Warlords of Draenor - The Iron Tide Pre-Patch is Here At Last!

The time has finally arrived for the excitement and build up to the release of Warlords of Draenor, the pre-expansion patch a.k.a patch 6.0.2 and I have succumbed to the hype and re-subbed. Well, when I say re-subbed, I've bought a 30 day timecard so I can decide whether I even want to buy the expansion.

Over the summer, I've spent a couple of months in Wildstar and more recently, a week or two in ArcheAge but although I've enjoyed them, neither has the initial addictiveness that World of Warcraft had for me way back in 2009 when I first started playing. To say 'I'm back!' is probably a bit premature as I'm still feeling a bit 'blah' about the whole genre but I have 30 days to give it a good go and who knows, maybe make a shedload of gold in the process!

I took the time to read almost all of the patch notes for Patch 6.0.2 The Iron Tide - well, all except the huge number of changes to the classes - those I'll look at when I try & fail to play an alt with any degree of success!

I've only logged three of my alts so far - my main, a human Paladin had over 1200 gold in the mail from the justice point conversion but I had to spend some of that straight away to change her face. My beautiful redhead looked horrible with the new model graphics so I found a face I liked and changed her hair too. I'm still not sold on the new model but it's at least bearable now.

Original model

New model

The second alt I logged was my baby Gnome banker - no justice point conversion gold for her as she is only a lowbie who's never really left town but as a Gnome, her time is short. I currently have another lowbie Gnome who is definitely destined for the delete button but most disheartening is my Gnome Rogue - she was my beautiful pink pig tailed girlie and was my 2nd max level toon ever. I'm not going to race change her yet, I'm hoping Blizzard will maybe hear the screams of agony from twitter and the forums about how horrible the new Gnome faces are (I've not seen one good comment yet!) and perhaps they'll revise them a smidge. Hey, a girl can hope, can't she?

The third alt I logged was my level 89 Hunter, sitting forlornly in a tent on the Timeless Isle. I'd seen reports on Twitter that a single kill was letting people ding 90 so I gave it a try. Yup! Just one kill and up popped the level 90 Achievement thingy - not bad after her sitting there for months as I ran out of steam to  level her any further. Her mailbox had about 700 gold in it from the Justice Point conversion and as she is a Draenai, I didn't feel the need to go and change her face. Once I get her back to town, I might visit the Barber shop, just to see if I prefer a different model but for now, I can live with the new look.

So that has been my total gametime so far this week - apart from checking out the Toybox and restacking a few bits in my bank that is. I'm hoping to get a bit more time in game over the weekend now that my jetlag is almost gone and I'll be looking at the Auction House and new possibilities now that so much has changed. If you're still here and reading my sporadic posts, thank you for sticking with me. I hope to get back to more regular posting now that we have some new stuff to talk about!

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Wildstar - Gold Making & Leveling in a New MMO!

Well, it's been quite some time since I posted here but I've been suffering a bad case of the blerghs as well as having yet another operation but in between times, I've been playing the newest MMO on the block, Wildstar. I'm learning the markets and I'll be posting some gold making stuff here soon.

I'm thoroughly enjoying Wildstar but I'm so slow at leveling, it's taking me forever. Apart from being distracted by the Auction House and Commodities Exchange (like the true AH Addict I am), I have been struggling a bit to find things on the map.

Now don't get me wrong, I've never run out of quests or got really lost but it all takes time to find where you should be questing and then you find you're not quite in the right area but there's a huge wall in your way or you can't find a way around a big hill!

Check out the NEW Zygor's Wildstar Leveling Guide here

So it's with some relief that I received my email telling my that good old Zygor's are releasing a new Wildstar leveling guide with all the great features that their World of Warcraft Guide has. I've been telling everyone how wonderful their WoW Leveling Guide is for years now and from what I've seen of the promotional stuff, this Wildstar one looks like it's going to be just as useful!

There's one for each faction, Exile & Dominion or if you're bi-factional, there's a paired bundle especially for you. It covers all the zones for questing with an optimised leveling path which should make questing much more streamlined. It will also jump ahead on quests as you progress so if you have an XP buff for example, it will skip a quest that you no longer need to do!

It places a small but detailed box on your screen which shows you exactly what you need to do next and there's also a waypoint arrow too so if, like me, you regularly get lost, this is perfect for you!

I love my WoW guide and I'll be buying this one too - I just have to decide whether I'm bi-factional or not!

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Warlords of Draenor Alpha Patch Notes & Gold Making

Very late on Thursday night here in the UK, Blizzard finally released a huge post of information relating to the Warlords of Draenor expansion. The Alpha patch notes in their entirety can be found on the Battlenet site but be warned, they are lengthy, fairly detailed in some areas and very likely to cause some upset, especially with Class changes. This is a gold making blog however so I've been following my fellow gold makers, reading up on various bits in the patch notes and have a few comments to make myself.

Glyphs

The main point that struck me (and many of my fellow gold bloggers like Selltacular over at Copper to Gold), is the removal of 76 major glyphs from the crafting process. These will instead be learned automatically at various levels during the leveling process. I've not been in the Glyph market for a long while now but not all of the removed glyphs are good sellers anyway. Selltacular says 12 are in his best sellers list but of course, your server may be different so the extent to which your market suffers will depend on which glyphs your server population likes best.

Whilst this list of removed glyphs may change, I would suggest that you keep an eye on your own stock levels and as more information is released over the coming months, make sure you don't craft too many at a time or get stuck with a large stock of them. Keep an eye out for additional glyphs to be removed or for this list to be changed though.

Gathering

We can currently herb or mine in Pandaria even if we don't have maxed gathering professions. This was introduced in patch 5.3 as the frustrated screams from gatherers having to pass by nodes they couldn't gather finally reached the ears of Blizzard. The answer was fairly simple in the end - just allow lower skilled gatherers to get just a fragment from the node rather than a full sized herb or ore.

This is being extended throughout the world for Warlords of Draenor, where a Gatherer can interact with any node at any level but the resulting material gathered is based on their skill level.

This is one piece of news I am very happy to see - trying to level a gathering profession whilst leveling an alt was hard enough anyway but with reduced XP requirements, additional heirlooms and various buffs, it became almost impossible to keep up. I don't think this will change much before actual release either as it really is a much needed improvement.

Professions

As usual, profession information is very scarce this early in the cycle. There is one major change noted though -

"Some of our goals with Professions in Warlords of Draenor are to make them more of a personal choice, and less of a mandatory “min/max” selection. To that end, we're removing the direct combat benefits of Professions."

I read this as being the removal of things like the Blacksmiths' extra sockets bonus, the Leatherworkers' bracer fur lining, the Jewelcrafters' Chimera's Eye gems and the Scribes' shoulder enchant.

How will this affect gold making though as none of these items can be sold anyway? I think the 'min/max' comment in the quote above points us to that answer - raiders! Many raiders level professions reluctantly - they aren't really interested in making a lot of gold. What they want from professions is the best combination of profession related perks for their class and spec. So if these combat benefit items are removed, raiders won't have the need to level their professions any more.

If raiders don't have professions, they will then need to buy crafted items like potions, gems, flasks etc and perhaps crafted armor & weapons too although I'd expect them to look for a friendly crafter before hitting the Auction House.

It may even increase the supply of some materials though - things that get picked up randomly whilst out questing may be sold on the Auction House rather than kept for own use. I'm not sure how much of a bonus this will be though - we still don't know enough about how the Crafting professions are changing to make a call on this one.

Summary

The most important thing to remember is that these are Alpha notes - the very earliest version of details that we have been given and almost 100% guaranteed that there will many, many changes still to come. It's way too early to get upset or start worrying about this stuff just yet. With a possible release date for Warlords of Draenor in December, we have possibly 8 months still to wait for the actual game release although of course, Beta should come out way before then.

I shall be trying to keep up with the flood of information and working out how it can benefit our gold making, of course but feel free to leave comments or drop me an email if you think I've missed something or would like further discussion on a subject.

In the meantime...'All aboard the change train!'

Have fun!

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Saturday Celebrations - Dysenigrate, Hyjal-US

So this week, we have a success story from Dysenigrate, one of my Clan mates in the Eviscerated Clan in Clash of Clans and I owe him an apology and to everyone for being so late! This post was due 1st March & I'm only just now remembering to do it! In my defence, I missed a few other things too as I've been super busy at work, preparing for our financial year end and also getting ready to fly out to see my fella! He's still asleep right now so I've pinched his PC to get this post out! lol

If you'd like to submit your own gold making Milestone Interview, instructions & more details are on my Milestone Interviews page. Any milestone is suitable - whether it be 100k or 10 million, we want to hear about YOUR story. Don't be shy! You've seen what others are sending in over the last few months so come on - tell us how you've been doing it!

I'm running low on submissions so if you'd like to see this weekly story continue, I'm going to need more stories!

I try to reply to each submission quickly so if I don't reply - poke me again as I may have missed it or leave a comment on a post - those I definitely see more easily. Now that AH Addict is getting more popular, the email address is busy with spammers coming out of the woodwork so I do sometimes miss things :(

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Milestone Amount:  

1 million liquid gold on my main server

What got you started? When? 

In the last couple months of Wrath I obtained the pattern for the cloth dps boots from ICC. After I made mine (scraped and saved lol!) I saw that they were listed for almost 5k on the AH. I ended up selling them at a slight loss after several weeks of constant undercutting and relisting. It was only a small loss but I learned a lot about the total cost of an item - materialss, posting fees, AH fees, and time. So much time invested in those boots! In any case I wanted more gold in my virtual wallet so I vowed to figure the Auction House out. 

Markets? 

I started out with vendor pets - the ones from Breanni, Rashaad, and the Winterspring Cub from Everlook. Now I'm mostly out of the pet market and focus on Cloth PvP gear, Enchanting, Glyphs, Shoulder Inscriptions, Cogwheels, and the Ironpaw Shuffle. Early in the expansion, I made and sold Living steel everyday but I probably stopped that in 5.2. Just maxed a Leatherworker and starting in the Leather/Mail PvP gear market. 

Biggest success or failure? 

Honestly, I'm too cautious to take any big risks, but my biggest failure was being unwilling to stockpile materials. There was a two week span where I couldn't post enchants at all when material prices rose above my thresholds and I had no stock. Lesson learned! Now I keep at least one guild-bank full of materials. 

Advice for new goldmakers? 

It's ok to start small, don't risk your whole nest egg on a high ticket item to flip. Smaller sales add up and eventually a miss or a slow sale on a big ticket item won't hurt so much.

New Goals? 

I haven't set a new number but I plan to stay above 1 million liquid gold. 

Bank alt(s)? 

I started my first bank alt just for convenience before I ever considered myself a goldmaker. I've had that one since BC and just recently started a 2nd one to handle glyphs. 

Farm (y/n)? 

Only in the course of normal play, or if I have to. For example, if I have to farm up a Bind on Pickup (BoP) material like Spirit of Harmony, I'll farm them in an area where I am also skinning or getting cloth or something of value. 

How much playtime devoted to goldmaking? 

At least 30 minutes daily on crafting / posting / relisting. Sometimes 3+ hours if I'm trying to learn something or chasing a rare pattern. 

Rewards? 

None yet since my goal is to stay over 1M liquid. The first target I have in mind though is the Grand Expedition Yak, probably followed by TCG mounts. 

Shoutouts? (streams, blogs, podcasts) 

Nev AH Addict (of course), Power Word: Gold, Call to Auction, Cold's Gold Factory, Zerohour's blog, and recently I've been following Stede, Wowprofitz, and phatlewts.

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Big congratulations to Dysenigrate! Hitting 1 million is still a huge achievement regardless of what anyone says about getting there being easier these days! It may not be uphill both ways in the snow type difficult now but it's still only a tiny percentage of players who get there and they all deserve congratulations!

I'm always curious to hear how people get sucked into the Auction House game - for some (like me), it"s a natural & comfortable place to be, or it starts as a way to pay for end game repairs & raid supplies & for others, it's a deal that looks too good to miss and so another trap is sprung and a new goldmaker is born. I have a guildie who is slowly getting sucked in, he likes these one off big sales like Dysenigrate did but he'll wake up soon and realise he's rich & he likes it and then I'll say 'told ya!' :)

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Saturday Celebrations - Goldmansax

This week we have a tale of big money from Goldmansax - very appropriate name there! He doesn't say which server or whether he is USA or EU but that doesn't really matter - all gold stories are different depending on server as so many of us gold bloggers regularly point out!

If you'd like to submit your own gold making Milestone Interview, instructions & more details are on my Milestone Interviews page. Any milestone is suitable - whether it be 100k or 10 million, we want to hear about YOUR story. Don't be shy! You've seen what others are sending in over the last few months so come on - tell us how you've been doing it!

I'm running low on submissions so if you'd like to see this weekly story continue, I'm going to need more stories!

I try to reply to each submission quickly so if I don't reply - poke me again as I may have missed it or leave a comment on a post - those I definitely see more easily. Now that AH Addict is getting more popular, the email address is busy with spammers coming out of the woodwork so I do sometimes miss things :(

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What is your milestone amount?
I originally started with a milestone amount of 1million gold; however, as I approached that, it switched to “I want enough to buy a Swift Spectral Tiger and have at least 400k leftover to rebuild.”

What got you started making gold and when?
I’ve played WoW for quite a long time and, for whatever reason, never gave goldmaking much thought. I was chronically poor and struggled to keep gear gemmed and enchanted, let alone my altoholic/twinking problem (before heirlooms). I stumbled across a youtube video about the shuffle during Cataclysm and dabbled in that for a short while, turning ~2k into 30k in a short time.

What really got me started, though, was finding the Consortium forum and, particularly, a post entitled “March to a Million” written by Faxmonkey and posted on April 9, 2012. I think I read that post the day it came out and it essentially “clicked” for me. I decided to re-roll on a high pop server and try to replicate what Faxmonkey wrote about – start with nothing and turn it into big bucks by flipping high volume materials and eventually moving into flipping higher value items.

Through this method, I was able to turn a few silver and some linen cloth into 100k within about a month and half. Not a huge amount, but I was keeping my pally’s weapon enchanted with Crusader throughout leveling (no heirlooms) and buying other, slightly, frivolous items. The new server became my main server where I built up an army of alts, covering all professions, and began to branch out into profession-based gold making.

Which markets have you concentrated on, if any?
I primarily stick to flipping still. My favorite has been the 77-79 Cataclysm green gear. They still sell incredibly well (we’ll see after the squish :/ ) and have been a huge part of my income, of late.

Favorite niche market?
Despite a large portion of my income generated from a niche market, my favorite is actually Enchanted Elementium bars. They don’t sell often, but when they do it’s an amazing day to open the mailbox J

Biggest yay?
When I started on the new server and flipped an Axe of the Legion from 100g to 10k within 12 hours and then did it again within a few days.

Did you reward yourself for reaching your goal?
I actually got very bored with WoW last spring and decided to hang it up at around 900k. I came back after about 4 months and decided now was the time to buy that Spectral Tiger. I found one for 420k or so and didn’t even think about it, just bought it. I’ve since moved servers, again, and begun rebuilding on my new server and am up to about 500k, after leveling some new alts (only transferred a couple).

Shout outs for any blogs, podcasts, or streams that helped you along the way.
Several – first off is the Consortium forums. Can’t even begin to describe how much insight I have gained from the people over there. Also, Faxmonkey for their post that got me started, Nev, Phatlewts, Sapu and the TSM team and Manthius. Thanks!

What’s your new goal, if any?
Mostly my goal, now, is to continue generating income to support my playing the game. I really want to ensure that I enjoy actually playing and don’t spend hours staring at the AH or my TSM crafting windows. I would like to hit 1M before Warlords of Draenor, but it’s not a priority. Thank you all for reading!

-Goldmansax

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Thank you for sending in your story, Goldmansax - I am terrible for not reading forums but I should really, there's so much useful information to be found there. Congratulations on your Spectral Tiger and I hope you get back to your 1 million again soon!

Happy goldmaking peeps!

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The Accidental Goldmaker - A Challenge from the Godmother!

Cute kitten pic...just because!

A fair few weeks ago now, Marcus & I had the opportunity to chat to The Godmother about her adventures in WoW and her accidental goldmaking on episode 21 of The Journal of Marcus Ty podcast. She told us then that she was going to issue a challenge to the goldmaking community and soon after, she did indeed, publish that challenge.

So here is my answer, albeit rather later in the day than planned, for which I apologise profusely - I've been kind of spaced out/absent due to some new medications but I'm getting used to them now so hopefully, normal service shall be resumed soon.

The Challenge

To suggest the best way to make gold from the stuff she had picked up whilst farming skyshards in the Vale. You can read her challenge post here.

The Stuff

Windwool Cloth (over 200) plus 3 Bolts
17 green items(416/429's)
+10 plus of the three new Pandarian Cookery materials
34 Ghost Iron Ore
25 Black Trillium ore, 18 White Trillium ore
40 Spirit Dust
30 Exotic Leather

Shadowsong-EU server alliance

My Suggestions

Windwool Cloth

Currently selling for about 16-17g per stack which is about 4g per bolt - but bolts are only selling for 3-5gold at the moment so personally, I wouldn't bother making the cloth into bolts just to sell. I know Godmother has all professions maxed so I'd suggest looking at the Crafted Malevolent PvP gear market - most of those items take between 4-6 bolts of windwool cloth so even if the PvP gear is only selling for 100g (as it is on my server!), there is still more profit than just selling the cloth.

Green Armor/weapons, ilevel 416 & 429

These are the level 87 & 88 items - not much market for these and although they could be disenchanted, the enchanting materials are so cheap right now, it's better to just vendor these - unless any alts can make use of them of course. Vendor prices start at around 9g from what I can see so unless you were to get lucky & d/enchant them to Mysterious Essence, you'd only get Spirit Dust and probably not 9g's worth either!

3 new Pandaren Cookery materials

I'm going to assume Godmother means the Aged Balsamic Vinegar, the Aged Mogu'Shan Cheese & the Ancient Pandaren Spices. I checked out the Undermine Journal for these as I haven't kept up to date on their prices. I was surprised to find them selling for little more than 1g each. Not much profit there then! 

They aren't used in the Noodle cart recipes either so the only other use for them is the 6 new Bind on Pickup cooking recipes that provide the new 300+ buff foods. These recipes use the other new ingredients like the Fresh Pomfruit or the Fresh Lushrooms but these have to be gathered specifically as they only have a 2 hour 'life'. If you're in the Vale grinding out rep or stones or whatever is going on there, then it might be worth a few minutes to pick up some of the Fresh ingredients even if only to make buff food for your own endeavours!

Ghost Iron Ore

Currently selling around 45-50g a stack is a nice price - my server has it around 35g most of the time! I checked out the bar price just in case but Bars are at 5-6g each so not much profit there at all. There are several options for Ghost Iron Ore in general - make bars for Engineer or Blacksmith, send Bars to your Alchemist to make Trillium or send Ore to your Jewelcrafter to prospect. With only 34 Ore though, I'd be tempted to make Bars & send it to my Blacksmith to craft the Malevolent PvP gear (yes, again!)

Black Trillium Ore, White Trillium Ore

Black trillium is selling for 5-8 gold and White Trillium is selling for 6-7.50g - that's nice profit right there but what else can we do with it? It takes 2 Black + 2 White trillium to smelt to 1 standard Trillium Bar. So that would be a cost of 22g-31g per Trillium Bar which is selling for 39-45g - still not that much profit but better than selling the plain black & white ores.

With 18 White Trillium as the limiting factor - Godmother could produce 9 Trillium Bars from this haul which would be at least one Living Steel Bar (sale price 284-340g) which could then go to make a Living Steel Belt Buckle (sale price 330-390g).

Spirit Dust

This is selling for around 1g on Godmother's server and on my own. I've even dropped my maximum buy price to 80s as I was getting way too much availability for the number of enchant scrolls I could sell. It used to be worth converting Spirit Dust up to Mysterious Essence & just selling the Essences but the prices have stabilised to a point where there is very little profit there now.

Looking at prices on Shadowsong-EU, I'd suggest the best use of these dusts is to make a few of the Spirit Dust only enchants like Enchant Gloves - Greater Haste or Enchant Chest - Mighty Spirit. Both use just 4 Spirit Dusts but sell for around 30g. Not great prices but better than just selling the dusts alone.

There are better enchants to sell of course but they use Mysterious Essences or Ethereal Shards - not a problem these days as both are fairly cheap but the current best way to get Mysterious Essences is to buy Ethereal Shards and break them down, not to convert the Dusts up! So for this exercise, I've assumed Godmother doesn't want to go buying extra materials to make stuff.

Exotic Leather

For me, the very best use of these is to make Magnificent Hides either through the daily cooldown which uses just 20 or even the more expensive way but without a cooldown of using 50 leathers. At the current sell price of Exotic Leather of 87silvers, even a 50 piece Magnificent Hide only costs 44g - massive profits when I make my Crafted Malevolent PvP gear which sells for 700g or more.

Summary

There's definitely some gold laying around to be picked up when you are out & about doing other stuff as this shows very clearly. It's hard to make accurate suggestions for selling such small quantities for profit as so much of what I do requires more materials than Godmother picked up. But I've tried to limit myself to suggestions that don't require buying extra materials but one thing I would do, is to not sell everything in a rush.

If, like the Godmother, you are out & about picking up random stuff like this - don't be in too much of a hurry to sell it every day. Sometimes it is worth hanging on to a few smaller stacks until you have enough materials to make a proper go at crafting something profitable! Like the Ores - if you pick up more black & white trillium the following day which would add to the pile of standard trillium you could make then you could make 2 Living Steels Belt Buckles & the greater profit from them, rather than 1 Belt Buckle and selling the remaining trillium at the lower profit price!

I hope that makes sense but all I'm trying to say is patience is a virtue - don't be in too great a hurry to sell everything when a little patience may make you a better item in a few days.

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Saturday Celebrations - Psaronius, Icecrown-US

Another success story from the USA - this time Psaronius of Icecrown server has shared his story with us. This touched a chord with me as I started playing just a few months before him & I started my gold making just a few months before him too! It seems we were on the same schedule there for a while!

If you'd like to submit your own gold making Milestone Interview, instructions & more details are on my Milestone Interviews page. Any milestone is suitable - whether it be 100k or 10 million, we want to hear about YOUR story. Don't be shy! You've seen what others are sending in over the last few months so come on - tell us how you've been doing it!

I'm running low on submissions so if you'd like to see this weekly story continue, I'm going to need more stories!

I try to reply to each submission quickly so if I don't reply - poke me again as I may have missed it or leave a comment on a post - those I definitely see more easily. Now that AH Addict is getting more popular, the email address is busy with spammers coming out of the woodwork so I do sometimes miss things :(

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What is your milestone amount?My first milestone was likely when I hit around 20,000 gold, I realized I could play and not be broke in-game again, and the next was breaking 100k and feeling a great deal of success. I’m currently sitting just above 600k and I feel the end is in sight. 

What got you started making gold and when?
I started playing in January 2010 and knew nothing about the game. While my son tried to explain the in-game currency, I could not grasp the entirety of the game. One thing I knew is I never had enough gold to buy what I needed. In February 2011, my son told my he was going after his Loremaster achievement and at that point I decided I needed a goal, but something I could achieve, and I needed gold; at that moment I chose the gold cap as my goal. 

Which markets have you concentrated on, if any?
At present my main markets are glyphs, JC, PVP gear, and thanks to Nev, Mammoth Mining Bags. In addition, I have three guild banks full of transmog gear and typically have 300 or so pieces posted all the time. 

When did you start a banker alt?
I started a guild bank before I really started working on gold making. I used it to save mats I thought I would need in leveling a number of alts. I still use him but only for transmog, and I’ve added two more guild banks to store gear in and sell transmog gear. 

Do you farm materials?
When I started gold making I always farmed anything I could. For the most part I now buy most mats in the AH, but if the price is more than I’m willing to pay I’ll still farm. 

Lesser known gold making addons
Addons are such huge time saving tools, using them is an absolute must. One I don’t hear about often but I use a lot is Panda. Its used for milling herbs and prospecting ore faster than the standard WOW interface. In addition I use it for crafting gems and glyphs. If you’ve updated prices through your auction tool, Panda will show you current unit prices and inventory in your bags. 

Biggest successes or biggest failures?
I think of any gold loss as a failure and I’ve had my fair share of those. The thing that really bugs me is when I hold on to purchased mats for too long and the price drops to a loss. Biggest success was when I sold a panther mount for 27K and cloth slippers for 22K in one day. My biggest oops! was selling a tailoring pattern I got as a drop, Star Belt. I realized, after selling it immediately, that its a super rare pattern and I could have tripled my money. 

Professions?
My characters have Mining/Blacksmithing; Enchanting/Leatherworking, Jewelcrafting/Tailoring; Herbing/Inscription. I am leveling a couple of other alts so I can round out the mix with top level alch, engineering, and skinning. I don’t see a need to level the professions until the alt hits top level so the little guys just mine and skin and I sell the mats. 

Advice for new goldmakers?

• Low level mats sell, especially leather and ore so I always start mining and skinning on new characters. The 10 or 20 or 36 gold per sale will always add up.  

• Use the auction house and try to sell everything you acquire. 

• Use addons. 

• Know your market(s) and know prices. Perhaps most importantly know your crafting cost and use this to determine your bottom price, and don’t sell below this. 

• Use Wowhead as a resource for learning about items, bosses, and drops.

Shout outs for any blogs or podcasts that helped you along the way?
Auction House Addict is my favorite blog, the tips have been fabulous! The Undermine Journal is huge, there are links to other goldmaking blogs and the thoughts and ideas I get from them are awesome.

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There's some very good advice there from Psaronius - low level mats are often overlooked by more experienced goldmakers but when you are starting out, there can be some really nice profits there. And if you've been reading my stuff for a while, you'll know I always say 'know your prices' :)

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Saturday Celebrations - Lindrayn, Twisting Nether-US

This week, we have a tale of millions from Lindrayn on Twisting Nether-US server. I have to apologise here now, I missed this email a few weeks ago so it's a bit late being published! I'm so sorry, Lindrayn.

If you'd like to submit your own gold making Milestone Interview, instructions & more details are on my Milestone Interviews page. Any milestone is suitable - whether it be 100k or 10 million, we want to hear about YOUR story. Don't be shy! You've seen what others are sending in over the last few months so come on - tell us how you've been doing it! 

I'm running low on submissions so if you'd like to see this weekly story continue, I'm going to need more stories!

I try to reply to each submission quickly so if I don't reply - poke me again as I may have missed it or leave a comment on a post - those I definitely see more easily. Now that AH Addict is getting more popular, the email address is busy with spammers coming out of the woodwork so I do sometimes miss things :(

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What is your milestone amount?
My first million

When did you start?
I started getting serious on a whim during Firelands in July 2011. I had heard about the “obsidium shuffle” on making gold and I had a max level Jewelcrafter, a max level Enchanter and a max level Alchemist so I thought “why not?” I bought my first load of ore for 30g a stack and I probably bought 50 stacks. After processing it and cutting gems I doubled my investment by the next day. It all went downhill from there. 

Did you set a goal?
My goal was 1 million gold in one year. I barely made the goal. I started with 70k in July 2011 and by the end of June 2012 I was sitting at 960k. I had a friend loan me the last 40k just so I could screenshot it and celebrate (took me 4 days to pay him back)

First tips & tricks?
For me, its frequent undercutting. Be bold about it. If the market dips too low, don’t be afraid to be aggressive and buy someone out and reset the market. The gem market has been ruthless at times on my server. Also, the phone app is a must. It allows me to check auctions every hour or two while I’m out and about. 

When did you start a banker alt?
I don’t really have one. I moved my main toon, Edrisa, to Proudmoore late last summer and this toon was originally intended as a bank alt. As you can see I’ve made it a full fledged alt that I raid on too.

Best market over the years?
Jewelcrafting by far. I would say 80% of my wealth has come from gems.

Favorite niche market?
I dabble in inscription. I picked it up at the beginning of MoP just for the 476 caster staff. I make a fairly decent amount of gold off shoulder enchants and occasionally dabble in glyphs. I just don’t have the patience to do it full time.

Do you farm materials?
Never. Early on I had some supply problems with herbs to transmute gems, but near the end of my first year I got rid of all my gathering professions. I buy 100% of my materials from the AH or private farmers.

How much playtime devoted to gold making?
I devote probably an hour a day to managing my auctions. 2-3 times a week I spend a couple hours processing ore to make gems, rings, and enchants. When patches first drops its not unusual for me to spend twice that managing things.

Professions
Jewelcrafting, Enchanting, Alchemy, Inscription.

Flipping
I make a moderate amount of gold flipping transmog gear, mounts, and pets. Recently I’ve found its profitable to buy cheap pets on Proudmoore and sell then for 2-3 times as much on Twisting Nether.

Reward yourself for reaching goal?
Therein lies my weak point! I tend to spend WAY too much gold on things I want. When MoP launched, I think I spent nearly 200k gold just buying myself gear off the BMAH and from players. 

I’ve bought many mounts for 70-90k off the BMAH and I can’t resist buying mini-pets. I would likely already have my new goal of 2 million gold if I would stop spending it on big ticket items. But hey, what good is the gold if you can’t get what you want!

What's your new goal, if any?
With me moving my druid to Proudmoore, my new goal is to cap on both servers. When I transferred my druid, I had just over 1 million gold. I transferred 920k to Proudmoore and that left me a nest egg of 100k on Twisting Nether to bounce back from. 

Since August, I have turned that 100k back in to 350k. I have lost gold on Proudmoore but I’ve also bought easily 150k in gear over there to raid with. I’m sitting at 870k there. So right now I’m sitting at just over 1.2 million and I am shooting to make it 2 million by the launch of the next expansion.

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A perfect example of one of my newbie tips - a copper saved is a copper earned! If you want to build your gold stash more quickly, then you have to stop buying yourself luxuries! I'm a fine one talking though - I hit my million as Lindrayn was getting started and I still haven't hit my 2nd Million! I do have a fine collection of mounts and pets though so I don't care!

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Saturday Celebrations - Goldtauna, US

This week we welcome an interview from a fellow blogger - Goldtauna. He is relatively new to gold blogging and gold making but he's doing well so far I think!

If you'd like to submit your own gold making Milestone Interview, instructions & more details are on my Milestone Interviews page. Any milestone is suitable - whether it be 100k or 10 million, we want to hear about YOUR story. Don't be shy! You've seen what others are sending in over the last few months so come on - tell us how you've been doing it!

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Milestone amount?
200k this week! (Plus a Battle Bear that I am still trying to sell!) 

When did you start?
I started gold-making in October after finishing my first year of University 

Did you set a goal?
My goal initially was 20k. I really didn't set the bar high for myself 

First tips & tricks
Netherweave bags were a great initial start to my gold making. Buying the cloth at 10g a stack and selling bags at 30g 

When did you start a banker alt
I used to have a bank alt in Cata, just to send all my items to and stuff. But they got deleted a long time ago. Now I use Taunnie, my level 90 rogue who was previously unloved. She has no professions or anything yet! 

Best market over the years
I'm having a lot of fun in the transmog market, with alerts set up on my WoWuction of all the great deals. Another market I enjoy and made a lot from was the Fortune Card market.

Starting over - how?
Level Inscription and tailoring for bags and fortune cards. Once I build enough capital with these, start flipping again until I fall back into the same techniques I use now

Did you reach your goal? Set a new one?
I am well over my goal of 20k. I'm setting goal towards gold cap now, as most people do!

Favorite niche market
I would feel bad for not mentioning the Fortune Cards, but recently more into Battle Pets. These little guys are so fun to sell. 

Do you farm materials?
Nope, not unless I am really bored and have nothing to do. I used to farm my Netherweave when the prices went up a lot, and my girlfriend occasionally farms Herbs for me when she is bored. 

Lesser known gold making addons
Adibags, while not strictly a gold-making addon, is invaluable with it's bag set up. I really don't know what I would do without my bags sorted like that. 

Biggest oops!
Buying Shadowfang for 80k. While I flipped it for a lot more, I did it way too early in my gold-making career. It's also way too niche of an item for my liking and took a lot of work to sell. 

Biggest yay!
When I could easily buy my girlfriend a couple mounts she liked and not even think twice. Second would probably be winning a Darkmoon Rabbit on my second time going to the faire! Selling him off soon! 

How much playtime devoted to gold making?
At the moment, every minute because I'm bored of SoO. Just sitting around in Orgrimmar most of the time. 

Professions
Have one of every profession, with no double ups yet. Plan on levelling more in readiness for Draenor 

Flipping
Love it! Buying one item for 20g and selling it for 20k is just so fulfilling. 

Vendor pets & pet battles
I love selling pets. They are one of my favorite items, although sometimes I get a little too attached. 

Advice for a new gold maker
Read, read, read! There is so much information out there for people to look up! Between Consortium, Nev, PhatLewt and others, they have covered heaps of topics to get you started! 

Reward yourself for reaching goal?
Not myself, my girlfriend. I bought her a Sky Golem, which she adores as it 'flies so awesomely! And I can get you herbs quicker!' She is over the moon for it. 

Share the blog love - my 'must read' suggestions
Sorry if I miss anyone out:
- PhatLewt's Gold Blog
- Auction House Addict
- Consortium Forums
- WoWEconomy subreddit
- Any blog that shows up on The Undermine Journal basically
And of course, my blog at A Little Bird Gold Me (alittlebirdgoldme.blogspot.com)

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Looks like you're off to a great start Tauna - keep your brain in active mode and your eyes open for opportunities and I'm sure you'll be a Millionaire in no time! Good luck with your blogging too - I look forward to reading more from you soon.

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Saturday Celebrations - Darkstar, Darksorrow-EU

This week we have a tale of multiple millions from Finland. Darkstar isn't your typical gold maker or WoW player by the sounds of his story - but he's still managed to amass quite a fortune.

If you'd like to submit your own gold making Milestone Interview, instructions & more details are on my Milestone Interviews page. Any milestone is suitable - whether it be 100k or 10 million, we want to hear about YOUR story. Don't be shy! You've seen what others are sending in over the last few months so come on - tell us how you've been doing it!

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When did you start?  

I started WoW maybe a week after it was released in Finland. I still remember how cool a game it was.. standing against Ragnaros and shooting with a wand! Hahaha! My gold making started late in The Burning Crusade. I started to fund the guild I was in and somehow I found it exciting when all the junk was sold out and we actually had good stuff in the guild bank. After our guild was dismissed due to inactivity, I started to collect some coppers for myself. 

What is your milestone amount?  

3 million 

Did you set a goal?/what's your new goal, if any?  

When I started saving gold, I dreamed of gold cap. Back then I knew no-one who had reached it but I remember checking a video from youtube about this guy looting the mailbox until gold limit. I think at that time I made a decision to do the same thing. It took quite a while to get my first million and when it finally came, I was so happy. It is kinda funny when 100g profit used to be so much, but now it's nothing. While writing this interview, I currently have 3,008,210g on my server. I think my next goals are 4th million and to get rest of the battle pets.  

When did you start a banker alt/ Do you keep the same banker alt? 

My banker alt is a lvl 35 rogue ( who uses staff :D ). I have two rogues because I also wanted a human female character so this male version was about to be deleted, but I thought I'd use it for a while as a banker. That "while" grew to be years. I practically run everything other than JC/alchemy items through my banker.  

Best market over the years? 

There is something in alchemy that I like. It was my first ever profession to pick up and has been my favourite ever since. I farmed earlier 100% recipes for it and I transmute gems to cut. Alchemy is also great since you can choose the specialization. I would say I have made 60% of my gold with Alchemy & Jewelcrafting combo.  

Do you farm materials? 

I used to farm quite a lot of herbs/ores, but nowadays I have no need since I can buy large amounts of stuff to shuffle. On rare occasions I might farm adamantite ore to make mercurial adamantites.  

How much playtime devoted to gold making? 

WoW has never been my #1 game since I played CoD in high level and now I play BF4 mainly, but when I'm logged in, I either farm pets or fool around with my banker. I try to visit WoW every day of course due to profession cooldowns.  

Flipping? 

Latest market where I have found myself is flipping Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria green armour. I buy pretty much everything that is under 60g and put them back for 255g. It's not high volume market in my server, but it gives me good profit. So it is like safe investment. 

Advice for a new gold maker? 

We live in the world of information and you might be overwhelmed with all the options for gold making. You have no hurry to master all professions. Get maybe a few addons (Postal and Auctioneer) to start with and get two professions which can be used together like Jewelcrafting/Mining. You don't have to sell new materials, because people need older stuff to level their professions. Also set yourself a goal :) 

Shout outs for any blogs or podcasts that helped you along the way  

I have been too busy with school this Autumn/Winter so unfortunately I haven't had time to follow much anything related to gold making. I used to watch Jim Younkin's live streams, Tarou's videos and Blogs which were linked to the Undermine Journal. Two best web sites must be theunderminejournal.com and wowuction.com. 

Keep reading AH Addict blog, guys and girls. Enjoy WoW!

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So I have to give a BIG GRATZ to Darkstar for reaching 3 million gold - that is quite a pile of gold for someone who doesn't call WoW his main game!

I find it curious how so many people find their favorite profession to be one of the first ones they pick up! I picked up Leatherworking on my first character and she is still a leatherworker and she is still my main alt too. She has almost every recipe/pattern from previous expansions and is working on the current PvP crafted items.

I guess it's the one I know best even though I left it alone for a while during Cataclysm. Is your favorite profession the one that makes you the most gold or the one your first picked up? I'd be interested to know so leave a comment if you feel like.

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Journal of Marcus Ty Podcast - Episode 21 with The Godmother

For our first show of 2014, we invited the Godmother to join us to talk about her time in game and how she's accidentally accrued a stash of gold! If you haven't come across her on twitter (@alternativechat) or her blog Alt:ernative Chat, you should probably go say hello and have a read. She's opinionated for sure but she does have some great posts & ideas too and I have to say I fangirl'd a bit at the start of the show! I think I even made her blush a little too :)

We had a few technical issues but once we got those sorted out, Marcus started grilling the Godmother on her time and life in game over the last 9-10 years. For me as a Wrath baby, it was great to hear some of their early WoW stories.

Then we got onto the goldmaking and both Marcus and I offered some tips and advice to how the Godmother could improve her gold making in game whilst not really trying too hard. If you're a veteran player just getting into gold making, maybe some of our advice will suit you too.

If you have any questions or topics you'd like us to cover, do get in touch with either myself or Marcus, we don't bite, honestly! We'd love to hear from you and of course, if you like us enough, we'd love some iTunes reviews or Stitcher thumbs ups too!

As always - you can find us on iTunes or Stitcher Radio or you can listen via the website if you prefer.

Show Notes

• Welcome to the Pig and Whistle.
• Godmother orders a large one.
• Ten years of accidental gold making
• Gold making hints and tips for veteran Warcraft players

Resources mentioned in the podcast:

• Contact Marcus Ty on Twitter @MarcusTy
• Contact Nev on Twitter @NevAHaddict
• Marcus' blog - Wow Gold Journal
• Email Marcus at JournalofMarcusTy.com

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30 Minutes a Day Project - Day 28 Wrap Up

Well, I finally made it to the end of the project with only 4 days missed. Now for me, that's actually pretty darn good and I only missed those days due to being in hospital so I'm quite pleased with myself for that. However, I am also not so pleased with myself about how much I didn't make this month!

I listed the last lot of stuff at the end of Day 27 without really caring or watching how much I was listing for. And wouldn't you know it? As soon as I stop trying so hard, I have my best day of the whole month! When I emptied the mailbox this evening, I picked up almost 570 gold. I still have a bunch of stuff left to sell but only enough to fill my backpack so really, I think I timed that pretty well too.

Just for information, I thought I'd include the My Sales addon summary screen for the month so you can see where I made the most sales this month. Now obviously, this doesn't show profit but I was really lucky through the month and I'm not sure I made many losses all the way through the project.

I have to say, I think I really lucked out with doing this in December! I didn't even consider the Winter Veil festival when I had this idea but of course, Strange Dust is top of my sales list and I'd hazard a guess that it was almost all profit too! The Rugged Leather and Wool Cloth sales were bonus markets from Winter Veil too but I quickly fell into a habit of checking the herb market first and with the time limit, I mainly stayed with flipping herbs.

I did occasionally venture into other markets but too late in the month to show up on the top sellers list. The few recipes I picked up early on didn't sell very well although they did sell eventually. I wonder if I should have gone to get more and keep trying with those. 

So in the end, 28 days for 15 minutes a day should have resulted in  7 hours played time. As I found out very quickly, 15 minutes to do all the AH stuff is ok but it didn't give me time to record all the transactions so my actual played time is shown above at almost 14 hours. That means I spent about 30 minutes a day logged in but that was not just recording & making transactions. I also have some very chatty realID friends so a bit of that time was chat time too!

I did enjoy this project but I also found it very frustrating. I started it because I needed some kind of impetus to log in & do something productive but once in game, my natural inclination is to hang out in the Auction House for hours, just scanning for deals and absorbing price information so the time limit drove me crazy!

I hope you've found a bit of useful info somewhere in this diary of a newbie banker and just in case you're wondering, the closing balance of gold in her bag was 1713 gold. Not very good at all by my expectations but still not too bad given the restrictions.

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30 Minutes a Day Project - Days 25 - 27

And so we come to the last of the daily updates - I've got one more post after this to summarise the whole project and wrap up some final numbers for you but I won't be boring you with big spreadsheets for a while again now! 

Day 25

I picked up almost 200 gold from the mailbox today which wasn't too bad considering I didn't have too much more actually listed on the Auction House! I did a scan and grabbed what bargains I could find quickly. I really am trying to buy a lot more stuff but there just doesn't seem to be that many obvious bargains around at the moment! I scanned the herb market as usual and dipped into the Mists cooking materials too but the deals were few and far between.

As you can see, I did pick up 3 cheap Clockwork Rocket Bot pets for around 120g each - I'm hoping these will sell quickly but I have my doubts to be honest, I haven't had a huge amount of success with Battle Pets. These may turn out to be better as longer term investments - once the buzz of Winter Veil has died down and these aren't so easily available, they should fetch a very nice price but sadly, that will be too late for this little project.


Day 26
Only 125 gold from the mailbox today but that's partly a timing thing again as I logged in early today and late evening yesterday. At this point, I still have a bunch of auctions still listed from yesterday so they could still sell at some point today.

I grabbed another piece of level 83/84 green armor for just 18 gold. I don't have a grip on this market on this server so I played it a bit safe and relisted it for just 75 gold. On my main server, I'd be relisting at 185 - 199 gold but only because I have that market almost to myself there.

I did pick up a sweet deal on the Briarthorn though - I just hope it sells for that crazy high price! I'm already regretting buying the Khadgar's Whisker for so much - it seemed like a sweet deal given the current prices but when I was filling in my spreadsheet, I realised the whole market was inflated and I think I'm probably going to lose on that one.

It does show the importance of checking trends though - this isn't going to kill my efforts or bankrupt me but if I was investing in a much larger purchase, I'd have been stupid not to check out the market averages on The Undermine Journal at least.


Day 27
So given that I missed 4 days at some point during the month, today is 31st December and it's the last official day of this project. The mailbox gave me about 270 gold and as I suspected yesterday, the Khadgar's Whiskers didn't sell.

As I was listing the remaining stock, I did buy a few bits and pieces, just to raise the bottom price in those markets. Sometimes, it's worth spending a few silvers or gold to clear out the bottom items before you list your own stuff. It's what I've been doing all along of course - buying the very cheapest items and relisting them at a higher price but if you're not used to flipping and you're trying to sell stuff your alts have picked up, it may be a new(ish) idea to you.

I relisted everything in my bags and logged off. Tomorrow I'll collect my gold and say a fond farewell to Kalanna, my banker.

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