Where To Farm Spider's Silk - Testing 3 Areas

One item I always buy from the Auction House when I see it is Spider's Silk. It's always been notoriously difficult to farm but just after Cataclysm launched, it became damn near impossible to find. A bug fix by Blizzard eventually fixed the drop rate but many of the previous mobs that dropped it had either disappeared or changed levels with the overhaul of the Vanilla zones.

I received a query this week from someone who had found my old Lowbie Leatherworking post, asking where should they go to farm for Spider's Silk. So off to Wowhead I went & reading the comments, came up with 3 areas to try - Duskwood, Hillsbrad & Wetlands.

Duskwood

Wowhead shows 3 types of spiders that drop Spider's Silk in the areas marked above. I started at the road and worked my way through the whole area marked in red on the map. These were Black Widow spiders & there were a lot in a small area. Once I reached the riverbank, I followed along to the East & through the Brightwood Grove area, marked in blue on the map. These were the Venom Web Spiders & were much more widely spread out. Next stop was the Tranquil Gardens Cemetary, also marked in blue. These were the Black Widow Hatchlings & I don't know if I just missed them in the hilly terrain but I really didn't find many at all.

So I headed back to the red area & concentrated on the Black Widows. Over about 45 minutes, I killed approximately 150 spiders & only picked up 5 Spider's Silk. I also picked up 4 pieces of green quality armour. Nev's opinion - hmm, not too bad an area.

Hillsbrad Foothills

So my next target area was Hillsbrad Foothills with spiders in level range of 19-22. Wowhead shows 3 or 4 different types of spider here including Forest Creeper, Domesticated Creeper & Domesticated Mine Creeper. Unfortunately the domesticated types are friendly to Horde players so only the Forest Creepers are available for farming. The red area above shows where I found most of the Forest Creepers. The blue area is where the other types are but if you are farming 'at level' on an Alliance character, be aware that there are unfriendly NPC's all around the mine area.

I found a fair few Forest Creepers in the red area, some spread out & some bunched. After 30 minutes & only 60-70 kills, I had 2 Spider's Silk & 3 pieces of green quality armor so I gave up! Nev's opinion - don't bother farming here!

Wetlands 

This has long been a favourite spot of mine for farming Spider's Silk & I'm happy to report, it didn't let me down this time either! There are 2 types of spiders in & around this little cave. Leech Stalkers outside, quite a few in a smallish area & Cave Stalkers inside as well as a chance at a rare spawn Leech Widow. For miners, this cave also has tin deposits which is a nice little side benefit. The Leech Stalkers outside spawn fairly quickly too which is always nice.

In 30 minutes, I picked up 7 Spider's Silk & 2 green quality items. I killed about 120 spiders in that time. Nev's opinion - Farm here! lol

The other side benefit of Wetlands is the Razermaw Hatchling pet you can pick up quite easily in the cave on Raptor Ridge. You can see the cave entrance on the map in the top right hand corner. Not the best selling of the dino hatchlings because it's pretty easy to get but still a quick bit of gold if you're here anyway.

So there we go - Wetlands wins hands down for me. Do you have any other spots you farm Spider's Silk?

I'm thinking of doing a series of these farming spots - what other hard to find items would you like to see a post on? Not pets tho, there are already loads of guides for those. Let me know in the comments or you can email me at the address top right of the side toolbar :)

Where to Farm Large Fangs

Arathi Highlands

As part of my new series on farming for hard to find on Auction House items, I went back to the same old Lowbie Leatherworking post. One of my best lowbie selling items was the Barbaric Bracers & when I can find Large Fangs on the Auction House, they still sell pretty well even now.

As with Spider's Silk, these were always hard to find but since so many zones & beasts levels have changed with the reworking of the Vanilla zones, it looks like there is only one type of beastie that drops these now. Off I went to the Arathi Highlands, just over the bridge from the Wetlands. The Highland Fleshstalkers (level 28/29) are pretty close together but there aren't a huge number of them. I easily cleared the whole lot in about 5 minutes on my level 81 hunter & I was having to wait for respawns. With such a low drop rate, after 30 minutes of killing & waiting, I had only 2 Large Fangs but my bags were almost full with Raptor Hide, Raptor Eggs & Raptor Meat.

The other downside is that my Hunter is not a skinner - I'm sure the medium leather would have been a great gold boost for my 30 minutes farm time & perhaps they would have respawned just a smidge faster too.

Overall, I was fairly disappointed and I certainly wouldn't recommend farming these for any gold making activity. However, if you are questing in this area or leveling your skinning then perhaps concentrating on the Highland Fleshstalkers for a little while will give you a small gold boost in the process.

Having said that, farming Large Fangs to make a set of Barbaric Bracers for your own character is perhaps not as bad a you might have feared. Waiting for them to turn up on the Auction House is going to take a long while & your baby alt will have leveled way past the need for Barbaric Bracers while you get the materials together.

Project Shoofly - End of Week Two

It's almost end of week two of my lowbie horde leveling project & I'm off on some travels for a few days tomorrow so I thought I'd leave you with an update. I finally made it to level 30 somewhere in the wilds of Arathi Highlands. My herbing & skinning are coming along nicely, both up around the 160 skill points without too much extra effort now.

I'm still struggling with being horde - flight paths & safe havens are all in the wrong places! I almost ran into Refuge Point earlier - luckily I woke up fast enough to realise that was not a good idea! I've been sending all my herbs & leather to my little banker as well as anything else that is for the Auction House. Most stuff is selling really well even though everything is very quiet since Diablo 3 went live.

I've picked up a few recipes on my travels but in keeping with the 'think like a novice' idea of this project, I've only bought 1 or 2 of each recipe if I had the gold available. You can see from my list below, herbs at this level like mageroyal & briarthorn are selling almost as fast as I can list them but even peacebloom is selling well & I often find that I am the only one listing it!

So at level 30, I have 807g on my banker with 35g on my leveling alt after buying a few netherweave bags for them both. I'm interested in seeing how far this will go - I remember having about 6000g on my main by about level 60 & I knew very little about the whole auction house thing at that point but I was making a bit of effort in that direction.

I'll resume leveling in June when I return - will be interesting to see how much more gold I can accumulate in this way. I'm guessing a lot of newer players probably play in this way. Sometimes as keen goldmakers, we forget that not everyone plays like we do so when we put stuff up for high prices, we may be seriously limiting our markets to other players who play the Auction House & therefore know our tricks!

Project Shoofly - Mid week 2

I've been barrelling along, leveling my herbalism & skinning as well as questing. I decided to brave the random dungeon finder last night - ugh! Have I ever mentioned how much I hate pugs? Well, I do - a shaman healer decided to roll need on a cloth intellect waist even though he was full on heirlooms & I had only crap quest gear. For once I stood up for myself & queried it but I did pretend to be a bit noobish just in case he got nasty! lol

After the tank spent the next 10 minutes reposting recount scores after each fight, I think the shammy took pity on me because he traded me the belt! Yes, my DPS was that bad! But I did get a pretty new dress after I left the dungeon, I just finished a quest chain so that made a huge difference and it kind of matches her hair too :) Shame about the gloves & boots though.

One thing I have found out is that keeping my herbing & skinning leveled to the zone I'm questing in, is a bit of a pain! I spent about 2 hours questing & dungeon last night but over an hour or more, trying to get my skinning up to a level where I could skin the beasties I was killing! Having said that - skinning on a priest? Seriously, WTF was I thinking??? lol

But on the other hand, I did end up with several full bags of herbs & leather as well as a few green items which mostly all sold overnight. I've just pulled almost 200 gold out of my mailbox this evening, giving me a nice current total of 359 gold. Out of that, I've bought 3 netherweave bags & a couple of items for my priest to wear as well as paid for my riding skill & sent 30 gold to my priest for pocket money. So at a rough reckoning, I think I'm upto about 440 gold overall if I hadn't spent anything.

Now I know that may not seem much but remember, this is my non-goldmaking experiment :) I'm trying to think like a new-ish player - just selling everything I pick up from questing & the odd recipe here & there when I find them.

I'm going to try to get to level 30 tonight & dual spec into Holy - I have an 85 Holy Priest but I never did lowbie dungeons as a healer so I thought I'd give it a try this time through. Wish me luck - I think I'm going to need it!

Project Shoofly - End of Week One

So I've been poodling along on my baby horde priest, just made level 15 last night - woo hoo! I have to admit I am finding it pretty slow going - a priest isn't the quickest class for leveling anyway but not knowing where anything is on Horde-side is also slowing me down. I am also missing my luxuries like heirlooms & my army of alts support system.

My banker Shoofly has been busy though - we're up to 161 gold so far from selling herbs & leather than my priest is picking up as well as meats, cloth & a few low level green items too. Somehow, I've managed to wipe out my MySales data again so this little screenshot is just my overnight sales

Now in my first post, I did say I wasn't going to do any real goldmaking stuff, well I may have to modify that a bit! I'm trying to think more like a novice goldmaker so when I stumbled across the Tradesman upstairs at the inn in Falconwing Square, I had to have a look. He sells the Recipe:Lynx Steak for a whole 40 copper - I've managed to sell 2 so far for 15g & 18g each - now that is the sort of mark up I like!

Many moons ago, my other half started playing this game & he quickly got lost & confused. It took me another 2 months or so to realise that resistance was futile so I signed up too. Around the time that I signed up, hubs purchased Zygor's Leveling Guide. Now I know a lot of people say they'd never pay for a guide etc but this one has saved me so much time. I used it extensively when I first started playing & I get regular updates for no extra charge. So now that I'm lost & all alone on Horde - it's in full use yet again!

Without wanting to sound too enthusiastic, it is a great guide. It always was but since they've updated & improved the whole thing to keep track of XP, the guide will jump steps to keep you on track. So that means that if you do a load of dungeons or battlegrounds & get ahead of the guide, it will jump to an appropriate place for you to restart questing! No more green or grey quests clogging up your quest log!

Regular readers will know that I finally finished my Loremaster achievement around Christmas time - another fantastic part to this guide - once you've been through part of a zone when leveling, it can be tough to find the quests when you come back to complete for your Loremaster. Zygor's Guide has that under control - it lets you choose your zone, it will flip & skip past quests that you've completed & then you just follow the steps until you're done. If you still haven't finished the zone when the guide finishes, there is then a little Loremaster section with all the other quests in the zone that are still available.

So why would there be quests still available? Well the main leveling section of the guide is designed to maximise XP gains & also time so some 'pain in the ass' quests are skipped to improve your leveling speed.

That all sounds super positive doesn't it? So do I have any negatives to talk about? Well, yeah, there are a few silly little bugs dotted here & there - the odd quest may have wrong text or it will skip a step near the end of a zone & leave you lost for a moment or two but that really is nit-picking with a microscope to be honest. Even better, right now they have a 25% discount on the World of Warcraft guide & if by any chance, you are one of the people champing at the bit for Diablo3 next week, they also have a 33% off their Diablo 3 guide if you've already got the WoW guide. How cool is that?

I, unfortunately, won't be able to play Diablo3 - my graphics card is too old & finances are pretty tight right now. I never had much interest either so I didn't sign up for the Annual Pass for my free copy of Diablo3 so that would be even more expense. I'll just have to live it vicariously through all my lovely Twitter friends who are posting vids on Youtube & livestreaming on Twitch.tv.

My Surprise Cataclysm Niche Market - Chocolate Cookies

© Nev 2008 - Chocolate Cookies

If you've not come across this before, Cold posts a Carnival topic & lots of different people do posts & send him the links for one big article link post each month - Colds Gold Factory Carnival has all the details & previous months topics. This months' topic is a little difficult for me as I'm not really a niche market finder or player, I just poodle along doing bits & pieces here, there & everywhere!

What Was A Niche Market That You Were Surprised To Find Or That Did Better Than Expected In During Cataclysm?

So how did I decide what to write about? I went back & re-read every post I'd written since Cataclysm launched in December 2010 & the only 'niche' item that jumped out at me was...Chocolate Cookies of course! What else would the so-called Chocolate Cookie Queen talk about? Coincidentally, I have Cold to thank for that title I think. He called me that after one of my early appearances on Power Word:Gold Podcast Episode #9 :)

Now I wrote about this way back at the beginning of May 2011, just as patch 4.1 introduced several new food & drink achievements. My post 'Cooking For Gold, Patch 4.1 Style' explains most of my method & it was later linked to on WoWInsiders blog too. That was an exciting few days for me - my blog traffic went crazy as you can imagine but I also had my best ever Chocolate Cookie sales week!

As with many niches, it was soon full of competition so I left that market. Now that I'm back playing, I should revisit it & see if there's any life left there!

Now in terms of how much gold was made, I lost all my sales data in July 2011 so I only have the screenshots from my blog posts to go by but between 3rd May and 4th July 2011 I made almost 10,000 gold just by selling Chocolate Cookies. If you consider that the cost of materials was cooking tokens & simple flour from a vendor, that 10,000 gold was almost pure profit. I'm sure that figure would be higher if I had my full sales data. I only used to post the top part of my MySales data so there are some weeks where Chocolate Cookies wouldn't have shown up.

Yes there are niche markets out there that made more gold & I'm not suggesting that anyone would get rich from this one but as an easy sideline, perhaps for lowbie alts in town, doing cooking dailies for XP & a little cash makes for a nice little boost to anyones cash balance.

Project Shoofly - New Server Leveling Project

So I think I've worked out why I'm not playing much WoW right now - I have no direction! Too many alts still need gearing up that I don't know where to start & not sure I have enough time before Mists of Pandaria hits anyway & when I do pick one, guildies sidetrack me or Facebook, or Twitter or any number of other bits I have going on.

So I've started a new little side project away from the madding crowds, on my US account. I know there's always some sort of leveling project going on but for me, this will be a whole new game - no heirlooms, no other high level alts, no professions already leveled - oh and horde-side!

Why Horde? - well, I've never played a horde character beyond level 20 so it should feel almost like a new game & I've often wondered just how much an ordinary non-AH player can easily make whilst leveling so I thought I'd give it a go.

I have just about 2 weeks before I wander off on a trip so here's the rules I have set for myself:-

• 2 horde alts - 1 to level, 1 as banker (seperate from any other gold making activities)
• no help from anyone unless I go through trade but I think most new players wouldn't do that anyway.
• As I don't know where any of the vendors are, I've switched off my Recipe Mate add-on, again, I'm not sure totally new players would have many add-ons
• only Auctionator add-on (no TSM or Auctioneer) for the Auction House
• no playing the Auction House on my banker, she is just there to sell stuff I pick up whilst leveling
• no rushing - I will just play as & when I feel like, with no special emphasis on gold-making
• most advice to newbies is 2 gathering professions so I'm choosing herbing & skinning

In my last post, I told you about my baby Alliance Hunter, well I haven't played her much, did a few battlegrounds but my twinking partner has been kinda busy so she's on hold for now - I didn't want to get too far ahead! But I have still been popping in now & again to the banker on Alliance side. Just a bit of low level herbs flipping, the vendor bought herbs & a few of the cooking recipes later & I have a princely sum of 457 gold already!

I'll probably keep going on her as well - it only takes a few minutes for each visit & if ever we do continue our twinking, at least I will have a bit of cash behind me :)

It will be interesting to see how different it is horde side & I wonder how far I will get before Mists of Pandaria is released? Had a challenge on Squidoo the other day to write a product-based lens so as everyone says 'write what you know', I wrote about Mists of Pandaria! I'm quite enjoying myself over there, I must admit but the whole SEO thing has me baffled. It's keeping me busy, that's for sure & makes a nice change from World of Warcraft end of expansion blues!

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.

If I Knew Then What I Know Now!

So Cold has been nagging me to start writing again, along with Jim & Gimp and a few others so what better way to kick off than with an entry for this months Carnival? If you've not come across this before, Cold posts a topic & lots of different people do posts & send him the links for one big article link post each month - Colds Gold Factory Carnival has all the details & previous months topics.

Using your knowledge that you have gained from auction house experience: If you were starting over as a gold maker, what is one thing you would do differently than the first time, and why?

just about 2months into playing

When I first started making gold, I had zero knowledge & multiple alts with random professions. I didn't even know there were gold blogs or even that Wowhead existed! My main/1st alt was a human paladin with skinning & leatherworking - yes I know - don't ask! My 2nd alt was a rogue with alchemy/herbing. Most of my other alts from that time didn't survive the periodic culls as I wanted to try different classes/races etc but didn't want to leave the server.

3months into playing

My rogue is still my alchemist/herber although I rarely farm these days. My paladin dropped skinning for mining then re-levelled skinning & most recently took up Engineering (again, don't ask!). My priest has Enchanting/Tailoring, my warrior has Mining/Blacksmithing at last, my hunter has Alchemy/Tailoring & my DK has Jewelcrafting & Inscription. I never picked up professions for gear or stats benefits, I just took the next one I didn't have already!

So what would I do differently - get my professions organised I guess. I didn't pick up JC until January after Cataclysm hit & along with Inscription, it has accounted for most of my income. Having said that, if I had taken up JC earlier, I'm not sure I would have had the cash to buy all the 100's of stacks of ore that I buy now to feed demand but then again, those were different times.

So using all the resources available to choose each profession for maximum benefit for each class & the ones that make most cash, I would have started Inscription & herbing on my 1st alt as getting all the daily research done for glyphs takes the longest. On my second alt, I'd have gone for mining & JC and levelled it as I quested. My 3rd alt would have been my herber/alchemist & my 4th would have been enchanting/tailoring to benefit from all the cloth my earlier alts had picked up & to disenchant the resulting tailored items to level my enchanting.

So what about skinning, blacksmithing, leatherworking & engineering? I'm a confirmed altoholic so yes, I'd pick these up too on the next few alts coming through but I've never studied the markets for weapons & armour or gadgets so to me, they are not so profitable yet. Skinning is always a good one to have whilst levelling though so I'd give that & leatherworking priority over blacksmithing & engineering.

2011 - What a mixed bag it's been!

My 2011 started off full of enthusiasm & found me writing regularly here as I rode the excitement of the early stages of Cataclysm. Levelling 4 alts to 85, levelling JC & Enchanting so I could make even more gold, discovering Trade Skill master & making new friends was so much fun & kept me going until mid-summer.

Once I hit gold cap though, I kinda lost my drive & if you've been a regular reader, you'll know my posts have been very scarce here since. I hadn't been doing the new Cata dungeons & hadn't even seen inside the Zandalari ones when they were released so I did a few with guildies & got sidetracked into PvP with my newly dinged Hunter. Had some personal problems with a couple of guildies & combined with the lack of drive/focus with my gold making, I spiralled down quickly & have been fighting clinical depression for a few months now.

The gold making community has been a constant source of friendly support though & I'm so proud to call them all friends. Just little messages of 'I'm here if you need me', 'I miss your writing, Nev' or even just 'hugs' means so much when one is so low. One special person gave me the impetus to start fighting again & to get some help so now I'm booked in for various sessions in the coming months to try to sort all this crap out.

I could waffle on forever about my plans for the New Year but right now, it's all the small stuff - baby steps & 'just keep swimming' as Dory would say :P I plan to return here more regularly but I won't promise, I just don't know yet. There's light at the end of the tunnel - I just have to get there.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is 'a huge Thank You' to all my readers, my fellow writers & my goldmaking friends - without you guys & gals, I'd still be broke in game & broken in RL. I was going to name everyone who's been so nice to me but the list got so long, it would need its' own post!


Wishing Everyone a wonderful start to 2012 & lots of gold in your futures

Luff y'all
Nev
xx

(White Ribbon) - Heart of Gold

With one voice, as one community, we are speaking out and working to end violence against women.

The White Ribbon Campaign
The White Ribbon Campaign International
White Ribbon on Twitter

I am sooo proud of all my fellow gold bloggers today & as one of the few female writers, I am very aware of many of these issues. I had no idea of the statistics. Here in my cosy little corner of the world, these things are rare but recently they have shoved themselves under my nose too.

Regular readers will know that I don't usually write much personal stuff here - this is my gold making blog after all but this is different. I was one of those statistics as a teenager although I never reported anything. I was too young & too stupid to know quite what to do. I was one of the lucky ones, I had some very good friends who helped me & I have been able to put 95% of the emotional baggage behind me but that last 5% will stay with me forever.

So to all the wonderful decent people out there - read some of this stuff, see if there's something you can do too.

Nev

xx


PS I've had some lovely supportive emails since I posted this & I thank you all, you know who you are. I do just want to clarify a little tho - I was part of the abusive relationship statistics not the rape ones. I'm not sure I'd have had the strength to put all of that behind me & my heart goes out to all who suffer that violence.

And Now For Something Completely Different...

So today I have exchanged posts with some of my fellow gold bloggers. Epidermuss at WragstoRiches has written this post for us here today & I have written a post for Gimp over at GimpsGold. Follow the trail of links to see who else has joined in this little blogging adventure :-D

Bag space and the cost to you

Hi
As many of you will know when you are levelling a character in World of Warcraft, bag space plays a key part in your ability to keep on questing or running dungeons, without having to stop and keep visiting vendors all the time.

The common philosophy among players and bloggers has always been to go for Netherweave Bags. These are 16 slot bags and are Bind on Equip. The reasoning behind this is sound, as you get 16 extra slots per bag space for generally between 8g - 16g on the realms I have experience playing on. Which at 8g a bag is 50s per slot or at 16g is 1g per slot compared to Frostweave bags during WotLk which where from 75g - 100g per bag for 20 slots. This works out at 5g per slot at 100g a bag or 84g for the extra 4 slots per bag space.

Personally I never followed this idea though, and there are several reasons for it.

- If you start a character then decide you don't like the class, a Netherweave bag can only be sold to a vendor as it becomes Soulbound as it's Bind on Equip.
- Every new character requires new bags.
- Its vendor value is only 1g

I prefer to equip new characters on new realms with Runecloth bags. These bags are 14 slots and generally cost around the same mark as Netherweave bags, but crucially can either be re-used on different characters or sold on the auction house once you've used them.

On my mains realm when I first started playing, it was towards the end of Burning Crusade and I bought 8 Runecloth bags for a grand total of 10g or 1g 25s each, which was a lot of gold for me at the time. But I still have these bags and my low level alts are currently using them now. This shows how re-usable Runecloth bags are.

Now with the addition of Cataclysm, Blizzard has added the possibility of buying faction specific 16 slot bags like the Ironforge Bag. These are available for the cost of 2g and you can buy one from each respective main home faction. So you can buy 6 for either horde or alliance, and they are available at revered with the respective faction. That's 8g for 64 slots to fill your bags slots on your character or 12g to buy them all so you can purchase two extra bag slots in your bank, giving you an extra 32 slots in your bank also.

Now with the way the levelling zones have been redone and the ability to wear tabard's for your home factions in dungeons it’s got a whole lot easier to get bag space.

So if your starting new characters on new realms or just new to the game when you go to the auction house to buy bags, stop and think about your purchase before you waste gold you may not have.

Epidermuss

BOO! Guess Who's Back?

Lazy Summer Days © Nev 2007

Yup, I finally surfaced from my dungeons & battlegrounds long enough to realise how long it's been since I posted here. As I said in my last post, I'm loving my Hunter! Why it took me over a year to actually get her levelled is beyond me but I am so happy that I got there eventually.

So I guess I should give you guys an update of my summer gold making although to be very honest, it's been more of a summer of gold spending. Once I hit my 1 million gold, every bone in my body decided to rebel & make me start spending rather than being the miser I had been whilst trying to reach my target. I thought I'd list the stuff I know I bought

2x Witch-hunter's Harvester - 25k

3x Mekgineer Chopper - 45k

1x Traveller's Tundra Mammoth - 16k

1x Ring of the Kirin Tor - 6k

1x Masterwork Elementium Deathblade - 13k

1x Lava Bolt Crossbow - 25k

4x JP boots - 2.5k

1x Claws of Torment - 7k

1x Chelleys Staff of Dark Mending - 13k

So that's at least 152k without any smaller bits like pets and levelling professions but even without really trying, I've managed to keep my gold balance around the 930k mark. Regular readers will know I lost my MySales data just a day or two after I hit my goal, so I thought I'd show a screenshot of what's been selling since. It shows just about 2months of data now.

I stopped glyphing almost straightaway - the few that show up on MySales are the remnants of stock & I slowed down on the cut rare gems too. Mostly I've been doing a lot of questing at all different levels (my new shaman is now 55 & my forgotten Druid just hit 62) so I've been selling all the drops & mats that you normally pick up.

On 1st September, I did have a massive tidy up & craft session - trying to clear down my bank junk & bags. I had a fair few Cataclysm enchanting mats stashed so I made up a whole bunch of high level scrolls - not a market I am very familiar with but I did get some nice profits. I also returned to the glyph market & cut rare gem market - glyphs have really slowed down over the summer, it seems but the gems are still selling fairly well.

I now have alchemy & tailoring maxed on my Hunter so I have double transmute & dreamcloth cooldowns available. My Hunter is about the only alt I have capable of getting Chaos Orbs so perhaps I should have put something other than Tailoring on her but hey ho! We'll see how this goes for now.

So that's been my summer, slow & relaxed on the gold making front but absolutely manic on the questing/levelling/dungeoning front but you know what? I think I needed it.

I have a few ideas lined up for regular post slots here & I've changed my day to Tuesday over at Goldgrubs (it's tough writing when hubby's home!). There's another project in the works which I think is launching this weekend. Gimp over at GimpsGold is organising a Golden Circle - you'll have to wait a few more days to find out more but I think it has great potential for all of us, bloggers & readers alike, so stay tuned!

Hello & Goodbye (slightly off topic)

© Nev 2004 A Dream Holiday

Hellooooo! I was very surprised this morning to see that it has been almost 2 weeks since I last posted. Time really flies when you're levelling 2 alts & finally experiencing the Cataclysm heroic dungeons! I got my hunter to 85, an alt that was born during last summers' huge guild drama as an escape has finally made it to level cap. I already have 4 level 85's but although I'm an ok player ability wise & a good player attitude wise, I've never really managed to get good dps numbers out of them.

My hunter has changed all that & having the gold reserves that I do, I was able to buy the Lava Bolt Crossbow, Witch-Hunter's Harvester & the JP boots for her the day she dinged. I also - like any good goldmaker - had the mats in stock for the Corded Viper Belt & some Justice Points saved up so I could get my first JP piece. Add the Thrall questline cloak & the initial Firelands vendor piece & I was off to my first heroic Cataclysm dungeon the same afternoon!

Now that may be quite normal for many of you but I've actually only completed 2 heroics on any of my girls up til now & two of my four 85's aren't even geared enough to try so for me, personally, this was a major step forward. So far, since Thursday, I've now done 6 or 7 heroics on my hunter & her dps numbers have given me the confidence to try HC's on my healer too. I'm still a little way off being able to do the Zandalari dungeons but that's my next target.

I know many goldmakers manage to raid/do Heroics etc whilst making gold but for me, it's one or the other for now. That's just the way my brain works. At the moment, it's full of stat priorities, rep grinds/rewards & reading everything I can find to help my performance. I 'm still doing some gem selling to fund my daily costs but as far as gold making goes, that's about it.

Having said that, I'm not quitting this blog. I fully intend to come back to some proper gold making soon but rather than just disappear for a month or more, I wanted to let my readers know.

So for now, my plan is to resume serious gold making & blogging about it in early September. I'll still be posting on my regular Wednesday slot over at Goldgrub's & I can't break the habit of reading all the new posts each day from the other gold blogs on my blogroll. If you have any gold making questions or just want to chat, I am still checking my email & twitter regularly as well as the comments here so I'm not far away.

Anyway, I've waffled on long enough, so I want to thank all my commenters & readers who've kept me going this long & I wish you all happy goldmaking for the rest of the summer. Take care & I'll catch y'all soon

Love
Nev
xxx

Weekly Sales Update

© Nev 2004 - Calm, Tranquil Dawn

It's been another lazy, slow week at the AH for me - I've been levelling my hunter with a guildie (or should I say, trying to keep up) & I finally got my 1 year old warrior to level 80. I have made a little more effort with rare gems this week but the whole sense of urgency to cancel/relist multiple times a day has definitely gone on vacation!

Having said that, almost 25k income is pretty good, I think. I've done a little prospecting as my Inferno Ruby & Ember Topaz stocks have almost disappeared & I even had to transmute some Nightstones to get more Demonseyes!

The meta gem cuts have leapt up in price this week so I made some more of those with my alchemist & cleared down a few stacks of the uncommon gems in the process. This was probably a good thing as it made space in my banks - I picked up around 250 stacks of Elementium Ore this week at around 35-39g a stack.

Why did I buy all that? Well, the price for Elementium Ore has been fairly steady at 65g or more so I wanted to clear the cheap stuff off the AH before everyone decided that was the price to list at! By trying to keep the price high-ish, I'm hoping my gem competition will have smaller profit margins and/or be eating into their stockpiles.

This is a bit of a new direction for me - I used to only buy what I knew I could process quickly but I was subject to the same price fluctuations as everyone else. This way, I know I have cheap ore that I can prospect, smelt & use in Blacksmith stuff or turn around & sell at the higher price! As you can see below - I did sell 50 stacks & pretty much doubled my money on them too.

Other odd bits from my sales data shows that I finally managed to sell my first ever top end enchant - Windwalk for 1551g - disappointing but still a small profit. The prices for maelstrom crystals have dropped to around the 100g mark so the prices of these enchants have dropped too & I've had this scroll listed for almost 3 weeks. I don't think I'll be making many more of these, that's for sure!

The rest of my top sellers are mainly rare gems as I would expect - I've completely left the glyph market other than a few stragglers still to sell. Other stuff that has been selling regularly includes the Rich Purple Shirts (78g each), Mechanical Squirrel Boxes (35g each) & Pet Bomblings (135g each).

With all the levelling I've been doing, I've also picked up a fair few bits & pieces to sell - chilled meat, rhino meat, frostweave cloth, green quality armour as well as lower level cloth like wool & silk from one of my lowbie alts.

One thing I did do this week was to clear the AH of a lot of very low level green armour & weapons - why? Well, Khalior did a great series of posts this last week or so about how a social member of raiding guild can contribute & make a bit of money too (although that's not the main point of it). The one I picked up on, was the Guild achievement for disenchanting items. I set my buyout price at 1g per item & have been checking sporadically for items to disenchant. Not only is the achievement counter climbing nicely but as he points out, I am making a bit of gold at it too & hopefully, by buying the low level crafted items, I am helping build gold for new players just levelling their first professions!

So that's my week - lots of actually playing out in the world & a bit of AH'ing. I still feel a little 'lost' & directionless but I needed the break. This coming week, I'm hoping to get my hunter or warrior to 85 (maybe both, who knows!) & start running some dungeons with them.

I also have most of the herbs needed to level a second alchemist which will be my Hunter so it will be interesting to see how the levelling products sell. I'll be taking notes as usual & reporting back here eventually!