortunately, you still need to click when the item type changes - good of ToS :(

Once you have clicked your way through all the glyphs in your craft list, it's time to post! Back to the AH browse window, open the TSM pop out menu & hit button 1. It will scan & queue all the glyphs in your bags ready to be posted. If any prices have changed whilst you were crafting, you may end up with a few left in your bags as it won't post any that fall below your threshold (unless you set it to post at fallback, covered yesterday). I had a measly 4 to post when I took this screenie but usually it's upwards of 200 on my main scribe.

You can start clicking the 'Post Auction' button while it's still scanning/queueing but 200 still takes maybe 2 mins max, including my clicking time :) If you click slowly, you will see the details of each post so if you've made an error somewhere or it wants to list something you don't want it to list - just click the 'Skip Item' button at the bottom. Once you gain some confidence in what TSM is doing & that you're happy with your groups/prices etc, you will be able to click like a madman.

It will post at your preset undercut amount or your fallback, depending on your settings. The Cancel process is exactly the same except it's button 2 and it only cancels auctions which have been undercut! This is why I love TSM - 2 minutes to cancel 200 auctions & 2 minutes to repost them all (mailbox is the limiting factor for speed here).

As a last bit of information, I also use button 4 on the AH TSM pop out menu - this is the 'Shopping - Milling/Disenchanting & Prospecting' button. I use this on days in between major glyph craftings to pick up herbs at low prices - a bit like a snatch list I suppose. Click 1 of the 3 buttons at the top (mill/prosp/disench) then pick your ink from the drop down list and hit the 'Go' button. The display is very similar to your shopping list buying page but it doesn't show you your preset ink prices so bear those in mind. If you buy these 'cheap' herbs regularly & mill as you go, it certainly cuts down on the pain of a major glyph crafting session!

So that's pretty much it! I hope this helps you as much as it did me. I now cancel/repost maybe 4 or 5 times a day & my glyph sales have shot through the roof. You still need to bring your brain to the party as no addon is foolproof but once you gain confidence with it, setting up multiple professions is pretty much the same. I think TSM is really, really useful for glyphs because of the facility to group by inks & therefore, to preset your ink prices & thresholds by ink rather than by class or whatever.

I've also started using TSM for my Cata JC rare gem cuts & for my cata enchants - seeing the possible profit figures at any one time certainly make it easier to avoid the low profit scrolls that I still have a bag full of from pre-TSM!

As always, feel free to ask questions - I'll answer as best I can. Good luck & happy glyphing.

TSM - Basic Set Up Guide for Glyphs

I promised Alto a guide for TSM for his Glyphs so here's the first part - the set-up. Fluxdada at Power Word:Gold did a great video on this yesterday but I do mine slightly differently & also if you can't watch video at least you can read mine, hey? lol

Now I have a disclaimer to make - I've never used any of the other addons for glyphing so although I have been extolling the virtues of TSM for glyphs, in reality, I have nothing to compare it to!

I used to go to the AH & check, class by class, for which glyphs had the highest sale price, then I would make those if the herb prices were sensible. I listed them for 48 hrs & rarely if ever, cancelled & reposted them. For me, it's the ease of buying herbs within a set price range & the cancel/repost function that has me raving about TSM. If you already have an efficient system, I guess changing to TSM may not be your best option but hey ho, I'm sure there are some readers out there who scrabble through as I was, so maybe this can help them :)

So what I've done here is to take a load of screen shots & numbered various things. I'll talk through each 'number' & hope it flows logically enough for you to follow.

This bit is very brief! Number 1 is the 'Craft options' button & number 2 is the 'Auctioning groups' button.

OK, so press the Craft Options button (#1) and this is what you get on the Data tab at the top there. Number 3 is a drop down menu - I like to use the AuctionDB - Minimum buyout option for mat prices & craft prices - this is the TSM database from the scan I'll show you later. My Auctioneer is playing up a little so I haven't kept those scans up to date. The TSM scan is so quick as well that I can run it every 5 minutes with no pain, if needs be!

The 'profit deduction' slider is set to 5% which is the AH cut - if you're posting on the Neutral AH, you may want to adjust this here.

Number 4 is where I originally had problems - I have 2 alts with inscription but on different servers so make sure to pick up the correct alt name from this drop down menu. If you craft glyphs (or anything else, for that matter) then send to a banker for selling, pick up the banker alt name here too. The same goes for the Guild drop down box alongside - if you have glyphs stored in a seperate guild bank, pick up both guilds here.

Next up is the Craft Management Window tab - the only things I change here are the Max Restock Quantity & the Minimum Profit (number 5). Both are fairly self explanatory & totally up to you how you set them. 

Moving on to the Profiles tab, I believe the first alt you set up anywhere in game on TSM, becomes the default profile! This took me a while to work out as I added a second & third alt before realising that I couldn't use the same default for everyone! So, before you go much further, put your current alt's name in here at Number 6! If you want different profit amounts depending on which alt, you will need to go back to box Number 5 & change it once you have a new profile set up. ie I set this up for AHAlt then when I go to Mainalt, I change the profile name/set up new profile & it will bring these values in unless I change them.

So at last, we get to the Inscription window! Click the icon to the top left & then the Options button in the left hand list. The first thing you will see is a list by class - I prefer to sort by ink as it makes pricing & buying herbs much, much easier. So just click 'ink' in the drop down menu at number 7. 

 Now at this point, we still haven't imported any of our profession skills/items so click 'Crafts' in the left hand menu then click 'Force rescan etc etc' button (Number 8). This should open your normal profession window behind this screen then close it again once it has imported your craftables. I've had a problem here once or twice so I either just log out & in again or do a /reload which seems to fix it.

Hopefully this will have imported all the glyphs/items you can make so now click an ink in the left hand list - I've picked Midnight Ink. You can see it has brought in all the glyphs I can make with Midnight Ink but none of them are selected. Pressing 'Enable all crafts' button at number 9 will pick up every glyph in this list.

Now, when I set up for the first time, at this point I click 'Create Auctioning Groups' which brings up a pop-out (marked 10a). Just click the large 'add crafted items from this group etc etc' button & it will automatically create a new group called 'inscription - midnight ink'. Now if you have already set up or are going to set up seperate profession groups, the category box will need to be used - the drop down menu will show you your 'master groups' as it were & just pick from there.

If you are still learning new glyphs, they won't appear in a group until you put them there. Go back to ink group page (#9 above) and tick the new item to 'enable it' then click the box marked number 11 and this box will pop up - in the drop down menu (at 11a), pick the name of the group to add your item to (in this case, midnight ink)  & hey presto, your new glyph is now in your crafting & auctioning groups. 

Now we go to the auctioning group button (number 2 on the first screen shot!) & you will see your crafting by inks list on the left hand side  are now showing as auctioning groups as well. This is where we set up our undercut amount, our threshold & fallback. In the screenshot below, I have marked the 'Categories/Groups' with a red blob - this is your override settings so if you forget to set amounts for individual groups, these are the settings that it will default to.

Post Time & Post Cap are both easy - as is the undercut amount - I hate those guys who undercut 1copper so I usually put a random amount in here! At number 12 I have set my minimum price at 25g & my fallback at 138g but at the very bottom of the screen is a drop down menu which allows you to decide what TSM will do if the price falls below your threshold. Somehow I managed to miss it in the screenshot but I have mine set to 'don't post' so it never posts below 25g. 

So that's pretty much the set-up covered. You can see below that I have a different Price Threshold for my Midnight Ink category. On my main inscription alt, I have a different threshold for each ink group depending on my ink prices but I'll show you that tomorrow when I cover the crafting & cancel/repost parts of TSM.

I think I've covered most of the basic set up stuff. If you think I missed something or you want further clarification, please leave a comment - this is my first 'tutorial/how-to' so I doubt I got it all first time :) I'll cover crafting, restock queues, posting & scanning in part 2, currently planned for tomorrow, real life permitting.

What's Been Selling, Two Project Updates & An Apology

I thought I'd join the ranks of bloggers showing what's been selling for them - it gives a nice comparison of prices across various servers & perhaps, gives newer goldmakers some hints of where to look for new markets themselves.

So what's there to talk about that those numbers don't show? Well, on my So Close Now post, Vince from Bank of Wukam suggested I expand my use of TSM (Trade Skill Master addon) to my JC cut gems market so I did! I'd not been making much use of the cut gem market because everytime I looked, prices were pretty low & the deposit costs were huge. But having TSM list at 12hrs & just doing a few cancel/reposts per day, I have to say the Red cuts have been flying off the shelf. The Fierce & Inscribed Ember Topaz's aren't doing too badly either.

I've picked up the new Burning & Reverberating meta cuts over the weekend so I now have all 3 of the new ones. Next weeks summary will show how they are doing as well as the 3 other new cuts I now have tokens for.

I picked up a Hyacinth Macaw whilst levelling through Stranglethorn - nice little bonus although it took 2 weeks to sell and nowhere near the price I had hoped for. I think the drop rate has been increased so the price is dropping. I've got another alt ready to go thru there so I may just keep the next one (if I get lucky again!).

The biggest surprise for me this week has been the sale of the Swords & Rogues Decks - I only made them to get rid of the hunter's ink & dawnstar ink that just wasn't selling but was filling up bank space. The Rogues deck hasn't made it to the top half of my sales figures but only because they are selling slightly slower & for a bit less.

So on to the updates - my Masterchef Goblin Edition post has been under test for the last week or so & I have to say, I'm a bit disappointed! Since I picked up my figues & started working that market more seriously, several new names have appeared & seem to have an unlimited supply of mats or just don't care - the only one selling at a profit for now is the Basilisk Liverdog (haste buff) although some bright spark has posted the Basilisk Livers for 15g each all weekend! I'm not in the mood to try & dominate the market so I'll just be keeping an eye on it & pop in & out as necessary!

In a comment, Alto from Alto's Goldish Advice, asked me to do a 'how-to' use TSM for my glyphs - I've never written an add-on guide thingy before so it's in the works, I just keep thinking of bits to add everytime I think it's just about finished - I hope to get it posted later this week Alto :)

A little while ago, I promised Xylaria that I would play with Blacksmithing on my little AH Alt - I haven't actually got around to it so I apologise now & hope to tackle that as well this week.

A Quick Tip for the Weekend - Work That Leather!

Sometimes I read tips in blogs or on forums & jot it down to try/look into later. This is one of those tips that got buried in the snowfall of paper notes on my desk but I spilt my coffee this morning & had to do a rescue mission (oops!) so this one, quite literally, floated to the top!

Leather - yes, just boring old Borean Leather or Savage Leather - it appears to work for both which is rather nice if you're levelling a skinner through Northrend at the moment :)

I've had a look on 2 different servers for these prices and they vary wildly so it's not a guaranteed money maker but it's worth a look on your server.

Server 1 - Savage Leather 4.5g (x5=1 heavy @ 22.5g) (x50=225g)
Server 1 - Heavy Savage Leather 23g (x10=230g)
Server 1 - Pristine Hide 300g

So it doesn't matter whether I buy Savage or Heavy Savage Leather - when I hand in 10 Heavy Savage Leather to get my Pristine Hide (at the Twilight Highlands leather trader) - my profit here will be 70-75g.

Server 2 - Savage leather 4g (x5=1 heavy @ 20g) (x50=200g)
Server 2 - Heavy Savage Leather 39g (x10=390g)
Server 2 - Pristine Hide 340g

But look at this! Server 2 has a much wider discrepancy - my only choice here is whether I can sell 10 Heavy Savage Leather to make profit of 10x19g or I go for slightly less profit but only have 1 item to sell (and by the looks of it, a scarcer commodity, less competition so I could perhaps push prices up a little).

Obviously the Savage -> Heavy Savage conversion only works if you have a Leatherworker (or access to one, of course) but if the prices work in your favour, it may be worth a visit to the trader in Twilight Highlands. I've also seen (& bought!) stacks of Savage Leather Scraps for 11g a stack - that's 2.75g per Savage leather when converted, so it's worth keeping an eye on those too.

I actually don't do this very often - I've been popping over to Tol Barad for the 'virtually' free leather there from skinning the crocs that everyone is killing for the daily. I say virtually free because it costs me time but I can pick up 10 Heavy Savage leather in less than 10 mins on a good day & 20 minutes on a bad day so it doesn't even cost that much time! Add in the Strange Bloated Stomachs & Crocolisk Tail which I cook & sell, it's a pretty good little earner.

Now at the beginning, I mentioned Borean Leather - same principle - 5 Borean Leather Scraps = 1 Borean Leather, x6 = 1 heavy Borean leather

Server 1 - Borean Leather Scraps 0.15g (x5=0.75g) (x6 = 4.50g per heavy)
Server 1 - Borean Leather 1.2g (x5=7.2g per heavy)
Server 1 - Heavy Borean Leather 14g

Server 2 - Borean Leather Scraps 0.65g (x5=3.25g) (x6 = 19.50g per heavy)
Server 2 - Borean Leather 2.0g (x5=10.0g per heavy)
Server 2 - Heavy Borean Leather 17g

On either server, profit from converting Borean Leather to Heavy Borean Leather is around 7g, scraps prices can vary wildly so on a good day, you may get server 1 prices!

Once you've got used to doing the quick maths in your head, you'll know at a glance whether it's worth going for on any given day - the other items to remember is the Mammoth Mining Bag & Trapper's Travelling Pack - both take 8 Heavy Borean or 48 Borean Leather - but they usually sell for around 200g on server 2 so it's not often that I ever sell Heavy Borean Leather as it is, there's better profit in the bags for me.

Besides, a girl can never have too many bags, can she? lol

Specialise or Diversify - Better Late Than Never Too!

I've posted before about my Butterfly brain so this month's Blogging carnival at JMTC is really appropriate for me. I'm not sure there's a definitive answer but perhaps my own experiences can help you analyse your own playstyle/experience so you can maximise your gold/time system.

For me, diversify is my natural habit - I have most profs maxed now (except BS & Eng) & although I am currently spending most time on JC & Inscription, I'm also popping over to my LW'er when a blog post comes up that reminds me of something or to my bank alt mage to do a quick teleport around the capital cities for vendor items.

I've tried to streamline my routine to give myself more time levelling or learning other markets & to be honest, I'm not sure I like being organised like that! Am I missing opportunities? Undoubtedly. Am I having fun anyway? Most definitely! So I guess the question of whether to specialise or diversify is very much a personal choice, made simply by trial & error & limited only by the number of maxed profs/various alts you have & the amount of play time you are willing to spend on making gold.

The bulk of my gold comes from glyphs at the moment - using TSM (Trade Skill Master) has speeded up the whole process so I now cancel/repost several times a day which has made a huge difference to my income.

I also do a lot of ore prospecting for my JC/Enchanting alts - I sell uncut & cut gems, rare quality (blues) necklaces & rings from Alicite & hessonite, disenchant the 'greens' for dusts/essences & craft scrolls.

I dabble in Mysterious Fortune Cards, I watch the markets for Darkmoon Faire Cards (& buy when I see nice prices!), I occasionally craft Relics, I make PVP leather gear, leg armours & mammoth mining bags. I've just levelled tailoring so I've added netherweave bags to the mix.

So you can see, I have a lot of fingers in a lot of pies BUT I'm not an expert in any of these markets - I don't dominate any of these markets & I'm not trying to. That road leads to stress for me & that's not why I play this game. I'm more of a 'go with the flow' type person so a bit here & a bit there suits me.

Is this attitude/personality thing ringing a bell with you? Then don't worry about specialising, work with what you've got & make the best of it. If you happen to stumble into a good deal or a quiet, untapped corner of the market, then you'll have the skills to make the most of it. You're reading gold blogs if you've found this so you're ahead of many other players anyway.

Is this attitude/personality thing sending chills down your spine or making your toes curl in horror? Well, I guess you're a more organised person, one who, perhaps, is more suited to specialising in one or two markets & doing them really well? You know what? That's good too! There's room for all of us in this game after all :)