Weekly Sales Update - 19th Aug 2012

My favourite bit of Zangermarsh

So I finally got my new place sorted out & my internet all connected up so I only missed a day of sales this week. But I got sidetracked by my US account, as I decided to level another scribe over there so my EU sales have suffered again although not as much as last week!

Sales of almost 21000 gold with purchases of about 5000 gold means an overall increase in liquid gold of 16000 gold. I'm still below the half million mark after my mount spending spree a few weeks ago but I'm quite happily just poodling along, keeping my fingers in various markets & looking for new little niches here & there.

Late last summer, I decided I wanted the Dark Iron set for my DK's transmog outfit so I spent a little time farming materials in Molten Core. Then I took a break & it all got forgotten until recently but I've since found out that I can get very similar stuff from a vendor in Shattrath so I put my Blood of the Mountain on the auction house. It took maybe 2 weeks but they did sell at last which put them at the top of my sales value list.

The Pristine Hides & the Noble's Monocle are also 'clearing out my banks' items - I've already made maybe 10000 gold from random stuff out of the mess of my banks & these were a nice bonus this week!

My glyph sales are fairly poor overall, I have more glyphs unlisted than I ever have before. I mentioned last week that there is someone tanking the prices so much of my 5000 gold expense this week have been low priced glyphs. I wasn't in the mood to buy him out completely but where there was only 1 or 2 low priced ones before a decent price one, I bought them out to relist at the higher price. For some glyphs, this has worked well but for others the tanker just listed a few more. I'm not worried though - they are all below my crafting cost so I'm looking at it as building some glyph stock for Mists :)

Items that don't show up on this screenshot include level 77-80 green armour - each day, I have been checking several times a day to try to find some good deals. For me, that means purchase cost below 50 gold & I then relist them immediately at 199 gold.

I also had an interesting conversation with Cold a week or two ago & he gave me a heads up on his Bargain Blues Stockpiling post. Now I've never really done many battlegrounds & I certainly have no idea about twinking so this was an interesting sideline for me. I have managed to pick up a few items but rather than keeping them in my bank for Mists of Pandaria release, I've put them back on the Auction House for a healthy mark up. I've sold one or two pieces but again, these are a more long term investment for me.

So that was my week - ok but nothing spectacular but then my server is very quiet now. I'm pretty sure it will liven up again soon of course but if it doesn't, I'll be ok - I just like to poodle along & faff at my own speed anyway :) have a good week peeps, Nev

Quick Basic Tip to Find Great Deals on Auction House

© JD Hancock, used under Creative Commons License from Flickr

Just a quick post today relating to a happy accident I had this week. I was going to list my few Firefin Snapper, but the starting price was only 7 coppers! When I looked at the details in the Auctionator Buy tab, there were a few others too - also in the mere coppers sell price. So I grabbed them up & relisted them straightaway with my own Snappers.

Now I could have left it at that but then I wondered if the same person had listed anything else this cheap. I haven't worked out a quick way to see all of a players auctions within the game yet (although you can on The Undermine Journal) so I just did a general search on some of the Trade items. Auctionator will let you search all the herbs at once & sort them by price. Sure enough, there were a whole load of herbs listed at mere coppers.

So what does a good goblin do? Buy them all up of course! You can see from my screenshot that I also managed to snag some wool & medium leather too. Ignore the Cinderbloom in the screenie - that was cheap on the day although prices have plummeted since then!

So here's the screenshot of my auctions page after I relisted all my bargains! This is just a part of the haul that day but 5 briarthorn for 5 silver flipped to 7 gold is the kind of flip I like! I've been double checking the general searches I created that day & have since picked up quite a bit of other stuff posted at similarly stupid low prices.

Now before you say anything about why a WoW millionaire is messing with this low value stuff, this is on my US account. I don't have any professions sorted out yet, no heirlooms or much cash so this is how I make a lot of my starter cash. I'm posting this as a lesson for any newbie goldmakers out there. It's a two part lesson as well - how to search for stuff to flip & also a cautionary tale of watch your listing prices when you post your own auctions!

If you've just installed an auction house addon like Auctionator, Auctioneer or TSM (Trade Skill management), double check your settings & watch those listing prices like a hawk at first. There are many tales of woe amongst the gold making community of items listed at the wrong price - a forgotten 0 on an epic armour item or mount price is a very expensive lesson to learn!

The Hunt for Infinite Dust

A week or two ago, Huntermastery sparked a good discussion with his post about what not to stockpile for Mists of Pandaria. One of the items on his list was Infinite Dust. His argument was that abyss crystals were a more effective way of storing stuff that could be turned into Infinite Dust & Cosmic Essences, rather than storing multiple stacks of dust & essences. It turned into quite a good discussion which you can read about on his follow up post about Abyss Crystals if you'd like to.

Now I'm not trying to resurrect that discussion but I've never had much luck with the Abyss Crystal shatter as a source of infinite dust, I've always used my Jewelcrafter to make bloodstone bands, crystal citrine necklace & sun rock rings to disenchant. I have a permanent watch set up for the gems & I only buy them when they are below 3 gold each & preferably below 2 gold!

Since May this year, I've also been picking up very cheap Wrath armour to disenchant - I check the dust price & base my armour buy price on that. I also only buy the top end greens - level 78-80 as they give an average of 5 dusts per item.

So I thought I'd lay out some results from a little test I did last week. I've used The Undermine Journal mean price for my cost prices as I had a lot of stuff in my bank already.

Abyss Crystal Shatter

13 Abyss Crystal (TUJ mean price 427.70g) = 18 Infinite Dust + 41 Greater Cosmic Essences (TUJ mean price 491.34g)

Overall profit = 63.64g

This is a perfect example of my previous experience with the abyss shatter - I always get more GCE's so as a source of infinite dust, it is very frustrating even though GCE's still sell pretty well.

Wrath lvl 78-80 Green Armor

14 various items all at 10g or less, approx cost 140g = 78 infinite dust + 5 greater cosmic essences (TUJ mean price 533.70g)

Overall profit = 393.70g

Jewelcraft Rings/Necks to Disenchant

60 x rings/necks approx cost 210gold = 102 Infinite Dust + 22 lesser Cosmic Essences + 5 small dream shards (TUJ mean price = 758.74g)

Overall profit = 548.74g

I made a variety of bloodstone bands, crystal citrine necklaces & sun rock rings. The bloodstone, sun crystals & huge citrines were bought over time as an average of 2g each & the crystallized earth required cost approx 75 silvers each.

TUJ Mean Prices used

Infinite Dust 6.25
Greater Cosmic Essence 9.24g
Abyss Crystal 32.90
Lesser Cosmic Essence 4.47g
Small Dream Shard 4.58

Summary

I realise the abyss crystal sample size is way too small to be really representative of the possible outcome but to be honest, at an average of 32g each, I just didn't want to spend out more cash, knowing my previous luck! Also, bear in mind, I'm trying to source Infinite Dust specifically in this post - if I just wanted Wrath enchanting mats then it wouldn't really matter too much :)

The easiest way right now is the Wrath greens - there is an abundance on my server as people are rushing their alts through Northrend before Mists of Pandaria arrives. Some items are below 5g so even if they only give me 2 infinite dusts, I'm still snatching them up!

Conversely, the gems for the rings/necks seem to be increasing in price - it took me a fair while to get enough gems to craft this many rings. If I hadn't been clearing out all my bank bags, I probably would have had a much smaller sample size!

If you need Infinite Dust - where do you get yours? Do you bite the bullet & pay AH prices or have you tried a different way? Let me know - would love your comments.

Weekly Sales Update - 12th August 2012

Well what can I say? What a crap week I've had on the Auction House! To be fair, I've hardly played at all, not even to keep my auctions up so I shouldn't have expected any different really. With sales of just 9656 gold for the whole week, I almost feel ashamed to call myself a gold maker!

So what did sell? Well, not many glyphs for sure! I had a quick look today & it seems that someone has decided to drop most of the glyph prices below 100 gold. I know on some servers, gold makers would be quite pleased to be getting 100 gold a glyph but with inks at 10g-12g here, glyph prices have traditionally been much higher. This close to Mists of Pandaria, I'm wondering if someone just wants to dump stock - I shall wait & see what happens over the next few days & then decide what to do.

One option is to buy up all the very cheap ones rather than crafting my own. Now that would be fine except many of those are glyphs I wouldn't usually bother crafting anyway. The other option is to spend some cash, make a load of glyphs and push prices lower til he/she gives up. Not sure I can really make myself do that right now though. This week looks like being another busy real life week & tactics like that need a fair bit of close attention.

A new market showing up on my top sellers list is the level 77-80 greens items. With the glyphs selling for lower prices, they've dropped off the leaderboard. I've been picking up 77-80 greens for 50 gold or under & relisting them immediately for 199 gold. I could possibly push that price up but I'm not out farming these greens & only manage to pick up a few here & there so I don't really have much say in what the market price should be. There is one main player in this market & I guess with my insomnia, I'm managing to snag the few bargains that get listed while he sleeps!

A few engineering pets, a few netherweave bags & some inferno inks make up the best of the rest with that old favourite Enchant Weapon - Agility taking top place this week. I kicked my self hard earlier - I didn't even notice the enchants had sold or I would have listed a couple more.

So just a short update this week - hopefully I can do a bit better in the next few days but I may even be without internet for a day or two so that won't help. It's all good in the long run though. Onward & upward as my gran used to say :) Have a good week y'all xxx

Different Markets, Different Tactics

Ferris Wheel by Andy Cardiff, under creative commons from Flickr

It's that time again, thinking of a post for Cold's Gold Blogging Carnival proves a challenge most months for me. This month is no different. I'm not the most organised gold maker or a particularly deep thinker about tactics or strategy so this was really tough! Thanks Cold! lol

Compare & Contrast 2 Different AH Markets and How Your Gold Making Strategy Varies In Each Market

Market 1 - Glyphs & Gems

I've written several times now about my glyph selling method & about the only organised part of it is the regularity of doing the same thing every time. I also do virtually the same routine for my gems. Both these markets have a lot of competition, regular undercutting occurs & can be rather time intensive to make the most of them. I'm not particularly greedy about owning a market or even dominating it - I just take what I can squeeze out of it so I don't really worry too much about what my competition is doing.

• empty mailbox of cash & expired glyphs
• cancel any remaining glyph auctions using TSM
• relist glyphs per TSM settings
• run TSM Inscription only scan
• rinse & repeat 2-3 times per day

Depending on sales from day to day, I then add the following crafting routine maybe once or twice a week

• cherry pick top priced glyphs to craft using TSM crafting
• run Buy materials module in TSM
• mill herbs, make inks
• craft cherry picked glyphs
• list new batch of glyphs

Market 2 - Almost Everything Else I Sell

One thing I've never quite got my head around is sales groups in TSM. I know how to set them up in principal but I can never decide what should go in which group! So as a result, almost everything except glyphs & gems get posted manually.

I have general prices for many things in my head & I find it fairly easy to remember approximately how much I bought something for. Trying to explain my thought processes is one of the most difficult things for me to do. I've had problems at work when trying to teach someone else my system there & the Auction House is very much like that too.

I almost always go in at the bottom of the market as long as the price is still within my happy zone unless some idiot has undercut by a large amount. You know the one - the idiot who thinks that 50 gold is too much so posts his for 20 gold? Yeah that one! Then I usually undercut the next sensible price & if that bottom price is within my buy range, I may buy it & flip it straight away.

The other thing I do is to vary my stack size - again depending what the item is, I may sell my stock as full 20 stack or I may post as 10's, 5' or singles. Items like hypnotic dust, infinite dust or mid range leather are fairly expensive now so I usually list those in mixed stacks. People who don't care about the price & just want a lot will buy the full stacks but people who just need a few will buy the singles or 5's where they may hesitate to buy the full expensive stack.

Summary

So there ya go - very organised, precise cherry picking for glyphs & gems, total gut/instinctive reactions for everything else - couldn't get much further apart in methodology but it works for me. I certainly wouldn't suggest it as good for everyone but I can't be the only disorganised gold maker out there, surely? lol

Weekly Sales Update - 5th August 2012

Amani Dragonhawk - part of my spending spree recently

I've had another crazy busy week so my attempts to ramp up my goldmaking have rather come unstuck! I've managed to maintain a nice flow of gold from glyphs but I do have some stiff competition there now so with my random & infrequent posting times, I'm keeping them on their toes at least!

My best seller this week as far as gold amount goes is the Enchant Weapon - Agility enchant. I sold one or two recently for over 1300 gold each but someone seems determined to bring the price back down under the 1000 gold mark. I'm using Essence of Water with a cost of maybe 15 gold max, transmuted into Essence of Air so to be honest, anything over 200 gold is pure profit but we won't tell everyone that will we? lol

I also managed to snatch up a bunch of Savage Leather & Heavy Savage Leather which I converted into Pristine Hides. Yes, the old 'convert it up' trick still works - if you watch your prices! I still have a fair amount in my mailbox - I didn't want to convert it all at once, just in case prices or demand changed. I like that flexibility of choosing at what stage I want to sell my part processed stuff rather than crafting it all up to Pristine Hides then not being able to sell them.

With all the talk of pet battles up & coming, I made up a few Pet Bomblings & Mechanical Squirrels - both are selling ok, slow but steady. Cheap materials & reasonable prices make for some nice extra income. My warlock is now level 50 so I need to push her on a bit further - I want the Mechanical Yeti from Winterspring!

My overall gold balance only increased about 18000 gold this week - I've bought a lot of herbs as the whiptail & cinderbloom prices are starting to come down a bit. I've been managing to get maybe 20-30 stacks a day under 50 gold a stack & now have a guild bank tab full of inks. I still have a long way to go & I'm hoping prices will continue to drop a bit further too.

What's in store for this upcoming week - more busy real life stuff unfortunately - mostly good stuff but it will slow down my blogging, playing & gold making. I still need to make a stab at a to-do list & try to prioritise things more - limited playtime makes that even more necessary now but I keep getting sidetracked! Oh look! Shinies!

Finding Mr Grubbs

A week or so ago, I was a guest on Episode 38 of PowerWord:Gold podcast where Jim & I spoke a fair bit about the pets that will be classed as Rares when Mists of Pandaria is released in September. On the podcast I said that Mr Grubbs was  an easy one to pick up because I clearly remember my paladin picking up maybe 8 pets in the area whilst finishing the zone or when farming for the Crusader enchant but I wanted to test my statement so here are the results - Arrrgggghhhhhhh!

As you may have guessed, it's been a very frustrating week. Reading the comments about Mr Grubbs on Wowhead, there were several likely farming spots mentioned but there's also a mention that the further into the quests for the zone you are, the higher your chance of getting Mr Grubbs.

Alt #1

I decided to test the farming spots & the more quests theory so first off I took my Loremaster Paladin over to Eastern Plaguelands. She picked up Fiona's Lucky Charm (more about that in a minute) & off she went to The Noxious Glade. Twenty minutes later & 12 Hidden Stash drops, she had picked up not one but two Mr Grubbs! Great I thought - I did remember correctly that this was an easy 'rare' to pick up.

Alt #2

Next I dug out my rogue from the depths of Ironforge where she has been sitting for months & dropped her off at Thondoril Point to pick up Fiona's Caravan. She never quested here so I had to do just 6 quests to get access to Fiona's Lucky Charm.

Pick up 'Tarenar Sunstrike' & 'Gidwin Goldbraids' quests from Fiona then I would go south to Tarenar first who then gives you 'What I Do Best' - just a kill 5 thingies quest. Once you've done that, he will give you a 2nd quest called 'Gift for Fiona' which requires killing the Plaguehounds. The area for the Plaguehounds overlaps with much of the route from Tarenar to the cave in the north where Gidwin is trapped so kill the Plaguehounds along the way.

Once you've found Gidwin, he will give you 'Just Encased' quest & asks you to get some stuff off the big ant-like creatures in the cave. If you've done any concentrated critter killing for the Guild Achievement, you may recognise this cave - it's full of little skittery bugs. Grab the goo & then go back & release Gidwin. He then gives you 'Greasing the Wheel' - this requires collecting some flowers for Fiona - they are all along the river & path back to Fiona so you shouldn't have any problems finding them. Once you hand in the last 2 quests to Fiona, she will let you choose a 'gift' from the caravan - pick the Lucky Charm & you are ready to start randomly killing anywhere within the zone.

It took me maybe 10 minutes to do these quests on my level 85 rogue then I wandered off to Zul' Mashar for my killing spree - 50 minutes & 35 Hidden Stash drops later, I was swearing blue murder at the rotten RNG when at last Mr Grubbs dropped for me.

Alt #3

Now this is where the frustration really set in! I have a level 44 Warlock that I want to level before Mists of Pandaria is released & Eastern Plaguelands is a level 40-45 zone so yay! I thought - farm, quest & test my theory all at the same time.

Yeah right! 6 levels & 65 quests & 56 Hidden Stashes later, I still haven't picked up Mr Grubbs & I've given up for now.

Adding insult to injury, I was chatting to Cold one evening & mentioned this post so he decided to give it a go too - I'm surprised no-one heard my rage when he managed to pick up Mr Grubbs within 20 minutes.

Summary

So I guess my summary would still be it's a fairly easy pet to pick up - on a level 85 at least. It looks like pure RNG as to how long or how many Hidden Stashes you have to find rather than being anything to do with the number of quests or passengers picked up on Fiona's Caravan.

We know that when Mists of Pandaria goes live, pets will become account wide so if you have the same pet on multiple characters, you will get the 'extras' back in the mail. What we don't know yet is whether these extras will be sellable. Mr Grubbs is also bind on pickup at the moment so the 2 I picked up on my Paladin are seemingly useless but I'm keeping them just in case they become unbound like some of the holiday pets did earlier this year. If they do then these could be a fairly painless moneymaker at some future time.

Weekly Sales Update - 29th July 2012

Fyzz, my new banker

Well what a week it was last week! Monday I received the news that I'm cancer free at last, Tuesday my RL finances got sorted out & on Wednesday of course, we all found out that Mists of Pandaria will be released on 25th September! On Thursday I decided that my current banker would need to get to 85 & finally get around to maxing her Engineering so this little lady was born. Meet Fyzz, my new banker & proud GM of yet another guild & guild bank! Also on Thursday I guested on Power Word:Gold podcast so watch out for the new episode this week! It was great catching up with Jim (Flux) again & if you're an older reader, you'll remember I did a few episodes with him last year.

I've moved all the random stuff I was selling from my old banker, tidied up her guild bank to stuff I think I will still want or need & moved all my glyphs & gems from my scribe/JC alt too. This little girlie ended up with over 400 auctions running, which I know is not that many by some standards but for me, that's a heck of a lot!

So in between all the happy faces & excitement round here, how did my sales go last week? Well not too shabby at all really, considering. Total sales for the week were 33,000 gold most of which came from existing glyphs & emptying out alts banks. My Gold total as of last night was 394,000 gold - but I did have a major spending spree last week as I mentioned & I bought this new guild with an absolutely epic name this week. I'm thinking I may open this guild up & invite lots of randoms, not so much for the weekly gold cash flow boost but more for leveling the guild with a view to selling it later.

screenshot from MySales addon

I thought I'd keep it fairly short this week so I've only included the one screenshot. At some point earlier this year, I snatched up a few stacks of Pristine Hides for well below their usual price. I've been dribbling them back onto the market this week at about 150-200 gold profit per Hide. I still have another stack to move so that nice big chunk of change I spent will probably double itself once the last few sell. I like little deals like that!

I've also started moving some of the pets/companions that I'd tucked away. Christmas in July seems to be quite a thing online in my craft circle so I thought I'd dig out my few Christmas pets. The Green Helper Box & Jingling Bell were nice little earners & I'm hoping I can move the others at around the same prices too.

Glyphs always feature heavily in my sales reports & no change this week. What has changed is the variety of glyphs that are selling - there rarely seems to be one glyph that sells more than others - always just 1's and 2's in the top half of the sales table. But as always, the glyph prices are healthy & net me 3000-5000 gold a day easily with just 2 or 3 cancel/relist cycles. Now that Fyzz is selling them for me, I could possibly increase that number of relists & I may try it as an experiment for a few days, see how much of a difference it makes, if any.

Looking forward, I'd like to claw back as much cash as possible before Mists of Pandaria arrives but I also want to level a few more alts. I still have a fair few achievements I want to try for as well so I'll have to balance my gold making activity with play time otherwise it could become quite an obsession! I'm also hoping to be moving house & doing a bit of travelling before Mists hits so I could be a very busy little bee for the next couple of months!

Farming - Globe of Water & Essence of Water

There are 3 main areas suggested for farming Globe of Water, Winterspring, Ungoro Crater & Swamp of Sorrows. Similar to my other 'where to farm' posts I spent about 30 minutes in each area & noted my results. I farmed these on a level 85 for speed but these spots are worth noting if you are questing in any of these zones too.

Un'Goro Crater - Golakka Hot Springs

The mobs you are looking for here are the Steaming Fury - water elementals that drop Essence of Water, Elemental Water & our target, Globe of Water amongst other random rubbish & as always, the possibilty of a green item. I didn't have to wait for any respawns but some of them are quite far apart & I felt I was spending more time moving between mobs than actually killing them! Results after 30 minutes weren't too bad though

6 x Globe of Water
7 x Essence of Water
12 x Elemental Water

If you have a miner then you already know that Un'goro is fantastic source for Thorium Ore - just one or two laps around the outer edge of the zone can produce multiple stacks of Thorium. Herbs are in fairly good supply too and if your farmer is a skinner then it would be fairly easy to round up all those lovely dinosaurs & skin to your hearts content.

For pet collectors out there, don't forget to check for the Ravasaur Nest with the Ravasaur hatchling egg - unfortunately it's NOT one of the pets listed as being 'rare' quality for the upcoming pet battles in Mists of Pandaria. Both Cold & PhatLewts have done great posts breaking down the rares list if you want more information.

Winterspring - Frostwhisper Gorge

I think the easiest way to get to Winterspring for a level 85 is to use the capital city portal to Hyjal then fly north, unless you're a Goblin Engineer with the transporter thingy of course! Here you will be killing the ice elementals Ice Avatars along the length of the gorge. I found that I could make one run along the whole length then fly back to start point & they would have respawned but it felt very slow & I don't think there are as many mobs here as in the Un'Goro Crater area.

Results after 30 minutes

4 x Globe of Water

4 x Essence of Water

5 x Elemental Water

Other stuff found in Winterspring includes the Winterspring Cub pet you can buy from the vendor in the inn at Everlook and as always, plenty of herbs & again Thorium mining is ok here. Whilst you are running towards the eastern end of the Frostwhisper Gorge, look out for a grell vendor - he sells Gromsblood so you may as well snap that up each time you pass him.

Swamp of Sorrows - Purespring Cavern

I like Swamp of Sorrows for several reasons, not least of which is its proximity to Stormwind. For this farming post, we will be killing Purespring Elementals around this small pond/lake area in the western part of the zone, marked in red.

I have to say, this originally gave me similar results to the Un'goro area but when I revisited it last night, I had beaten all 3 zones results within 10 minutes! I have previously spent a fair bit of time here, herbing & mining. Originally I tried farming for one of the whelpling pets but that changed after cataclysm hit.

Results for my 1st visit here
9 x Globe of Water
12 x Essence of Water
15 x Elemental Water

Last night, in just 30 minutes again
23 x Globe of Water
18 x Essence of Water
17 x Elemental Water

I also pick up some gems (Aquamarine & Star Ruby), a Formula Enchant Boots - Spirit & 3 green items - one of which was the Lord's Breastplate - a mid range mogging item.

Other stuff in the zone includes plentiful herbs & Thorium Ore. This is also the place to farm for the Disgusting Oozling pet. I've marked the area in blue where you need to mindlessly kill the Shifting Mireglobs to gain their Oozing Bags. If you are lucky, the Disgusting Oozling may drop for you. I tried it last night for 30 minutes & received 19 Oozing Bags - no pet this time though, sadly. The Disgusting Oozling is on the list of Rare pets for pet battles so it could become even more valuable once Pet Battles come into play

So there you have it - if you need Globe of Water or Essence of Water, I would have to say Swamp of Sorrows is the place to go. Why would I need to farm these? Well on my server at least, both are either fairly plentiful but highly priced or non-existant! They appear sporadically on the Auction House & I want a regular supply. I use the Globe of Water for the Engineer made Mechanical Yeti pet. These have been selling fairly well for a while but with them not being on the rare Pets list, I am kind of expecting sales to drop off a bit.

Essence of water was a new one to me - until I read Soco's post on her daily routine! I had never realised that there was a Transmute Essence of Water to Essence of Air before & with 2 transmute alchemists just doing Living Elements transmutes sporadically, it seemed silly not to make the most of them. I'd been farming Essence of Air in Silithus when I felt like it but not any more!

Do you farm these items or just wait for them to appear on your Auction House? Do you have any other spots you'd like to share? Let us know in the comments if you'd like to :)

Restarting My Weekly EU Sales Updates | Mists of Pandaria Release Date

My lvl 44 Warlock, out of her banking gown & ready to level up

I was a little ways into writing this post when the news hit today - Mists of Pandaria official release date is 25th September! Yay! Eeeeek! Why eeek? Well I was hoping for a mid-October release to be honest. I have a lot of RL stuff to do over the next few weeks which is going to slow down my final preparations for Mists, not least of which is to get my little warlock leveled to 85 as soon as possible now.

But in the meantime, I thought I'd restart tracking & discussing my weekly sales. It used to be a popular post when I was writing more regularly last year & it will be interesting to see how things have changed & will change now going forward. These screenshots represent about 25 days of sales upto the 22nd of July so I'll be posting updates on Mondays (if everything goes to plan of course!). I forgot to make a note of my gold balance but having treated myself to a few expensive mounts, it's under 500k now.

Luckily I'd already made a start on clearing out all the accumulated goodies (aka rubbish) in my various banks to make space. I've also restarted my glyph posting which as you can see from my screenshots, is going quite nicely thank you very much!

I'd also hoarded a fair bit of Netherweave Cloth so I joined in with the bag market although my attempts to push up the price a little has been fairly futile!

Another oldie but goodie source of healthy profits is the Enchanted Thorium Blades being disenchanted for Greater Eternal Essences. At 45 gold each on average, I have managed to raise the price a little although it does tumble back down regularly. I just dip in & out of that market when I like the prices. With the removal of thrown weapons in Mists though, we're going to have to find an alternative cheap source for GEE's - Cold over at Cold's Gold Factory suggested the Wizardweave Turban from tailoring when we spoke about it on the new Gold Bloggers On Air Hangout - a new venture.

One of the newer bloggers, Brandon, managed to herd a bunch of us gold bloggers together on a Google+ Hangout & you can watch & listen to us nattering about gold making over on his blog - Goldshields.  We're hoping it will be a fairly regular thing so if you have any questions or topics you would like us to discuss, leave a comment over there then join us for the next one and of course, you get to hear my British accent :P

One of the nice surprises from my bank clearout was the Arctic Furs - averaging 68 gold each, they are almost at the price they were in Wrath, if I remember correctly. I guess the boom in chopper sales & leatherwork being leveled for the expansion has something to do with that!

I was disappointed with 600 gold for the Mooncloth Robe I found in my guild bank - when transmogrification first hit, I was able to sell a few at 1200 gold each but then I moved away from game & everybody else set the various prices.

Another change coming in with Mists of Pandaria is the enchanting rods - everyone will only need an enchanted copper rod - this is disappointing news for those Blacksmiths who make tidy sums of gold selling the rarer, higher level rods such as Eternium or Arcanite. I only had a little Arcanite Bar in one of my banks & I'd already managed to sell it before this information was released. The general Twitter buzz seems to be get rid of it now unless you have the plans for weapons that use it.

The sheer variety of glyphs selling at high prices has pushed all the other random stuff further down the MySales list but on the first day of bank clearing, I listed over 200 auctions & cleared 4000 - 8000 gold in the first 2 days. I still have 3 more major alts to sort out . Will be interesting to see how much the market changes now with the release date known.

I haven't really sat down & thought through my preparation list of to-do's yet. I definitely want to level my warlock for her Engineering though - I think the new pet battles will make good use of the various Engineering pets but even if they don't, it's the only profession I don't have so it's been bugging me to get finished for a while now.

I also have to re-level skinning - yeah yeah, I know I shouldn't have dropped it but I was racing a guildie to 100 mounts & I wanted the flying carpets so I took Tailoring but I already have 2 tailors so back to skinning for my paladin :)

I'll post my To Do list soon - once I work out what it is myself! What about you? have you got most of your preparation done or are you a last minute panicker like me? let me know in the comments if you like :)

Mini-post - Quick Update on My Story

Time to Fly Again :)

So once again, I just want to say a big thank you to everyone who's sent me messages of support via twitter, FB, in game & of course, in RL. It's been a tough couple of months but yesterday I had my post-op results. The Doc basically told me to go away & come back in 6 months for a check up! When he told me I didn't need chemotherapy, I had to ask him to repeat it 3 times before it really sunk in as I'd been told from the start that chemo was virtually guaranteed. Obviously, I'm not totally safe yet - there will be a lot of regular checkups in my future but the odds are definitely in my favour now.

I'm surprisingly not annoyed about cutting my hair off as early as I did. I wouldn't have been able to wash it properly anyway & the money raised so far is going to a very very good cause & a well run charity. I'm a long way from my target still but I'm going to keep trying to reach it.

If you haven't donated yet, the link is https://www.justgiving.com/Helen-Shorey - Breast Cancer Care is a British charity so if you are UK based, any donations will qualify for Gift Aid - the charity can claim back some tax so if you donate £10 for example, the charity can claim another £2.50 back. We all like getting cash back from the Taxman, don't we?

As for my European, Oceanic & American friends, the website takes all sorts of currencies so nothing stopping you there :P

I know times are tough for everyone right now, myself included but even a $5 donation will help - it all counts. If you're embarrassed by not being able to give very much, there is an anonymous option too.

So it's fantastic news for me but there are still a huge number of women out there who can benefit from the work this charity does. Remember, this cancer can hit anyone, it's not just for the ladies so please, please, please, check yourselves regularly.

Thank you all one more time - you're a fantastic bunch of people out there

Nev
xxx

PS Yes, that is me in the photo - just one of my past oddball adventures & now many more on my list to be completed :)

Nev's Glyph Strategy | Lazy Girls Guide to Glyphing

Laid back glyphing © Nev 2008

I received a reader email the other day asking about 'Nev's glyph strategy' after they had listened to an old PowerWord:Gold podcast & I realised that I'd never actually written a post about it! The timing is also fortuitous as there has been a fair bit of glyph talk on Twitter too so here we go - how I do glyphing - laid back, get there eventually style - my Lazy Girls Guide to Glyphing!

Some scribes like to make a few of every glyph, they have bags & bags of stock, they 'wall' prices in an attempt to control the market & to be honest, I admire their dedication & organisation skills but I just don't work that way. If you want to read more about hardcore glyphing, have a look at Twitchie's latest post 'Two Character Glyph Operation', Faids 'Glyph Competition: A Primer' or Huntermastery's 'Return of the Inscriptionist'.

I have my TSM groups set up by ink & I cherry pick the highest priced glyphs to craft & list. I suppose this is a variation on the 'Buy Low, Sell Normal' theory although I do prefer 'buy low, sell as high as possible' version :) I am also averse to hard work in a game so my method works well for the more casual gold maker.
Each morning I empty my mail, do a cancel & relist at the Auction House then do an Inscription only scan - it's very quick & gives me the information shown below in the screenshots. As you can see, someone else is raising glyph prices on my server & doing all the hard work for me. The bulk of the glyphs I craft are Ink of the Sea or Ethereal Ink ones & depending on herb availability, I may only craft glyphs above 400g or 200g if there is a good supply.

I've only recently returned to the glyph market but without spending huge amounts of gold on herbs, I am happily making 4-8k gold per day with just 2 or 3 cancel/relist sessions - each of which takes only 5-10 minutes. Ink is currently costing around 10 gold per ink so I have changed my Threshold price to 50 gold. This means that I don't have to worry too much about what price TSM wants to post a glyph. Even a sale at 50 gold is making me some profit - not much, admittedly but the time saving effect is worth the loss of a little profit.

Now before you saw 'wow, look at those crazy prices' - yes, my server does seem to be a bit special when it comes to glyphs but I did a little experiment on another server using only a level 10 scribe & I still made a fair bit of gold. The trick is to control your herb costs & only buy inks or herbs when the craft cost is much less than the glyph prices. When leveling your inscription, don't make 5 of the same glyph just to get points! No, just make the glyphs that show up as profitable in TSM & watch the skill points accumulate painlessly!

The above screenshot is a sample of my listed auctions - you can see the wide range of prices TSM has listed them for. Now I've only been crafting glyphs that TSM says are above 250 gold but as the market prices move, TSM adjusts & undercuts other listings, hence the 104 gold glyph - but that is still way above my crafting cost so I have no problem with that.

As a very extreme example - look at this screenshot! Some random scribe has listed glyphs at 1000 gold each - TSM automatically undercut him by my few silver preset & I left my auction there, even though I had zero expectation of it selling! Well, I'm happy to say - it did sell!

Project Shoofly - Update 14th July

Distractions

So I finally got my little project priest to level 40 & bought her the fast ground mount & training. Dragging through the Hinterlands & feeling so slow, I treated myself to a little alt for a change of scenery. I went for a Tauren Paladin with the idea of leveling as holy spec - my main & first ever character was retribution & protection through most of Wrath of the Lich King but it was only last summer that I dabbled with holy spec for her - at level 85! Learning a whole new playstyle at 85 proved disheartening hence this new alt.

My project girlie will keep going, I do enjoy the priest at 85 so I will persevere with her & keep her banking/auction house activities seperate, I just need a little break for now. I've almost managed to sell everything she's picked up so far & just topped the 2000 gold mark so I'm fairly pleased with that. I think it will be interesting to see just how much she can accumulate by 85 just by leveling via questing.

So the screenshot is a summary of all my sales on this project so far (well, the top half anyway) so you can see how random the stuff is that I am selling!

Now I mentioned my new Tauren Holy Paladin but I kinda got a little bored with her too - the Tauren starter zone seems very slow but I did get her to level 10 before getting sidetracked by my new Goblin Arcane Mage! Bearing in mind that I've only ever rolled about 5 Horde alts before, all these starter zones are new to me, especially the Goblin zone. I quite enjoyed it even though the mage is my least favourite & most deleted class. This time, I was nudged into leveling as arcane spec & already she is level 20 & nowhere near being deleted!

But my mind is kinda all over the place at the moment so I soon got a little fed up her too & rolled a Troll Druid! I've tried leveling as feral before so this time, I think I'll try either resto or boomkin & maybe that will suit me better. She's only level 6 for now but I'll move her along too in dribs & drabs probably.

Last but not least, my new Undead warlock - yet another class that I've never really got to grips with. She's only level 1 but I liked her look so wanted to show her off!

So yeah, a bit distracted in general & hopping all over the place but should be fun to build my new empire from the ground up & actually plan which professions go with which alt. I wonder if I can take over the Auction House before Cold gets bored with Diablo3 *insert evil laugh*

Maximising Your Gold Making Potential In Time for Mists of Pandaria

Not daydreaming, planning! © Nev 2007

I will admit I'm pretty bored in game right now but then I have a lot going on & am struggling to focus on any one thing! I have started dabbling on my EU server again, just little bits here & there to get myself back up to speed. But I haven't been keeping up with much of the Mists of Pandaria profession information that is coming out or the changes to glyphs or pet battles etc.

So I sat down & had a think about what I need to do now to maximise my gold making potential for when Mists of Pandaria is finally released. When I saw the topic for this month's Carnival over at Cold's Gold Factory, I thought my list might fit quite nicely so here it is!

"What Do You Recommend Players Do During The Current WoW Lull To Benefit Gold Making In The Future?"

• Have a good rummage through all my various banks and bags, clearing out stuff that has been sitting for those 'I might need it' moments that never happen! So far I've made about 4000 gold on just those bits & that's just from 3 alts. I still have 4 more to go.

• Read up on other blogs to see what others are recommending to stockpile, make a list of all of them & then decide which bits I agree with & start building my own little pile.

• Read up on Mists of Pandaria in general - try to get a feel for how changes will affect my stable of alts & their professions. I'll be looking at Inscription in particular - it's been my main gold making source in World of Warcraft since I started trying to make gold.

• After all that reading & list making, I'll have another look at which alts have which professions. My main server is still the one I landed on when I started playing, so my professions weren't thought out carefully. I know I need to drop the partially leveled Engineering on my Paladin. She is my Leatherworker so I want her to have skinning again although that does mean I'll probably have to move my Warlock banker on a few levels - she's also a partially leveled Engineer!

Stockpiling

This is my first expansion event since I started making gold in any serious way so stockpiling is a bit new to me. Yes, I could have stockpiled for some of the major patches during Cataclysm but I was having way too much fun elsewhere to worry about that too much! With the current lull however, I am thinking much more seriously about building some reserves. I don't have a list yet, I have a lot of reading & planning to do but I'll post it when I get there :)

Professions

I have all professions except Engineering & Skinning so I need to look at those in detail to see if anything jumps out at me as a possible opportunity. As I mentioned above, I'm going to re-level skinning on my Paladin main so I'm thinking I will keep all that leather & hides - there will be a lot of new monks (leather wearers) & new alts being created who might pick up Leatherworking.

If I level skinning effectively, I may be able to put together a 'profession leveling kit' & sell all of it for one large sum of gold or I could put the individual stacks on the Auction House for exhorbitant prices & take advantage of the need that some people have to power level as fast as possible, regardless of the cost!

If you are thinking of leveling a gatherer yourself before Mists of Pandaria, this may be a thought for you too. You can check wow-professions & make sure you have everything needed to level a related profession.

Leveling an Alt

There's a lot of talk about leveling alts now before the new expansion hits. It's one way of expanding your gold making machine but if you do level another alt, think! There are lots of things you pick up whilst leveling that may make you more gold later than if you sell it now. Those items that you had a hard time finding on the Auction House when you were leveling a profession or the ones you had to look up & go farm yourself.

Conclusion

If you made it all the way to the bottom here then gratz! My conclusion is that I have a lot of reading to catch up on & a lot of list making to do! This will actually be quite a change for me - I'm very much a laid back, get there eventually kinda gal when it comes to gold-making! Most importantly for me, it's something I can be doing in little bits & pieces as my energy allows but it will also be a challenge. I've been looking forward to Mists of Pandaria anyway but a new angle, a new plan of attack will bring back some of the fun that has kind of drained away in the lull.

So that's it so far :) have fun & happy gold-making xxx

A Big Thank You!

Before & After

It's been a hectic 10 days since my last post 'Introducing Me'. Various tests & check ups to make sure I'm fit for surgery, having my haircut & getting my ponytail sent off to the Little Princess Trust charity amongst it all. I've also been playing WoW much more - I guess I'm hiding in that wonderful world because I'm playing Horde now & don't know where anything is so I have to concentrate :)

I'd especially like to say a big THANK YOU for all the twitter retweets, comments on my post, private tweets & emails I've received. I won't list everyone - there were so many but I really appreciate that you all took the time to send a message to someone you've never met!

I'd like to make a special mention to my lovely friends & fellow bloggers for their support - I was overwhelmed when I read the first post or two - I honestly had no expectation of such responses to my own post.

First to surprise me was Alyzande over at The Gold Queen, she adapted a WoW icon and made it available for all to use to show their support. You can read her lovely post 'Pink Ribbon for Nev'. She's also been keeping me sane late at night on Facebook! mwah!

Then my kind & generous friend Jim over at PowerWord:Gold wrote a heart warming post 'Help Nev Support The Fight Against Breast Cancer'. Jim was the guy who persuaded me to join him on his fab podcast last year - an experience I thoroughly enjoyed & hope he'll have me back again sometime soon :)

Phat over at Phat Lewt's Gold blog also added a header to his latest post 'Lull Gold Making' sending his readers to my post in droves!

And then there was Focushot over at HunterMastery.com - a relatively new person in my circle of friends but one I've been following for a while :) His post 'Support Nev, The Fight Against Breast Cancer' made me choke up a little too.

A nice surprise for me was a brief post by Euripedes over at Call To Auction - one of the most popular podcasts that is making a comeback. Short & to the point 'Cancer Sucks' says everything :)

And last but not least by any means, my dear friend Cold over at Cold's Gold Factory shocked and amazed me with his post 'When Bad News Turns Good'. We had spoken in the days before his post came out so I knew he was planning something but I have to admit, I never expected that! I will also admit that I cried buckets when I saw what he had done for me - happy tears though. I just hope he forgives me for pinching his skype piccie! lol

Many others have added Alyzande's Pink Mageweave Shirt to their blogs & some have changed their Twitter icons for me. Retweets have been bouncing around & messages are still arriving. I knew there would be some response but I had no idea it would be this big!

So what next? Well, my op is next week with an estimated 4-6 week recovery time - but that's for normal peeps! I'm hoping I'll be able to play WoW & type blog posts long before then! Poor little Shoofly is kind of lonely at the moment but I hope to get her moving again soon so look out for some updates on that project. I've also been doing some more farming so if I can get my head into writing mode, there'll be another post or two there for lowbies & newbies :)

But in the meantime, I still need your money peeps! We're only at 27% of my £1000 target so please, spread the word however you wish & maybe donate a little bit too. Every Pound, Dollar or Euro counts so if you are embarrassed by donating a lil bit, you can stay anon by clicking the relevant box. My charity page is https://www.justgiving.com/Helen-Shorey - please, dig deep for such a worthy cause & don't forget Ladies - check, check & keep checking - early detection is vital! Love you all, thank you so much for your support

Helen/Nev :) xxx