Simply Amusing

Simple things are enjoyable.

Simple things like taking lazy and gullible peoples golden pixels from their account to mine.

So much so that if I was to play this game more regularly, and gold making more important than all the other amusing things I do, I would almost certainly change my raid schedule.  I would raid on the weekends, just because the gold potential on Tues, Wednesday and Thursday is crazy.  Like 280K in sales on one Tues evening.  Granted it is a large pop server, and I had to babysit the AH to undercut all the other under cutters to make those kinds of sales, but what would it have been if I had not gone into a raid zone for a couple hours, and been able to keep undercutting and reposting... I did goof too, since I forgot to post more than TSM is set to post, and I sold out of some stuff in the AH.  OOPS sales missed there.  The crazy thing, I am only really selling... about 7 things (and miscellaneous stuff explained below). OVER AND OVER AND OVER and controlling and influencing markets, and buying things out to reset the markets and such, I think it’s great fun.

It paid for all of the new panther mounts... red and blue and green and yellow and ONYX... and 96K for a brawlers guild pass...

So, in the beginning I said simple.  Yep,  7 things.  I have watched and controlled markets for the last week to set myself up for monster AH games on Tues night... I suppose of the 280K, I would have to admit that bored between other activities, I probably sold a bit over 5K in gems... no market mass involvement, just taking some gems from prospecting, and cutting 2 of the most profitable cut(s) and posting those only. 

I was using the same technique I just taught someone else to use and they have been so happy to actually make gold.  She wants more pets.  There is a simple way to make decent little bits of gold with low risk and little time.  You just have to know how to use auctionator.

1. Open auctionator

2. Click "buy" tab

3. "Shift" Click uncut gem from JC book or bags

4. Compare cut prices against uncut prices and cut and post (shift click the cut gems from your bag) the profitable ones, I go for 2 each usually of the most profitable cuts. 

***This does require some cancel reposting though.  Good for in between LFR, LFD, pet battles, daily hubs etc.***

5. 15-30 minutes after posting return to AH, and click "more" tab on auctionator click "check for undercuts"

6. Cancel all undercut auctions

7. Repost, rescan and watch for goblins that are undercutting by 20, 30, or 50 gold.  In my experience you can just repost the gems, and cash out quick even if some are not a big profit.  You still recover most of you cost and the other sales you profit off of will make up for it since you are only posting the most profitable cuts.

8. Rinse and repeat

Simple 5 minutes or so at a time, and always profitable on my server.

PHASE II of this plan and PHASE III of becoming a real gold goblin. Though they are not really approachable in the first couple weeks.  Above is simple foundation that IMO is REQUIRED by manually affecting your auctions you learn the nature of your server, if you pay attention, through the AH.  You may find lots of PVP cuts and sales, or very few.  Or almost exclusively PVE cuts of gems are profitable.  It will let you find the bad ones too.  As well as learning the volume of sales your server will support and finnally the activity and nature of competition.

PHASE II,  This would mainly be to use an add-on or a spreadsheet to track sales.  Know what cuts are higher volume and higher profit sales, and adjust your posting accordingly.  Instead of just 2 maybe some cuts get 3-5 each time you post.

PHASE III, You are entering the higher speed, higher volume, higher initial time investment, higher profit world of TSM.  Set up TSM with crafting ques? posting ques? (Definately the most valuable IMO) or other things I am sure it will do.  All I have done with TSM is use the posting groups.  For me it simply replaced Zero Auctions.

Anyway, I have cut back on my blanket approach to gold making that made me my first million and gone for a small niche market that is fun and amusing,  as well as highly profitable.  Though if you don’t know or realize the 280K one night sales... yeah that means I have around 200-300K in capital investment and risk.  By risk I suggest that if my market was flasks and I had massive investments in golden lotus and such... I would likely lose around 50% of my investment if I could not detect the change early and unload within a couple days.  Watch, the new farm growing rates of herbs that proc golden lotus, I fully suspect with in 1-2 weeks flask prices will be 30-50% of their previous (pre 5.1) values.

Every time someone buys one of my auctions, I enjoy the game at their expense.  Does that make me a bad person or a good goblin? Or something totally different

Daily quests

Daily quests seem to consume the majority of my time.  As far as gold making or blogging, there has been little time for it.

I can attest to the apparent relief that exists after hitting revered with Golden Lotus.  I stopped doing their dailies with intentions of coming back to them at a later time when the CRUSH dies down, and there are not 20-40 people stacked up on the quest givers or fighting for tags and such.  I moved on to Shado Pan and August Celestials.  Fewer quests, they are different and they give you more than 100 Rep per quest turn in.  It feels easier.  I quit doing all but one daily with the tillers, the one that comes from one of the masters of a way, their quest gives one Ironpaw token, and if I just turned that into a soy sauce and sold it, it would be a 500 gold daily.  I hit exalted so plant 16 songbells daily, for another 700 gold average potential if I was just picking the motes of harmony and flipping that to Golden Lotus for flasks.  The rest are just painful, and not fun, I am also still turning in on most days the favorite dishes to the last 3 tillers that I am not best friends with.  Other amusements have included a 9 hour camp of the Ghostly Pandaren Fisherman,  I posted on that at El’s in the forum about the Ancient Pandaren Fishing Charm.  It amused me, and for no other reason.  I was able to catch a lot of fish while there, which helped me get the Ironpaw tokens via the repeatable quest and get Master Of the Ways and both the Pandaren Feast and the Great Pandaren Feast.  I caught enough fish that I had to log a second account and run over with empty bags and trade the 20-30 stacks of fish twice.  I have reached exalted with the Anglers, the mount is going to be fun on low level alts, and the animation when you press the space bar “jump” key is fun… So another set of dailies I can skip.  Cloud Serpent dailies, exalted there too and not doing them for now either.  Klaxxi is revered too, and the run to exalted with them is also waiting on the rep change.  If they do change revered to exalted to double rep,  I like it, and will wait and see how it pans out.

Alts, Every one of them is bassed out there at half hill and has a 4 plot farm of their own.  One, the farmer has leveled a bit, done some quests and bit of farming, up to 87, but the amount of time to level another toon is just not there, or at least not the time combined with the desire.  I have started a Monk and with full heirlooms I have leveled up to 26, Its crazy fast with all the bonus XP granting gear and guild perk.  Personally, I really like the monk class.  I will play with all 3 specs leveling, I have a full set of agility gear, and caster gear, weapons, trinkets (2ea), shoulders, head, back, chest, legs.  Several of the alt have capped professions too, inscription, and alchemy and burning the daily CDs when I go farming on them.

Raiding, I like the encounters and the new challenges associated with MSV, lots of fun in there.  Another reason for less Auction house action is prepping for that, getting gear, getting rep vendors open with dailies, and since I lead the raid and just upped from leading a 10 to a 25 man group, its lots more work on the front to set up.  But the challenges associated with a 25 man group were great fun, I enjoyed the depth and the change even though our first 25 man run last night was a pretty rough start, and we did not down anything, it was rewarding in its own that some people paid kind compliments of simply having fun, and others enjoyed the changes to having a challenge and others appreciated the way I lead a raid.  Though others did not appreciate  the raid experience since they ninja dropped the group, but, that is always bound to happen.

On gold making, I have not even tried hard to get into a machine or process to play the AH.  So many things are still volatile in markets and the only low risk high profit things available are only briefly in the market.  With some of the changes out there, like the ease of farming things, the availability of mats and such,  On time turn over is probably the best strategy.  Example would be to use TUMJ and the market tabs for enchants and JC cuts to look for profitable markets and focus on a buy > craft > flip business plan.  My personal past strategies have revolved around 1 week turn over plans, or even longer, and playing averages.  People are still just getting to level 90, or even still leveling their first to 90.  Still leveling professions, alts adding more volatility to markets, and  I just don’t have the time or care to go for it with the same level of enthusiasm I previously had.  Though I am still a shrewd seller and by no means am I trying to lose gold.  I just don’t have a daily business plan.

Things I have done?  Early on, I was buying spirit dust and upgrading it to essences, cost was 75 gold per essence to craft and I was selling them at 150-200.  There was a couple Thousand easy gold made there.  I have also looked at certain JC markets, buy and craft cuts that are profitable, this is easily done with auctioneer.  Just alt + click the raw gem in your bag and see what can be cut for profits.  For example blue spirit gems were about 75% profit margin and would more than cover the deposit costs to boot.  Craft 10 > post > walk away > tomorrow=profit. 

Overall, I love the expac, there are however 3 things that I am not liking.   Dailies, the removal of “have group will travel” and the nerf to “the quick and the dead.”  That I guess is a pretty short list of peeves. 

Enjoy the markets, enjoy the game, and good luck in your pursuits.

85 to N Madness in 5 days???

So, I leveled the farmer toon to level 85, the herber miner guy and got some HOT gear and couple Valor pieces and crafted items to help on the way... it was I think 5days later that I crushed normal madness... Is it the nerfs? or the content? or the current gearing capacity... of the instances?  It just really seams odd that the shift from BC attunements and raid tiers to and months to actually get to a progression level is now where it is... It took me 5 days I think and it took a guidee and fellow raider 3 days to go from ding 85 to a full normal clear in DS? 

So does this have anything to do with making gold... YES!!! I said purchased gear, I said valor gear and such.. these things are still in high demand... People are clearing DS in one night... instead of 3 nights of progression, there is a lot more time for alts, and then gearing them up and such and the crafted gear, gems and enchants, well that all points to markets you may be able to get into. 

I can only guess however that on smaller realms, this may not be the case at all as its guild raid or no raid.  I can pug 5 toons a week into DS and HM DS runs all week long.  From Tues to Monday... I am good to go,   Some times some toons are going to be harder than other to get a run for, however, others are not a problem at all.  If you have DPS OS on a tank or healer, your in with only short waits in trade chat. Again this can echo of my last post that, consistently doing what you have been doing is likely to continue to realize profits.  Looking for the next best thing is fun and exciting in the AH game, I love doing it, but it was the slow and steady that made the lions share of my gold stocks..

Playing the game in a new way will teach you as much as reading any blog.  Dont PVP? Go PVP and find a new crowd to cater to.  Never twinked a toon? Go twink a toon and find more markets.  Never power leveled a toon with the best gear and chants and gems gold can buy?  Go power level a toon and see just what is potentially in that market? the same could be said for pet collections, mount collections, raiding, casuals, dungeon players that dont raid and many many more examples could be found.  These are the things that taught me the most about markets... Cause when I go pissed about prices for gems and chants and figured out the cost of ORE was X, and the cost of gems was X to the factor of 75% valuation of gems and a profit margin, then to the cut gems and the crafted jewelry and finally enchant mats and more... 1000 gold in in ore, could be processed into 3,000-5,000 gold in finished mats... and that 1800gold scroll of enchant awesomeness was really only about 600 or so in mats and some time to process the goods and make it up... :-0  thats prety good, 1,000 gold profit for one scroll of enchant awesomeness.. its not always tha big of a gold value or even percentage value, but it is the norm...

Good luck and dont jump the ship you are sailing if its making you gold and go on the party cruise, untill you have tested the water and proven that it will be a profitable business model.

ITS COMMING, ITS COMMING!!! CHANGE EVERYTHING!!! or don't.

Long title but ehh.. I was thinking of something along the lines of American History and Paul Revere.  "THE REDCOATS ARE COMMING!!! THE RED COATS ARE COMMING!!!"  It probalby sounded better in my head.

Lots of good advice out there in the blogosphere... don't think I am not reading other blogs and getting many great ideas, deep insight and thoughts to consider in my plans...  But its still speculation largely...
Ex:  Pets battles and pet sales: "BUY PETS" was a recomendation  based on speculation, now its changed and current status on the beta has caused some apparent panic and "SELL PETS" recomendations are floating around... Again this is also based again more speculation... IMO...  A lot of people spend a lot of time trying to catch the next big wave, instead of just catching and riding a little one for a lot long.  Short burst markets and profits, or long lasting steady markets that will net you a lot more in the long run.

I will be playing in some pet markets.. for fun and profit, but, it will not be any major focus of my efforts...

If you are newer to markets and looking for a bit of starter cash... I think this could be a great and fun way to invest some time and make some gold... I think it will be popular as a gold making method, since pet battles are going to be a LOT more fun than millin herbs or prospecting ore, there in is the problem... how much is your time worth and what are your goal.

MOP IS COMMIN... MOP IS COMMING.. really we already knew that, now we know when, exactly, big deal...
however some posts have suggested in some ways and at various levels, "CHANGE EVERYTHING, THE WORLD IS BEING REBORN".  Okay, a little bit of writers liberty and maybe a bit of a large statement.. However, the point is that really, NOTHING IS CHANGING... just keep doing what you do..

Slow and steady has been the way everyone with a million gold got it... Even my 100K/day for 14 days... avg... 1.4 Million in 14 days run was not an overnight thing.. that was the end of MONTHS of planning and stocking up, and about a year of experience in markets, with back up spreadsheets with good info that still worked when the addons broke...

So, if you think that that the current buzz about the release date and all the changes and blue posts about pet battles is where you should focus... go for it.  IMO if thats where the buzz is though, thats where the market will be a bit rougher... just by overpopulation and the excitement of "NEW" these markets are going IMO to be marginal at best for most players in them...

My plan, change and tweak a little here and a little there, but otherwise do the same thing I always did... Look for markets to turn time into money.  Make patience pay dividends.  Gather, Mill, Prospect, Process, Craft... all of these things take time.   Which one will make you the most money for the time invested or be the most tollerable activity to do... and often a combination is the biggest win.  If you are willing to gather Prospect the ore to gems, and craft the gems to cut gems or jewlery, then disenchant or sell the rings, and then craft scrolls with the mats... Well that game might change a little, but I really think it will be the same too.

Basically, if you are Freaking out now... well, you need to relax and realize its happened before

If your looking for the next quick million, well that is not likely to come from the hype either...

Pick a market, or group of markets.  Pick your priorities and stick with it... I did not say pick a profit margin, because that will fluctuate.  As your market gets more profitable, it will get more attractive, and then there will be more competition, and then there will be less or little profit, but then people will look for the next best thing and move on.. and then the prices rebound and your back in the money.  The trick is IMO to keep your prices from being to unreasonable for your time.  higher prices will attract more people... For instance I never looked for more than about 250gold profit on any one enchant scroll... That is profit margin in my fall back price and my buy thresholds.   I made more often since I often got mats at lower than calculated costs...  Example market for maelstrom crystals is 150 gold... I buy at below 150 only.  but use 150 gold in my minimum sell price.  However on busy nights for Heroics or raids w/ lots of gear being DE'd... The marke would get flooded and drive prices to 100, 110, 120... and I would buy them all often times.  The other thing this does is figure in the cost of AH fees and deposits... also the reason I love Enchanting... VERY VERY low AH deposit costs...  I would have to repost something 100 times to lose one single gold in AH deposit costs... :-)

What will be your strategy in this poker game... the table is being set and the chips and cards are being passed around...

Goals and progress update

Starting with just a run down on what I remember my goals to be and how I am doing on them before I review my own old post and see how my memory serves compared to what I set as goals previously.

Goals, status, progress
- Level a warlock tailor/engineer --- pretty good to go, level 84 and maxed out tailoring and engineering...
- Level a farmer toon tauren druid miner/herber --- Pretty good here too, at level 76 I completely quit questing (almost, just enough to open FPs and portals to hyjal/vaj'ir)  I am now 83 and it has all been gathering rocks and flowers... well, not quite all XP, discovery in zones and a random convenience quest here and there too...
- Load up and learn TSM --- so far a complete bust, however, my motivation is growing considerably, I am investing a lot of gold into stocks for mists... much of my leveling goals are nearing an end and my interest in gold making is returning...
- Make some bankers, done, I have 7 more bank alts now.. though some still need their guilds created...
- Merge battle net acounts for security and authenticator on second account etc...  - Done...
- Continue Raiding --- still raiding
- Get in the beta and goof around --- Been there, done that, ran a monk up to 90 and ran around a bit... I may switch my main from drood to monk, I like em...
some of it is likely rather foolishly invested, but it amuses me to do it and then wait and see... Its not like having a few thousand pyrite bars bought cheap is a bad investmetn, its just not likely that it will make me 500% profits either... however, its not likely it will completely LOSE value either, so I may make some gold, or at least recoup it as long as I have the patience to offload it slowly.

All in all, Some big tickets that I was working toward are nearing completion,  leveling a couple toons and professions and stocking up and raiding and catching the wind when it blows in an interesting direction...  

Recent lessons relearned.  Really I got to be a pretty big slacker for a while, lots of habits started to fall to the wayside, and are now coming back... and the importance is coming back too... Here are some lessons I have relearned.

- I love LSW (Lil' Sparkys Workshop)  Especially when leveling professions... It may cost you 2 times as much to get a point, but you can sell the end product for profit or DE it to a smaller loss than other options... and you can find new nich markets to play at.  Example: Getting every single point you can out of crafting bags while leveling a tailor could take more materials to get the points when it is green, like 5 gold in mats 4 times over to create 4 bags that sell for about 4-6 gold, the bags sell on the AH at cost or very close to cost... you get your money back VS. 10 gold in mats invested for one pair of bracers that give one point, those bracers can realistically only be DE'd for 2.5 gold (AH market is flooded and selling for 2.5 gold)
the first example you lose 4 gold if you are impatient and dump you goods in the AH, and possibly make a few gold if you are patient to catch the market.  In the second example you lose 7.5 gold... Lil Sparky's Workshop.. can cut the cost of leveling a profession... I would go so far as to say cut the cost in HALF or more and if you find and work those nich markets... it will even pay for itself.. LSW... Love that addon

- LSW is only as good as the data it uses.... SCAN YOUR AH DAILY at least once a day if you log on.  if you data is junk, LSW is too..

- Manually posting Auctions is going take a lot of time, and I always am forgeting the prices of what it cost me to craft something.. this couple tailored item in my nich markets and those couple LW items crafted on another toon for a couple more nich markets and then a couple more engi items a  couple BS items and eventually you are easily going to be listing 20-30? 50? or more items in nich markets... fun items that sell slowly, but regularly with high profit margins, and worth keeping one on the AH all the time.. Well when you forget what it costs to make em, and some one else is offloading some goods for cheap??? well TSM is in my horizon... I need to get the auto posting just for speed and price accuracy... even with only 10-20 nich market items.. I still do not want to sell at a loss and its starting to take a lot of time to do it manually.  Part of my problem is using a posting toon.  I make 12 items at a time on the tailor/engi/bs or such... 12 per mailing and then use the mailbox on the poster to store them... :-)  it cuts down my crafting times... Make 10-20 at once one every 2-4 weeks, or log on and make 2-3 every couple days... I prefer mass production and advance stocks.

-Management ---You have to manage stock, inventory, crafting ques, costs, profit margins, time invested, mats finished goods, intermediate secondary market goods, store all that and keep it posted on the AH at profitable prices... This is where people fail,  That is a lot to do and its a job to do it... Really it is... I think most dont enjoy that job and are not interested and consistent enough to realize the results of slow and steady production result in bigger and bigger mounds of cash, the problem for some is... what to spend a million gold on? YAKS AND PATHERS AND BOEs!!! OH MY!!!

Looking forward to Mists, Lots of changes, but overall it looks good... I have not spent

Stuff, Status, Progress

My last post was an evaluation of personal goals and where they have shifted to, and my progress on them if I have indeed maintained the goal.

Mostly it revoled around preps for Pandaland release.

My single most flexible goald is currently which toons to level first and fastest, as well as what grinds for rep and such to start first etc.

leveling 1-90 a new Monk is likely not realistic given my robust plans to invest a lot of time in gold making.

First I called, and called, and called again, then called the next day a few more time to finally get in the Account services que w/ Blizz.  They were able to merge my to active wow accounts and put them under one battle.net account since I created the second one for my kids, it is in the same last name, and same billing address, as well as all the the personal questions I was able to give them the correct answers too for verification purposes.  As far as security goes, they seem to do a really good job.

What that did is get my new 7 bank alts on an account with an authenticator... So getting them going with more bags and storage stuff, good to go.  Most now have the 11 bags of the biggest size set up.  I went with the smaller 20 slot vendor Jewel bags for now, since the 36 slot ones are pretty spendy.  And leveling tailoring, I will just wait to get the cloth guy set up with more bags till I actually can make my own.

Gentle leveling efforts on the tailor engineer and the farmer toon Miner/herber continue, with a recent push on the professions for the tailor engineer.

The second thing the account merge did is get me 20 toons that on 2 accounts that can instant mail each other.  Before I had a 1 hour wait for mail between accounts unless they were in the same guild with the guild perk.

The last thing it did is give me access to my mountain of heirlooms on the second account.  It has been noticably slower leveling with out that 35% xp from the heirlooms or the trinkets/weapons on the farmer toon.

So, I got a new bug in my bum, and finally logged on, updated and got into the Beta... Made a couple premade toons, rather than copying a toon over.. and it has been good.  I have spent most of my time on a monk.  Okay, all of it except taking the quest on a druid to get to level 86... I leveled a new monk to level 5 or 6, that was fun and I will finish that up some time.  But most of my time has been going through most of the available leveling quests in the zones, valley of four winds, karasong wilds, kun lai summit, towlong woods.  Probably misspelled that.  I can say for me the monk is a blast.  I has been like when I went from wrath Pally tank to wrath Warrior tank.  As a pally tank I had the 9-6-9 rotation and a few other CDs for a total of like 9-12 abilitys to use routinely, with a core group of abilities in a rotation being like 5 abilities.  Then the warrior had like. 18-20 abilities to use, and more like 8-10 abilities in a core rotation... abilities that stacked and and buffed and played together and off of each other...  I fell in love with the active playstyle of warrior tanking.  The demand for active tracking self buffs and debuffs and cool downs and on the debuffs and times and rage and stuff on the target too... It was just soo much more inter-active and I loved it.  Later I found I really like the rogue resource tracking, and combo points and management of buffs and debuffs and such, timers on SnD, Rupture, energy, CPs, CDs line it all up and AWESOME.

 Now the Monk has brought that back both of them in one with some exciting changes and interaction and play... From what I did, which is level windwalker DPS from 86 to 89, I found that the DPS spec is reasonably simple to pull off decently though to maximize it will be a new challenge of managing resources, CDs, self buffs and such... its going to be cool.. there will be a lot of good/average windwalkers and a very elite few that do amazing.  At 89 I switched to Brewmaster (tank) and really struggled on my own to figure out what my prioritys are.  I did no reading out of game just  the tool tips ands such... Also with out addons its even tougher.  Tanking, is going to have an even bigger delta... there are going to be a lot of average to poor tanks and some really really bad ones, and then there are going to be the amazingly good ones... Like I mean they in the good controls of good players going to get the class/spec nerfed, and further amplify the problems with the average to poor remainders... You goin in with leather armor and a flat 25% dmg reduction.  So you go in pretty squishy, then buff yourself for an additional 20% parry, and often buff yourself for another 30% dodge, but not sustainable, its like a mini CD, then all the dmg does not hit you right off w/ stagger, you only take 70% now and stagger the remaing 30%, buffed by mastery over the next 10 second, then you got DPS moved that buff a potentially big self bubble, and self heals buffed by that bubble and then dmg CDs and then Raid CDs and the ox statue that does stuff and more stuff and OMG I am loving how much you can do... And its good... that was most of last weekend... leveling on the Beta... I like monks...

I will likely level and raid one on live and it may even become my main. 

... Good hunting in the gold mine...

WOW time slips through your fingers like sand

Okay, anyone else feeling that gut punch asking, "Will you be ready for MOP?"

I kinda got it in the last couple days, that swift kick in the attention getter that begs the question, "Am I ready? Am I going to be ready?"

The catalyst is the announcement that Beta Raid testing is comming up, and I have not been on, and I have not leveled a toon and I want to got check out the new raid, get some first hand idea of whats up.  That even just put it in place how far away MOP could be.  And how I am spending time and what productive thing have fallen to the wayside in favor of other interests. 

I am not way behind, but here are the things I am set out to do, and where I am with getting set up.
-Level a tailor engineer bank alt - gone from in the 40s to 68 atm and power leveling profs for NR.
-Level a farmer on a second account - going well, and in the mid 70s, but stopped since that account is not on an authenticator, and because it is not UG'd to Cata.
-Learn to use TSM.  Have not even started this task... who knows, maybe TSM goes away in MOP and is replaced.  Since I am not running markets, its a mixed bag
-Continue raiding - This goes well, My main is RL in a 5 hrs/week group. tues and thurs for 2 1/2 hours each,  Semi casual, and we just knocked off our 5th HM, now its into the painful run on the last 3...
-I still have 5 DS HM capable toons and run in pug or am the RL running pugs a couple times a week...

Things I added in:
-Doing dailies in TB for various reason, #1 being the trinket "Mirror of broken images"  Its still very useful for the lightning phase on hagara, and potentially on Warmaster too..
-Running most of the toons in Kara for the mount... its just a short fligh really, but it does take time
-Running the fishing contests - I won the Booty Bay contest last weekend BTW...
-Making more bank alts - I made a post on those girls, 7 level one blood elfs all got ported to Dal for a base of operations.  A couple got set up with 11 starter profession bags... some still need bags to get a boost, and each of them could certainly stand to get a guild bank tab or 2 going, though they are also on the non authenticator account, so I am being a little slow about setting that up too much.
-Lastly a growing urge to spend some time in the Beta and be more familiar with some parts and mechanics before it actually releases...

The remaining things to do, and the question of do I have enough time to do it all?
- Merge battle net accounts if I can and get an authenticator or the second if need be
- Level the farmer, Taruren druid miner/herber to 85
- Level the tailor engineer and the professions
- Finish setting up the bank alt and guild banks and such so things are more organized for future use... Or in some cases abuse
- Play and level on the beta to raid and be familiar with the heroic dugeons
- Continue raiding with the main group and couple times a week on the alts...
- Build good stockpiles for MOP

It just seems as my attention is spread out more and more, sometimes, I question rather or not I will get it all done and build the stocks and such and be ready in a way I will be happy with for MOP... time will tell, but at least now, having thought through it, I am pretty sure I have a much clearer way forward on how to get it mostly done.

Have a great weekend

Maybe you can guess why FBE!!

FBE = Femal Blood Elf
I made 7 of them, different classes for w/e reason.  I have a second account that is "my wifes" that she never plays.  So this is not an option for everyone.  But it was the begining of action, rebounding from my thoughts I put out in my last post. 

So with seven new bank alts out in eversong woods, the question was next where to home base them.  For now its Dalarn.  I dual boxed my main account and summoned 4 of them straight out of ESW to dalaran.  2 hour cooldown left me waiting to get the other 3 move into my new business hub.  I chose Dal because I like the City.  Cowtown in Org is likely more efficient, but mehh... The next steps are in progress.  It takes about 115 gold to get all 7 bank tabs of the toons personal bank.  So getting each one that starting capitol is foremost.  I got a crafter for 11 each of the LW crafted scribe satchels and Mining satchels.  36 slots each.  boom...  Off to  a good start. I have an LW that I was going to do the Molten front dailies on myself, but ughhh... I just spammed trade for a couple minutes and got a nice reaction from the crafter when I tipped them 1500 gold for the 22 bags they made.  They said they were expecting like "10 gold".  I said its for doing the dailies.  Molten front dailies are still a really mean grinde... really mean.  1500 gold tip... ehh

 I cleaned out the AH of the 3 listed 36 slot chanting bags and will watch and finish getting the other 8 or those I want for this enterprise as well as the others.   Thats where I got to on bags, so more summoning and trading starter cash for those guys, and finish getting the bags all lined up.  Hmmm, just thinking, there is no "tailor" profession bags.  Grrr.  Thats going to be expensive for the 26 slot regular bags.

Also I came up with fun names for the girls... The cloth storage toon is a mage "dressmeup", the others have fun names, I forget some at the moment, but was surprised that my ink storage toon got the name "Tatoo".  "Orewhat" for the Ore bank... "Skinsrshirts" for the leather banker, "Flowersforme" the herb bank.  Why all this? because it amuses me and I hope to make a lot of gold... The next considerations will be to figure out if I want to start guild banks on each one, it will be a pretty big time investment to get the 7 guild charters signed, but not too expensive for the first couple g-bank tabs.  its the last couple that the gold valuation has to come in.  But the simplicity of having a banker toon for each main type of material?  good to go, well worth it for the ease of finding stuff.  And not too bad for relisting stuff on the AH.  I guess with leather, ore, herbs, cloth, ink, jems, chanting mats all on separate toons the only thing I could still benefit from would be a place for elementals? and pets? if I was to get into those markets again.  However, I think I will keep those going into my current banks.

Simplicity and organization are key with the use of addons, records and spreadsheets to making lots of gold sometimes.  Being able to find your goods to sell and still list them for good profits even when addons go broke in the days following patches.  These toons are the "find stuff" part, and Spreadsheets will have the prices of goods listed that I bought at to look for good spikes in demand/price to sell them off at.  Nominally, I am hoping to sell things at a 100% markup... or double my money... I could lose a lot by unloading my goods to early at that profit margin, but to wait and gamble could also mean I miss the wave of  demand/price spike before the market reacts and people start flooding the market...  AOE looting is going to impact this... some things are going to be much easier to farm and so the prices will not hold.  the limit will be the size of storage bags.  Example in particular, is I would expect most types of cloth to only see a brief spike in price as the instance one pull -> AOE loot -> run out -> reset -> repeat will become popular for a lot of cloth.  Probably the less valuable of all comodities in time.  However bolts take time to craft, so cloth to bolts could become a "time is money" strategy to making gold. 

Good luck, and good hunting

How much is an investment worth

What is the value of a Guild bank for storage?  Its a pretty hefty investment of time and gold to get a guild bank unless you are looking for one in trade casually.  Often people want more for the g-bank than it is worth IMO.  But I continue to look for one.  I am just out of space for some of my stock piles in the 2 I already have.  Part of my problem is the packrat tendancies I can not get over, and sometimes it pays off.  I sold one fish the other day for 500 gold... One old BC era fish for the cooking achieve to some guy.  He posted in trade, I moused over it and saw through altoholic that I had 5 of them in a bank... Logged over, one fish and 500 gold.  But that is so rare. 

Why do I want more bank space, well, inflation.  I would like to have one Gbank for each of the following, cloth, jems, ore/bars, chant mats, and leather.  So overall 5 guilds.  It would make some organization really easy.  Who to mail stuff to? answered, name the bank alts would be something like, "Tuxedo" for the cloth, "Jewler" for the gems, "Ironworks" for the ore/stones, "Dusty" for the enchanter, and "Tanner" for the leather.

The idea would be that I could fill up a full tab with dust from BC another with Dust from wrath and antother with lower level stuff and and another with essences or take your pick (chanter rods?)  and the same with leather and heavy leather... Then each of those bankers would have the biggest profession bags possible for more storage in the bags and personnal bank... Think abou that for a second.  7 36 slot enchanting bags in the bank, and 4 more in the bag slots and the 16 slot default backpack.  If my head math is correct that is 412 storage slots in bags and bank, plus 6x98 guild bank tabs for 588 more storage slots.  So, about 1000, stacks of itmes per banker toon potentially.  Of course lower in the professions that dont have a 36 slot profession bag like LW, 28 is the biggest that I know of currently...  but still over 900 stacks of lether bought now at low prices and then sell later to the leveling profession grinders power levelers. 

Really, look at the number of frostweave required to powere level tailoring  or the amount of borean, heavy borean leather etc to power level a profession... then take that number and compare it to the number available in the AH... its pretty interesting, you might find stockpiling strategy gems on where the demand is going to be high, and the supply is going to be low.

The guessing part of the game is this.  What professions are people going to go with?  JC, enchanting and leatherworking are my guesses right now.  Consider how many people will be trying to power level those professions in MOP and what the supply of mats will be.

Good luck in your stocking plans...

Still here

Just saying I am still around, there is just so little at the moment I have to write about in the blog.

there is a gold making tip at the bottom...

Lately, I have been mostly leveling alts, and playing with various other ventures of amusement.  I started doing the Dalaran fishing daily on 4 toons for the waterlogged recipe.  I awards 5 cooking tokens and will get me my chefs hat sooner.  Why a chefs hat? not really sure, but I am going for it, and slowly leveling fishin on several toons, something I have not done yet.  Additionally, I am leveling fising on a toon here and there in the fishing tournaments. 

I run my snatch list routinely to snatch some ites for stockpiles, and sell off excess drops of greens and other items from time to time.  I saw someone selling sands of time for 700gold each and bought 200... there have been people selling vial of sands for 23-24K lately, but I think when MOP launches that will dry up.  The server I am on is one of the highest hoard pop PVE servers in the US.  So as we wait for MOP, player bases diminish, and players take breaks or spend more time in D3, I think there are a lot of people attracted to this server and the surpluss of cheap sand is from that. At least that is what I am hoping.  I am hoping people brought stacks of sand from an old server to move gold above the 50K limit and not that there is a bug somewhere...

The Darkmoon fair is in town, so capitalizing on that for somr profession points on toons too, though its not that big a deal either really.  I can confirm however that fishing the islands waters for the debris pools is a great way to farm cloth.  Things to consider if you want to check it out.  look up where the pools spawn before hand and plan a route.  there are some islands that have spawns around them and some that dont.  Pools are really spread out, so you will spend a lot of time running.  There is only one or two catches of stuff before the pool is fished out.  If you like fishing a bit, its a good investment of time IMO in short doses.  Potions of water walking are great for running around too, and will cut down on time.  some parts of the island are cliffs to the water so you either have to swim or ride/run w/ water walking.  DKs would be a good choice, if you have one.  Even if your fishing is dismally low, its a guaranteed catch...

I also managed to finally get HM Warlord Zon'oz last week and will be going to HM Hagara this week if the whole group makes it.  IMO, its a good balance of a group.  We only raid 2 nights/week and only for about 2 1/2 hours each night... its slower on progression, but few have hit the burn out stage either and really started talking about quiting or taking a break due to raid schedules.  Our progress is hampered since we do not have any bench players, and when we dont have everyone there we end up pugging and changing our plans for the evening.  It happens a fair bit, someone has to travel for business, or gets a shot at some overtime at work and does not make it.  Thats cool, I would rather raid with them, on our schedule than some of the options of building a raid group around serious progression.  Though progression times can be really rough, and hard when it takes a couple weeks to get a boss down, we earned it on our own and do enjoy the times we have.

As far as gold making, not doing any right now.  Just spending on stockpiles... and goofing off. 

I will say this as a gold tip, and it changes some of my strategy on a couple levels for MOP... Scribes and inscription.  Shoulder enhancements are going to be a scribe crafted item in MOP.  This will make scribes more popular and could impact the potential for glyphs in a negative way.  Or it could be that if you already have a leveled scribe, and have learned all the glyphs it might be monster profession.  As always servers and markets will vary, but a scribe will probably be a bit higher on my priority list for leveling now.  I think I am also going to start stocking up on a lot of inks since my scribe already knows all the current glyphs.  More to follow in this market.  It may also make inscription a more popular profession to level  a new panda or monk with.  JC, inscription and Leatherworking, not necessarily in that order will I think be the most popular professions on the new toons, and enchanting may be in that list too.  Having mats for those toons to level their profession in stockpiles... that could be a great way to beat inflation. 

GL with your plans, and haping gaming...

Feeling empty? Lost? Alone?

The Diablo Phenomena had hit the servers.  Many previously frequent players were already on break or slowing down in anticipation of MOP.  Then Diablo kinda caused servers to vacate a huge number of players in addition to the already dwindling server activity. 

I can only imagine what it would be like on a low pop server, but, I feel it when I have a gapped raid spot and it takes more than 30 minutes to pug an RDPS. 

So, what are you doing now in this lull?  Still making plans? still stockpiling goods? how about speculation on inflation?  BMAH and some other gold sinks could have a pretty big effect on slowing inflation considerably.   Account wide achieve and mounts could too.  I know I will definately by buying the YAK... and who knows abou the JC panther.   Still a lot more information to process and collect from the Beta.

For now I am back on focus of stocking with a snatch list, and leveling toons.  Get the tailor/engineer and the farmer leveled up.  And continue to raid.  I would like to get all of DS HM while it is still current, even if it is nerfed.

Are you in Coast mode

I mean, have you changed the way you play the way you post and the number of blogs you actively follow?

I know I have, and in part due to the way everyone else around me is.  Life changes, game changes, and the number of new and exciting thing to read and write about.

What are you doing to fill the time?  Chasing achievements, titles, rep grinds or maybe rolling up a new character to help round out your PVP/Raiding/crafting/gathering stable.

Personally I am impressed with the way some people work towards certain achievements, and probably should myself, but right now, I do not plan on doing too much until we know more about how final implementation of account wide achievements will work.  It is kinda funny that a lot of what I am doing revolves around that event called "Mists Of Pandaria" go live/release. 

On achievements, like the ones that give you points in the game, I completely lost interest in them.  At one time I was a complete monger about getting achieves, I remember we stopped a raid when our timers were up to go to a capitol for more valentines "candies".  I collected a lot of pets, and mounts and was looking for ways to get more, then I was playing other characters more, and then I had 6 level 80s and could not tell you who my main was, it was like, "the one I am playing RIGHT NOW" and that changed a lot.  But I was still going for achieves on that character that I was playing less and less except for achieves.  Finally, I left those toons, and everything I had on that server and re-rolled a new server and new faction.  Since then, I did transfer one toon over with all my BOAs and otherwise stuffed his bags, but that is about it.  Personally, I got to the point of "What's the point."  Well, now w/ account wide achieves... hmmm, I think I like the idea of getting all those mounts and pets on all my toons.  That will be nice.

I set up several goals for my self a while back in a post of what I wanted to accomplish in the closing months of Cata and pre MOP.  The ones I remember are here:

- Level up the farmer, since then, that character has gone from about level 40 to 70
- Level up a tailor/engineer, that toon got past level 50 and was able to take a guild bank tab of netherweave and make it take a lot less space by crafting it to bolts and a few bags.  I was not pre-crafting bags for MOP really, just going for the points in tailoring.  I also boosted that scrubs Engineering from 0-300 but have only gone from level 49-51...
-One of the last goals I had was to also install, learn and use TSM.  On that front, I have been more interested in other things, sorta like the months it took me to start using Zero Auctions. 

ZA was completely worth it, but its another example of why you can make more gold than a lot of other people.  It took me a few minutes daily building list, and weekly maintenance on pricing, and really save a lot of time, but it took a fair bit too.  Learning and using addons is a big task that really does not make you 10,000 gold for 15 minutes of work.  It is not the quick magic mushroom from Alice in Wonderland that will make you BIG fast.  That is what most players want, they want to PVP, or raid or get achieves or all of the above and justify why they don't go make the gold.  They would rather spend their time doing other things.  And right now, I too am in that category.

I went back to that old post to see what my goals where when I wrote it.  That is a great thing about a blog, I can go back and see stuff like that.  My goals have not changed a whole lot.  Priorities have certainly shifted, but overall, IMO it is nothing major.

Chill out and coast while you can, because the way you play will almost certainly change again when MOP releases.

What are you up to?

What are you doing these days?  Are you still listing large volumes of goods in the AH, or are you waiting and preparing for the next big gold rush?  I have gone into stockpile mode.  There are few things I am still putting up in the AH.   Those things I do list are just cleaning out stocks, and organizing and preparing for MOP as well as keeping up with current raid content.  I have 5 raid ready and capable characters to take to Dragon Soul.  So that has the potential of keeping my schedule full by itself.  Most I do not bother with running in LFR anymore, it is often more frustrating than it’s worth.  I continue to go back to some characters I have ambitions to level up to cap before MOP, though rather that happens or not, I don’t know. 

I guess right now a question that is burning in my mind is what is the best number of characters to maintain?  The answer and justification in my case will differ from almost everyone else answer.  I struggle to stay interested in any one character for a long time.  So that makes the number of characters pretty high.  On the other hand, 5 raiding toons?  I don’t raid everyone of them every week.  In fact it is rare that I raid them all in a week.  So, for me the question seems to have an answer that revolves around 2 things.  #1  Have all the professions covered #2  Be able to raid more than one on any given lockout schedule.

Having #1 for the gold savings and also for the gold making potential, and #2 for the raiding itch I like to scratch.  As a raid lead, I have learned more from 2 sources than any other.  1. Playing a healer/tank/MDPS/RDPS as well as exposure to classes and specs, abilities and cooldowns available.  Seeing raid encounters from all aspects has helped me more than any website or video.  2. Then there is the pugs I get into or run.  Other RLs often do things differently, as well as the capacity to learn more from helpful pugs about mechanics, timeing and such… They have taught me a great volume more too.  Various ways to play, cooldowns and combos to put in place for my own raids and adaptations of multiple strategies for effective boss kills.

I guess in the end, it’s all relative on how you enjoy the game.

Start with the BEST. Finish with the MOST IMPORTANT!

Start with the BEST.  Finish with the MOST IMPORTANT!

Okay, so I started a series on Professions, and I covered them all.  So if my opinionated views on the best were first, and I have covered all professions, what is the most important?  I will get to that, but first a random thought.

I remember reading a comment from “Blue” (GC  maybe) about a very effective/fun/creative solution to server population woes and economy impacts with small, large, medium and the imbalanced servers where 75% or more of the population is on one faction.  It crossed my mind that whatever solution they implement, could have massive impact on server economies for the better or worse, depending on your current position, great for casuals, and more competitive for the goblins?  Who know, it was a pretty ambiguous suggestion of a design goal that we could see almost no warning on, it just happens one day where you AH is merged w/ all Ahs on your Battlegroup?  It is a direction to make WOW regionally more “One World” to ensure the masses can be entertained and that WoW remains their game of choice as other games continue to copy, be original or take down the giant.  To my rough recollection it started with “server battlegroups” for PVP queues, has grown to include cross realm raiding, real ID, battlenet tags, challenge modes and more to come in MoP.  It adds the value of strengthening the community, and crossing boundaries that used to be clearly marked by what server you were on, then what battle group for PVP, and now? Well the sky seems to be the limit largely on what they will do. 

Okay, done with random thoughts and on to IMPORTANT THINGS!

1.       Be a student

2.       Be consistent

3.       Be patient

4.       Be persistent

It is a lot more HOW you play the AH game that will account for you gold piles, rather than the professions you use.  Profession, especially certain combinations can have huge impact on potential, but they are not profitable without consistent time invested, market analysis, continuous review, process improvement and looking for new markets.  The FOTM markets will get saturated and you have to move on to a new segment.  Though there is not any profession that is (currently) level to 525 and profit.  You have to get mats, reprocess mats, craft, market, cancel, post, collect mail, manage crafting queue,  manage inventory, watch market prices fluctuate up and down on an hourly, daily weekly, weekend, raid reset and patch cycle and react accordingly to buying and posting habits and price thresholds.  Massive inventory for massive events, modest inventory for maintenance, playing in niche markets, getting camped, fighting with or fighting off competition, considering posting and reposting fees when marketing, the time it takes to get one sale and how that time is valued.  I could go on, the point is clear, there is a minority of players that are server top 10 ranked in raid progression, there is a minority of players that are gladiator level PVP monsters, and a minority of successful goblin millionaires. 

WHY?

Simple we do what other do not in thick and thin, all the time, every day, adjusting strategies successfully bases on a multitude of information sources, and a little bit of luck sometimes.

LUCK: Luck is when Preparation meets Opportunity

You can not get into the epic flip market until you have the capitol to do so.  So don’t say, “If I only had 300K, I could buy and flip epic pieces and would have millions like you”  It can be perceived that those who make lots of gold on flipping epics or getting an EPIC world BOE drop are lucky.  I got an EPCI BOE in early cata.  Sold it for 30K, reinvested that into more herbs and more darkmoon cards/trinkets.  I created the “Luck” I have, I planned it, I sacrificed for it, I engineered it and sometimes I made really bad bets.   I could have figured some of them out prior to the event that led to me losing my tail on investments, such as the price crash of Volatiles, however, patience paid off,  I bought almost 150 Tankards of Terror from the Halloween event, and I am still getting sales on them at 200-500% profits.  Lucky? No, I risked around 75K gold in buying those, so far I would estimate, I have made 125K+ back on that investment, and still have more to sell.  Did you notice how long ago that was?  OCTOBER!  I have been holding that inventory of over 100 of those things (and diminishing) for going on well over 6 months now.

Are you new to the game, and intimidated?  Good, I made the point I was looking to get across.  OR?  You thought you were doing well, and now you’re not so sure, and wonder what you can do to improve.

Pretty simple, you have one of 3 options:

1.       GO ALL IN (not recommended)

2.       Start small, and grow slow and steady

3.       Something in the middle

By all in on #1, I mean you attempt to copy a market strategy from someone else or develop your own and start trying to list and sell every single one of the glyphs and other inscriptions crafted items.  Or maybe try to sell every single cut of all qualities in the JC market and do the shuffle.  Few could do this as they would not have the capitol to affect a market entry on this level.  But there are glyphs and gem cuts that are just not worth the time to stock, market and will probably never be profitable.

Go small, in option #2, would be to enter in to say just the purple PVE cuts of rare gems after market research to find the most profitable and then grow to the orange and add more colors and cuts and PVP items too then moving onto the Enchanting and Shuffle market followed by adding in the alchemist transmute for meta gems somewhere in the market growth.  This will allow you to start seeing profits and not have a lot of risk.  Learn to manage addons and systems you will use for a long time in market analysis and reaction to events slowly as you go.

Be a student – I mentioned this early on, by this I mean keep reading this blog and or others as they come and go, and follow other news sources on web sites forum, patch notes and even friends you play with.

Be Consistent – At the very minimalist approach to time invested this will require a couple things.  Regular AH scans, and regular posting cycles.  A minimalist approach could be: Weekly AH scans on Raid reset and only weekly posting on the same cycle.  This could be a HIGHLY effective minimal time investment for things like, belt buckles, gems, enchants and enhancements.  Only post once a week for the raiding crowd.  A strategy like this would only then need to figure in source materials and crafting times.  Since your cardinal materials are also going to run a higher cost at your posting time, you would want to find at least one other time when materials cost less.  This is better spread out over several snatch scans throughout the week.  This is a minimalist approach, and could provide a steady income with minimal time invested due to the consistent nature of the strategy, or it could fail completely with competition undercutting you and continuously posting more goods during your 48 hour window.  It is a higher profit window of opportunity, so it is likely you will have more competition, and possible you will have less, since many of your competitors could be too busy with their raid schedules to camp you.

Be Patient – With the above suggested method, I would need about a month to really see what did and did not work.  And then another month to try new strategies, and another month to refine strategies, I would not expect overnight results or data that could be evaluated.

Be Persistent – See last note on patience.  It is almost the same thing, however, I have yet to find any info on someone that had a windfall cash influx that amounted to anywhere close to a million.  The best windfalls I have heard of are actually the GDKP players that are getting paid to “Carry” other raiders in the GDKP bid run.  Even that is not a windfall really.  It comes from months of gearing up to be in a position to “carry” others.

So in summary I can say the most important profession in the gold making is summed up in a single word.

HABIT!!!  If you have it, you will eventually have the gold, if you don’t, you will eventually find an excuse as to why you don’t have the gold. 

Amusing excuses (maybe), from those that don’t have the gold.

1.       I am too lazy

2.       You are lucky

3.       You are stupid

4.       I don’t really need that much gold

5.       What would I do with all that gold?

6.       I Don’t really care about gold

7.       My raid leader pays for repairs/gems/chants/flasks

8.       I don’t want more mounts/pets/gold sink items

9.       It is too hard

10.   It takes too long

11.   I hate addons

12.   My computer won’t run well with addons

13.   I don’t know where to start

14.   I need more gold to get started

What’s the best excuse you have heard, or even used? Maybe you are using that excuse now.  What is stopping you from making the gold?

Why are you reading this blog? To get better or to get started?  Or something else?

Crafting profesions. How to set priority for MOP... Part FIVE

I have been out for a bit, I had a funeral out of town and was away for a week, the stuff to do befor leaving the house and office and then the stuff after...  Well priorities are just that.

Dont worry, there is still lots of time to plan and collect your strategy for your own MOP gold rush.

Also, ALL professions can be leveraged to make gold.  Some just have more potential than other to capitalize on 2 thing that make gold.  Profit per sale, and potential sales/day or sales/post cycle.

This is nearing the end of a review for some estimation of the potential of various professions.  But I have one more post clearly outlined in the muddy waters of my brain

Anyway, on with the post.  I attempt to make some sense of the MOP gold rush potential for Tailoring, Leatherworking, and Blacksmithing.  Each is similar and many points apply to all, so lets look at this category.

Tailoring:
Bags, cloth armor, caster leg enchants, and potentially craft to DE for profit/mats for enchanting.
Cloth armor serves 3 classes and 9 specs that can really be looked at in two categories.  Spirt or no spirit (healer gear vs. DPS gear)  This equates to about 4 pieces of gear for 8 different slots.
1. Spirit PVE 2. Caster PVE 3. Spirit PVP 4. Caster PVP
1. Head 2. Shoulders 3. Chest 4. Waist 5. Pants 6. Boots 7. Wrists 8. Hands
Now add in blue, green, epic gear and it gets to be a pretty long list, and the crafted items dont stack.  So usually it is IMO best managed as a reactive/responsive profession and holding stocks of materials to craft what needs posted, rather than precrafted mats.
Bags, well IMO there are enough other posts out there that you can easily find pleanty of resources on how to get into this market.  The only point here is that early MOP, there will be a lot of new pandas and monks that want bags.  There will be a lot of market potential if you have piles of cloth bolts laying around ready to meet that demand.
Finally, you have the spellthreads to enhance legs for casters.  historically there have been 2 or 3 of these, the healer variety, the caster variety, and sometimes a PVP variety, as well as a rare quality and an epic quality.  They are always in demand, and they are the one real consumable a tailor can market across an entire expac.

Our second profession is leatherworking.  It serves now 5 classes, and 2 armor types for 2 armor classes for the same 8 armor slots.  1. Monks 2. Rogues 3. Druids 4. Shaman 5. Hunters, 1. Agility Gear 2. Intelect gear, 1. Leather and 2. chainmail... and you also get all that for the PVP gear too...
As well as some profession bags
And leg armor for all of the other non caster classes (Tanks, MDPS and hunters).  Again the leg armor is likely to have a rare and epic variety, a tank and dps variety of each and then the PVP options.  A quick tally tells me that is 19 of the 34 specs in MOP compared to the 15 specs tailoring serves.  This is likely to remain a good profession, but dependingon how monks choose their professions, it could become saturated as players level and attempt to make gold with their new toon.

Blacksmithing: 3 armor types, healer, dps and tank, and WEAPONS! 
Weapons are blacksmithings shining star along with the belt buckles.  Weapons are the largest and most important UG players can get on an ilvl for ilvl slot for slot comparison and potential performance.  Weapons are the most sough after UG IMO, witha close second being trinkets and that one drop that wont drop.  (like my 346 ilvl blue JP helm when I was a 385 ilvl equiped... I just could not get a drop, but eventually got a 397.  That was the most important UG in my head at the time, because it was BLUE!!!)
So we have warrior, Deathknights and Paladins that all have a tanking and DPS spec(s) and then the plate caster gear for holy paladins. 

Each has lots of potential for lots of sales with the sheer number of craftable pieces you could potentially sell across the field of markets, PVP, healers, DPS, tanks and the belt buckles...

So why is this the lowest and next to last professions group I put up.   Well, IMO, I has shown the least volume potential and speed of sales.   It is a large inventory management concern to precraft armor since each piece takes up one bank slot, unlike the other crafting professions.  So, If I was to get into any of the markets seriously, I would start with a cancel/collect mail post cycle, followed by a review of sales or inventory to identify what needs crafted, complete a crafting que, and then post again. It just requires a lot more time to do that compared to say gems, where you can just post from precrafted stock and walk away when your short on time.  Ignore the cancel step, ignore the collect mail step, ignore the crafting que and final posting steps...  

There are pros and cons to each profession. There are viable markets in each profession...  Dont think that if the character you plan to level up first has one of todays proffessions you are in dump for potential profits.  It is just that in my opinion, for large scale massive operations in the gold rush, these would be my last picks.

There are a couple other factors that should greatly impact your strategy in marketing good from these categories. 
FOTM, Legendaries, class representation in the game.  For instance, Rogues have traditionally been one of the least represented classes in raiding, untill Dragon soul came out, now they are clearly the MOST represented.  FOTM is the Flavor Of The Month.  At one time in BC it was the Mortal Strike warrior, Druid Healer in PVP... In early wrath the new DKs when played well were OP in all specs, as well as the Wrath release BM hunters...  World first, server first contenders should be looked at and how they impact class stacking and more FOTM presses, or others... Knowing that a mistweaver and resto druid are the most valued healers to have in a raid could mean make more healing PVE leather, NOW BEFORE THEY GET NERFED...

Powerful and diverse professions, each and every one, just not my cup of tea and they do not fit well in my market strategies except

BELTBUCKLES
SPELLTHREADS
LEG ARMOR

They can all be precrafted, they all stack, and they are all consumable with recuring demand...

Good luck, and remember there is still pleanty of time, and pleanty of information to become available in the comming months.

Crafting profesions. How to set priority for MOP... Part FOUR Gathering

Crafting profesions. How to set priority for MOP... Part FOUR Gathering

Our last post I discussed my thoughts for Inscription, and prior to that Enchanting and Jewelcrafting.

Those 3 professions have the power and sustainability for the upcoming expansion.  They are the 3 overall strongest professions for the AH baron.   However, they are not the only professions available to players... and not everyone may have those professions on the toon they wish to level first...

So, the remaining professions fall into 2 categories, gathering and the other crafting profs...

Mining would be the strongest here, though preference and availability, each of the others could be leveraged to great results.  But overall I rate them all closely enough that they are in one category.

Mining Pros:

1. Source material for 3 profession, engineering, blacksmithing and jewelcrafting. 
2. It is a pseudo crafting profession with the ability to make ore into bars. 
3. always in style, it will always make you gold, though less and less for the time invested as the x-pac moves forward
4. explosive profit potential early e-pac
5. SIMPLE... this is a time is money... 
6. Great way to get capitol, or keep capitol for future investments/purchases
7. XP from mining while leveling
8. Simple, Gather > Post > Collect gold, no need to do in depth market anaylsis (read  last comment below) 
9. Something to do while waiting for a raid to form...

Mining Cons:

1. TIME IS MONEY... its a great bang and fizzle... 
2. If you hate farming... well, yeah, you hate mining
3. Leveling speed distraction (got get the yellow dot, then get in combat for some ore and XP slows your leveling down.)
4. Profession bonus is no good unless you are PVPing or tanking IMO.
5. To maximize profits, requires careful and tedious market watching, analysis and holding inventory for max volume/price times on the AH.

Herbing and skinning:

Same as mining with the almost obvious differences.  Like the number of professions it is source to, and neither have the ability to do anything like craft bars... LW has the bonus of getting scales and leather...
Herbing will be strong, really strong with the coming glyphmas expected, and the value and demand for DMC trinkets... Here herbing is likely to be a bit stronger...

Really the best thing you can do here is just go with the one you have, or plan to level and leverage it for the best results by watching you posting times and volume based on server demand and player activities levels.  The first week or so, up to the first month, you will likely be able to sell everything you can gather.  Pricing is the trick.  Too high and people will not buy  it.  On my server, I would guess that about 250-350 gold will be the most per stack that would be marketable. 

Your best bet is use acutioneer to post, and rarely undercut the lowest prices... look for the "wall" and post under that.   A wall is the guy posting 20+ stacks (variable on server) and you want to often post under that price.  If it sells in less than an hour, you went too low on price.  Basically, take a minute to look at the market and don't blindly undercut the lowest price there... if you find you get better prices on the weekend, hold your mats till then.  Though in the first week or so, all bets are  off... just post at high prices for 12 hours and eat the deposit costs on  a few to get a sense of the market.

till next time. 

More food for though for MOP planning

My interpretaion now of the PVP crafted gear market is... so so, its viable and the current means of blue crafted gear being good entry level gear for starting PVP is great. 

Couple thought on things to watch for how to hedge your markets and bets for MOP.

They have said they are trying to bring about a resurgence of PVP in MOP and gas up the old Horde vs. Alliance battle.  If that takes place, it is likely that you will see a lot more players dabling at PVP and this could be a big generator of sales.  It could possibly make what are now marginally good markets into awesome markets.  Just watch how this plays out and be ready to react to info, and trends in MOP.  There is not a lot of plays you can make now, since most of the gear will require the new mats, just a market to consider watching more closely.

It could also swing the otherway.  With the changes to PVP, and the attempt by devs to make the entry level PVP game more new player friendly... the Crafted PVP gear may not be as valuable or necessary and the market could be complete fizzle... or it will be more viable to just go farm the honor gear up rather than purchase the crafted gear and such...

Just saying, it could be a bang, and it could be a bust...

But it is something to watch. 

Crafting profesions. How to set priority for MOP... Part THREE Inscription

Crafting profesions. How to set priority for MOP... Part THREE Inscription

Personnaly I an not fond of the glyph business, though many players I whose blogs I read do not share my opinion.  Actually, this has in many ways been one of the pinnacle professions for some of the most fiercer theory crafting and business marketing strategies I have ever seen.

Okay, its not that bad, and I am going to tell you first why this is not my favorite.   I will put up the negative points IMO first instead of the positive ones.

Inscription, why not to prioritize it:

1. HUGE inventory management, lots of herbs, pigments, inks, glyphs, fortune cards, relics and stuff.  It requires massive addon savy and/or on demand crafting and/or huge storage space available to really branch into the full spectrum of the market.
2. It does not have the staying power in the broad scope like JC and enchanting
3. MINDLESS HOURS OF MILLING HERBS, followe by extended AFK crafting of pigments into inks
4. The uncommon inks lose value after the initial rush in current levels and become a waste byproduct of the profession.  Having a any part of the manufacturing that is waste, is just that, it is a waste, or it eats up your time in ways that could be more gold productive.  I am talking about the uncommon inks from pre cata herbs.
5. Since it is has been such a huge money maker historically, it is well documented and very tough competition with people that hang on to an old broken money maker hoping it will get big again.  (it well get big again, keep reading)
6. I JUST DONT LIKE IT, compared to other options at least.  In a way it is like JC that it can move massive volumes for minimal profit margins, which is a comparable net gain, however, I prefer medium/medium (medium volume and medium profits)
7. Massive Barrier to entry on the glyphs... it takes a lot of months to get all the research done to learn all the glyphs, yeah it will be a lot of MONTHS.. you will not likely ever be able to reasonably speed this up with the books from wrath content, there will never be more than a few on any AH and the prices are likely going to be steep.. YMMV

I guess the last point really says all that needs to be said on my take for inscription, however, read on and get some insight to why I put it as #3 and not lower in my priority list.

1. Darkmoon trinkets!  We are still waiting on more crafting information to be finalized, but I think it is a safe bet that they will be back again and they will be good.
2. Relics and off-hands, they alone can be a great market if the ILVL of them is above the LFD or LFR
3. Glyphs always in style, people are always starting a new toon, comming back or something
4. Glyphmas 5.0 style... time will tell
5. Micro business oportunities, meaning, you can chose to pursues a more comfortable part of the market rather than the entire thing.  Micor markets below
• Just glyphs
• Just pigments (time is money, and it takes a lot of time to mill herbs to pigments, inks can be afk crafted)
• Just Inks, Sell the base mats to the crafters looking for final product process business, or the casual guys looking to buy the mats to have something crafted for themselves
• Just off-hands relics (the PVP items will likely stay pretty popular if they follow the current model)
• Just Darkmoon Cards
• Just Darkmoon Decks
• Just Darkmoon Trinkets
• Just Mysterious Fortune cards
• Select any range or segment of the glyphs, like go for glyphs, but only inventory and manage sales for say 15 or 25 (any number less than all of them really) glyphs.
• or any combo of these you wish to play with
6. Though I have not mentioned it before it could be considered a gathering profession, sort of, like with JC prospecting, Inscription milling could be a gathering profession.  Herbs > Pigments > inks
7. I MADE MY FIRST BIG MONEY WITH IT (story at the bottom if you dont want to go back and read my early posts
8. HAVE I SAID KABOOM, yeah, it has a KABOOM power in the early release days, weeks months, then a fizzle.
9. It will have the power to be a slow and steady staple if you choose to continue in the market past the KABOOM into the fizzle and will still be good, though IMO not so much as JC or enchanting.
10. Massive barrier to entry.  This one was up there in the other section too, but it makes casuals looking for a quick turn over, turn somewhere else, so the competitions is often going to be less, but it will be fierce
11. KABOOM POWER
• Glyph research could teach you glyph of travel form on day one, and you can capitalize on THAT... come on go look it up, and you should be able to tell that this will be a BIG money maker
• If you put in the time milling, making ink and going for the DMC/D/Ts KABOOM
• Combine anything with the power or the relics and off hands and PVP items
• GLYPHS, we are getting a major overhaul to the system, more info is really needed to know how this is going to flesh out, but expect a major surge in sales

Okay, enough... It made #3 on my list, really, in time, I may change my mind and go with the farmer guy since herbing mining will be OP too.

My story:
A 6 month forced break from WOW was over.  I returned from a military deployment... the old guild and old friends were scattered.  All that remained were a few broken pieces of the empty shell of what once was.  I made a couple server transfers, found great guilds that met every expectation as hovels of massive drama and misleading declartations of what they were.  they said raiding guilds, HA... not so IMO.  I am not sure that fit either of those guild were "Raiding Guilds".  More like "CASUAL, and we try to raid, even get lucky sometimes.. after the nerf" would have been more accurate descriptions IMO.

Then one of those shells wiggled and some old friends crawled out from under a couple of those broken pieces and said great things about Cata and raiding and GDKP runs, HM runs and yeah, it sounded good...  Then the Drama KABOOM destroyed that guild and I was pretty mad at guilds, all of them... they all pretty much were going to tell me one thing and do another.  Promise me anything they though I wanted to hear to get me to join their ranks... So, now raiding suck, and guilds suck and players in WOW are all degenerative rejects that hide in a virtual world and can not act like people when they have the layer of anonymity created by the interwebz.

Okay, time to back  up... what does all this have to do with inscription?  Okay, getting to that.  Those friends? yeah, the ones that I connected with after months... well, they were now HORDE, and on another server!!! (I was all alliance at the time.)  I had in the preceding months spent hundreds of real dollars on server transfers that did not pay off.  So I was not about to pay that again to go to a new server and AGAIN still to faction transfer. So I rolled a new toon, Horde, on that new server.  I had previously mastered the spending urge and found the power of multiple toons with multiple professions for farming, crafting and left it all and about 30K or so, on that old server with those completely abandoned toons.  I was starting new and needed a gold making plan, herbalism and inscription was the early cata plan.  And basically converted time into money farming herbs > glyphs when leveling, and later farming the AH for herbs to Darkmoon trinkets a the relics were a good staple too for mainenance income.. It took me 3 months of focused effort on gold making, one toon from level 1 - 85, and 400K in gold and reasonable inventories of mats.  I did not have interest in raiding, I was actually pretty jaded about it all, but later found myself going back to it after failed attempts at trying to PVP more seriously.  I was daily spending 20-40K in the AH on herbs and crushing them all down to inks and eventually DMCs and trinkets, while playing at the relics and other stuff, flipping vendor pets and other toy niche markets.  That is when 2 things happened... I found a lot of amusement in the AH market, I was manipulating it on a daily basis, and I found having that much gold to be amusing too.  the second thing was, I wanted to branch out.. and my new first love was enchanting... Inscription was a great kaboom for me, but when the fizzle came, I got out and found a  new market in enchanting... The 4.3 patch was an enchanting KABOOM, and inscription would have just been meh... so so, if it had still been my primary market...

With the information available now, and historical reference, Inscription is still a top contender, especially for the 5.0 release