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.