Old Markets Gone Bad!

This month's topic for Cold's Gold Blogging Carnival is one that many of us can have a chat about. If you've been making gold in-game for a while, there are bound to be markets that have died on you or that you've given up on. I know I have a few but I've narrowed it down to just one market.

Name one of your historically profitable markets that is now defunct and what can we learn from that old market?

I think you can probably guess from my header image which market I chose for my topic this month - yup - vendor bought cooking recipes! I stumbled into this market within a month or two of starting to play WoW. The Pilgrims festival was in full swing as I started leveling my 2nd alt & accidently found the cooking recipe vendor in Stormwind when I wanted to add Cooking to her profession list. I had a little bit of gold then from selling turkeys I'd picked up whilst questing so off I went to the cooking trainer to get started. Except I didn't find the cooking trainer - I found the recipe vendor so I bought the recipes anyway, having no idea that I didn't really need them to level my cooking.

It was one of those serendipitous moments when I accidently bought 2 of the same recipe so I just threw it on the Auction House - I followed the existing prices & just undercut by a few copper. I think it earned me about 6g back then and it took me a few days to realise it as I was busy questing & leveling & didn't check my mail! Needless to say, I quickly ran back to the AH to check some of the other cooking recipe prices & a fledgling Goblin was born! I think I made maybe 500g from just those cooking recipes in that first foray into the AH.

Fast forward to the next Pilgrims festival a year later & I had a few more alts on the go & a level 80 too. I'd been dabbling in the AH but not in any serious way. I was in a busy guild, chatting, dungeons, raiding a bit all took up my game time so although I was never short of gold, I wasn't racking it up like some goldmakers. That inspiration/necessity came later & is a different story! So for this 2nd festival, I remembered the cooking recipes & looked up on Wowhead to see what other recipes might be out there. 

The Stormwind vendor was always the easiest to get to - my bank alt lived in Stormwind but my 2nd or 3rd alt was working through Outland - I'd regularly pop over to the Allerian Stronghold in Terokkar Forest & pick up 2 or 3 of each recipe & post them back to my bank alt. This year, I raised the prices & some of them were selling for 30-50g. I loved this market - the Stormwind set cost about 1g & sold for 15-30g each - all the time!

I can't remember all the other recipe vendors but I do know I made good gold from this market right up to the launch of Mists of Pandaria. The new Cooking trainer & leveling method for cooking means that most players now level their cooking just standing in Halfhill. I bought a set of recipes from the Stormwind guy just last week - I was curious to see if there was any market left for them. A few have sold but only for 2-5g now - still a very good profit & still a reasonable market to try for some starter cash but for me, it's just not time efficient enough now.

So what can we learn? Well I think the most obvious lesson is that some players are just plain lazy or downright stupid! Think of all the cheap vendor bought stuff that sells for much better prices on the Auction House - gold bloggers have been writing about them for ages but there are still players out there who have no idea you can buy say, crystal vials from a vendor! But don't forget, I'm not even talking about limited supply items - those I kind of understand buying off the Auction House, there's a time element to getting them & for some players, time is more precious than gold. Nope, I'm talking about unlimited supply items just like cooking recipes!

There is still a small market here - some players like to have all the recipes & some prefer to level a profession as they level their alt so they do it using the older recipes & materials they pick up along the way. It's not a market I'm bothering with now although if you are just getting started, it may be worth a try. A 1g investment could net you 50-100g profit even if you have to relist them a few times.

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Vendor Herb Supplies for Making Starter Gold in WoW

Herbs in Boots

So I've mentioned before about buying some herbs from various vendors to sell on the Auction House for starter cash but whilst I was farming recently, I stumbled over Vi'el in Winterspring & found that he sells Gromsblood. I was there for a little while so I managed to raid his limited supply 3 times & ended up with 8 Gromsblood. When I went to the Auction House with them, they were listed at around 15 gold each!

That got me thinking about what other herbs might be available from vendors so I spent a little while on Wowhead having a look & decided to summarise them here. As I expected, there aren't many higher level herbs available from vendors but the ones that are available are usually expensive on the Auction House so may be worth picking up if you're in the relevant areas.

Starter Cash - Alliance

Stormwind, Maria Lumere, Alchemy Supplies, Mage Quarter
The Exodar, Altaa, Alchemy Supplies, Vaults of Lights
- sells peacebloom, silverleaf, earthroot, mageroyal, bruiseweed, wild steelbloom, kingsblood and liferoot (40 copper to 1silver 20copper)

Stormwind, Bernard Gump, Florist, outer edge of Trade District, Old Town side
Elwynn Forest to Redridge, Antonio Perelli, travelling salesman
Wetlands, Kixxle, by a cart at junction of main road & the road to Dun Modr in the North
 - sells earthroot, mageroyal, bruiseweed, wild steelbloom, kingsblood and liferoot (80 copper to 3silver)

Starter Cash - Horde

Silvermoon City, Melaris, Alchemy Supplies, nr Court of the Sun
- sells peacebloom, silverleaf, earthroot, mageroyal, bruiseweed, wild steelbloom, kingsblood & liferoot (40 copper to 1 silver 20 copper)

Northern Barrens, Hula'mahi, The Crossroads
Ghostlands, Rathis Tomber, near Tranquillien
Tirisfal Glades, Selina Weston, Brill
- sells peacebloom, silverleaf, earthroot, mageroyal, bruiseweed (40 copper to 1 silver )

Higher Level Areas

Winterspring, Vi'el, Exotic Goods, Frostwhisper Gorge - sells Gromsblood 10silver

Netherstorm, Dealer Sadaqat, Stormspire
Isle of Quel'Danas, Mar'nah
- sells icecap, felweed, dreaming glory, netherbloom & mana thistle (10-60 silvers)

My New Server Start Up Process

When I start on a new server, I usually level a banker alt to level 5 before running them to Stormwind (my bankers are nearly always human!). On average, my alt leaves Northshire with around 9 silvers & I run her straight to Maria Lumere, the alchemy supplies girl in the Mage Quarter. Watching my pennies, I buy whatever herbs she has available, making sure I still have 1 silver left for each type of herb I buy so the Auction House listing fee is covered. So if I can get 3 types of herb from her, I must keep back at least 3 silvers to be able to list them!

Then I go and create my new character that I'm going to play & level her for a while. Once she has done a little questing, she will start to pick up linen & other bits that I can sell - I post them to my bank alt & often add a little cash too - after all, she doesn't have anything left until those initial auctions sell.

Depending on what time of day I am playing, I will often log in & out of both alts quite a bit at first - getting the questing going & sending stuff across to sell then logging banker to get all these goodies listed. This way, I also see when the initial herbs sell & pick up that extra cash quickly.Then it's back to the alchemy supplies & off to the florist to pick up whatever herbs I can & get them listed too.

Rinse & repeat until you have a nice little stash of gold then I hit the cooking recipes guy in Stormwind Old Town - approx 1 gold will get you about 10 recipes - all of which sell for anywhere between 2 - 30 gold each although they don't sell as quickly as they used to.

So there you go, an easy & fairly painless way to get those first dribbles of cash into your pockets on a new character. To my more experienced readers - Is this what you do or do you have another method of getting that initial cash?

Spring - Time For Fresh Starts

© Nev 2004, Spring Blossom

So, it's been a while again but I finally logged into game a few times this last week or so. The first few hours really wore me out - my eyes really had problems adjusting to the whole movement stuff after months of static websites but eventually they settled down & let me get on with trying to remember where I had left everything! I never intended to just stop playing like that, it was just the way it worked out but I lost everything in my mailboxes & I'm pretty sure I had a few big-ish items gone bye-bye but never mind, they would be out of date by now anyway! So my first few evenings back in game were taken up with emptying rubbish out of banks & bags, as well as catching up with my lovely guildies.

Just before I stopped playing, I also signed up for a US account which I played for about 2 hours & never went back! Bad timing all round except that it gave me a lapsed account when the new Scroll of Resurrection was announced so this week, thanks to Cold over at Cold's Gold Factory, I've restarted on that account. No heirlooms, no cash back up, nothing except 50 empty character slots & a few basic addons. Cold doesn't have to worry though, I'm Alliance so his Horde gold making empire is safe ... for now :P

So with a clean slate, I chose my usual human banker, levelled her to level 5 & ran to Stormwind. She had about 8silver to play with. I also started a human hunter to be my main questing alt & by the time she got to Goldshire, she had about 9 silver which I sent to my banker. So with 16 silvers, I bought 2 of the cheapest cooking recipes from the guy in SW Old Town, then ran to the florist on the canals to see if there were any herbs available. There were a few bits & pieces so I bought those up & ran to the Alchemy supplies shop in the mage Quarter, nabbed all the herbs I could there & off I went to the Auction House.

Off I went to the Auction House & started to list my haul of cheap herbs. Arrggggh, I'd forgotten the deposit/listing fee so I only managed to list the 5 auctions shown in the screenie above. Well that was a bust I thought so I logged back to my hunter & did a few more quests. You can tell I'm out of practise at this game too - look - I only listed them for 12 hrs - normally I would pop them up at 24hrs - it's the same deposit for most of them & I don't lose the deposit after just 12 hrs if they don't sell.

So I told myself to slow down & think this through - as I was running back to the alchemy supplies in the Mage Quarter, I passed the fishing trainer & a light bulb went off in my head! I quickly checked the cost of training & a fishing rod & decided to fish for vendor trash for 10 mins.

Here's my haul
8 x tangled fishing line @ 18c each
6 x tattered cloth @ 1s each
5 x weeds @ 18c each
3 x driftwood @ 18c each
1 x sickly fish @ 18c each
1 x old boot @ 18c each

So in about 10 minutes of fishing I gained a grand total of 9s 24c & 10 achievement points for catching 25 fish! Those 9 silvers let me post the rest of the herbs I'd managed to pick up and as of late this morning, I'm up to about 20gold now. More than enough to really get going again.

Not the biggest gold making revelation, I know but if I've missed this simple way to get some basic starter cash, how many others have too? I know to go get some cheap vendor items & list them but I've been gold making a while now & reading blogs & stuff for even longer. This brand new empty account is kinda reminding me of the basics so I thought I'd pop out a post so I don't forget in future & maybe help a complete newbie to make those first few silvers.

Auction House Alt - Day 13 & Vendor Recipes Recap

What a lovely start to my day - the rest of the cata herbs & some glyphs sold - starting balance today 1533g :D

I'm feeling ill today so just a quick visit to the cooking recipe vendor - easy & quick money. Here's a screenshot of some of my sales - 394g profit on these alone - it may be a boring/mundane way of making money but who cares! lol

You can easily see just how much you can make from these very basic recipes - I either follow & undercut slightly if there are already a few listed or go with auctioneer price if I am the only one listing.

Now if you do this on a new server with a new alt, you only need 3 or 4 silver to buy the cheapest & 1 silver to list it but it should sell for at least 3 if not 5 or 6 gold, so theoretically, you can then go get the rest of the recipes & make 20 or 30g, if not more, in the first day or so. If you're planning on starting on a new server, do this 1 or 2 days before you start your levelling toon & you will be well set up :)

Auction House Alt - Day 1

I started a human rogue purely for the closeness to SW & I know the starter zone so well, I could flip thru there in about 20 minutes. I arrived in Stormwind and went directly to the Old Town where I had a quest hand in from the guy in Goldshire. I now had 9silver 63copper to my name. As I was already in Old Town, I went to the cooking recipe vendor & bought the Beer Basted Ribs recipe for 2s 40c, knowing that it would sell for at least 1gold if not a lot more.

On my way back to the AH, someone was paying for guild charter sigs so I piped up, signed up & made 7g - nice little boost to my starter pot. Posted the recipe for 3g 90s, undercutting the one already listed & proceeded to do my auctioneer scan.

The first search I do at this stage is always a vendor search & today it proved very worthwhile. There was a Fractured Alicite selling for 5g when the vendor price is 9g so I grabbed that, ran to mailbox, picked it up & vendored it! Pure luck but an immediate profit of 4g :)

The next stage of my search is done on the normal AH browse screen - I sorted by time left & did a general search under Trade Goods. I was looking for those tiny bid deals that were going to finish very soon, hoping a) to win them or b) not tie my cash up for too long. I was in luck again! Mageroyal with 1s bid, very cheap mageweave & some monstrous claws, all short time left with bid prices below 20silvers and even some volatile waters, although they were on long auctions and I probably won't win them, it's always worth a try :)

So, with 7g 19s 34c left, I decided that was enough for now & went for some lunch. Imagine my pleasure when I came back to find I'd not only won the mageroyal & mageweave but also had sold the Beer Basted Ribs recipe!

Straight back to the recipe vendor in Old Town, bought 1 of each recipe except the 2 bind on pickup ones & put those up for auction, listed the few bits I'd won & left it at that for today. Closing gold balance 11g 85s 59c.