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 :)
Great post as always Nev.
ReplyDeleteI have a request. You have talked quite a bit about using TSM to be profitable, how about a "how to" post on using it for your glyph market? Maybe you can convert me...
Hey Alto, thanks hon :) Umm, tbh, I used a combination of Zoxy's great TSM guide & Shamaenei's here. I'm not sure I have much to add but I'll give it a go over the next few days - see if there's anything I do now that's different from what these guys say :)
ReplyDeleteNice post. I am also more of a diversification over specialization AH player. The large population and competitive nature of my server/faction puts me at a disadvantage against AH campers who can literally undercuts/relists every hour or two, sometimes less, so I rather be a small/medium-size player in multiple markets instead of a heavy hitter in one or two.
ReplyDeleteDiversification also gives me an excuse to play my alts and level their professions. It keeps things interesting. Never knew that shadow priests can be so much fun!
@Der - I love my shadow priest although as I duel specced fairly early on, I've never been able to dungeon as shadow because healers are in such high demand!
ReplyDeleteI like to try different stuff to see if it will work.
ReplyDeleteLast week I decided to buy all the Medium Leather in the AH. It cost me about 800g the first day, another 200g the second day and just under 100g the third day.
Oh, and I held it all. Didn't repost any of it until Friday around noon. Most of what I bought was in the 40s/ea range, but some was as high as 70s. I posted it all Friday for 95s each, in stacks of 5s, 10s and 20s.
My investment of ~1,100g has thus far returned me 1,900g and I still have some left over for this weekend. So far, I have another 80 stacks in my mailbox just waiting to be re-sold.
Sometimes it isn't about the profit--its about the challenge.
I use to focus on niche markets and it worked well....decent profit small time. I had a lot of gold and then read a post on how to use quickauctions. It changed my whole process. I work two main markets. Glyphs and gems. I still have lots going in other markets but they are in high margin areas that sell infrequently. Easy money is obtained in both the gem and glyph markets by timing your cancel and repost. In my case its easily 10k a day without a lot of effort.
ReplyDeleteI rely on auction profit master to aid me in what glyphs i make and sell. I have yet to see that TSM has the same ability to show me what all the glyphs are selling at and whether mine are undercut. I post on an alt and have another char make all my glyphs. If TSM can deal with this then I will try it out.