Friday 15 February 2013

20 Days of Gold Making - Day 18 Advice for New Gold Makers


Today's 20 Days of Gold Making question isn't just a trip down Memory Lane as some of the early questions have been. Nope, today is Day 18 and the question is "What is the most important bit of advice you could give to a new gold maker? (not a game newbie though, just a newbie gold maker)".

This is actually quite a tough question to answer as so much depends on the current situation of the new gold maker. What level are their alts, which professions do they have and at what skill levels, and also how much gold do they have already. But as I was trying to think which piece of advice to give, I realised that actually there is a fairly straightforward single answer that would cover most new gold makers - at least to start with!

Research! 

Yup, read gold blogs (yay! you're here, it's working! lol), read forums, read Reddit, watch some Youtube or Twitch TV guys, listen to gold making podcasts - the list is almost endless & growing week by week. Don't forget to ask questions too - most public gold makers have Twitter or you could send them an email or ask on their livestream. A great place to start is my blog roll over on the right hand side of this page - I try to update it fairly regularly & as I find new gold blogs, I add them once they have a few posts published. It's sorted by most recent post too so if you don't have huge amounts of time to do your reading, the top few will always be the most current content.

Addons

The second most important piece of advice I would give is to get some Auction House addons - Auctionator is my favorite but Auctioneer is great too. Having said that, the great beast of the Auction House world is Trade Skill Master (TSM) and I use it all the time. It does many different things though so I think it would be intimidating to a total novice but there are loads of guides out there to help you learn it. I'm pretty sure I still don't use it to its full potential but I have calmed down on the gold making front for now so I guess it will be a while yet before I really get to grips with it!

Patience

The third important piece of advice I'd say is Patience! There are very few gold capped players who made their gold super-quickly. Most of us have been making gold for months if not years. The main exception would be those few players who saw the potential of the transmog market early on & dived in deep. By getting in so early and being prepared for it too, they had all the advantages of the huge buzz that surrounded the introduction of this new market & yes, some of them made a huge killing! That is the exception though, for us mere mortals who missed that boat, it takes time to build up your knowledge of markets, of hot selling items, of markets to avoid & which profession crafted items to produce.

Prudence

Lastly, I'd say prudence is vital too. Don't keep spending on stuff you don't really need, watch where your gold goes during normal playtime - do you reforge, re-gem & re-enchant too much? Can you resist that 'cheap' purple item on the Auction House or that lovely rare mount on the Black Market Auction House? If you can control your daily spending, spend wisely on raw materials for crafting, don't take huge risks when investing in items to flip (at least until you are really sure of your market) then you should see your gold balance creeping up nicely as you pull your gold from the mailbox.

There are loads of bits of advice I could give - that's partly why I started gold blogging! Each and every gold maker out there has their own way of doing things & every server is different too. By reading around, doing some research into markets yourself & trying things out, you will develop your own way. A little bit of Nev here, a bit of Cold there, throw in some Elvine or Power Word Gold & a bit of Eviscerated Gaming Podcast to top it all off & you'll have your own personal blend of goldmaking skills. The most important thing though - have fun!


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2 comments:

  1. What tips would you give for servers with a slower auction house / economy? I don't know if I'd yet consider myself a "Gold Maker", my statistics show total made around 70K since Cata (not continuous play).

    By far my biggest seller is 83-84 armor but take that with a grain of salt. I generally sell a piece or two a day and that goes up 2-3 fold over the weekend. I've also noticed the increase in sales usually starts Thursday evening.

    I have 600 mining and 600 JC. I don't currently do much swapping of ore / prospecting because I don't feel like there's a profit margin there, at least as far as trillium ore goes.

    I don't currently have much knowledge of selling cut gems or raw gems mostly because I don't have a lot of gems outside of primordial rubies to sell. I'm currently holding onto all the rubies and ghost iron ore I can come patch 5.2.

    I've mostly been getting gold by the 83-84 armor market and flipping items. I'd really like to expand this to start generating a steady income, I'm trying to finish buying the mats for a vial of the sands which I need about another 22K gold for.

    What are some safer markets maybe to try out? I dabbled just a touch in DMF cards last faire and made a small profit but the sought after cards at 700-800 gold a piece and decks going for way more it seems like a big risk at the moment.

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  2. With the sales of your 83-84 armor,it sounds like your server at least has a slow but steady flow of levelling players/alts. In this case, only knowing that you have JC/Mining, I would recommend that you try selling the level 90 ilvl 450 JC rings and necks (they require serpent's eyes to craft). However, before blindly jumping into any market, I recommend that you check out theunderminejournal.com, select your server and faction, and research what you're wanting to craft for profit. For me, buying the crafting mats is just as cheap as prospecting for them. Buying the mats can sometimes be a more reliable way of getting exactly what you want. If your server prices offer the same cost comparison, save yourself some time by avoiding prospecting and buying the raw mats that others have spent their time prospecting. Hope this helps. :)

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