Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Busy Weekend, 450K and petsales

A great weekend, with little WOW time.  All day Sat and Mon or about 8+ hours was devoted to yard work and the garage project...  At this point I have chopped and reassembled most of 6 sheets of plywood into boxes/cabinets/shevels...  Yesterday was getting the slumped pile of garden/yard tools off the floor and onto the wall...

GOLD... I dont closely track what I have, profit is built into everything I do... Loss is part of the stockpiling...  For instance I am sitting on over 100 truegold, and over 3,000 pyrite.  I still manage to turn over profits every week..  450K was the total I noticed the other day... a personal best only salted with the fact that almost 200K is on the alliance side.  So, a loss of 15% or 30K to move it all over to horde always sits in the back of my mind.  Still just selling pets, scrolls and LW patches.. not just current cata stuff, but from all eras of wow... Oh.. and Mining and LW bags still selling well too... Scrolls are great for the low low cost of AH fees... cancel post and use the AH as an extended bank to some extent, but I dont like to show my hand so much.. so I list only one or 2 at a time in most cases, though some things like Mining bags and  and mighty stats for chest sell out 4-5 daily... so.. I will post more.  Pets were all being listed only one at a time.. but I upped that to 2... doing well, minimal profits, but easy to manage... I supposed its about 45 minutes to go stock everything up... and that gets me through a week... about...

Hmmm... so, assuming 45 minutes to stock up... 2 pets in BB, 3 in eversong, 3 in org, 5 in netherstorm (one is a duplicate of BB), 1 in TB, 1 in everlook

BB 2 x 12 = 24 x ~3 gold profits 75 Gold
Eversong 3 x 12 = 36 x ~ 4 gold profits 144 Gold
Org 3 x 12 = 36 x ~3 gold profits 108 Gold
Netherstorm 5 x 12 = 60 x ~ 7 gold profits 420 Gold
Thunder Bluf  1 x 12 x ~3 gold profits 36 Gold
Everlook 1 x 24 x ~12 gold profits 288 Gold

1071 gold... figure 70% sales rate before i have to restock... ~700 gold minimum for the 45 minutes...

Not stellar, but, its steady, its consistent, and I estimated pretty low... so thats a low end estimate... The rest of the sales is on the banker alt for about 5-10 minutes a day, time doing many other things too...

I am seriously considering going to a 24 per trip buy.  They just sit in the mail... and it cuts that portion of the time investment in HALF...   roughly...

NOTHING PRESENTED HERE WAS EMPIRICAL DATA...  everything is me in my head from memory and gut feelinging, noting how valuable the time I invest in this is.

Catch you next time

Friday, May 27, 2011

12 Hours and going with the power out, and selling to both factions.

Was getting ready to put the kids in bed and gear up for a raid on my raiding toon.  Well, that did not happen.  Just as dinner was comming off the stove and we were getting ready to eat, power flickered about 3 or 4 times then it quit flickering... it was gone...

The kids are small enough that no lights, and the thunder terrified them, so since there was no TV... they got to "camp out" on the couches down in the TV room.

Me, I went to be early.  nothing else to do...  I did "borrow" my wifes Nook e-reader and read for a bit, that just put me to sleep, so out of the chair and off to bed.

ON GOLD... I was initially just logging to check the toons on the alliance side for sales on some DMC trinkets...  that got me to thinking, check some prices on other stuff and move things around.  Bought some heavenly shards that were a lot lower and moved them and the DMCs over the Neutral AH.  While I was at it... figured Why not try to sell some enchanted lanters on the ally side. There were no magic lamps in the Ally AH, and I was not interested in barking for a crafter.  They cost me less than 800 to make, and listing them for 2500...  should make them great sales if they actually move.  Its great having 2 accounts for this.

Dual boxxing, 2 toons at the N-AH, open AH interface and type in search for item I am moving > change windows to the other toon and list the item(s) > change windows, click search, and buy.  About 5-7 seconds of risk to get ganked... most of the time I move only one Item at a time. Especially high value stuff.  The lanterns, I moved all 5 at once, since it is only one search and click, click, click, click, click done...

Since I have nearly 200K on the ally side and I dont want to give the N-AH 15% of my loots, I think I will continue to look for lower costs over there and move material over.  Move savings is more profits on the other side if the items I get are listed lower on ally side than the horde side.  Like the heavenly shards were 40-50 gold compared to 50-60 on the horde side.  Time will tell if its time well spent on my server..

Catch you next time...

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Ellusive desires, and common ground

Disclaimer: I use terms of us, you, we, them and other generalization as a point of comment, not that you, I, we, us or them fit the mold I present as a stereotype of a group of WoW players...

Side note: Running the next gold giveaway fun challenge tonight with the guild "commitment"  Should be fun.

What ties people together?
 What tears those bonds?

What brings people together?
What prevent bonds from forming?

Guilds still fail to capture and retain members.  I think the guild advancement system, and guild reputation elements do a lot to created stronger foundations to building a strong guild.  However you will always have the "real" reputation of your actions within that group.  Your reputation is the tie that binds, and the blade that rips assunder.

Guilds are largely formed on 3 precepts, and most evolve into one.
1. Casual Leveling guild (what kind of guild are you later when your "done" leveling?)
2. Raiding guild
3. PVP guild

2 and 3 are easily categorized into "end game" guild
Casual guilds, can not be casual when leveling is over and there is diminishing social and group challenge of the game, so they attempt to transform into an "end game" guild. 

I phrase it the "revolving door" guild...  There are consistent members, who are the original often "casual" core... who remain casual and never commit to or make the shift to raiding with the success they think they should be able to attain.  The rest come and go.  They come, gear up, and learn encounters, and move on to the "next best thing"/"raiding guild" that is more progressed to get new gear and more encounter knowledge and training and then move on always looking for the imagined "core team" spot in the "well progressed" guild that can give them more new gear...

Over all, commitment is as elusive as a jackalope... Most of us will only ever see one in museum, but never in the wild, nor be able to catch it... AND most of us will continue to pursue the "jackalope" (more progressed/more epix) untill one day the chase is just draining and takes the fun out of the game, the day you realize you can not catch it, you have to work to "create" it... 

I have been that player, I have been the GM of that sort of guild, it becomes draining and hard to maintain.  Salute to those who do maintain and continue to have fun in that environment... I know I did for a long time, even through the frustration of people that came and went... but eventually, it lost its edge and I realized "chase" for the elusive "jackalope" was not in my league.  Not because I could not play at that level, but because I was honest with myself about what a Game would be for me. 

To be on that common ground with those elite players (not elitist necessarily), truely elite top 3% or less of the players... what you need is:
Compter to run error free (high grafics for the visual ques)
Connection to support fail free gaming (no DCs)
Massive patience (for wipe after wipe, night after night) for progression
Usually larger windows of time, and more frequent (compared to many guilds)
Cutting edge class knowledge
and on and on, and I think most will not ever be in this category.

I personally have a lot more fun being a couple steps behind them.. and watching their videos, and reading their strats/gear choices/spec choices etc..

Most who play have the desire for the elusive "jackalope", But the difference is they try to find it and not try to create it.  The desire is born of the game culture and being at max level.  It has 2 drivers though...
Gear and prestige.  The elite think and act like prestige is a way to gear, the masses think and act like gear is the way to prestige.

What are your thoughts, and how do you play?

Monday, May 23, 2011

Gold making is not LIFE!

I do have a life and spent very little time gaming this weekend.  Most was doing the more amusing things related to the other blog...  Its fresh and new and great fun.

I have several post ratling around in my head about lessons learned, events and tips and tricks that I am getting out of that blog.

HOWEVER... I have a life, a wife, 2 kids, a house, a lawn, neighbors and friends.  I have plans well underway to completely manscape my garage to a useable funcitoning workspace and maybe even park a car.  For now its stacke with a multitude of other "stuff"...  To continue on the rest of the summer projects, finding my tools is a priority.  To that end.. building cabinets and a workbench, install better lighting, power outlets and storage solutions.  It's well underway, but going sluggishly. 

Another item of a large scale is doing some finishing/semi-finishing work to the basement.  Installing/building storage solutions, and designing and implementing water control solutions to any future water intrusion to the basement.  Yeah, heavy spring rains and I found unexpected water down there... No significat damge to personal property, but it precludes use of the area for much when you find any amount of water that could damage property...  

Another project is taking down 7-8 pine trees in the yard and finally installing french drains in the yard or around the house to prevent the water from accumulating around the foundation, and getting in the basement... 

Then... and... and... ...own a home,  and have a reasonable level of handy-man skills (plumbing, electrical, woodworking, construction etc...) and you always see things to do...  and it can save you tons of money, but it takes a lot of time... a lot like many markets in WoW... Time is money...

So the weekend was not much on the main server working to the 1million gold goal.. The next thing I need to do is go through the 100+ scrolls I sell and evalute some to get rid of them that are slow or no movers, and also review ZA to reset thresholds and fallbacks...  Not a fun project and I expect I will be at it for a couple hours when I get to it.

Thats it, welcome back the workweek, the weekend is over...

Thanks for stopping buy...

Friday, May 20, 2011

Content of a blog, stocking up, "P", and fractions

CONTENT OF A BLOG...
I read somewhere in a blog that someone has trouble with content and consistently comin up with more...

A little baffling to me... I have the opposite problem, limitting my content to tolerable moresel to enjoy writing and re-reading myself... and since readers do read the blog... they come back since the last "meal" did not leave them with bloat and indigestion...

Stock and Foo and Cold and others, check the blog roll on who I read provide endless talking points and counter points... Gold making, raiding, gaming and other things... I never have to look, work or think that hard to write something about what I like doing...

STOCKING UP....
Gold to be made, evalutate your markets and stock up on:
For 4.2... craftables
Orbs
Dreamcloth
Pristine hides
Truegold
Volatile earth, water, fire
Hardened Elementium
4.2 Craftables will need lots of:
Chant mats
Gems
For 4.2 and beyond???
Cheap Pyrite Ore (epic gems)
Cheap elementium Geodes (for the next expansion)

Go look at MMO-Champion... If you don't know it, find it... I dont hyperlink much because I prefer to write more and play more to have more to write about... If you get to MMO and dont know what your looking for read more blogs, and figure it out... its like patch notes before the patch notes... If you dont know what patch notes are... GAHHHH...

"P"
Patience
Persistence
Planning
Perspective
Performance

"P" ^^^^ get some more of that to get more "P"

Profit
Piles of gold
e-Peen
ePix
Pride
Progress

And remember Perspective, because in the end you only have Pixels, and it wont get you P____... guys, you know what I am talking about... girls you can figure it out...

Insert stupid jokes on a liPhe and Phriends and... yeah its over Point made, moving on to:

FRACTIONS:
Stok's post On raiding: PSA... RAWR... some people just dont get it, other limit themselves, Some do but wont change, some just whine about it, some stand alone on an island defending a point.... all alone...

FRACTIONS matter... in raiding and PVP... and the AH game... they all add up... and they all have value.. go back to the "P"... I left it open, because it applies pretty universally... and if you disagree, read Perspective, in fact look it up... I even linked it...

If your time is valuable, and organization is valuable.. then like me you may have 7, 36 slot enchanting bags in your enchanters bank, and 2 more in your bag slots... Or you may be a minimalist and prefer smaller scale...  For me its not only the time, and gold and organization... but the.. UN-quantifiable value of how my time is spent and how I feel about it before, durring and after said spending of said time for my personal amusement and enjoyment...

Fun/More Fun
Top DPS/bottom DPS server first kill
Valuing fractions to be elitist and good/Everyone in raid knows and values Fractions
Telling you I am smarter than you and knowing it/Knowing I am smarte than you and NOT telling you
The moment some one tells you "I get it" (what they have been told)/When my kids "get it"
Spending a fraction of my time in game/Spending my life with the ones I love, Family

Thursday, May 19, 2011

What am I doing... AND A GOLD TIP

FIRST THE GOLD TIP:  IF YOU HAVE DEEP POCKET AND LITTLE AVERSION TO HUGE RISK, then this could be a lot of fun, and profitable too... stockpile vials of sands... the risk is not so huge, if they go for 35k today, they will go for 35kish after the patch...  HOWEVER.. after the patch the price of trugold may jump in price by double or triple as the crafting receipes seem to use a lot of it... 12 bars? in one Vial of Sands?  It had a previous cost of 33k, sale price of 35K, and then the mats cost as truegold jumps in value from 400G (my server) to an expected new price of  800G...   Transmuters will be getting 300gold per xmute instead of 100 (curent on my server)... IF that logic holds... 35K Vials of Sands will be 40Kish vials of sands...   ...or conversly just pile up and stock up on the true gold... lol, the mount is really just another way to put them in your bank, and IMO its would be more fun to make 5 40 K sales for 200K and 25K profits after having 175K tied up in the market... Also, it may be worth it now to buy the cheap truegold xmutes in trade... Likely the price will go up if patch datamining is accurate...  Evaluate your own server for viability on these idea.... True gold will continue to have value... so its really a low risk investment IMO, but large coin piles could be tied up...

Currently I have a couple things I am doing with the game and time I spend on-line.

2 blogs
2 projects
raiding
and going for a million

My newest venture is a new project featured in my second blog ctlaltdelgoldmaking.  At the moment it has great movement and its different, but not really, and fun.  Its like your first kiss? with the lights on? its not the same experience, but it is... Might have totally lost you there.

The second blog covers my second project

This blog continues to cover the guild "commitment" and all my other chatter and such...

In game raiding is tues and thurs evening after the kids are in bed, and not too late for my schedule... its good, alows me to pursue several goals and do some raiding without too large of a commitment to that group.  Since I can and get OCD about it.. I show up with cauldrons and fish feasts.. one fore every wipe.. and I just dont care... its woth it to me to know everyone has a good food buff, and flask...

I continue to move about 20K or more daily in inventory throught the AH in enchanting scrolls.  Some days are less, depends on how many times I cancel post, and how good my data in ZA is.  If my threshold is too high, I miss some sales.  That just takes time to work through... and reset as prices seem to move a lot lately as the server and markets settle into a norm for prices on mats.  Over the last 2 weeks, my threshold for purchasing heavenly shards went from 15G each to 45 gold to 60 gold... and they are hard to get at that price.  Maelstroms have gone from 1200 to 600 to 500 to 400 to 250 now...  GCEssences, have gone from 22gold to 28 gold to 30 to 45 to 35 to 30 to 25 now.... them are my biggest heartache in markets atm...  they move prices on a lot of scrolls, and its a lot of work to adjust the prices in ZA...  I also run a small enterprise from a bank alt... he sells LW armor kits, pets, primal might and a few other miscelaneous items...  thats groses 1500 to 4500/day, and then the enchanter posts his own auctions, and thats about 150 or more at any given time up, I post 2-5 of each scroll based on overnight sales history... Its a gut feeling and no science behind which ones sell more... I do have a G Bank tab that I do some management and organization through... and its about ready for a revamp.  there are some scrolls that just are not selling, and need to go away... some I need to lower the posting limits from 2 to 1 on, and others that could stand to have the posting limit increased from 2, 3, 4 or 5 to more.  Right now Chest - Mighty stats sells 5 per listing frequently.. it is probably my single highest volume mover... lots of competition, but they move so fast that even though I dont monitor it that closely, I sense that even when I am undercut, I make the sales as the undercutters are bought out, and them my sell...  If I am actively undercutting though, I do decrese PPH, but I increase the TPH. 

So thats what I am doing.  As I have time, I play and blog the new blog, toons and sever for bit before dinner.  After dinner is a cancel/post craft post session on the two toons that are taking me to a million.  After that hourish to put the market in the back of my mind for an hour or few... It's prolly about raid time, log over and do some archy for the elusive Vial Of Sands receipe... 4 canopic jars.... and 4 mumified organs. (mumified organ is what you get if you dont get the alchy formula for the mount)  If its not a raid night, I do still log the raider and stockpile more truegold... B/C 80 is not enough...  don't ask...  anyway

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

How to make gold? Part 2

Its no magic process... its not a sprint to amass the volumes that other talk about. It is however, a repeatable process.

Ask your self and other and research the following questions.  The answers tell you "How to make gold"

Achive commitment progress

Originally I started this blog about the PROJECT GUILD commitment.

It hovers around 150 member, almost to level with little to report on...  I knew going it was going to be a long process that would takes its own direction in its own time.

But having writen little on it a post to note events or things I have noted as significant.

2 level 85 players, me and a pally tank
2 active players over level 60 (one hit 80 recently)

many semi active players that have modest activity and semi regular log ins.

Mass recruiting with the script I copied from another blog has shown the best results for new members.

People come and go frequently.. they never come back.  thats the idea though.  Leveling the guild I hope will take a new speed as we get 4 toons over 80 to start running dungeons and getting GXP from that will boost the rate of GXP by tons...

I need to set up the next event for the guild.. a guild event where I give away my gold... :-)  I think it will be a double header event... I just have to do it. 

Not really much else to report on... it is the slow process I expected it to be, and it is great to watch the events unfold.

NOT BEING A BADDIE: Raiding stuff and rant, When WoW fails

Stokpile posted today On Raiding: PSA, and fired up a lot of languishing perspective I have on the various situations he relates to.

You can read the replies in his orriginal post where I had to add my input.

Good raiders: Have some or all of these virtues in varying degrees;

After the jump

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

As it applies to RL and rough numbers, then lessons in patience and process

I find myself following several blogs and I have tendancy to diverge from what other bloggers seem to focus on.  Just a reflection about the way I think about the AH game and other aspects of the game.

Tanking is Strategy
DPS is Science
Healing is art
Goblineering is All Three

I Noticed my Main Poster was at about 170K last night which puts me firmly back in the recoved from the maelstrom crystal losses when He was nearly busted.  And back to to the total of about 400K with about 195K on the Ally side and other toons w/ bits here and ther.  Thats what I have in liquid...

More after the jump, Warning its a much longer post than I like, but cant make it much shorter and deliver the message... :-/

Monday, May 16, 2011

GPH is a LIE, PART 2, (to the newer AH goblin???)

Enter the GPT/PPT and the TPH theory.

I think any goblin already has this all worked out in their head and knows the value and nubers as it relate to thier personal valuation of their time.

Gold Per Hour...  

GPH- is enough if you have enough gold in game to cover your expenses, and you have enough time in game to follow your number one passion  (raiding/PVP etc) 
but as an expression it lacks value to really show what your time is worth...

Gold Per Transaction - GPH... Or Profit Per Transaction (PPT)
and
Transactions Per Hour - TPH
Have IMO a stronger outlook to position your time and its value as a more real valuble tool to valuate your time.  To me its like binocular vision vs. monocular vision... you now have a more accurate 3D picture w/ depth of field instead of 2D info easily manipulated and warped to display a single number.

Simply put.. these terms used together have greater capacity to better quantify the value of your time.

Example: Car price at dealer A is $9,999 and at dealer B it is $11,399 for the same exact brand new car...
Dealer A does not include tax, title, admin and delivery costs in the price
Dealer B does include tax, title, admin and delivery costs in the price
Point... A single number does little to really reflect the situation...

2 separate numbers give some depth without getting too difficult to track and follow, but still has pleanty of room to be wrong... Just, there is less room and likely less deviation with 2 control numbers. YMMV

You want to increase each of them, your PPT and TPH as much as your current market will allow with minimal time invested...   Addons are you friends here.

Your biggest tools to do this is balaning your threshold and your fallback correctly for the markets you're in.

What is your threshold?
What is your fallback?
Got another question?

leave a comment or question to prompt further discussion.

The 10 minute gold making project.

Mmaking Gold... how to do it.. prinicples and production, thoughts and ideas... Habits and preconceived ideas..
Background... I had all professions except tailoring, and managed to amass 30Kish w/ 6 80s... woo hoo me... now... 30K is what I roll over daily...

The 30K number is just my journey... and it was the 5K number and slowly grew...  but the number you have does not matter...  I was stuck...  I was not making any really high volumes of gold, but I had epic flight and could cover raiding costs gems, enchants food etc w/ out a problem.  6 Professions was a convenience and a Save my way to greater wealth...

So the 10 minute gold making project... what does all of this have to do with that... read on (its a longer post, so grab drink if you need)

Friday, May 13, 2011

How to make gold?

Simple question right?

Simple answer?  Farm deadmines with big bags and vendor everything...  everyone loves deadmines anyway... right?

Hmmmm... not the answer you were looking for?  well its a good idea if you have a level 18 toon and your leveling your way into another xmute spec alchy or "enter profession here"  otherwise not so much IMO...

Balance, Balance, Balance, in all things moderation

What am I sudgesting you "balance" to make gold.. after the break

GPH is a LIE... GPT (or PPT) and TPH are the real winners...

So wandering like a Star Trek warrior accross strange new blogs, great unknowns and into new arenas of bloggers... 

GPH IS LIE...

We can all twist math and number by exclusion or terminology to make a case for many things that sound like awesome ideas and later find terrible results... Raw weekly stats over a long time that you can view from Stokpile, show that he does some collection of many little things well...  and has so for a long time.

GPT/PPT and TPH after the cut, the rest of this post is longer than I normally like... just saying go get a drink first...

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Guild advice, and new players, (part 1) change your thinking

I find that the guild has a few player who are around enough and I have actually spoken to from time to time have the age old problem of gold shortages.  How to make the gold to sustain all other areas of game play? and also get the vanity items that i think we all like to get at some level or another.  So how to pass on the advice that they need to achieve those goals... Do something different and do something... but what...  knowledge is power and defeating the stigma of preconceived notions is the first thing to do...

For years the gold short players have often had the same problems.

  • Leveling, questing and raiding to spend money, and not make money...
  • Durring their gaming they are trying to save their way to mountains of gold...
  • Everything they want to do has a cost, (and sometimes a lottery).
  • They do not look at the Oportunity to make money as an integral part of the day to day gaming it is a separate function and a separate activity, therfore it is not gaming, and not fun and hard etc..

Read on after the break..  Sorry the post is longer than I like to normally put up and out there...

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

The AH Raid.

Why Raid the AH.. because its easier than raiding the devs content.  I am not saying raiding is difficult, but it does require a few things that elevate the difficulty.

1. Must multitask (run out of fire AND DPS)
2. Must do homework (some fore knowledge of the encounter)
3. Must get another 9 or 24 players online, at the same time
4. Hope the others came with the same level of knowledge and experience.
5. Maintain a solid connection with your ISP..
6. Must have a PC that can handle the game well enough
7. Addons are pretty much a requirement... IMO... You must have them installed, up to date, and configured to your taste role and stuff... and the more the better IMO untill you reach the saturation point...

AH RAIDING...
1. I dont have to mult task (I have addons)
2. I dont have to do homework (I have addons)
3. I dont need 9 or 24 more players on line at the same time, but i can log my own 9 other toons...
4. Only my own level of knowledge matters
5. The AH will not boot me out of raid and replace me if I get DC'd repeatedly
6. PC caliber does not need to have high end grafics capacity for massive 25 man raiding.. but it is needed for a 'getall' AH scan... decent anyway, and you do need some ram and processing for the the addons YMMV
7. Addons, are... IMO... a requirement to really do well... learning how to use them is pretty important too...

My next big thing to look for is a Snatch tool.. dont run auctioneer, so I need to find an alternative...

that is the big thing for me that would up  my game ATM...

Updates and things... ... ...

Well, I am amazed at how much gold I can spend...  Over 300K in a week..  though the idea is to make more.. and sometimes I worry about how that is going... Essences are on the fall, and though I have kept buying and stockpilining at higher prices, they keep falling to lower prices..   This means that many prices in ZA (ZeroAuctions) are not good, and could be losing me a few sales, AND... infinite dust, I have about 3000 that I piled up at prices about 6G/ea and prices are often 4G and lower now....  then the guessing game of what will Shards do.. I keep buying blues and DEing them to keep in business and have not managed to stockpile any amount of them...  not sure where prices will settle out too, and not sure that they ever will...  prices vary from 40-80G/ea...

All of that means I am swimming in PILES of overpriced mats and thier value keeps falling... the good news is that I do keep selling at a profit...

There are a couple dozen arguments I could make why ZA is a fire and forget, disconnected and unemotional machine....  just checks and balances on it and leave it go.. cancel post... when prices are bad... oh well, when prices are good... well, they are good.. diversify into many areas and as many as you can.. few others will be able to undercut you on wholesale of everything you sell if you get over 100 individual items or more you are selling...  100 is an arbitrary guess and there is no science in that number...  100+ is good, 200 plus individual items is a great start on a "diversified" portfolio of goods...  Still just "gut feel" numbers, but a good ballpark all the same, few players will be in that many markets... just let the stuf go on the 20-50 auctions that DKTARDOHHH has listed and is undercutting you on... If you have your numbers set good... well either they are making liittle or no porfits...  and little is worse than no profits IMO... its all about gold per hour... make a scroll that will sell for 50G profit, or fight in a market for one that will sell 5 times over for 5G/ea profit...... Hmmm, time valuation says I should list 5 different auctions that will sell for 50G/ea profits...  that would be 250G net income... NOT... I SAY NOT fuss over 5 items that sell 5 times over for 5G/ea.. that is only 125G profit.... hmmmm.. stress, heartache, fighting w/ pixels, and much angst... for 125G.. or fire and forget the ZA way for 250.. or better yet.. both... I am all about the disconnected, unemotional ZA way...

So, this blog was really started about the GUILD.. COMMITMENT... yeah, its slow going and slow growing... BUT.. our first real major milestone is just before the second....  We have our first level 85... Grats to that guy...  They are a guild first...  and we are well on our way to level 2 now... 77% of the way to level 2, and there is one more serious mover and player on the way up...

THAT MAY NOT SEEM like a lot, but for a bunch of players that have been level 15 and under from the start of the guild... its a lot...  It will be fun to see what happens with "commitment"

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Big 2 days, 1 week into 4.1

Business wise on the enchanting scrolls it has been busy and big 2 days after the Tuesday reset, 1 week into 4.1  I have spent over 100K in 2 days stockpiling and such, and still made 20K net or more....  huge volume of sales on scrolls, and I think I am the only player in the market from end to end....  A huge out pouring of gold was buying out some piles of scrolls that were at, below and very close to cost of mats.... reseting the markets...  Celestials are running double pre patch costs, dusts have fallen a little, and of course Maelstroms have fallen to less than half, while the Heavenly shards have about trippled...   Took me about 2-3 hours of playing with my auctions to completely re-baseline my ZA to the new mats costs... now I am poised to do 2 things.. Not lose gold on sales (sell below mats costs) and not lose sales b/c my threshold was too high.  Like Power torent will probably never sell at my old threshold again....  but I can still make 500-1000 gold per sale, selling at 3500ish gold.. compared to lowe profits selling at my old threshold of about 6500 gold I think it was.

Tanking is strategy
Healing is art
DPS is science
Raiding is dance
PVP is survival of the fitest

Goblineering..  ITS ALL THAT...

CAN YOU BE A GOBLINeer

WHERE TO START? (A post for entry level AH PVPers)

 Where to start? is the title of Stokpiles post today.  When I commented Kammler and Faid had already chimed in, and reading it provoked enought thoughts to briefly derail my money/gold post I was thinking about.

What do C.S. Lewis and Stephen King have in common? 

They are authors, and they have an audience.. but their material is hugely different, and in many cases so are their readers...

And thats the point, their readers.. they go find the books, and READ THEM... IMO the Non AH players or beginners are not reading on our blogs..

They are not reading ANYTHING about the game unless its happens to catch their eye in guild chat.  Not sure who the post was, but I Know I commented somewhere about "Our" collective Audience...  We, the gold bloggers write about what we do.. by doin that we all have our audience...

BUT SOMETIMES... a new reader will stop buy and be looking for some help that we can and would like to give, but we miss the target due to our content being posted about our day to day events and not how we got started...

To that reader, the NEW GUY, the guy that wants to have mountains and piles and hordes and banks and bags full of gold, or even just enought to not worry about repairs, gems, chants etc... ever...  KEEP READINGOHHH, and my bloggin skills go up one point... I found the "Insert jump break" button
I derail my own conversations with myself, and answer my own questions... and I dont need your help... :-) but would like to see if you can do better... :-)

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

ITS ABOUT THE JOURNEY YOU FIND EN ROUTE TO THE DESTINATION

Stockpile was musing at the way the game changes as you have more gold.  I posted a coment and left the title as a sort of signature...

It was more a passing thought, but, it struck me as I took a look backwards at my own ventures and journey to where my piles of gold have gotten me... its been a lot more fun getting the gold getting bored with that way and doing it different next time....  having a goal of ONE MILLION GOLD is a bit of a lofty goal for most any player...  but the things you do to keep going, keep it fun, do things differents, spend a little, level in style... try different markets, control (or heavy influence in) a maket... that has been a lot of fun.. the getting to a million is not so much going to be any epic moment i think... it will come and go... like your odometer in the car.. when it ticks over 100,000 miles, or even 999,999 miles... is that any significant event?  To me, no so much..  its more about the direction you are going the moment you hit that cardinal point and the memories and miles you have already covered...

Live the moment... and gold/money will not make you happy, but it sure does help pay for the search...

Happy AH Farming and AH PVP and AH raiding....  do your worst and have fun

Almost a 100K week, with one crafter toon.. LW/Ench

Its almost all in perspective, and how you want to view and tweak your numbers...  BUT, I did have a nearly 100K week...

I was at 82K Monday night, and then went stockpiling.  That put me down to about 69K.  I know I had some silly flips on stuff like playing with volatile air..  buy out singles and relist in stacks for a couple gold per profits.  Its amusing and anoying, a patience exercise really. click click click. Postal... click wait, click wait, click wait... repost and wait some more...  Anyway, prolly had about 5K tied up in that amusement...

So I logged on Tuesday after maintenance, and there was 27K waiting on me... by the end of the day... I was up to 56K net on Tues, and 66K gross...

So Monday's 69K, plus the 27K on Tues first logging in, and then the 5K tied up in sillyness... Yeah, thats pretty close to 100K... in a week...  Just found it interesting that I had posted some numbers that high on really nothing but Pets, LW armor kits and leg armors, and scrolls...  not too bad really... I like it...

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Things to start goblining while under level 0XX

There are always a bunch of things you would like to do if you have a bit of spirit.  Most "Goblinish" sorts  are very much inclined to have projects in their head for a time, befor the time presents itself to move forward with action.  Like this blog, is a couple years of reading others, before I started my own.  And the guild that this blog has in focus on one of the kaleidescope lenses was a couple years in the thought process before the action process.

2 projects that i have in mind, and are in all reality related close enough to combine is the idea of seeing how much could be made by a level 1 toon, or level 5.  A toon with no start up cash, new server etc.  It would not be the 10K, 20K, 50K or bigger days and weeks of a player in end game, but the principals are the same.

For instance, how much gold could you make with just crafters. 

MINER: Smelt and sell copper, tin, bronze, iron, steel, mitril?
Jewelcrafting: Mmake low level gear for leveling toon, delicate copper wire. prospect copper, tin, iron
Blacksmith:  Iron belt buckles, bronze darts, low level gear
Engineering:  several widgets and components could be profitable
Leatherworking: Gear, scraps -> leather
Tailoring: Cloth -> bolts of cloth, low level gear
Enchanting: DE for mats, low end enchats
Scribe: Glyphs, Off hands, milling

I personally rerolled completly fresh and was leveling hard and fast w/ and herber/scribe.  9 days to 85, and I already had all the big money purchases, all levels of flight training, max, herbing, scribe and about 10K.  Since I have been leveling several other toons through different professions on this new server and have looked for profitable things all the way up. 

Things I personally did that were profitable at low levels (pre level 35)

scraps to leather
cloth to bolts
pre level 10 and 15 crafted gear

Bank alt can sell pets. and other reciepes, a little more money and you could pay a person or 2 to park a shoping alt at a location, netherstorm pets come to mind.

An interesting proposal to roll an army of alts and set yourself a level cap for the toons.  Then see how much you could make with them...

82K before I went restocking silly, ~70K, and ITS ALWAYS PROFITABLE...

So, I was up 82K on the week last night as I neared a finish a long round of inventory management, crafting,stocking... Not one to really watch the numbers too closely (more on that in a second)  I did go nuts as some of my stocks needed rebuilt and prices were good for doing that...  Abyssal shater. crunched about 100 of them last night, and flipped the dusts since the prices skyrocketed...  will see if any sell befor prices drop back down, eitherway, I got the ACs below my threshold.  I dropped a ton into getting silly with a side project too.  I needed a few Volatile Airs and prices were down about 10% from a pretty steady norm.  they usually sit at 17-18 and dont really move much.  they were down to 15 so I snatched a ton of singles to flip in stacks of 10...  This is where auctionater and postal are amazing...  you can make some great small profits in these markets... couple things to remember though... timing is huge, convenience for others is too.. buy singles and sell stacks... even stacks or 5 or 10 work great, but 50+ do well too.  My problem with this is exit strategys...   That and i went quite nuts on the markets, trying to reset several scolls... I was buying everything below, at and even above current mats costs by a little to get the prices reset.  There were a few scrolls selling at 80 gold below cost, I rest prices to sell at 80G profit.  there are a couple I wish a I had looked up in MySales or Bean counter to see what my sales historty is, I may now be sitting on a ton of scrolls that will just never sell, or take forever... Ehh, hind sight is always 20/20..  Final number for the week was around 70Kish, and a ton of scrolls that were still in the "hour" of wait time.  In the customs warehouse I guess, being taxed for their 5%....

So... Why do I just not worry about the numbers... Well, I do, I Pay it forward and continuously monitor.

First thing. You have to know the market well enough to set a purchase threshold that you can stock up at and maintain your stockpiles.  that will take 1 or more weeks to really know, but your historical scans of the AH should give a lot of insight... (you do scans, right!?)  I use auctionator mainly as my Auction House tool. So this may need modified and you have to know how and where the numbers come from.  Next I buy out everything to my threshold, dust, essence, shards mainly, but volatiles and others play in too...  Now is time to test markets...  Use of lil sparkys workshop....  open crafing menu and look for profitable sales... so (lil sparkys is great here, no set up and no fuss)  Now, I begin to set up ZA at the same time, I create a group for sales, and set the threshold based on what the LSW price is plus 5% for the AH cut.  Now is time for the fallback.  This one is tough.. and YMMV, but you have to have a sense of rarity, and volume, and necessity...  If you go too high, you will lose a lot of sales for that reason, go to low and you will make little unless you have a high volume.  and the necessity of the item...  Is it a luxury item?  or something that is needed....  Nich market considerations also play in, and no one can tell you what your markets will do.  Or what level of success you WILL have...  Only thing you get from others is indicators...

Anyway... once ZA is set, its based on my threshold...  I always buy at and below my threshold....  by buying below, there is profits right there...  there is profits the ZA threshold too...   so really, no matter what I will make gold on every sale... or just wait on the market...  with the 1S deposit of enchanting scrolls... I dont ever even figure that in, but if you are working other markets you need to.

The problem is like now, after the masive shift in mats on the patch day...  I have had to adjust a LOT of numbers in ZA...  In the case of Maelstrom crystals,  I had to lower both my threshold and my fallback...
They were both too high... So much so that 2 things were happening...  One... I was no longer undercutting...  Like my fallback was 3500G, and the mats cost has fallen below 2000...  Second I was posting so high as for the price to be so unatractive that buys would get a crafter and wait... I would...  most of the players that are going for these enchants know the cost and mats roughly,  and when the cost is about 3-5K for the mats and the scroll is listed at 8K... yeah, I will buy the mats and bark for a crafter in trade or look for a barking crafter. 

The second big group of adjustments I have been making is in the Celestial essence recipies.  CEs have shifted in price up, about 10G.  Thats pretty huge on some chanting formulas....  Now this is where LSW works again...

LSW as I am about to craft to restock... tells me if it is still profitable...  and by how much... now I can do something... go actually look at the AH, and buy out the 2 scrolls that ar 50% low... flippin profit there... or not craft and let the market come back..  and double check in ZA and LSW numbers for problems, inconsistencies or adjustments to be made.

Okay, I hate reading long posts.... and this one is too long already... dun...

Monday, May 2, 2011

Formula: Runed Arcanite Rod

So, I repeatedly went back to the vendor in Moonglade for that thing... Not there.. ever... so I went to the trainer on a lowbie enchanter that does not have it yet and there it is... gahhh... now available at the trainer.. no reason to have that toon camped up there i guess...

however, I can say it has been a great week of sales in enchanting scrolls...  The patch and new gear...
It is really hard to get mats though... the GCelestials and Heavenly shards prices are all over the place...  its a bit hard to keep stocks for the GCEs mainly as I raised my threshold from 22G to 30ishs.. and they spike to 45Gold +  same with the shards spikeing to 3-500%.... Oh well, Still profitable,  and hugely so at that, just scrolls are turning over at 100+ scrolls/day at rate of 15-30K+ in gross sales...  daily... thats fun...

On a "THE GAME HATES ME!!!!!!!!" note... I got me 4th Canopic Jar, and my 4th Mumified Organ... /screeeeeeeem and  "@#%@#$%@#$%ing archaeology