Back To Basics - A Reader Inspired Post

Today we have a post from Robert H, a reader who emailed me some feedback & a question. We got chatting and this was one of his replies. I thought he made some very good points so I asked if I could publish it here. I hope you enjoy reading a different perspective on gold making and one that I really should try to remember myself when I'm writing!

Robert's Story

Many gold makers focus on a massive stock of mats, max level gear or enchants, and "big ticket" items like mounts or transmogs. I'm no where near that level and don't have the time or resources to be a competitive gold maker. What I prefer to do is get the most out of the AH while leveling my toons. Perhaps my experiences can help others do the same. 

I began with a few basic assumptions. I needed an engineer for the new 5.4 changes, so chose that and mining as professions. I also decided that I would level at a leisurely pace, somewhere between "speed leveling" and going for Loremaster. I would level mining and engineering in one shot, i.e., as soon as I reached 350 and level 50 I would make all the items to reach the next limit right away (or visit DMF when in town). This motivated me to gather mats while questing. I play on a medium population server with an average economy, so my cash goal was between 2,000-5,000 gold per week.

With these guidelines in mind, I built up a steady supply of ores by making one or two extra trips around key zones while questing, not to mention earn XP and get occasional mob drops. I always had my DMF Adventurer's Journal in dungeons (almost no one carries those any more, so I had nearly a 100% greed success rate on those).

The results were great. While questing in Vanilla zones, I was able to earn about 1,500g a week just from ores, especially gold, iron, and occasionally tin. Truesilver was hit-or-miss. I used the daily price feature on the Undermine Journal to determine if ore or bars sold best and smelted accordingly (that also helped level my mining skill). 

Green drops sold modestly well, but only those with great stats or good for twinking. Cloth was variable. Outlands ores were very successful, as Fel Iron and Adamantite always sold for 100-150g per stack. Two laps a day around Zangarmarsh really paid off. DMF items from dungeons did well at ~250g apiece, and I averaged 3-5 sales a week.

At higher levels the results were even better. In less than an hour I sold 2 stacks of obsidium bars and 4 stacks of cobalt ore and pocketed 1200g. 

Not bad at all. In a little under 3 weeks I had accrued 19,000 gold from the AH after starting at level 1, well above my expectations. 

Your mileage may vary, especially if your server economy is vital or moribund. If you're new to gold making this might be a good way to learn the ropes with relatively low risk. Skills like knowing what to look for, when to post, how to undercut, and when to just vendor stuff that doesn't sell will get you ready for prime time.

I usually write about what I'm doing or planning in game but of course, it's been a long while since I was semi-broke & very inexperienced. Much of what Robert says is what I did to get started, long before I considered myself a gold maker.

As a gold making blogger, I tend to focus on specific things or tips you can do to make gold. Robert's story is a more general 'lifestyle' way of making gold than my current gametime so I'd be really interested to hear your early days stories too so feel free to drop me an email or maybe leave a comment below.

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Leveling 85 to 90 - How Much Gold Can You Earn?

I've often wondered just how much gold can be earned just by leveling. You know, quest rewards, loot & vendor trash, not to mention all the good stuff you can pick up along the way. So this time through, I actually managed to keep track of it and thought I would share it with you.

I took my Paladin through to 90 purely by questing, no dungeons, no Auction House activities & no battlegrounds. You can see from the screenshot below, over 7 days, she earned almost 6000 gold. What the screenshot doesn't show is how much good stuff she picked up! Ignore the outgoings - I nabbed flying & the yak mounts as soon as I dinged!

addon used here is Auditor

Just after she hit 90 & I'd got out of combat, I did a quick check of her inventory - 390 Exotic Leather, 39 Sha-touched leather, 1 Magnificent Hide, 68 Prismatic Scales & 7 Sprits of Harmony. I did lose track of all the cooking materials she picked up as I did do a bit of cooking leveling & I sent about 22 green armour/weapons to my enchanter. I haven't disenchanted everything yet - I'm keeping some bits back for my alts but the prices of gear on the Auction House are so low during this initial rush that I may even end up buying stuff to disenchant!

All that leather meant that I managed to level my profession to 600 without having to spend any gold at all & I still have leather left over too. It's difficult to quantify just how much all this stuff is worth though but at a rough guess, I'd say about 1000 gold for the leather, 550 gold for the Prismatic Scales & if I use the average Golden Lotus price to value my Spirits of Harmony, then around 4000 gold for those.

That makes around 10,500 gold over the process of leveling just 5 levels - not too shabby at all!

I'm just about to start leveling my next alt so I'll try to keep better records this time! I don't cook on most of my alts so it will be easier to keep track on those materials. I've not decided which alt is next though - my heart says go with DK or Hunter as they are both fairly well geared & shouldn't be too difficult. My brain says if I don't level my rogue or priest soon, it will take me 2 years to move them along & my inner goblin says 'get those damn professions leveled as cheaply as possible' which means probably my recently dinged 85 Warrior miner/blacksmith but she's another melee. oh well, I shall ponder it a while longer & let you know next time.

Happy Goldmaking peeps

Leveling Zen Master Alchemy - My Way & The Right Way

Leveling Zen Master Alchemy

I currently have 2 Alchemists - both Transmute Masters. One is my rarely played Rogue & the other is my main candidate for leveling to 90 first but whilst I'm still faffing with banks, auctions & getting to grips with all things Pandaren, I thought I'd get these two started with their farms at least.

My Leveling Method

In my usual manner, I checked the Auction House for pandaren herb prices & was pleasantly surprised by how cheap the Green Tea Leaf was, so I grabbed 18 stacks for around 490g (just 25g a stack!). I knew they were the starter herb for Alchemy & of course my main money making profession of Inscription uses them too. In doing so, I may have got slightly sidetracked from my plan to get my farm started & I started leveling my alchemy.

I dived straight in & learnt the Zen Master level & the 2 trainer taught recipes - Master Healing Potion & Master Mana Potion. Almost 2 stacks of healing potions later, I'd picked up about 10 new 'discoveries' & off I went, back to the Auction House to price up the next leveling potion. Within about 1 hour, I was at skill level 590 and had picked up a nice bunch of new recipes, including Transmute: Living Steel - yay!!!

Back to the Auction House to price up the Trillium Bar - Eeeek! no way was I paying those prices so I took my little Rogue out to start her farm. With that done, I logged into my Hunter & did exactly the same thing again! I still had a load of Green Tea Leaf left from earlier so that reduced my costs this time round. As I neared 590 skill points, the discovery for Transmute:Trillium popped up - phew! That was lucky otherwise both my girls would have been stuck until Trillium prices dropped or my Miner actually got out of Stormwind!

Again I got lucky - someone had listed Ghost Iron Bar for just 262 gold a stack or 131 gold per Trillium transmute so of course, I snagged as much as possible, having 2 alchemists waiting for it now. Just 5 transmutes later, I'd maxed my skills for my Hunter & on the very last transmute, the discovery for Living Steel popped up.

Now I know there are some folk out there who are going to hate me but my very first Transmute:Living Steel proc'ced for me -  woop woop! 2 Living Steel to sell straight away. To make you hate me even more, I've now done 3 days of Living Steel transmutes & have had a proc every day - giving me 9 Living Steels out of 6 cooldowns!

Overall, I spent 3090 gold on herbs & ghost iron bars to level both alchemists to 600. Out of the potions, elixirs & transmutes I made, I have sold 3524 gold's worth so I am already back in profit & have 7 Living Steels still to sell as well as enough Healing potions to keep my alts alive whilst they level through The Jade Forest. What I don't have yet is all the recipes so once my herbalist starts to level, I will go back & make more potions to complete the discovery process on both alts.

How I Should Have Leveled!

As I sat down to write this post, I realised I hadn't noted down everything I had done, so off I went to Kaliope's Crafting blog to look for some of the details I'd missed. What a slap head moment that was! One of the very first points she made in her Alchemy summary was

'don't learn Zen Master Alchemy straight away, just the healing & mana potion recipes'

Basically, you need to make a whole bunch of the Master Healing Potions to start learning the discoveries. Once you have made about 5 potions without a discovery, you have probably learnt all the discoveries at that level and THEN you can learn Zen Master Alchemy & continue making Master Healing Potions until the recipe goes grey. In this way, you will maximise the number of discoveries you make with the cheapest & easiest potion, giving you a wider selection of recipes to make for the rest of your leveling process.

So that's my Oops! of the week so far. I'm off to read the rest of Kaliope's profession summaries - I do not want to find a similar oops on any of my other professions, that's for sure :)

Image credit © Horia Varlan under Creative Commons licence

Mists of Panderia - Where Shall I Start?

Mists of Panderia - Where Shall I Start?

So I finally got home after my travels & one of the first things I did (besides collapse into bed & sleep for 5 hours!) was upgrade my EU account to Mists of Panderia. I've been following various tweets over the last week about all the different things people are doing & I have to try to decide where the heck to start my Pandaren adventure!

I don't really want to rush any alts to 90 although I do want to get them all there in the next month or so and I also want to max my professions. From Twitter, I'm getting the impression that a farm is a must have for all my 85's but as yet, I have no idea how to get the the Farmer NPC guy!

I have had a little play with pet battles on my US account and also raised a baby Pandaren Monk to level 10 but gold making on that account is unimportant to me so I'm going to leave that out of my musings. I will probably poodle my US Hunter along very late at night when my US friends are around though.

So what do I have in my stable of alts & which order should I tackle stuff?

1. Paladin - Retribution, Leatherworker & Skinner. also my Achievement Queen but that's not so important now. Gear wise she's kind of middling. I never got to grips with the Holy Power system so she's just been gathering dust although she is my first love & I feel the irrational urge to level her first & fast too.
2. Death Knight - Frost, Jewelcrafting & Inscription - my main melee DPS girlie, she's also been my main gold maker with her professions. I know there are kobolds in the Glyph market now though so I'm not sure if I want to keep fighting that battle.
3. Priest - shadow/holy, Enchanting & Tailoring. I'm honestly not very good on my priest - I didn't start healing until the very end of Wrath & never had the confidence to face many Cataclysm dungeons with her. Her gear is ok but I think she will struggle a bit in Panderia.
4. Rogue - Combat, Herbing & Alchemy - geared to mid Cata PvP level, she will definitely struggle in Panderia. I love my lil gnome rogue but I'm really really bad at all the moving around & jumping type stuff so she's never really had a chance!
5. Hunter - Marksman, 2nd Alchemist & 2nd Tailor, this girlie is my favourite for a bit of PvP & some dungeons too. I seem to be able to pull some ok DPS numbers out of her although still not spectacular. If I do dungeons in Mists, I'm pretty sure she will be my 1st choice but her professions are only basic - no extra plans/recipes etc, just the basics to get at the additional cooldowns in Cataclysm.
6. Warrior - Arms, Mining & Blacksmithing - my newest level 85, she just dinged the week before Mists of Panderia arrived so her gear is still end leveling greens & a few blues. She will probably struggle in Panderia too but although it took me over a year to finally get her maxed, I did quite enjoy it in the end.

My initial thoughts were to take my gatherers out first - get those farmed items onto the Auction House & capitalise on the early rush but I'm already seeing prices dropping dramatically & stabilising at fairly reasonable prices too so that blows that idea out of the water.

Next thought was to take my Paladin out first - (instinctive really, she is my fav!) her Leatherworking would be ideal with all the new monks that suddenly sprung into existance! But then I remembered I dropped skinning last summer & am only half levelled on that now - do I spend an afternoon getting that to Pandaren level?

I'm hearing that professions are fairly easy to level now so I'm also wondering, shall I just throw some gold at it & get all my professions leveled via the Auction House & just play which alt I want to? My old friend Khalior is writing again - 2 great posts to get me thinking this week - a Grab Bag of Random Tips & More Random Tips for Panderia

But then there's the whole Spirit of Harmony being Bind on Pickup thing! Most of my girls will need them at some point. Faid literally just posted about SoH & determining their value whilst I'm writing this & that's given me a whole new lot of stuff to think about!

Phat over at Phat Lewt's Gold Blog has also been analysing this kind of stuff too - his post Top 5 professions to Level ASAP makes some really good points & based on his thoughts, I could happily level my hunter first (Alchemist/Tailor). Even though she doesn't have extra stuff from earlier expansions, I'm not sure that matters too much right now - my other Alchemist & Tailor will get leveled soon enough to fill any gaps there.

And lastly, just now, Jim from Power Word:Gold has just published a new post 'How To Eat An Elephant' - apart from making me smile at the title, he also makes some very good points that are perfectly timed for me as I write this post! It's good to know that as I sit here, frantically trying to work out how to catch up for missing the first week & worrying that I'm falling behind, there are others out there feeling exactly the same sense of being overwhelmed by all the possibilities Mists of Pandaria & Blizzard have brought to us. I don't think I'll be complaining about boredom anytime soon, that's for sure!

Image © Alex Bellink under Creative Commons License

Zygor Guides - Fully Updated & Improved for Mists of Pandaria

With the release of Mists of Pandaria looming ever closer, I thought I'd mention Zygor's Guides in its own post as I believe it is one of, if not the best WoW leveling guides out there. I began using Zygor's Leveling Guide way back when I first started playing. My husband had been playing for about 3 months before I caved in & gave it a try myself. He'd got badly lost on his first character & almost quit until he found this fantastic WoW leveling guide so when I did start playing, I used it too.

Now this was before Blizzard improved the quest log, quest tracking, map system & before they added the little tips you get in the starter zones. I remember clearly googling for hours, looking for a 'how to play WoW  guide' or 'leveling in WoW' article of some sort. Having never played an RPG or any other MMO before, I was totally lost but Zygor's Guide gave me the directions I needed in game to get my first character moving.

I use Zygor's Guide every time I start a new character - not because I really need it now for the Alliance characters but because I just find it so easy to use & I got lazy! I recently started a new account on the US servers & have been playing Horde seriously for the first time. It's like being a newbie again! I don't know where anything is - flight paths, profession/class trainers even inns but this wonderful WoW leveling guide takes me exactly where I need to be & has reduced some of the frustration for me.

Check out the new, updated Zygor Guide now!

Since I first started using Zygor's WoW leveling guide, they have added several brilliant features, including a Loremaster section - this helped me find all the quests I had missed when questing & I when I eventually knuckled down to it, I got my Loremaster achievement fairly easily.

So why am I only just talking about this now? Well, of course, Mists of Pandaria is launching just 4 days from now & the busy people over at Zygor's have been hard at work preparing the updated version of the Leveling & Loremaster Guide as well as introducing some fabulous new Guides too. I especially like the look of the Dungeons & Gear Guide as I often spend a lot of time, trying to find gear upgrades, even whilst leveling.

So far, they've announced that they will have guides ready for all of the following World of Warcraft topics, available on September 24th - the day BEFORE Mists of Pandaria releases:

* Leveling and Loremaster
* Dailies and Events
* Dungeons and Gear
* Professions and Achievements
* Pets and Mounts
* Titles and Reputations

On top of ALL that new content, they've managed to add a boat load of new features to their guide software.  It's all stuffed into a sleek and powerful package they're calling Zygor 4.0.  They're not finished revealing all of the new features, with more coming over the next couple of days, but what they've revealed so far is brilliant!  This is really something you have to see to believe, so head over there and check out the videos they've released so far.

Check out the new updated Zygor Guide now!

Blizzard has predicted that Mists of Pandaria will be one of, if not THE largest and most successful World of Warcraft expansions yet. I'm also seeing quite a buzz on Twitter & whilst some folks are still decidedly unimpressed with the whole Panda thing, I am super stoked to get my alts moving. Sadly I have to wait a full week until after launch as I'm currently away from home with no access to my EU account *insert sad panda face here* (pun totally intended by the way!). I also don't have access to my Zygor's WoW leveling guide here so my first steps into Mists of Pandaria are likely to be tentative to say the least!  Go check out the stuff Zygor Guides is doing so you can be prepared to dominate all of this new content right from day one.

Project Shoofly - Update 16th June

Shoofly

It's been a bit of a weird, hellish week but I did manage to put another 5 levels on my baby priest - she's growing up now though - level 35! Woo hoo! I have been asking myself why I chose a priest to level for this. Although the questing is more straightforward than it used to be, it still feels very slow - I think it's the lack of heirlooms, the seemingly long cast times & of course, I'm horde now so I get lost more often!

Being Horde though, I knew about the battered leather set that they could buy from the vendor in Silvermoon - so in the absence of any pretty dresses, my little warrior banker went for the sexy red leather! Not a transmog, she is only level 5 but nice for running around town anyway.

As for the Auction House - well you can see from the screenshot, I broke through the 1000 gold mark to almost 1600 gold now. I had a lucky drop of Silver-thread Boots which boosted my total almost 200 gold - probably should have gone higher but the Auction House seems very quiet these days The Dalaran Wizard's Robe also helped boost my total but that's been hanging around for weeks. Nice little boost but not really something to try for when leveling.

I also made a boo-boo by listing my Goldthorn so cheaply - I have some listed at the moment for around 10 gold each - selling at 2 gold something was guaranteed income as someone snatched a bargain almost as soon as I listed them.

I've managed to keep my herbing & skinning almost at the correct level for my questing area - I'm in The Hinterlands area right now - did I mention I hate those darned troll ruins - up & down, one or two quests at a time then kill all way back up to do the next couple of quests then back down again, rinse, repeat, try not to scream in frustration too loudly & not even a blue quality quest reward at the end of it all - arrgghhh!

Anyway, not sure how far I'm going to get with this for a while. Real life sucks big time at the moment, stealing not only playtime but inclination to play, even when I have the time. It is one of my easier little projects though so I hope I can keep going. Stay tuned to find out if I do :P

Project Shoofly - Update

So it's been a few weeks since I logged my baby horde priest for the Project Shoofly stuff - between my holiday & recovering/getting back to normal, I haven't really had the inclination to play much. I have been popping in at random to post the few bits that haven't sold yet so I thought I'd just pop an update post here for now.

As of Friday evening, 8th June, Shoofly officially hit 1000 gold - just stuff picked up, looted or purchased whilst out levelling. The whole idea behind this project, is to try to think like a novice goldmaker - selling everything I pick up & maybe any vendor recipes that I come across. I thought it would be interesting to see just how much gold one can pick up/make whilst just levelling.

This represents almost the last few pieces my project banker had left to sell - I think there is one Lynx Steak recipe & one Dalaran Wizard's Robe left to sell & then I must get back to leveling.

What To Look Out For When Levelling a New Alt

It always surprises me how quickly Cold's Gold Blogging Carnival rolls around. This month the topic fits in very nicely with my two ongoing subjects - Project Shoofly (levelling like a newbie gold maker) & my farming series. So June's topic is:

What Are Some Things You Recommend Players Look Out For While Leveling A New Character In WoW?

This is actually quite a wide ranging subject & my answer depends very much on what type of player is leveling the new character. I won't go into the very basics for a really new player or even touch on stuff for a very experienced gold-making one. I'm aiming this post at the mid-range player - someone who has a few characters already, has a few professions underway (maybe maxed) & knows what kind of things they may come across whilst leveling.

Profession Bottlenecks

Talking of professions - there's your first hint of what to watch out for. Remember when you settled down to level 30 or 40 points on your professions one evening because you had everything you needed? Yup, me too & then there's that one recipe/pattern that you missed & you are one 'gidget' short but when you go to the Auction House, there are no 'gidgets' for sale or they are at really stupid high prices but you buy it anyway because it's just one bit & you're on a roll & want to keep those skill points rising?

Yup - those are some of the items to watch out for whilst leveling - most notable ones for me are :-

• Hides of all types for leatherwork or blacksmith, especially heavy hide & rugged hide
• Certain herbs are reknowned for being difficult - think goldthorn, briarthorn or netherbloom for example  
• Certain ores like gold ore, truesilver ore or of course, the ever expensive khorium ore
• Gems - golden draenite is always in demand but don't forget citrine, jade & large opals too
• For tailors, I think wool is often the cloth that I find hardest to accumulate until much higher levels when frostweave & embersilk just seem to take forever to gather
• Ghost Dye is used in several tailoring recipes & uses Ghost Mushrooms - I've never had problems selling either the dye or the mushrooms for decent gold although technically it's not a bottleneck for leveling your tailoring. 

Money Making Crafted Items

These tend to be rare or 'blue' quality items that crafters can make. The materials are often wide ranging & may require some farming or Auction House watching. I've covered a few of these types of items in the past :-

• My recent post on Farming Large Fangs for Barbaric Bracers
• Another recent post on Farming Spider's Silk for Spidersilk Boots & Toughened Leather Gloves
• An old post on Farming Essence of Air for the Enchant Weapon - Agility
• Engineering crafted pets - these require a multitude of odd bits - Globe of Water, Living Essence & Core of Earth spring to mind
• Felcloth is another item on my watch list - I use it to make the Mooncloth Robe - such a pretty dress & nice if your server has a good transmog market.

Regular High Value Drops & Finds

Some items that drop off mobs or you find whilst out questing just maintain their value in general. Every server is different though so do check your own Auction House for prices and volumes.

• Embersilk Cloth - used by tailors in huge amounts when leveling
• Frostweave Cloth - ditto!
• Cobalt Ore - used by blacksmiths in large quantities for leveling & a pain to farm, check the price of Cobalt Bars too before you list on Auction House
• Pearls - Small Lustrous, Iridescent & Golden pearls all have a regularly high price on my server
• Gromsblood - this surprised me recently & I'm still testing the market but worth a look

So there you go - some of the stuff I look for when leveling a new alt but to be honest, I only vendor grey items, almost everything else goes to my banker or one of my crafting alts for later use. I'm a self-medicated packrat in game which means I can powerlevel 50 points on a profession without spending a copper sometimes :)

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 - 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!

Auction House Alt - Day 8 & Other Thoughts

Starting gold today 503g but I've been out most of the day so I relied on current auctions to make some money. I did pop in last thing at night and bought another stack of Whiptail at 8g each, relisted them at 11.50g as singles.

I also found a tailor to make 4 netherweave bags for me, tipped 10g so total cost per bag was approx 6g, listed them at 18.50g & sold 2 straightaway - nice :)

Closing gold 375g.

I have to admit I'm finding this experiment to be quite hard work! Not so much the ah stuff but more my thought processes & blogging about it. I have a fairly random method of buying, based on my experiences in game so far but this experiment server economy is so different from my main server that I find myself double thinking every purchase. Stuff I know well doesn't work the same way here & stuff I just dabble in on my main server as low gold making tactics goes crazy here.

I'm still not happy with my scan data - I like a lot of data collection before I feel comfortable relying on it & with the changes in markets brought about by Cataclysm, I'm still getting used to the volatility of certain markets. There's no doubt that Cata mats are the things to be looking at for now but they could also be my downfall.

I'm also thinking I may start levelling an alt over here - seems silly to make all this gold & have nothing to actually do with it!