Using a Guild as money maker

So I decided to level another shaman. But unlike what you might think, this isn't going to be a post about me having an OCD about leveling shamans and warriors. No it is going to be about something else completely.

When the new guild perk system was first announced many questions where raised as to how it would work in practice. Blizzard had hoped for it to be a special reward for those longer lasting, dedicated guilds. Critics immediately pointed out all the ways it could be exploited. Blizzard has gone through some precautions to avoid explotation of the new system. It is unfortunately so that people will exploit any system, so that alone isn't an argument that a system is bad. It's only when exploitation takes over the intended usage that one has reason to raise a hand and say "dear sirs, this isn't working very well". For one you have to have a certain guild reputation to get at the really good rewards. Let me tell you that you get guild rep really, really slowly unless you do alot of guild dungeons, so becoming honored with your guild is really nothing you achieve over night. It really does filter the dedicated guildies from the hangarounds in my opinion. The guild perks however, at least most of them, will affect anyone in the guild. From the newly invited with "loser" rank to the 3-year standing officer will be affected equally by most, if not all, guild perks. So the other day I encountered a really clever thing.

I was running around on my shaman in one of the starting areas for goblins (which I really enjoy by the way) when I randomly got a guild invite. The guy hadn't whispered me beforehand and I had never heard of the guild before. This isn't unusual behavior, as soon as I play an unguilded character I can expect to get random guild invites left and right. I usually just ignore them, or start my own guild to get rid of the hassle. But not this time. The guild in question didn't have a horrible name (like... Defenders of Alliance) and most importantly, it was guild rank 7. There I was, lonely goblin without any BoA or friends since I was on an off-server and the possibility to join a guild with some nice guild perks became really tempting. So I thought - sure, why not? As rank 7 I get 10% more exp from mobs and quests, faster mountspeed and less durability loss upon dying. Quite the bargain for simply being in a guild!

I quickly checked the roster and noticed that the guild had over 750 members, with more people joining the guild by the minute. Whoever was the head of the guild was clearly just inviting anyone, as they had with me. I wouldn't have looked twice at such a guild any other time, but now I was actually gaining quite alot from being in it. But the guy who owned the guild probably gained even more by having us in it. At rank 7 the guild bank gains 5% of all the money looted from mobs, and as the guild rises in rank, so will that momey flow. And all those golds flow into a guild bank run by... whom? I had no idea. Did I care? Not really. I had my perks and whoever had invited me would get 5% of everything I looted (actually it's an added 5%, so no money loss for me). Fair deal? I thought so, and any time I didn't like it I could just skedaddle my way out of there.

5% of my earnings is quite modest right now (we're talking copper). But imagine 750, by now probably even more, people who run around looting various amounts of money. How much gold could that be per day? And no one is actually doing any real work to get it. The members just do what they would've done anyway - quest. And whoever holds the guild just has to clean out the inactive players now and then (which takes no time at all) and invite new players continously (which just is a /who [lowbie zone] or /who [lowbie level] and invite everyone on the list. Sit back and profit.

• Is this a bad way to make money? No.
• Is there any deception going on? Not really.
• Is this a good deal for everyone involved? Yeah I'd definitely say so. My shaman is damn happy about those guild perks.
• Is there any drawback of this system? Well I can only see of one. You have to do it first. A server can only provide so many players for huge lowbie guilds like these, so once this idea catches on it might be as tedious snatching lowbies as it is to snatch glyph buyers before being undercut. And these guilds will naturally have a huge movement of players coming in and out of the guild. But so what? No one has to stay longer than they want, and as long as they are there everyone gets something out of the deal.

I could never have thought that the guild perk system could be turned into this Guild Business thing, and I'm not entirely sure what to think about it. Overall I actually think it is a great idea since no one comes to harm and it really is a win win situation. Eventhough this particular guild has 750+ members and you might think of it as an abomination, I had some nice chats with people and when I get high enough level to do instances, chances are high that there will be at least one player my level who might want to do an instance with me. It's also yet another great example of how people really can turn anything into a profit making system.

This guild also allowed me to confirm my view that people from GB seem to have the worst english (he later states that he is from England).

Glyphs Are No Easy Money

Inscription is currently the only profession I haven't skilled to max yet, and so it felt natural to go for it when I rerolled my druid. I usually don't bother to skill crafting professions on off-servers, except perhaps alchemy, because it usually requires either alot of money or alot of time spent gathering materials to skill in a decent pace. None of which I have abundances of on any other server than my main. For a long time I didn't bother with inscription since I usually only grab a profession if I feel it can bring my chars something. Having someone who can enchant/disenchant is really handy for example. Same thing goes with having your own jewelcrafter. A little less used is the blacksmith, tailor and leatherworker, but I eventually went on and got those as well. Engineering is never useful but fun to have, and so I have it on one char anyway. And I've got alchemy on my main (and another char). But since Love had inscription I never felt the need to get one of my own. He knew all the glyphs and would get me any as soon as I asked (he better, considering all the gems I've cut and enchants I've made for him). But now Love is giving up on his glyph market business. For a while there he made some real dough on them, but he's now moving on to... well something else. He hasn't decided yet. And that's beside my point anyway!

Love isn't scribe anylonger, so I started skilling one instead. I had never had any doings with the glyph market, but I have been trying on the other markets occasionally. Overall they suck pretty badly when it comes to making an easy buck;

• Jewelcrafting - Gems are expensive to put on the Auction House. So eventhough you can usually take a pretty nice fee just for cutting a gem when you put it on the auction house, sometimes even up to 100g extra (!), if you don't get your gem sold you've lost several g's just in placement costs. This means you'll have to price your gems very carefully. If one bastard undercuts you, you might lose quite alot. And now that gems are going cheaper and cheaper it's even less worth the hassle than it was before.
• Alchemy - The thing about potions is that you very rarely get any extra out of the crafting. You can price them just above mats costs, which makes profits relatively low. You'll have to rely on procs to make the real bucks, and I'm just not patient or lucky enough to do that.
• Enchanting - Sometimes you can take a really nice profit from selling enchants on the auction house. Actually out of all the professions I've tried to make a little "easy" money from on the auction house, enchanting has generally generated the most. The only trouble is finding enough mats at a good price, but on the other hand that is always the trouble. The big trouble with enchanting is that you basically have to rely on the auction house to get mats for your enchants, since there is no good way to grind enchanting mats, as compared to the other professions. You can always farm herbs for alchemy or inscription, or farm mobs for leather/cloth, or farm instances for points to convert to gems, or farm veins for blacksmithing/engineering. But there is no good way to farm enchanting mats. So if the prices on enchanting mats go up, you have to hope the prices on enchants go up as well, or your profit will plummet like a gnome rocket.
• Blacksmithing/Tailoring/Leatherworking - Each of these have a couple of things where the market seems to find no saturation. So Leg Armors, Belt Buckles and Bags are a couple of items that will always sell. But it's not enough to bother. Most people who care about making money on the auction house don't limit themselves to the few things which are worth crafting, but combine them with one of the more lucrative markets, like enchants, gems or glyphs. I can't be bothered. The stuff that can give you really nice money, like endgame crafted gear, require alot more work. And also there is alot more at stake. Either you farm all the mats yourself to lower your risks, or you buy everything at the Auction House at as low prices as possible. Because if you don't get that item you've just put some thousands of G worth of mats into sold, well you'll be short some thousands of G. That is a risk you have to take with these epics, and it's also one of the reasons you might make really good profits from them. Not to mention they're usually really expensive to put up. I don't like taking big risks like this. I don't love money enough for it.
• Engineering - I used to be able to make pretty decent money from crafting Arrows. But well... that's not an option anylonger. Thanks alot Blizzard, I only spent some 2000g getting the recipe and finishing my engineering to be able to craft them. Overall I am happy about the arrow change. But it does show how easily you can lose money when playing the Auction House. Because of this Engineering is extra special now, and has always been one profession that is more for the player and not so much because of the awesome things it can craft for the general gaming population. There are the scopes. And that's about it. But this could change in Cataclysm of course. In a sense I hope it won't, I've always enjoyed Engineering somewhat because of it's awkwardness and outsiderishness.

And then we have inscription. Inscription can easily fool you into being the awesome way to make money. And actually it is. But it has one huge flaw. And I'll get to that, but let's check why it's such an awesome way to make money first.

• The materials are really easy to get. You can either farm them yourselves or buy them cheap of the auction house. Endgame herbs have never been very expensive. This has changed recently, especially since most glyphs now require alot more mats than they used to, making their total mats costs alot higher. The mats are still relatively easy to come by and still relatively cheap.
• The glyphs are really easy to make. You only need two types of materials for each glyph, some inks and some parchment. The only profession with simpler mats is jewelcrafting.
• The glyphs are really cheap to post. This is one of the biggest pros for the glyph market. Even if you post your glyph 100 times and don't sell it, you'll only have lost a couple of g. This makes it really difficult to lose money from just posting glyphs. This means you can repost glyphs at a really high rate, and that means you can follow the changes of the market even faster. Which means more profit for you (if you have the time)! You also don't have to be too thoughtful when it comes to pricing. When you're posting a gem and notice no one else has posted that gem you can either post it at a high price and hope it sells before someone undercuts, or post it at the regular price (or even low price) to be ready for the undercut without having to repost. This is not something you have to bother about when posting Glyphs. You can always post them at maximum profit, because if the market changes it will cost you basically nothing to follow.
• Glyphs are always at a demand. This is less true than before, considering people learn them permanently nowadays. Imagine before when people had to buy a new glyph each time. Imagine the profit possibilites. Some glyphs, like Battle Shout and Horn of Winter and Power Word Shield, aka must-have-glyphs for a class would always sell a bunch each day. But even now people will always need glyphs. There will be new chars all the time, and no one will ever play without the right glyphs. Not all people buy crafted gear from the auction house, or potions or enchants. But everyone buys glyphs.
• Glyphs are always bought ready made. The vast majority of people get their glyphs from the Auction House. Seriously, when was the last time you saw someone ask for help with getting a glyph crafted in trade? Only if there were none on the auction house, I assure you. But plenty of people collect their own mats for gem cutting, enchants and crafted gear. People buying their glyphs ready made means more crafting fee for you, because generally the crafting fee is always considerably higher on auction house items than something made on the spot with your own materials. You can hope to get 10g for an enchant, and even 100g for a really nice endgame epic crafted gear. But 30-100g crafting fee is standard on auction house glyphs. Take that times the 100 glyphs you easily can put up at any given time, also compared to gems, enchants and crafted gear. This has at least lowered some now that glyphs aren't in such a high demand anylonger, combined with the mats cost of glyphs going up, but there is still alot of profit to be made.

So what is the huge drawback of the glyphing business? Well, because it is so lucrative, the competition is fierce. On my server, which is a relatively small server, we've easily got some 10 really dedicated glyph sellers. To get a foot into that market you'll have to spend alot of time reposting glyphs. Alot of time. You'll be undercut at once by people with way less life than you and alot more funds than you. The glyph market is too good for its own good, so to speak. Because everything about glyphs is so easy and extremely lucrative, everyone wants a piece of the cake and that makes it difficult to make a profit from glyphs unless you have heckloads of time to invest in it.

My Top 5 Most Interesting Auction House Deals

This won't be a post on five generally good ways to make quick, easy or big money on the Auction House. There are plenty of really good gold making blogs out there that would make a way better list than I ever could. Overall I'm actually very mildly interested in making gold in WoW. I've never tried to find a certain market and usually only earn my money from whatever scrap I find when questing and raiding. I've never owned more than some 25k g, and although that might sound like alot for some people, it's what you get when just using the auction house in a moderate but sensible way. That doesn't mean I don't seize an opportunity to make a nice deal whenever I see one. And considering I have been playing for quite a while, and Love happens to be very interested in gold making, I know at least in theory how to make good money. And here are my top 5 auction house deals (actually I've included some of Loves most interesting deals as well, as we're basically one person anyway. All his money belongs to me.). Love has helped me with the terminology.

5. Snatching
Sometimes the best Auction House deals is just to find some item that generally is worth alot, but people don't know it and put it up for a really low price. There are gold making people who have certain list with items that they check for on a regular basis, snatch it and resell it for alot more. I don't do this, but I have found good deals like this just by randomly using the AH. Lifelike Mechanical Toad is one such item. Love found it for 50g, snagged it and resold it for some 800-900g the day after. Easy money.
Another good example of this kind of fast money was when I found the recipe for Savory Deviate Delight on AH for 2g. It's worth hundreds of g and I sold it for some 300-400g.
Just the other day Love found Brilliant Cardinal Rubies at AH for 27g. He didn't resell those though since we use up pretty many on all our alts (all of my alts actually).

4. This looks expensive, but really isn't
One of the funniest things to do on the auction house is to buy stuff from vendors and resell them on the auction house for alot more money. In a way it is sad because there are so many people out there that just don't know they're being completely ripped off. And it never seizes to amaze me what items you can resell this way. Somtimes people buy vendor-items from the auction house just because they cba to travel to the vendor to buy it themselves. When you still needed to buy books to learn certain levels of First Aid I often did this for example. But now with reforging Love has found out that he can sell Vanishing Powder on the Auction House for alot more than they cost at the vendor. I've managed to sell items like vendor sold pets, vials, recipes... you name it. Anything a vendor sells has a good chance to be sold on the auction house it seems.

3. Refining
I'm never one to turn down an easy deal whenever I see one. I just don't like to put in alot of time in my auction house deals. Love used to make huge amounts of money on selling glyphs, but that also meant putting alot of time into buying herbs, milling, deciding what glyphs to craft, craft them, placing glyphs on ah, cancelling glyphs and managing the hundreds of glyphs he always carried around by mailing them back and forth between characters (at one time he had so many glyphs at AH he made up one seventh of all items on AH at that time). Eventhough he had addons that helped him with alot of the work and the gold earned for time spent was great, it is still way beyond what I'd ever bother to do to earn money in WoW.

I did however find a nice deal when I was checking for Mongoose enchants on the auction house the other day. Since I don't actively seek out nice deals, I usually just stumble upon them whenever I am doing something else in WoW. This time I needed a mongoose enchant and I wanted to find out if it was worth it to simply buy a ready and done mongoose enchant, or buy the mats and do it myself. I found that a ready made mongoose enchant sold for about twice the price of the enchant mats. So I started buying some enchant mats to sell mongoose enchants. But then the prices on enchants went down, but the prices on mats stayed fixed so I started looking at them instead. And I noticed that the prices of Small Prismatic Shards was way lower than that of Large Prismatic Shards. As an enchanter you can convert 3 SPS into 1 LPS, so the price of one SPS should reasonably be one third of one LPS. That was not the case. In fact the price of one SPS was one twentieth of one LPS. I bought all the SPS on AH for 50s each, converted them into LPS which I then sold for 20g each and made some hundred g in just a day. I love the WoW-market sometimes.

2. Woops, not the best deal I've made
Sometimes you try to make a good deal but it doesn't turn out so well. You maybe don't have a clue about what an item is worth, think you put it up for a nice price but it is really worth way more. Or you buy something in the hopes of selling it for alot of money only to find out it was worth less than what you paid for it. I didn't say this list was going to be just good deals!
Just before Wrath came I decided to buy up on epic leg armors. Don't ask me why, but I bought some 3-4 for about 250g each. Remember them Clefthide Leg Armor and Nethercobra Leg Armor? They used to be hell to get mats to so they usually sold for some 500g on my server. I thought that was really cheap and hoped to be able to resell them later for at least twice as much. But hey! New expansion makes old leg armor boring! Turns out no one wanted my leg armors and so I had spent some 1000g on nothing really.
Love bought a bunch of Pristine Black Diamonds really cheap (some 15g each) in the hopes to be able to sell them for alot more the next day. Turns out Blizzard had decided to up the drop rate on Pristine Black Diamonds by alot however, effectively reducing the price on them to zip, zero, nada. The really funny thing is that the guy that Love bought the diamonds off probably knew about this and sold them "cheap" just to get rid of them before the change.
Another example - an old guildie of mine logged on drunk one evening (bad idea), found Staff of Jordan on the auction house for 950g, decided he just must have it and bought it. Now it's a really nice staff, especially back then when there were no BoA-gear. But 950g? Needless to say he really regretted it the day after, but I bet the seller was happy.

1. Luck
Sometimes the best deals are made out of pure dumb luck. Wool Cloth is known to be really expensive at times, but here is a crazy story that takes it to another level. I know Love once, many years ago, accidentally put up Wool Cloth on the auction house for 97g per stack (don't ask me how), and some buyer accidentally bought them all before he realized what he was paying for them. This is a true story! They had both thought it was 97s, and both were wrong. The guy was completely devastated and sent a desperate letter to Love pleading to get his money back. He did actually, minus the cut for whatever Love had intended the Wool Cloth to cost.
Something that also has to count towards a lucky sell are the rp-sells. They're not really auction house deals, but still worth mentioning. I don't rp often, actually I could probably count the times I've engaged in some kind of rp during my 5 years of playing on both my hands. But occasionally when I find some cool gray item, and I'm on some alt in desperate need for money, I decide to try and rp-sell it. It's worth 2 copper to vendor, but could be worth a couple of g to a player when offered in the right way. I got 10g for a Rotting Bear Carcass this way, and I even wrote a post on this matter a couple of months ago.

What have been your most interesting deals in WoW?

Save the mid-level craftings!

I am currently skilling Blacksmithing on my main warrior, and boy does that cost money. I have skilled every other craft, except Scribe, by now and BS is by far the most expensive. Why is this so and what can be done about it?

I don't mind things being expensive, it can be a really good way to get money out of the system. Like the prices for flying, different mounts and so on. But the reason for skilling BS being so expensive is another one completely. Supply and demand. Demand is extremely high on mid-level material, but supply is extremely low. Materials like mithril are literally becoming worth their weight in saffron. On my server, 4g a piece (!) is considered cheap nowadays. When I have to craft something I usually have to use around 10-20 mithril bars meaning each craft can easily cost up to 100g.

There are several reasons for this development. First of all Blizzard have taken off their soft gloves when it comes to bots and chinese gold farmers. They took out their ban hammer and banned thousands of farmer accounts. This isn't a bad thing. This is a really good thing. I used to gank farmers whenever I saw them. But there is no denying that this has had a huge effect on the WoW-economy. Suddenly we no longer have a steady supply of them materials that no one wants to grind. Because that is the second issue. People spend less and less time leveling and thus less and less time gathering those mid-level materials. I have spent some time gathering mithril ores when I just couldn't bring myself to pay 7g a piece for them (not an unusual price at all on my server) but it easily takes an hour to gather a stack, that is just not how I want to spend my time playing!

I am no expert farmer, far from. I don't even check the best routes to follow and whatnot before starting my gathering run, so I am aware that you can muster more than 1 stack per hour if you know how to go about it. But although some extent of farming always will be a part of this game, right now it is taking too big a part of the game.

And who is left farming with all the bots gone? The Ferengi-players. If you're unfamiliar with the Ferengi, it's an alien race from Star Trek that would easily sell their own mom for a nice deal. Money, and making money, is their sole purpose in life. And the only ones who feel the time worthwhile to farm mid-level materials are the Ferengi-players who then take ridiculous amounts of money for their wares. In one way I understand them. If people actually pay that price then why shouldn't they demand it? But Blizzard have put crafters in a desperate position and some people know how to make a buck from these desperate people.

I won't weep many tears for the rich 80 with 100k gold who has to spend some dough on leveling his 45th characters profession. In fact this is a great way for new players to make some cash from those gold hoggers. But there are other casualties of this war, casualties that I actually feel really sorry for.

Some new players can make money from these desperate players, but you can forget that they'll ever afford skilling this profession themselves. Making it so that a profession requires huge sums of investments will scare off nearly everyone who tries to skill this profession and we'll be stuck with 90% alchemists instead, and no one to make us those blacksmithing items. This smells Vanilla to me. Back then finding a decent blacksmither was a pain in the ass, because it was extremely expensive and difficult to get all the nice recipes. You basically had to find someone who was sponsored by their guild. Well now it's extremely expensive just to level past mithril.

Because a mid-level item costs 100g to craft, you won't ever see it for less than that on AH. Actually you probably won't see it on AH at all. That means there is a range of crafted items between level 30-60 that won't ever be put into use because they're just not worth what people want for them. Blacksmithing on mid-levels has become completely obsolete, not because the items aren't any good but because they cost too much to craft! The same goes for professions like Alchemy, Engineering and JC and Tailoring to some extent. In fact many crafted mid-levels items have become really good since Blizzard made an overhaul of stats. Crafted lowbie items are among the first to present Armor Penetration and Expertise, for example.

One could imagine that once the item has been crafted, the crafter would rather get rid of it for a low price than no price at all. Sure, but the Blacksmithing market isn't the only one affected by the mid-level material shortage. Enchanters will pay huge sums for the materials that come from mid-level greens, and in any case way more than a lowbie would pay for the item as it is.

It is interesting to note that Blizzard already has the solution implemented in the game, as a standard part of another profession - Inscription. Because scribes often have to craft lowbie glyphs, Blizzard have made it so that they can trade the highest leveled ink, for any lower leveled ink at a vendor in Dalaran (just as with emblems, but in one vendor instead of six). My question is simple; why can't every profession have this system? Blizzard are acting as if lowbie glyphs are the only worthwhile lowbie items to craft. Sure they might be the most worthwhile items to craft, but every profession have nice lowbie items to offer. In fact, the lowbie market of Enchanting is probably as big as the endgame market, selling Crusaders enchants and the like to leveling players. Fortunately, you only need one enchant on your BoA weapon all the way to 80, so paying 100g for a Crusader Enchant is more of an investment. All the other professions should have a chance at this as well.

It's simple, just make any highbie material "downgradeable" to a lowbie material. Why on earth can't we be able to trade Saronite against Mithril, Lichbloom against Mageroyals and Frostweave against Mageweave? This system is already in use in so many places, Inscription and Emblems as mentioned and Frozen Orbs to other stuff as another example. And in these cases it is there for two reasons - to not make one item completely useless (as with emblems) or to make the abundancy of one item useful for the acquiring of a less abundant item that is still in high demand (as with Inks and Frozen Orbs).

Please Blizzard, save the midlevel crafting market!

Don't throw your gold away

I'm a person who hates wasteful behavior. I get twitches whenever two priests throw their aoe-buffs at the same time or someone places five fish feasts at once just to make it look like a smiley (Love does this from to time). Sure, we're not talking big money here, and Love if anyone can afford it. But still this annoys me somewhat and therefor I thought I'd make a short post on the most wasteful behavior of them all - disenchanting blues.

Although I am very happy with the new disenchant option given in the loot window, it truly amazes me how people can press that disenchant button without the slightest regard about what they're actually disenchanting. With all the money making blogs out there (and they might have written about this too, I don't know) and the general interest in not being a poor sod in WoW, I find it truly interesting that when it comes to disenchanting items, very few people seem to think about all the money they're loosing by pressing that disenchant button!

Everytime I do a random heroic the majority of my group simply presses that disenchant button for any and all blues that happen to drop (sometimes even boe blues). Considering that on all servers I play on, Dream Shards are priced at 2-5g each, there are in fact extremely few blues that are worth disenchanting anymore. Just the other day some blue worth 19g to vendor dropped and everyone pressed disenchant. I simply said "are you aware that by disenchanting that item you actually just lowered its worth by 15g?". People are practically throwing money into the sea, every day, every random heroic, by doing this.

One guy in that group responded "yeah but I need the shards for my enchanting". "sure" I told him, "but for the money you would've got from vendoring it you could have bought 7 shards instead of just getting 1". "True enough" he answered like this never even had crossed his mind. Fascinating, as Spock would have said.

If one wants to become really economically philosophical, one could always argue that by disenchanting blues we're keeping the general inflation of money down (since there will be less money in the world), which could be beneficial to the overall Wow-markets. I don't pretend to know much about economics, but I am quite sure this behavior wouldn't have a major impact on the big picture, but would probably do a difference mostly to the individual. Besides, inflation is not our concern, but issues that Blizzard have to work with, if they feel it's needed. The prices on Dream Shards would rise of course, and then disenchanting blues would be profitable again. And so on and so forth as with many other things on the market (like Large Brilliant Shards which can go from 2g each to 20g each from one day to the next completely based on supply and demand). Dream shards would just be another piece in the economic equation, but the individual could be tens of G richer after each instance. Tens of G might sound like nothing, but considering that everything that stands between you and those G's is the push of a button... "Don't click here to earn 15g". That's easy money people.

When it comes to greens, prices are also being so low that about half the time it's not worth disenchanting them. The "problem" with greens however is that they can turn into a varying amount of dust, or even Cosmic Essences, which means one green can disenchant into mats worth anything between 2-30g. Although certain gear types have higher chance of dropping a certain amount of mats or even of dropping Cosmic Essences over Dusts, having to calculate probabilities of making a few G here and there with every green drop is a little overkill even for me. But with blues there is a 100% chance it will drop a Dream Shard. You know perfectly well how much disenchanting that blue will be worth to you, and most likely, you'll make a loss from doing it.

So please, don't disenchant those blues.
Can you think of any other wasteful behaviors in WoW?

A-o-R: Auditor

Auditor
Category - Money mod
Necessity Level - Low
Class/Role - Any

There are some addons I've used for such a long time I forget what they do. Auditor is such an addon, so I had to ask Love. It's always just been around, sitting in the corner (or on my Chocolate Bar more recently), doing its thing so smoothly I even forgot it was doing it. It's funny when you get so used to some features you think they're actually part of the game and then you freak when you happen to play on some friends computer without addons.

It doesn't really do anything necessary, it's more one of those neat to have addons. Auditor will give you a better overview of your cash flow, showing for instance where your money is coming from and going to. It will also show you how much money you have on alts and how much you've earned or spent this week (or another time frame) and on what. (Image borrowed from Curse.com)

If you're one of them AH-nerds, constantly sitting around trying to make a buck, being able to keep an eagle eye on earnings and outgoings is quite nice. I use it mainly to keep track on how much money I have on alts, but considering I have another addon that does that as well... Well, Auditor does it in a really easy-to-view way and since it doesn't take much space I might as well keep it around, like I have all this time.

Auditor can get really specific, showing you for instance how much money you spent the last week/day/lifetime etc on stuff like repairs, vendors, AH etc. You can choose to look at a specific character, realm or overall. So if you're one of those people who love addons because they help you keep track on everything, then this is definitely for you. There is even an option called "Absurd Detail" and that is really what this addon is all about. There are really no drawbacks about this addon, if you want to know everything about your money flows, this will do it for you. And then of course if you're not so interested in that then there's no need for you to use an addon like this. It won't make you a better player, it might however save you some time when you're trying to buy something expensive on your alt and are unsure about if they can afford it or if you have to send them some money.

It hasn't been updated for quite a while, but still works well for me. I only use it very little though. The creator also tells us that Spicy Meatballs is part of the "new features", can't miss out on that can we!
And you can find it here.

Rares and Blues

I probably shouldn't do this, but as with other things in life that one shouldn't do, I'm gonna go on and do it anyway!
I'm going to give you some tips on rare spawns in Vanilla that have high chances to drop blues and that could earn you some extra cash. All the rares in Outlands and Northrend drop blues, but only very few of the Vanilla ones do. And most of those blues are rather good and will therefore give you some 30-100g on AH. Here are my top three favorite rares in Vanilla.

1. Lo'Grosh
Lo'Grosh is an ogre inside one of the ogre caves in Alterac Mountains. He has a good chance to drop not only one, but two good blue items. Black Ogre Kickers, really nice level 32 mail boots with strength and stamina, and The Pacifier, an awesome level 32 mace (4.00 speed!) with tons of strength and some stamina. Both these items are worth more than 50g at AH. Lo'Grosh himself is level 39, so when you quest in these areas he should be around your level. He isn't elite either but hits rather hard and uses bloodlust which will make him hit even harder.


2. Skhowl
Yet another npc situated in Alterac Mountains. This is nice because you can just run to check if either is up any time you're in the vicinity. Skhowl is a yeti just behind the goblin Bro'kin that sells the Frost Oil recipe. Skhowl is the only black yeti among all the white yetis, so he can't really be missed. He drops a really nice level 31 dagger, Howling Blade, which one can get about 20-40g for depending on server. Skhowl is killed more often than Lo'grosh and therefore the prevalence of other Howling Blades on AH is usually greater than with other boe blues. Skhowl is level 36, also non-elite and really easily killed.


3. Ironeye the Invincible
Ironeye wanders the southern parts of Shimmering Flats, and really stands out in the white sand as he is an all dark greenish basilisk among all the white basilisks. Ironeye isn't easy at all, he is level 37 which is rather high for that area and also elite which makes him quite tough for anyone around that level to kill. He has a high chance to drop Blade of the Basilisk, a really cool level 32 sword which has a chance on hit to increase defense by 50 (!) for 5 seconds. At that level, 50 defense is tons, giving the wielder a big amount of dodge, parry and crit reduction for a short amount of time. Although it gives defense, this weapon is good for rogues and dps warrior as well and you could probably get more than 50g for it at AH. As with any vanilla weapon however, this probably has a low proc chance. The weapon has a really rare skin too which I might talk more about in another post.


Do you know of any other rares that drop good blues?
Good luck hunting!

A-o-R: AuctionLite

AuctionLite
Category - AH mod
Necessity Level - Medium
Class/Role - Any

This time we'll look at an addon that took me quite some time to get, but once I tried it I immedatiely fell in love.
When leveling a bunch of alts, you'll get alot of junk. Selling this junk will usually get you alot of money, but it also takes alot of time taking care of. Seeing to it that your items get properly priced according to the current market means researching what else is on the AH. My solution to this was to do a simple search for the item I was going to sell, and then manually underprice it with some silver. Easy enough, but when you've got 50 items in your bags to sell, this quickly takes quite a while.So I complained about it to Love and he told me about getting an auction addon. I said I didn't want something bulky that needed to be updated through continuous scans and whatnot, just something that did what I did, but automagically - search for current prices on AH and undercut.

And lucky me, there was just such an addon. Enter AuctionLite!

AuctionLite will do exactly this. When you go to AH it gives you two new tabs. AuctionLiteSell and AuctionLiteBuy. Meaning it won't remove the original AH view in case you want to use them.

AuctionLiteSell will scan the AH for the item you have added (using alt + rightclick) and automatically undercut it by an amount set by you (there is a default amount set that works just fine). If there is no other item like yours on AH, it will automatically set the price to 3 times vendor price. For stuff like gear this works well, but for stuff like consumables (meat, ores etc) this is totally off, since an ore might be worth 1 silver to vendor but way more than 3 silver on AH. This just means you will have to tell it what price you want for these items, and it will use that price the next time this happens.
AuctionLiteSell uses an average of the items on AH to set its price. In case someone has a really really low price, it won't try to undercut that, but rather the prices it sees as within the "normal" price range for the item.

On the picture we can see the grey items representing items that are too cheap to undercut, the yellow items represent my own auctions and the white auctions represent auctions of others that are undercuttable.

AuctionLiteBuy will give you a new "buy items"- interface. This allows you to do something Blizzard should've implemented long ago - buying stuff in bulks. Some people (idiots *cough*) place items like cloth and dusts in single stacks, thus cramming AH with pages up and down of these items. Buying them one and one takes forever as well (and who the heck needs -one- cloth!?) but with AuctionLiteBuy you can select any number and press "buy". Before you do the mistake of your lifetime accidentally buying 100 Abyss Crystals, you'll get an "approve this buy" selection, telling you exactly how much the entire purchase will cost before actually buying anything.


The Buy Stuff Interface will also show you price per item and per stack among other things.

This is a set and forget kind of addon. Just simply download it, put into your addons-folder and it will work. Any time you have to do anything about it is if you want to fine tune it's pricing settings. I haven't done this as I am perfectly happy with default settings, so I can't really tell you how difficult that is. My guess is that it's easy though, like the rest of the addon.

I love the AuctionLiteSell part of this addon. It saves me tons of time, and if you have any regular business with AH at all, I really recommend using this. it does everything I want nearly automatically (I still have to place the items and collect the money). The AuctionLiteBuy part is good too, but not the main reason I use this addon. It's great for when I want to buy bulks, but otherwise I actually still prefer the original setup.

Begging with style

A funny thing happened to me yesterday. While doing the usual emptying of bags on my rogue in Undercity I got a whisper from another rogue, only level 8. He asked, rather politely, if he could have 1g for skills since he was completely new on the server and had no money.

Depending on how people ask me, I will answer them accordingly. I rarely just cut people off, but try to help them in some way. I never ever however actually give them money. I work around the motto - give them tools to help themselves.

So what do you do when someone asks you for money? You could just take the easy way out and give them what they ask for. Unfortunately this is like giving money to beggers in real life, it isn't completely certain they'll actually use it for what they claim they will. I'm not just prejudiced, I have experience of this. But anyway, in WoW I know it happens that people earn their living just on begging. People are actually that generous! And I'm quite sure it won't help them learn the magic of "earning your own money".

The second option would be to direct them to my post on how to make money when you're fresh and clean without a main.

A third option, and the most devoted one, is to offer to buy something from them. If they really need the money asap they might not want to listen to your sensible advice on how to get money in the long run. You can decide for youself if you want to rip them off in their need or actually give them a fair deal. Unless you're -really- ripping them off (like buying Recipe:Savory Deviate Delight for 1g) you're probably doing them a favor anyway.

But what if the tables are turned and you're the one in need of some really quick bucks? I have never ever begged for money, but I have been in dire need of some quick G's. Here are some easy tips if you want to make money fast, they usually work, but only if you don't use them too often.

- Look into your bags, is there anything you've got that someone else might consider sellable enough to take from your hands immediately, even if it's just as a favor. Chances are you do. Especially cloth and cooking reagents sell very well (in case you don't have a gathering profession). Whisper some highbie, or announce in trade of your predicament and offer to sell whatever you've got to a nice price if you could get someone to help you at once. Think about that if you announce it generally (like in a chat) there is a risk that no one will feel they're targetted and might just shrug it off. There is a real psychological phenomenon that states that the more people are involved in a problem, the less the chances are than one individual will take the step to solve it. The risk of addressing an individual is of course instead that you might get hold of a douche bag or just someone who is afk. You can make a nice macro of your message however and send it to everyone around you *snicker*.

- There is too little rp in the world. Although the vast majority of players in WoW make fun of rp, it is still a force to be counted with. Whenever I'm bored I pick some gray item in my bags (most recently Rotting Bear Carcass and Rabbit's Foot) and write some inspired rp about in trade chat, with the final point being that it is for sale of course. If you're witty enough you can get really good money for your crap!
Here are some examples that made my abovementioned grays sell for 10g each!

Rotting Bear Carcass - Are you going to have a nice night with the misses? Want to set that special mood and make sure it's going to happen? Buy my Rotting Bear Carcass, spread it in front of the fire and I guarantee satisfaction! Disclaimer: No satisfaction guaranteed, feelings of itchiness may develop if vicinity to the Rotting Bear Carcass is kept for too long.

Rabbit's Foot - Going to ICC tonight? Want to make sure you get that special item you've been running for the last ten times? Get my Rabbit's Foot and laugh your fellow raiders in the face as the item falls into your hands! Disclaimer: Luck not actually guaranteed, previous owner's relatives have sued for misinformation.

You might not think any of these are hilarious, but someone did and paid me 10g for my "crap"! That is begging with style. See it as they're paying you for giving them a little fun, and not in the dirty way. The best part is that it's only your imagination that sets the limits.

But wait, what happened to the rogue that asked me for 1g? Well first I gave him some information about what he could do to earn some money by himself. He answered with something like "well I'm just a lowbie rogue and it is hard". So I turned around and looked at him and saw... that he had BoA gear... Nice try mr. "new on the server rogue". Minus dkp for fail try.

The reasonable fee

Chances are you've got some character (or toon as some like to call it) with a crafting profession. Chances are even higher that you've had to deal with someone elses crafting profession to get an item you needed, because very few people are completely self-sustaining when it comes to crafts i.e have at least one character with every profession (I'm soon there though, just gotta finish bs on my warrior.) And even if you do have every profession at your disposal, you might not have all the patterns out there needed!

And if you ever try to get someone else to craft items for you, or do something else for you like open a lockbox or port you somewhere, you'll notice that it often comes with a fee. These fees are often set around a standard, for instance the opening of lockboxes usually costs nothing while getting a gem cut costs somewhere around 10-15g. Where do these standards come from and what is really a reasonable fee to ask for?

The simplest answer would of course be to simply ask for whatever price you like. If people don't pay, they no get. You could do that of course, but you sure as heck won't make much money from it, unless you happen to be the only one who can craft that particular item, more about that a little further down. So what is a reasonable price if you actually intend to make some money from something?

First of all it is important to know that not all crafting professions are much asked for. Some like engineering are nearly never wanted, while others like enchanting or jewelcrafting are asked for every 5 minutes in trade. Yet again others like inscription are highly wanted but rarely asked for. The reason for this are connected to the properties of the goods that the professions produce. Glyphs are cheap to produce and often used in big quantities at a time, therefore it is best to sell them through the AH. Gems on the other hand are medium expensive to produce and used in a medium quantity (by the market) and are therefore sold both at AH and through trade. Enchants on the other hand are usually very expensive to produce, and often the demands are very select. Therefore they are mostly sold on demand only, and not so much through AH. Others yet (while not crafting professions) are of course only usable when demanded, such as portals, the opening of lockboxes or boosts.

So the cost to produce something, and the risk of producing it beforehand (when not knowing for sure if it will sell or not) will affect the prices some, and also decide whether it will be sold on AH or if you have to yell for a crafter in trade.

As mentioned before, exclusivity will highly influence the prices of an item. If you can craft something alot of other people can craft, you won't be able to ask alot of money for doing it, since anyone else could jump in and do it cheaper. There are even people who do stuff for free, so watch out! If you happen to be one of very few to know a particular craft, like say some of the vanilla enchants that only drop in raids such as MC, or like when the Glyph Mastery books were first released on the market, you'll be able to demand a very high price for your craft. This is the case if a pattern/recipe is either time consuming or expensive to get, since those factors will greatly limit the amount of people who know it.

And one last thing that will affect the prices are the effort the crafter has to put into something to produce it for you. If you provide the crafter with all the mats you only demand about 5 minutes of his life, and this factor won't count for much. But if you want to buy an item ready and made, it is reasonable to expect to pay for the time the crafter has put into getting those mats together.

For instance, the other day I bought some 4-5 pieces of the Tempered Saronite set all ready and crafted, paying a little more for each item than I would've if I had collected the items myself. Since I didn't have to go through all the hazzle of collecting the mats myself, I paid him a little extra for doing it for me. It doesn't really matter if he happened to get the mats really cheap or really easy, you have to use whatever effort you would've had to put into it as a base. I wrote some about this some posts ago.

So the reason most people don't use a fee for opening lockboxes is because it didn't cost them anything to skill their lp. I think the main reason however is simply that whatever's in the box rarely would be worth more than any fee you might pay, which would effectively end the necessity of opening lockboxes at all.

The reason you pay some 5-10g for a mage portal is usually because that is what the mage think his time is worth, although the actual item they use costs about 20s or so (40s perhaps).

The fees for other crafts like gems, enchants, tailoring and so on is usually a mix of making it worth the crafters time and repaying some of the immense amount of money he/she put into learning your particular craft (although your craft might've been "free", i.e from the trainer, any crafting profession still cost alot to skill up).

The fee you pay for crafts such as glyphs is based around the very simple "supply and demand". Glyphs high in demand are usually expensive simply because people pay for them. Glyphs low in demand are cheap because no one wants them.

So to conclude, here is a list to check before deciding your price;
- What amount of demand is there on your item? high/low?
- What amount of supply is there on your item? high/low?
- How much effort do you have to put into producing it? high/low?
- How much effort have you had to put into learning it? high/low?

The top two, supply and demand, are usually the ones that matter most, as in any market.

Maybe this has given you a little more insight around the working of crafting professions, so that you can understand the WoW-market better and profit more from it!

A quick buck on an empty pocket

If you ever decide to start out fresh on a new server, for any reason, you'll quickly notice that you need money, asap. When there is no sugardaddy main to send you some hundred g in starting funds it might actually even happen that you can't afford your very first skills (this has happened to me)!

Although collecting money is quite easy, you might need some kind of plan when going about doing it, to be able to collect enough for some very necessary expenses in your way - level 20 mount, level 40 epic mount, all your skills, any imba gear you might find at AH and etc. Just one Frostweave bag could easily cost you 50-60g, which is no peanut money for a lowbie.

This won't be one of those "this is how to make huge amounts of gold in 24 hours" kind of guides, but just some easy to follow thumb rules to keep the cash flowing in a nice and steady pace. It might not make you ridiculously rich, but at least you won't have to turn into one of those sad to look at beggars, "can I has 2g for gear plx".

Most importantly
The only thing you ever really have to keep in mind to be able to make some money is - everything is worth money. In WoW, any kind of effort put into killing or collecting items will produce some amount of money. In WoW time definitely is money. The gold farming guides will tell you the absolutely most profitable way to spend this time, but all you really have to know is that you will make money whatever you do.

Secondly
Thumb rule number one is only true if you follow thumb rule number two. Save everything you find. It isn't worth anything if you don't collect it and sell it to someone, be it a vendor or a player. Killing a mob and not looting it isn't worth anything. When you're still a lowbie even any gray is good to keep, although I recommend keeping all the grays you can carry at any level. An empty bag slot isn't good for anything. Cram your bags! Is thumb rule number two.

Thirdly
Although grays are a good way to get started on your money making, it won't get you much money later on. The best way to make a fast buck is by collecting "whites", that is any item used in a profession. The fact that an item is white and not gray indicates that it is used in some profession, so it is really easy to distinguish whether an item is good to keep or not. If you have to choose between a gray and a white, the white will usually turn out to be worth more money. The white does come with a little more hazzle though, since you won't earn anything from it just by vendoring it. You have to place it on the AH.
Whites can either be collected by killing mobs (meats for cooking), or by getting a gathering profession such as skinning, herbalism or mining. Although all these are really profitable at low levels (and later on of course), you can check the AH to see which one makes the most money on your particular server. I have seen servers that sell stacks of leather for one tenth of another server, so knowing the status of your servers market for a particular type of goods is good before deciding which profession to get.

Crafting professions aren't much profitable until way later on in the levels. Actually crafting professions usually cost more money than they earn you, especially while you're skilling it. By selling meat, herbs, ores and/or skins, you're the one earning a buck from someone else skilling their craft! Since it is way easier for a level 80 to earn money by doing dailies and such, they usually don't feel their time is worth grinding mats for. So they will pay you to do it for them!
Unless you feel a desperate need to craft your own items, I strongly recommend collecting stuff for others to use. It is a great way to make some quick bucks!

Fourthly
Save all greens! Yet again with the saving. Up until level 30-40ish you can easily get about 1g+ for any green you find, no matter what stat it has. It's also usually not worth disenchanting until later levels (40+) so if you get the option in an instance, I would generally recommend to choose not to disenchant an item if it's below level 40. I do not know who wants to buy all these greens, but they always sell!

Fifthly
When finishing a quest and turning it in you often get to choose between some different rewards. Unless you're going to pick one because you actually need it, you should always check which one is worth the most to vendor. Sometimes the difference is several g!

Sixthly
To save you some time while questing, and not have to interrupt it continously because your bags are full and you have to go to AH to empty them, I also recommend getting a bank alt. Just any char, standing ready at the AH and postbox in any city who can do the job for you (or rather, your char) so that you can keep on questing instead. That way you can just "empty" your bag at any postbox instead, by sending it to your bank alt. Whenever you feel like it (although more than once a month) you log over to your bank alt and do the money earning business through that char instead. Saves alot of boring travel time.
On lower levels where you'll ding quite fast, and thus visit a city most of the time anyway, this is less of an issue. But later on, especially when travelling far away like Outlands and Northrend, this will become really handy.

But my item won't sell!
Don't be discouraged if your item comes back to you in the mail. There are three reasons this could happen. Most likely, you've overpriced it. This is usually easy to avoid by checking the current prices of a particular item before placing it (or getting an addon that does it for you, I don't use that however). Undercut reasonably and it will most likely sell. If you're the most expensive option, you probably won't sell. If there is no other item like yours already at AH, you can decide the price for yourself, but it comes with the risk of being undercut. It's something you have to accept.
The second reason your item didn't sell could be pure bad luck. No item is worth anything unless people want it. Supply and demand and all that. If you're really unlucky, even items that usually sell really well, don't sell just because no one needed that item during the time it was at the AH. It is rare, but it does happen.
The third reason is that your item simply isn't worth anything. Sometimes you find some whites and greens that just never sell, because the demand for them is so low, or the supply of them too high. If your item return to you for a third time, this is probably the reason and you can vendor it instead.

All these are some simple rules to think about when leveling that lonely little char. If you stick to these rules I can promise you that you 'll be able to afford just about any expense coming your way on your path to level 80.

Of Stonehenge & Eternal Earths

I'm gonna mix two subjects here that in some twisted sense could be said to be related, so I'll just pretend they are. Sorta.
First of all I just finished reading an interesting book, a compilation of the worlds greatest archaeological finds (according to the authors) - Unearthing the Past by Douglas Palmer, Pual G. Bahn and Joyce Tyldesley. They've split it up into chapters like "Tombs and Burial Sites", "Cities" and "War" and covers a wide range of finds from the more known ones like Macchu Picchu and Ötzi to less known ones like Sutton Hoo in England and Lake Mungo in Australia (well it wasn't well known to me anyway). It has some nice photographs of each find and each text is well written.
One that especially captivated me was the one about Stonehenge. I mean everyone has heard something about Stonehenge. But have you really ever grasped what it all those stones meant in labor and effort? I hadn't. Well I had in some sense, but still not really.

First of all it's approximately 5000 years old. Some of the stones weigh up to 50 tons, that's just short of what a Sperm Whale weighs! Some of the stones must have been carried (or pulled/pushed) around 300 km to get there. Some think that the great Ice Sheet pulled those stones there but that would mean the people that built Stonehenge used every single of that stone type in a vast area. Which isn't likely. One thinks it has been in continuous use for about 1400 years. Can you think of any one place that has been in use for that long? And that still exists, and is in use in some sense today? I can't, but I would like to hear about it if you can :)

Another thing you really should read more about is Easter Island. Not just because of the really odd habit of putting huge heads all around, but the entire story about how the natives killed the plant life on the island to do it an so destroyed their own civilization. Very fascinating.

On a side note (or totally related!); If you're ever in the need to grind Eternal Earths (dunno why anyone would need that but anyway) I found what seemed to be a good spot to do it. The Maker's Terrace in Scholazar has mobs with a good drop rate of it, they're minable for extra cash and seem to be on a forced respawn. So there's a tip for ya.

Picture is from Wikipedia.

Gold flows - Grinding spots (Small Eggs)

Just wanted to give a quick tip for a great grinding spot on Small Eggs. Them eggs are needed for some event achis and can during those events earn ya a bunch load of goldz.

There is a place in Westfall where the birds that drop these eggs actually have a force spawn. This means that there will always be at least one bird around, no matter how dang fast you kill em. (Disclaimer: They might of course have changed this since I was there, but probably not).
I grinded the Fleshrippers between Gold Coast Quarry and Jangolode Mine (http://www.wowhead.com/?npc=1109) and it worked like a charm, so that's a tip for ya if you ever need to farm these little eggs.

Gold flows - part 2

Loves ownage of the AH goes on. Yesterday he had nearly 1100 auctions posted, out of approximately 14.000 total auctions on the AH. That made him alone more than 1/14th of the entire AH. That's freaky, wonder if you can get banned for things like that... The market has slowed down tho, like I said last time. He's still only selling glyph, and the occasional cheap blue that he finds, and now when everyone are done dualspeccing and dualglyphing he makes about 4000g a day (or so he claims anyway).
The downside is that you need a large stock of glyphs to make it work. Like I said, he had 1100 auctions up, and although that might be overkill you still need alot of glyphs to make good money from it. Otherwise bastards like Love will just keep undercutting you till they've forced you to so low prices that you actually lose money on the glyphs. (contra herb cost for inks) That's when he buys them and sells them pricier. He's very, very sneaky that Love.

Gold flows

I don't care much about AH and making money. I usually don't have any trouble making it although I never do dailies and I never grind for stuff (well it has happened occasionally). I just level another alt with some herba/skinning proffession and that gives me all the money I need. That keeps me at about 15000g constant.
Love on the other hand is an AH-slut. He sits there several hours a day. And he was prepared for the 3.1 dual-spec changes and the money that could be made from that. Well I doubt he really knew the frenzy that would come, but he had actually stacked up enough inks, glyphs and spare time to satisfy the market.
On the first four-five days or so, from wednesday patchday to about sunday, he had made.... 60000g.
He uses alot of addons to keep it rolling, which actually doesn't require him to do much work at all, just log in and repost his glyphs all the time.
60000g in four days.
It has calmed down now, thank god or he would've capped his gold in no time.
So if I need anything ever I can just poke him for it! Yesterday he just gave me 1000g to dualspec my lock alt.
One could say I'm now his in-game luxury-wife.