wow mogul

...and he shall be my Squishy

2012-01-23T22:42:00.000-08:00

Dory: I shall call him Squishy and he shall be mine and he shall be my Squishy. Come on, Squishy Come on, little Squishy.
[baby talk, the jellyfish stings her]
Dory: Ow. Bad Squishy, bad Squishy.

When you’re a new and under geared clothy in BGs, when you’ve just hit 85 and your stat weightings have been nerfed out of sight by the helpful gaming company to whom you pay your monthly tithe, when your lack of spell pen means your super crits are now super cute, when you have just become a little fish in a big pond…

What do you do?

Get smarter people, get smarter!

Travel in a pack (school ; )
You’re weak and squishy so get some big friends – pallys and warriors and DKs (oh my!) are your best mates. Why? Cause they won’t stand around throwing a few spells at that damn warlock or mage, they’ll get right up in their grill and bust em up good. (Okay, maybe not our mage overlords they won’t bust up but you get the picture).

Find heals and stick to them like glue
You know what’s good when you don’t have many hits? Hanging with someone who can give you some more! Priests, shammies, pallys and druids, anyone who looks all helpful and healy (a mouseover in the Blizz BG screen will tell you the dedicated healers). Follow those guys and you know what? Help em out when the horde try to off em – that’s kind of your role anyway.

Bring something to the party
Aint got umph? Aint got D? What about a voice – you’ve got one of those right? No one talks (types) in BGs – well, not Alli ones anyway. BUT… once you get a group chatting and then they have a success it’s amazing how everything transforms. Suddenly people are offering suggestions, calling out incomings, deciding on a plan and acting upon it for the win. I personally have changed the course of BGs just by what I suggested and followed through on. You think people should be going after the flag rather than fighting mid? Then say so – but be constructive, suggest a meeting point and get them all together so that you can go in and roll the FC and his cronies. Be smart, hatch a plan with your group members and follow through on it. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at how many people are like you and given the chance will fall on a good idea like hungry jellyfish upon their prey (okay – that analogy could have been better but I was “not” going to say wolves!)

Squishies can sting
Yes you can, yes you can little squishy. You’re a cloth-clad squishy with low firepower and low survivability but you can still sting. But don’t sting the full hits warrior (shhh don’t even look at him, he might come over here), focus on that low-hits hunter over yonder, the one that your pally mate is beating on, finish him off quick and work out who you’ll assist next.

If you’re gonna die (and you are) then make it count
Damn if that hunter didn’t have a couple of friends and damn if the shield you just dropped on your pally mate is gone and he’s blowing his cooldowns as his hits plummet. What are you going to do now? RUN LITTLE SQUISHY, RUN! But run in the right direction, which is to say the wrong direction. ; ) You want to run in the direction that will be of most tactical use to your team as you drag your opponents with you. So bubble up, slap on your HoT, get ready to pop your trink, your fade, your dispersion, etc and run. See how far out of the action you can take those suckers before they off you – it’s amazing how long you can last when you’re just trying to survive.

Have fun
Not being able to pwn annoying horde (or alli – hi there hordy bros and sis’) into the ground with great gobbets of AWESOME can really get a clothy down. But know this: Blizzard made it that way on purpose! They ‘want’ you to grind through your BGs, to claw and scrabble your way to the top (top if you’re a mage that is – near-top for the rest of you). You’re not sucking by accident, Blizzard wants you to strive, to spend time, to pay dollars. So realise you’ve just committed to another WoW grind and have fun with it. If the frustration is getting you down then perhaps BGs at cap and the necessary gearing process are not for you – it’s a game after all you know, you can turn it off. ; )

Stay liquid folks,

M.

now what?

2012-01-22T22:56:00.000-08:00

Hi folks! A belated HNY to you all.

Now what have I been doing since my last post last year?

Levelling a priest is what!

Here’s my priesty Werewithall. I’ve been having an absolute ball with her. Levelling has been mostly via instances smite healing as Disc with a fair amount of shadow PVP in battlegrounds once I got closer to the top of each respective band.

Were is my first ever heal-specced toon and there’ll be more posts to come relating to great sites I found as I levelled, smite healing and how cool it is and some of the fun transmogging I did along the way.

But today I’m posing a question: Now what?

I’m at end game and in general it’s not a part of the WoW game process I have enjoyed recently. There are two things that might change this experience for me though on this toon:

After dinging 85, crafting a full resilience set and converting the honour I’d capped (and been storing in Justice points) to some nice gear I hit a couple of BGs and found my damage to be competitive and my survivability to be fine – I’m not even chanted yet! It helps of course that these were BGs where Alli communicated well and won. ; ) So continuing as Shadow heals (post on this later) in BGs beyond 85 may be a prospect and;

Most importantly for future play at cap Were has always primarily been a healer, a fightin smitin healer but a healer nonetheless. As such there is still a progression pathway there for me on this toon: 85 normals, then 85 heroics – further instances opening up as gearing level improves. Without the capacity to hit the instances and alternate my experience I don’t think end game BGs would cut it. With it though (yes, I know DPS can instance but only every 10-15 minutes) I find myself interested to see the new content, read up on the boss fights and potentially someday hit a LFR group.

Stay liquid folks,

Mogul.

A brief RECAP! 250k to 1 million gold

2011-12-29T18:46:00.000-08:00

Hi folks,

Well that's done! Nice to be back over the million again. : )

This is where I started seven weeks ago: 5 toons came across, each with portable holes to all slots. I'd spent months laboriously converting my gold to product, creating choppers, shuffling for chant mats, proccing out flasks and making BSing buckles and weapon chains (I also took all glyphs to 15 stacks - and then forgot to bring the pally glyphs).

TCG mounts were a definite help, I snagged two raptors (one of which I still have) and a big battle bear. Here's what I bought em for.

And here's what I sold them for.

On my old small server I watched them drop by 10000g before I bought them. On the new populous server I set my sell prices and waited. Combined purchase price was 135554g, sell price was 230850 - so far that's 95k profit on the two. I still have a raptor listed for 142k gold - it'll sell eventually.

And that's what came home to me... on this new server if an item is saleable then it "will" sell and likely at the price you set. I've gone from a server with less than 1000 active toons to one with over 20000. I sold all 10 choppers within a few weeks, they flew off the shelves and for reasonable prices. I'd thought 10 was an optimistic number as on the old server they'd languish for months on end - not so on Frostmourne. My original store of 14 stacks of buckles have gone and I'm now crafting afresh. Gems went like wildfire and mogging flipping has been fun and profitable.

Some interesting things about making it to the mill again on Frostmourne:

I'm selling gems where the competition is posting at less then 10g for buyout (around 195g). I can only surmise that I have Blizz's dodgy basic interface to thank. It happens regularily.
I've bought some herbs to transmute green gems to blues but apart from that everything I've sold is what I brought with me which was prospected from 6 bank tabs of pyrite ore.
I've not entered the epic gem market at all.
Mogging flipping is great fun. I buy blue and epic weapons only for less than 200g and post for 1500g. They move along nicely. I make sure only to buy weapons that are rare and "look" interesting. Remember, people are mogging to make their toons unique - trying to sell a look that is prevalent on the AH is not going to get you far.
Glyph competition is fierce - I only really glyphed when I wanted to get the last few thou towards cap - getting about 3k a day from this when actively glyphing (ie, 2 posts a day).

Stay liquid guys,

Mogul.

30. how to enjoy playing WoW - part 3

2011-12-02T00:01:00.000-08:00

Olla – how 4.3 working out for you guys. I’ve not had a lot of time over the last few days to jump in but when I was on totally loved transmogging my astonishingly ugly DK epic two hander look to a very simple 5g green from the AH – take that crazy WoW art!

Now for the third instalment of this series.

30. how to enjoy playing WoW - part 3

WWCND?

Do ‘some’ hard things
The best games, the ones you remember are the ones that excited and challenged you. Find something that is going to be difficult to accomplish and take a run at it. It could be anything? One of my toons is in a great gulid that primarily PVEs. I’m considering trying to mobilise at least a number of guildies to get some premades going to capitalise on the new conquest point changes. There’s some interest but it’ll be hard work to get it going and make it self-sustaining. That’s why if I manage it, it’ll be fun.

Don’t chase achievements
When achievements first came out everyone in my guild started chasing them. We were a hardmode 10-man guild and the general thought was that the points you got for achievements would (to be announced at a future date) provide some form of benefit in game, something the raid group could leverage off. We weren’t alone in this, everyone thought that would be the case. In actual fact achievement points provide no benefit other than distinguishing you from your fellow players. They are purely for ePeen and seem more self-flagellating than any other element of the game.

Summing up
Relax! Take a step back. So much of the angst I read about when people quit the game seems to be related to both a level of frustration with the xpac roundabout (now the patch roundabout) and an incapacity to monitor and restrict their own time spent playing the game. Fair enough, the first is just plain annoying and the second for most people is a learned skill (it certain was/still is for me). Remember that this is a game and while most games have an ending WoW, by design, doesn’t. You need to provide your own endpoint.

Stay liquid folks,

Mogul.

30. how to enjoy playing WoW - part 2

2011-11-29T19:25:00.000-08:00

Hi folks – below is part 2 of this series but a little something about patch 4.3, which dropped this morning, before I get going. Chaos orbs are currently tumbling onto the server like so many over-ripe plums, sugary sweet from been kept in storage for so long and needing to be eaten soon. But hold off a little. Currently on Frostmourne there are 600 auctions up with the buy price dropping already from 325g each to just under 200g each. I’ve heard reports from other servers that orbs are as low as 100g. The stockpile of these items could be huge indeed – personally I’ll be waiting until the orbs on server hit 100g or less before buying up a few stacks. A reasonable loss could still be made buying at these prices but not a total bath.

Now onto the post.

how to enjoy playing WoW - part 2

Keep it simple

Log on – log off
Try this: log in to WoW with something you want to do, something discrete with a fixed end point. If you’re levelling it could be gaining a level, if you’re PVPing it could be doing one BG (okay, maybe two), if you’re PVEing it could be doing an instance. Once you’ve completed this task hearth back to the inn and log out from WoW. Now, go do something else. You’ve had a nice time playing the game and stopped playing before you get frustrated and begin trolling /2. Playing this game in short bursts keeps it, and you, fresh.

Don’t be leet
You want a miserable time? Then focus totally on one element of the game for an entire xPac (ie, raid progression or dare I say it… gold making. No wait, I don’t dare ; ) The cutting edge in this game is where the hardcore meme says you need to be. Leet also comes with a social obligation – if your leet mates are doing something you will have to as well. Before you know it your time is not your own and the time you spend is based upon someone else’s “WoW view”, not yours. I’m not saying don’t do hard things (see post tomorrow) but whilst hard can be fun don’t burn your precious time for leetness unless you’re really enjoying yourself.

Keep it simple
Do one thing at a time. I’m levelling my priest at the moment and it’s a bunch of fun. I love learning the new skill, both the getting of it and the exercising of it. Doing one thing and focussing on it provides a beginning, middle and end to a process. Flipping from toon to toon is not restful and will likely decrease your enjoyment.

Last part of this post incoming tomorrow folks.

Stay liquid,

Mogul.

30. how to enjoy playing WoW - part 1

2011-11-29T00:28:00.000-08:00

As time has gone by I’ve become increasingly phlegmatic about this game called WoW. Below are a bunch of ideas as to how to enjoy WoW. The intention is not that you do them all at the same time; many are contradictory if taken together. They’re simply a bunch of things that I’ve thought about as I tailor the way I play this game to counteract the built-in methodologies that Blizzard employs to keep you burning your RL time on their game and correspondingly keep your wallet open and your sub active.

In order not to crit you for 9000 with a wall-o-text this post is in three parts.

Stop it before you go blind
Counterintuitively, one of the best things you can do to enjoy WoW is to stop playing it! WoW is designed to get you to sub each month and keep you playing repetitively, reinforcing the habit. As such like many MMOs it employs various techniques to keep you in; large MMOs are not always working in your interests. Take a month off and see what else is happening in your life. At the very least you should be able to monitor and control the amount of time you spend and keep it to a level that’s fun. Grinding anything for 10 hours at a time is ‘not’ fun.

Don’t grind (and the exception: grind when the grinding’s good)
WoW is a grinding game. Everything is set up to entice you to carry out actions on a daily basis. But doing the same things on a daily basis, especially when you may not enjoy them is not called a game, it’s called work. Grind if you think the reward is good and worth it but don’t simply move from one mindless grind to another.

Try new stuff
Try different specs, modes of play (pve/pvp) – work to the strengths of the game. Try not to get hung up on ‘perfecting’ your art. Blizzard deliberately ‘unperfects’ your art at each xPac (and recently at each patch) so perfectionism in WoW is a losing game. Wow is large, complex and pretty interesting, built to try to meet the needs of as many players as possible so launch into it and try something new!

More tomorrow folks.

: )

Mogul.

29. update update update...

2011-11-27T23:02:00.000-08:00

Olla folks!

Here we go:

Gold
I’ve sold one of my Raptor mounts I bought for 80K… for 142K, giving me a 55K gold profit.
I’m buying all the reasonably priced mats I can for the crafting pvp armor with the upcoming patch.
I’ve stopped selling glyphs on the new server – I’ll tell you why later, but basically it’s a lifestyle choice.
My store of pets, bought for a max price of around 2K each, continue to sell on this large server for around the 4K mark.
All ten of my choppers I brought to the new server have sold putting about 165K back into my pockets – should have made more but I had thought I’d be struggling to move ten.
The gem market is dead on server with blues going for less than 5g in some instances – I’m posting but not competitively, holding back to see what joy the patch brings.
I’ve become a flipper in the pet market, best flip so far was for 6K on a Disgusting Oozling – I’m also flipping regular vanity pets; big server numbers mean that competition occasionally drops blue pets down to around the 1500-1800g level. I pick up two or three at a time when this happens.
I’ve been playing around in the transmog market, buying up anything interesting in the less than 300g market (unless it’s a really good deal). We have a single poster who is capping and regulating this market so I’m focusing on the rarer items to ensure exclusivity. I’m thinking of posting these in two bands, 750-1200g and 1000-1500g.

Toons
I levelled my hunter to 85, set up macros and keybinds and got him into resilience gear ready for 4.3.
I’ve topped out my lock for justice points and honour points ready for the new PVP season. It’s going to be a close match between him and my hunter as to who I preference; hunters are ‘fun’ in PVP with a lot of utility in the class.
I’m levelling my priest. It is a bunch of fun. I’ve got my priesty up to level 44 as I write this having levelled through instances as smite spec since level 36. This is the first time I’ve ever played heals and I’m finding it very rewarding. I’ve had only one wipe so far and liken this style of heals to kitty dps in terms of timing and managing cooldowns. Who’d have though I’d get into healing in such a big way. It’s fun to see all the old instances and one of the joys of levelling this way is you have great gear through drops whilst healing pugs which is unpredictable and fun.

Stay liquid folks,

M.

28. combats pets I’d like to see, in order of incredulousness

2011-10-27T23:37:00.000-07:00

Run you fools!

Combat pets are on the way and that got me thinking, what new pets would I really like to see going at it? The answer is below placed, as promised, in order of incredulousness:

Tiny t-rex – I don’t know why… wouldn’t ‘you’ like a Tiny T-Rex? You’re a hunter and have the TCG Savage Raptor mount and your T-rex pet, now you just need a tiny T-Rex pet.

Wriggling bag – every now and then some 'thing' escapes and crawls to join the fray

Hairless cat – comes with definite Mr Bigglesworth overtones

Helper monkey – an archaeology pet, has wings ala Wicked Witch of the West monkey army and a little cap - only... it's NOT helping!

Piranha – it runs on stubby little legs and when within 10 yards of a water body dives in and a red mist rises in the water ala Borean Tundra cooking quest.

Balloon animal – 5 different types of balloon animal, can try for a different type every 10 minutes, animation has character making little squealing rubber sounds and crafting animation.

: )

M.

27. 2012 is the new 1985

2011-10-23T21:10:00.000-07:00

2012 is so 1985

Giant pandas? Really Blizz?!

I actually laughed out loud when I read this. My interwebz reading is often focussed on gold making and sometimes I miss this kind of information. I am mildly surprised that the prospect of giant panda bears doing Kung Fu (no doubt sporting a Jack Black-ish persona in an astonishingly similar manner to recent celluloid) evaded my notice but there you are.

Soo… nerd rage abounds over the announcement. Stalwarts believe that this is a bridge too far in terms of game lore. I’m assuming that these same folks were not keen on giant blue space goats falling from the skies during BC. : )

For myself I’ve never played a goat, they’re hokey and odd, but I love that they’re around and I love that the pandas are coming to join us (welcome panda bothers and sisters, the bamboo’s over there…) – you’re telling me that large hard-drinking and eating rolly polly teddy bears are joining the game? Great! I may even play one. Vive la différence!

And the other thing that I like from my Blizzcon reading… ? War with the horde! Whacking the horde is going to again come back into vogue (although for some of us it never really went out of vogue) and I couldn’t be happier. I don’t think it’ll take any concrete form – evidence suggests that there’ll be no new world PVP zone ala Halaa, Wintergrasp or Tol Barad but as a meme I’m all for the spice it’ll inject into Alliance/Horde relations.

Now, onto this post’s title and the graphic above. Back in 1985 TSM brought out Oriental Adventures. I was a keen AD&Der at that stage (yes kids, gather round and hear a tale from the days of yore… ) and we were all interested in something very new: the prospect of taking the gaming system we knew and loved and converting it to something that was unfamiliar and fascinating. There were new weapons, new classes, new locations and a new concept called honour. The very differentness of Oriental Adventures was what drew us to it. Campaigns were written by friends where ‘oriental’ met the standard western milieu and were great fun. The out of place hero in the new locale is very contemporary, just think Jackie Chan in Shanghai Noon. ; )

Mist of Pandaria and Oriental Adventures for me juxtapose quite neatly. MoP is very ‘different’ to the WoW we are familiar with: it introduces, amongst other things, unarmed combat (although I think Brewmasters use polearms, details are a bit sketchy as yet), healing through combat and of course large panda bears. In the long term though as future xpacs roll out it will become simply part of the levelling experience and an added layer of complexity to the game. It won’t break anything as WoW is an evolving beast, much as early dice rolling games such as AD&D were plus we’re talking unfamiliar and fascinating folks which is always a drawcard for peeps who like MMOs. Reactionaries may game quit over this but if they do it’s a mark of a woodenness that WoW, as a game, can probably afford to loose.

Stay liquid guys,

26. you can't take it with you

2011-10-18T06:16:00.000-07:00

Wanna bet!

The move is made folks. : ) I've brought five toons over to Frostmourne and let me tell you it's great! There are folks dueling outside SW, both AHs are veritable hubs of activity and there are over 30k auctions up at any one time. I can tell already that I've made a loss on a bunch of things that I had little choice but to convert my gold into on Thaurissan but there's items that'll draw a good profit as well.

I'm apping for a good PVP guild which hopefully I'll get into as I'm keen to get into some RBGs but mostly just loving being on a server which is so vibrant; I was able to get my bank guild sorted from some helpful guys in the human starting zone. An extremely different experience from what I've been used to on Thaurissan where everything had to be done the hard way.

I've been out to Tol Barad to do the dailies to get a feel for the world(ish) PVP and had the odd experience of the Horde quietly turning the other cheek as they got on with their dailies. On Thaurissan the general rule was to get in hard and often as you knew anyone you turned your back on would be back later with friends looking for the Alli 'rare spawn'. Here I was questing alongside other Alliance - unheard of! I actually had the opportunity to take a few Horde down but didn't - without the huge faction imbalance it felt odd. I'll have to get used to that.

So here's a look at what I came over with. You'll notice that only four toons are shown - got to keep a little mystery : )

Stay liquid folks,

Mogul.

25. a poet by any other name...

2011-10-09T00:02:00.000-07:00

...would smell as sweet!

I had 15K gold left over the 250k and decided to put it to good use - the poets of Thaurissan delivered. A four-line poem was required with prizes of 5k for the winner, 2k for second and 1k for third. I also did four honourable mentions for 250g each.

This was an absolute blast and really got me thinking about what sort of experiences we make for ourselves in MMOs. Anyway, now's not the time for philosophising, onto the poems.

The winning entry was posted by Savahna and had a great visual quality to it and made me laugh : )

Second prize was Yokono's effort - nicely done!

Lastly this gem from Victim:

This comp was a great way for me to remember this server where I had so much fun raiding and PVPing. A great bunch of creative, fun people.

One last one before I go - loved this:

That was a bunch of fun - thanks guys!

Stay liquid (but only to 250K),

Mogul.

24. you are here!

2011-10-04T21:38:00.000-07:00

50k to go!

Five of my guys are going across to the new server so that’s 250K liquid I can take. Recent purchases were another truckload of ore and herbs for buckles, chant mats and glyphs and many portable holes for my first alt on the new server. Once I get down to the 250K I’ll have effectively purchased, shuffled and crafted my way through 900,000 gold which let me tell you was much harder than making it ; )

I can’t believe I’m now so close; the short booms and long gluts for resources on this server have been annoying.

But I’m almost ready to move!

Just in time too… on average we now have about 4000 auctions up at any time. This is dismal and a clear indicator that bad things are happening to the faction population-wise. For reference Frostmourne has over 30,000 auctions up at any one time. A key indicator that I scan for is the price drop across the first page when searching highest price – on Thaurissan it falls to 1500g items with the first 50.

More on why people stay on this type of server and why Blizzard lets them later.

Stay (limitedly) liquid folks,

M.

23. what does a gbank tab of pyrite ore look like?

2011-09-27T01:46:00.000-07:00

This!

The above screeny shows what happens when you prospect an entire gbank tab of pyrite ore.

That’s right folks, with their general “non”-epicness now revealed I’m deciding what to do with 12243 pyrite ores.

Now I know you’re wondering how much gold I invested into this pile? Hard to say but I started a long time ago and usually bought only when ore was low. I also remember getting a pretty good run on 150-200 stacks around the 45g mark. So taking all this into account I’m thinking about 45k gold to get my many stacks which is an average stack cost of 75g max.

The interesting question is what am I going to do with it now? Turning some ore into pyrium bars is a definite. But really, 50 stacks of pyrium is probably enough. Following this I’ll have 10243 pyrite ore to prospect into gems and volatile earths. Stats for ore and bars, based upon the prospecting above, will be 925 rares, 2028 greens and 4087 volatile earths. So 612 ore stacks gets turned into 168 gem stacks and 50 stacks of pyrium bars.

Future of the gem market
Bang – gems gems gems will hit the market when 4.3 drops. Why then? Cause most people will hold onto their ore in the vain hope that Blizz might change their minds and make epics drop from ore after all.

They won’t. Winding the process for epic gems back to BC is not an accident. It’s an attempt to maintain or possibly save the future of raiding for this game. Blizz has decided that there are now some things you simply won’t have unless you raid. I’m cool with that as the vast majority of players do not raid in any regular manner. It’s interesting from a social perspective but I’ll save that post for another time.

I will however wait until the PTR drops to prospect my ore… just to be sure. ; )

So pyrite stockpiles will be prospected and rares will flood the market having a reasonable but not huge take-up in the short term. Prices will drop, potentially plunge for some time. Expect to see cut rares as low as 30g a piece for at least a month or two. Some greens will be transmuted causing Heartblossom to spike early but the rest will be turned to dusts and essences via DEing.

Uses of volatile earth
Have a look here for uses of volatile earth. I’ll be focussing on some bloodthirsty gear, BS gear, chants, smelting hardened Elementium and BS weapons. Even with this though there’s going to be an aweful lot left over. Prices are going to tank – maybe as low as 2g per.

Chant mats post 4.3
Will be plentiful and cheap but limited by items such as heavenly shards and maelstroms. I’m thinking we’ll be seeing dusts and essences tank at about one month after 4.3 with a slight rise over time following before they tank fully at the end of the xpac. Just remember that if it involves dusts there’ll be a far greater capacity for most people to make it and prices will drop. Heavenly shards and maelstroms will likely rise in value as cheap mats moves new crafters towards trying their hand in the chants game.

My strategy
I’m not buying any more volatile earths. O.O There will be a glut on the market for earths and a drop in BS gear and the like that relies upon them. After a review of vol earths I’m not even sure that buying up what gets dropped on the market will be a good idea.

I’m going to trade all the JC tokens I’ve been putting together in preparation for epic recipes in for blue recipes.

I’m going to create a dedicated jewel alt, equip them with some big bags and keep 10off each cut on hand, posting morning and evening 3 per.

I’ll be shuffling green gems to dusts and essences and creating scrolls for every enchant I can and posting 5off on my jewellery alt.

Then I’ll be laughing at that hilarious punchline with the rest of you. It’s my hope that Blizz knew all along that pyrite was ‘never’ going to be prospectable for epics. I for one would not hold it against them if they came out and admitted it.

Stay liquid folks,

Mogul.

22. transmogs, blogs and addons... oh my

2011-09-23T00:55:00.000-07:00

Here's a few sites I'm following at the moment as I look for some great gear for my lock and mage:

The Visual Roleplay Gearlist - great site with a variety of 'looks';
Disenchanting Azeroth - simply brilliant, I can feel the science seeping into my transmog experience + there are a bunch of very elegant pictographs (Really hunny, I'm just reading the articles). Just weapons so far it seems;
Wowpedia Tier Set Lookalikes - as it says tier lookalikes and where to find them;
MogIT is an addon that seems to tick all the boxes (not road tested it yet but looks great) - this is where I found it originally;
Disiplinary Action on lock, mage and priest sets;
Gnome Warlords - a fantastic site for early tier gear pictures. Not updated since 2007 but if you're a gnome mage, rogue, warrior or lock looking for pics of tiers 1 to 6 then this site is for you!

Now what I personally will be going for in terms of armour is anyone's guess at this stage. Certainly on my current server there's little chance of getting in on one of the older raids. I can grind for the weapon I want though...

May I introduce Spellfire Longsword which drops from Mennu in the slave pens. I cannot wait to see what this sword does with Power Torrent on it.

Stay liquid folks,

Mogul.

21. pet swap

2011-08-30T18:26:00.000-07:00

I love my vanity pets! My old main has 100+ and is still collecting. Not having all my furry, scaly, feathered, shelled, gaseous, globulous friends on my new main is quite regrettable.

What can I say, I think the little guys are fun and I love to go quest for something new to bond with. This in mind it won’t come as a surprise to your folk that one thing I have not done and will not do is buy the micro-transaction pets.

In all there are eight micro-transaction pets I could purchase at this time. Had I grabbed them all Blizz would be $110 better off and I would have eight new shinies (and two freaky furry toys for the kids). It’s better this way though, cause these guys would only made me angry. WoW pet collecting from the outset has always been about venturing into the world to find your new friends. There are guides to read and websites to survey; devotees take the quest for acquisition very seriously indeed.

So along with sparkle ponies and disco lions, no pretend pets for me…

In direct contradiction to the above then here's an idea. One thing I might buy from Blizz as a microtransaction, one purchase I’d strongly consider making would be a bulk pet xfer. All my pets from my old main xferred to my new main so that I could enjoy them. Those old buddies that ventured with me in the past could now gain a new lease on life accompanying another member of my crew.

That would be cool!

But what do you think? Would you pay to xfer your pets en masse to a new toon, or would depriving your old main of all those pets they worked so hard for seem somehow unfair?

: )

M.

20. have choppers will travel

2011-08-23T20:31:00.000-07:00

Hey guess what – my Alliance Vanguard rep grind is almost over. Soon I’ll be making choppers as part of my server exit strategy. Thing is they’re resource-hungry buggers.

For 1 chopper:
12 titansteel bars – (3 titanium bars + eternal shad/fire/earth)
40 handfuls of cobalt bolts
2 arctic fur
1 salvaged iron golem parts
8 goblin machined pistons
1 elementium-plated exhaust pipe

For 10 choppers:
120 titansteel Bars which is 120/120/120 eternal shad/earth/fire and 360 titanium bars
400 handfuls of cobalt bolts
20 arctic fur
10 salvaged iron golem parts (vendor Roxi Ramrocket – K3 – 3000g) 30000g
80 goblin machined pistons (vendor Roxi Ramrocket – K3 – 1000g) 80000g
10 elementium-plated exhaust pipes (Roxi Ramrocket – K3 – 1500g) 15000g

I have enough of saronite ore to make 178 bars of titanium (yes, I did indeed have 2800 saronite ore - been holding it in one of the gbanks since the end of Wrath) and I have another 120 or so actual bars (again, someone offloaded very cheap titanium stacks at that time) so likely about 60 to find there. I’m short on the shadow eternals by about 40 but have heaps of Earth bought for JC/DEing. Fire is also good.

2 cobalt bars give 1-3 bolts so conservatively it’s about 3 stacks of bars per chopper or 30 stacks which I almost have. It’s an easy farm though as no one is looking for these materials any more so the rest shouldn’t be a problem.
I have about 8 Arctic furs and they’re tradeable for borean leather so and I’ve got more than enough to meet the requirement.
Then I’m down to the cost of 10 choppers worth of vendor mats which is 125000g.

I’ll keep one for Shortcut of course, he’s earned it. : )

It will be strange to see the stockpile I’ve held from Wrath for so long disappear to be replaced by shiny choppers. I’ll have so much room!

Stay liquid folks,

Mogul.

19. transmogrifying, epic gems and the long awaited punchline

2011-08-18T22:32:00.000-07:00

Olla compadres!

Blizz has been spouting off about the goodness that will be 4.3 and I for one am excited! The option of transmogrifying my lock’s appearance is something I’m looking forward to with great anticipation. I have a feeling it’s only going to be tier gear we’ll be able to refashion to, which will be a shame, but I’ll still take that as a great step forward. I wonder whether you’ll only be able to transmogrify to gear you officially have the levels to wear or whether we’ll see level-one mages in T11?! I hafta say I’d be interested in starting at T1 and working my way up. : )

A side note: will this new age of transmogrification usher in druid forms with armour? I think not. bearform druid sitting in a field here>

Now, if 4.3 really does represent the ultimate or even the penultimate content patch before an xpac release next year then epic gems must surely be just around the corner. Either this patch or the next.

In Wrath epic recipes were available via the same tokens blue recipes were purchasable with. JCers everywhere have been saving up their tokens in the hope that the model will repeat itself. The previous model to Wrath was the placement of recipes within a large new quest hub. As we’ve just had one of those (a large new quest hub that is) I think there’s a likeliness that the hording of tokens we’ve all been doing may come to fruition.

Personally I’ve got over three Gbank tabs loaded with pyrite ore stacks so you can bet I’ll be glued to the patch notes as they appear in more detail. Many of those stacks were bought at about 100g each but many also were purchased for as low as 40g a stack (thanks be to you O now-banned-AH-stacking botters). So I’ve got an investment there of around 25K which conservatively, when epics drop, could garner around 100K.

This is of course the punchline. Pyrite is commonly known in RL as Fool’s Gold. So if this is really a gigantic joke perpetrated by Blizz to catch AH-players out then we’re in for a laugh soon I think.

Time will tell my friends.

; )

M.

18. Didn't you see the sign that said...

2011-08-12T01:28:00.000-07:00

"DO NOT PUSH THIS BUTTON!?"

When I was younger and at the beginning of my gaming journey I played AD&D. Those are my roots. Myself and a Group of guys (usually about five of us including the DM) would spend our Saturday nights rolling dice and living in a fantasy world populated by intrigue, danger and fast food. The rest of the weeknights would be spend thinking furiously about what our characters might get up to on Saturday next. It was wonderful!

When I was older I found WoW. During BC there was limited automation. Guild members talked over chat but then moved through the world together to meet at the summoning stone. Trade chat was full of people putting together PUGs or looking for crafters. Guilds were smaller then, your Tribe knew each other pretty well and cooperated to get things done. The intimacy of a Group was not there but so many other things were: community, shared vision, shared fortunes, a sense of identity, the thrill of venturing out into the world together to accomplish tasks. Good times.

WoW has now entered a more Global era. Players queue randomly (and anonymously) for greater rewards in 5-mans and PVP; portals whip us around the world without us ever having to touch down. It’s definitely easier. In this Global phase guilds have morphed into bulky entities as the guild XP-chase necessitates larger player pools to build levels quickly. This has produced an ennui in casual players, a certain dulling of focus and lack of connectedness. These current times are a little directionless, but with the ramping up of dailies and achievements a little too led, consequently… not so much fun.

This post sounds like a lament but it isn’t meant to be. I still enjoy this game but I’m finding there are fewer ‘reasons’ for me to play. I think this is down to simply not feeling I’m actually achieving anything. We appear to have moved from an environment where just getting around the world represented an achievement in itself to one where things have been made so easy that activities feel like pointless busy work.

What’s your take on this evolution? Time for Blizz to take a few steps back to create something not quite so easy?

Oh and… Hi! Nice to be back.

: )

Mogul.

on hiatus

2011-07-22T01:22:00.000-07:00

Hi there folks, wowmogul is going on holiday.

In my absence there will be nobody at the helm so please stand clear as wowmogul careens around the blogosphere, scraping the other blogs' paintwork and generally creating mischief and mayhem. I’ll be putting together posts during my downtime (including a juicy 3-parter I’m currently working on) and may even lurk comment-wise around some of my fave WoW gold blogs.

Where am I going? Nowhere! : ) I’m simply unplugging while I prioritise some RL projects for the next 6 weeks or so.

Stay liquid folks,

Mogul.

17. If Blizz made a 200K gold sink what would it be?

2011-07-15T05:33:00.000-07:00

It’s a bus!

Where does it come from?

Gnomes… and goblins! Who else? Up in the hills above Gnomeregan there’s a workshop full of amazing gizmos and gadgets. Those who make the pilgrimage find a strange workshop, formed by an enterprising gnome called Screwtight Pinchpurse. Under his leadership a crew of fiscally minded short folk put together all manner of machinery – for a price. You must have 100K gold in your bags just to get in the door for a look. The style? Need you ask – steampunk for sure.

Who’s on the bus?
1) The Party Guy – a hard-drinking dwarf who sells questionable drinks and dances with the patrons when the bus stops
2) The Party Girl – a belf lass who sells ‘cakes’, glow sticks and bottled water
3) The Mech(anic) – a gnome BS and general merchant
4) The Bus driver – tauren with an attitude, or course
5) The Raid Group – that’s you and your mates, the bus holds up to 20 toons

Buses abilities:
1) Backfire – the bus gives an enormous backfire stunning all in the vicinity for 3 seconds
2) Rocket boost – 5 second speed boost
3) Anti-personnel ram – surprise your friends, pummel your enemies

Drive options:
1) Self drive – where you take the wheel, careful though, this thing is long and hard to maneuver
2) Bus Driver – available at any time the bus is on a known road, select the city you want to go to and bus drives to the gates

This bus would fast become the ‘must have’ piece of equipment for all serious PVP guilds as fleets of these suckers (well, given the price tag maybe not fleets…) could be seen pulling into the opposing faction’s cities like that campervan charge in Independence Day.

How about you guys? Got any ideas for other 200K gold sinks?

: )

Mogul.

16. feral provides interwebs with body of work

2011-07-12T18:42:00.000-07:00

I’m levelling Stormbear to cap and given my server part of my prep involves getting the best PVP setup I can, stam patching all gear up the wahzoo, chanting weapons, gemming where I can, flasks, bandages... Everything the best that gold can buy. Part of my process is also revisiting my UI, macros, spec and playstyle. It’s been a long time since my druid was out in the world and a lot’s changed.

How do I know a lot has changed?

Hengest!

To put it bluntly I’d been doing it wrong. I had a standard PVP spec that was not capitalising on the awesome power of kitty bleeds. I also had not been using my class’s capacity to change forms, staying cat for far too long. The last time I seriously PVPd was arena somewhere around T6/T7. Back then kitties ‘never’ moved out of cat form. BGs and the class are different these days.

I’m paraphrasing the videos here and likely not that well so watch them:

This one is the feral PVP starter and it’s great! Spec, glyphs, stats to promote – wonderful.

This one is the start of what is effectively a BG training series where Hengest basically just takes you along for the ride while he runs through a BG. There is a whole series of these. They’re terrific for a feral to watch but are excellent also from the POV of BG stratergy. Highly recommended.

There are a bunch of these that I’m enjoying working through.

Great stuff!

: )

M.

15. wake up man I’m flipping ya squirrels

2011-07-07T02:00:00.000-07:00

I thought a brief word on monitoring could be useful.

For a long time now I’ve been buying mechanical squirrels. I buy them for 9g95s and sell them for 59g. I sell squirrels quite regularly.

There’s only one guy on server who posts them (apart from myself) and for as long as I can remember when he posts, I’ve been buying him out.

Does he know that I’m doing this? Has he checked on the pet market and seen that I have five of everything up, selling vendor pets from 35g up to 200g? I’m thinking not. I’m thinking that he’s got a process going and is not checking the market to see what is selling and who is posting against him.

So what can you do to keep an eye on things?

If you notice a sudden buying streak on your stock then check to see who’s buying. Glyphers will be used to this as buying out the competition happens every now and then, especially when sale prices get close to mat prices. Other folks may not.
If you’re using one of the autoposting addons (well, as auto as they get these days) then make sure you have your viewing tab set to the standard auction tab when you post. This way you’ll see the competitions’ posts as you go through and know how you're placed in the market.
Make sure that at regular intervals you check through your Zeroauctions (or the like) posting list and make sure your price ranges are still competitive with the market. For example you may be selling a hard-to-procure item for way less then the market is willing to pay. As easy way to do this is to set aside some time and check using the Enhancements and Consumables tabs on the Undermine Journal.

Don't let someone flip your 'squirrels'!

Stay liquid folks,

M.

14. Free Thaurissan Alliance Xfers!

2011-06-28T23:29:00.000-07:00

… are never going to happen!

Bwah ha ha haaa! Apologies readers, I couldn’t resist that one.

Patch 4.2 has dropped and a new quest hub has opened. Word is it’ll take the conscientious amongst us a number of weeks to open all vendors. On the 10 to 1 Thaurissan server that equals alt-levelling time as the horde swarm over quest givers like grammar pedants crusading against exclamation marks.

So I’m dusting off my druid and getting feral.

I did cruise down to the Thaurissan forums for a serve of server xfer angst. I was not disappointed. Here’s my take on our specific issue…

When you transfer servers Blizzard gets money. When you transfer faction Blizzard gets money. When Blizzard gives you a free transfer off this rock (or others onto it), Blizzard gets no money. Simple as that.

Blizz have tried to rectify this server’s imbalance before – I know, I moved three toons from Aman’thul back in the day and it was fun while it lasted. Seriously major PVE guilds arrived on server, outgearing the unprogressed horde toons sizably and pwning followed. This energized the horde and they came to the party and much fun PVP ensued. In those days we could even form raids such as For the Alliance. But that’s all over now. The experiment didn’t work and Blizz can happily sit back and say they’ve done their part. Yes, Rift is showing them up with their free xfer policy but I doubt they’re losing sleep over it.

So it comes down to what sort of play experience you want. Personally I love my roving PVP representative status on Thaurissan but know I’ll eventually leave. Reason? Good world PVP but not enough AH PVP. And when I do go it’ll be the logistics of taking over 1 million gold off server rather than the actual money for transferring my five 81+s which will be the interesting conundrum.

Stay liquid folks,

Mogul.

13. Mogul gets published - 1 million gold cap interview

2011-06-18T19:11:00.000-07:00

Hi folks - if you've not graced these pages before then welcome, if you have then welcome back! : )

A quick howdy today to let you all know that the good folks of Warcraft Econ have posted my million gold cap interview. This makes me a very happy Mogul!

Stay liquid folks,

Mogul.

12. wastelands of the post-immediate past

2011-06-12T22:00:00.000-07:00

I’ve been running my lock through Northrend recently, grinding for chopper rep, and have been amazed at the ghost town it’s become. Dalaran, following Cata release, was still pumping adventurers into Northrend. Now it’s amazing quiet – everywhere else on the continent… quieter still. Questing through Howling Fjord I can go hours without spotting any toon of either faction.

It’s got me thinking about what happens in these spaces when the active toons leave.

The first response is nothing! If an electronic tree falls in an electronic forest surely no one actually hears it?! But that’s not true, NPCs continue to path, nodes sit ready for farmers, battles rage, music plays… the rain falls. These environments which we took such enjoyment in from the time of their xpac until the time of the next xpac continue to live their own inner lives. But we now pass them by.

So what, everything passes? Are we happy with this? If I had my way, if there was a single zone that could be reinvigorated and made relevant again to my game play there’s no question which one it would be – it’s Zangarmarsh. Visually stunning, beautiful soundtrack, some interesting rep grinds, but most of all the warm fuzzy feelings I get when I think back on my time spent there.

At the time this zone was active I was a member of a 25-man raid guild, but I couldn’t raid due to RL time restraints so was PVPing on my druid and fishing. : ) I was just discovering the fun of making WoW gold with my primary efforts being in gathering (ore and skinning) and realising the great profits that were in buff foods. I’d tune into vent and listen to the SSC or BT raid and quietly pass the time fishing and watching the active life of the server pass me by. The lights, the sounds, occasional player interactions, the gentle lapping of the water upon the purple-green shore were engaging and enjoyable.

Memories that now languish, a little melancholy even perhaps… It would seem that though the beauty of the place was important to my experience of it what was more important was my experience of my online community at that moment in time. Perhaps this is why, in the age of the mega guilds and Thaurissan alliance’s ongoing collapse, I have less emotional connection to current zones in game. The community is simply not there.

Perhaps Blizzard is wise in the way they move new content to geographically new areas. They give players a chance to begin again in an area with no associations and no memories; a chance to rise phoenix-like onto a new MMO stage should they wish it.

So a question for readers to ponder: is it new experiences and content we chase in WoW or is it the connection to other gamers like ourselves, to people?

Mogul.

11. tournament pets pay off - 25k day!

2011-06-10T09:50:00.000-07:00

Howdy folks,

Back in November last year I talked about tournament pets. Way back then I was picking these fellahs up for around 500g. Here's a screenie of yesterday's sales:

I love it when this sort of thing happens - that's 5 pets sold at 3799g each. I can't remember what I paid for all these now but I don't think I went over a 1000g. That's a minimum 14K profit.

So my first 25K day, I'm not even sure that this happened during Glyphmas! Pretty happy with this outcome.

: )

Stay liquid folks,

10. Filthy Lucre

2011-06-02T23:25:00.000-07:00

High drama in the ‘commercial’ gold blogging community.

The attack and the counter-attack. Neither poster covers themselves in glory.

Blogging in its purest sense is about recording your experiences and thoughts, for personal insight and to share them with others. Both of these sites are not what I’d call blogs – they share information on a daily basis in order to generate a higher number of people to sell gold guides and related services to. They propagate a general theme of community involvement but I think you’d have to look pretty hard in the opposite direction not to see the business edge these fellahs are pursuing.

What shows through is that this spat is personal and determinedly public. The attempt from both sides is to name and shame, to alienate each respective site from the gold blogging ‘community’.

The direction this squabbling has taken makes me wonder just how much money is actually in the selling of guides and associated product and how much, to paraphrase Jamie Wednesday, the ‘commercial’ gold blogging community “eats itself”.

Beware young bloggers… beware.

; )

M.

9. my most devious gold making strategy is…

2011-05-29T21:15:00.000-07:00

Patience.

My most devious gold making tool is…

Size.

Yes, you heard me right – patience and size. Let me explain:

Patience - Building your crafting capacity - toon by toon, profession by profession. Patiently levelling up and getting things ready. Slowly and surely;
Patience - Calmly building your Auctioneer data via daily scans so when you strike it will be from a position of knowledge;
Patience - Hauling your arse around Azeroth dealing with time wasters as you create your guildbank(s), yes, you will definitely need more than one;
Patience - Diligently building your pile of gold until it starts getting substantial and useful (100K);
Size - when the “really” low mat prices hit (and they will) the waiting is over - you buy out EVERYTHING. Nothing is left, not even a whisper of the mat you’re focusing on. If 200 stacks are up you take them all. You’re buying everything in moderation all the time of course but on the really great deals you hit and you hit hard;
Patience - You compose yourself and settle in to wait for the next really great deal.

Why is patience a devious tactic? Cause developing it will give you the edge in the ‘grinding’ game of WoW in almost every situation. On the AH, on the battlefield, questing… Dare I say it but it’s even considered a pretty big thing to have in RL.

Folks who deal in flow of product understand that your gold is made when you buy, not when you sell. Develop your patience and see if it works for you.

Make sure you check out the other posts for this month's JMTC blogging carnival.

: )

Mogul.

8. the etiquette of ganking

2011-05-26T22:19:00.000-07:00

I use the word ‘gank’ in this post as I’m talking world PVP. I like BGs but World PVP is fun and due to the huge faction imbalance on my server I’m always running into opportunities to sharpen my saw.

So given the above here’s some questions I ask of my potential mark as I approach an encounter:

How much stam have you got? Around 125K on anyone says potential PVP gear or higher-end raid gear. Not impossible but definitely inspires caution.
Are you a gankable class? Okay – I’m on an afflic lock with good SP but not high burst so the more kite-able you are the better. Classes I’ve learnt to be wary of are frost mages, shad priests and, strangely, hunters. Plate classes are more skill dependant – if they know what they’re doing things can get tricky quickly – if they don’t it’s going to be an amusing encounter ; )
Do I have the weather gauge? To put it simply this is world PVP, the terrain matters. Is there a handy spire for me to LOS around? Is there a level difference I can place my lockoport on? Or a corner around which I can place it (nothing is funnier than watching a warrior run around in circles looking for you whilst dots tick down : )
Do you have mates nearby? Cause I sure don’t – Thaurissan Alliance is getting smaller by the day, I’m more ‘solo’ out in the world now then at any other time. I’m not hugely geared on my fellah so a two-on-one engagement is not something I’m looking for.
Are you AFK!? Good grief, are you? Did you leave your toon standing in the middle of Deepholm for me to simply pick off? Why yes, yes you did and surprisingly you do this more often then people would imagine. As noted before our server is so horde heavy that most of the poor things never get the chance to fight alliance at all and even start to think they’re playing on a PVE server. I like to remind them whenever I can.
Will this be an honourable fight? ROFLMAO – No! No it will not. If I can get the drop on you by dotting from begind an outcrop I will, if I can drag you to a helpful NPC and watch them pound you – I will… if you foolishly rez whilst I’m still in the area and I can dot you up while you’re on half health… you better believe I will. Why? There are no gentlemen’s agreements in WoW PVP. A horde toon who has been farming alongside me for 10 minutes will, when his mate arrives, not bat an eyelid at double teaming me. Queensbury Rules do not apply here.

A couple of further points:

Always attack! No exceptions, it’s going to be visited upon you sooner of later, you might as well test the water. If your opponent wants to fight they’ll come at you, if they don’t they’ll move out of the way. Locks are great for this as a couple of quick dots on anyone that comes too close usually answers this question for you.
Get VanasKos – it’s essential for world PVP. The panel goes red and your opponent’s name pops up and is hittable. For world PVP this addon is your most valuable tool!
Have fun and don’t lose your sense of humour. You’ll win encounters, you’ll lose encounters – most will be workaday but occasionally (as with last night against a destro lock) you’ll have a truly epic encounter. Who knows, you may even end up /saluting your opponent.

: )

Mogul.

7. Best five WoW experiences in order of amazing awesomeness

2011-05-25T20:18:00.000-07:00

First let me just say that Postember is back baby! Computer issues are resolved – all systems go!

Now on to my best five WoW experiences in order of amazing awesomeness:

I’d been playing WoW about two weeks and realised I’d started my human mage a long way from my mate’s nelf hunter. I posted on the server forums my predicament and was contacted in-game by a mage (a level 60!!!!!). He ported and ran with me from one continent to the next, going out of his way to get additional FPs if we were close to them. The world of Azeroth was a bigger place then, not the ghost town it’s become since set Dalaran and now SW portals came into play. Toons were everywhere as we caught boats and gryphons. I was hugely impressed that someone I didn’t know would go out of their way to help another player. This experience started me off in a very posistive way in the game of WoW.
Gold Cap – the 1st. Struggle, study, application, success – BOOM! Gold cap – At Gold Limit!
Tanking on my bear. Being part of our 10-man teem was awesome (see above). Working with a smart crew to down challenging bosses – fantastic!
Discovering my new main and the joy that is warlockery. Many posts on this – especially the PVPness.
Gold Cap – the 2nd. 1 Million Gold! Woohoo!

What about yourselves? Just give me the number 1!

: )

M.

Postember stalled

2011-05-19T20:14:00.000-07:00

Blue screen

Will not start in safe mode

That is all.

6. Blizzard micro-transactions “First 60” program

2011-05-12T04:10:00.000-07:00

G’day folks,

Following on the heels of the very successful RAF program Blizzard announced yesterday a new micro-transaction. Priced at $100 players can now purchase the first 60 levels of any toon as long as they already have a level 60 character on that server. Marketed as "First 60" or F60 this program has already proved very successful with a flurry of new toons hitting Outlands on servers within hours of its release.

A representative of the WoW franchise advised that modelling suggested many experienced players, though enjoying the radical revamping of Azeroth in Cataclysm, would much prefer to skip these early levels and focus on the higher levels and end game. “This concept was first aired at Blizzcon this year,” the rep noted, “we had an excellent take-up indicated. Approximately 70% of players who’ve been in game for two years or more would be likely to use this service. We also believe that this implementation will sideline many of the levelling services out there that have been circumventing the EULA and in many cases back-dooring account theft.”

Hardcore elements of the WoW gaming community are less impressed. Comment from Blizzard’s own forums this morning came in decidedly against the new F60 program. One poster noting that it was “cheapening the game more than the damn sparkle pony – if that is even possible.” Other posters noted that the P60 program was in fact the perfect vehicle for gold farmers who could now purchase as many level 60 toons as they wished when opening up a server to conduct their trade.

Blizzard has announced that should the F60 program prove viable a further 10M (10 More) service would be provided where players could purchase ‘any’ 10 levels they liked for the sum of $20 per, up to the starting level of the most recent expansion.

A special reskinned Lurky the Murloc is being shipper with the introductory offer of 60 levels. The whole package is available for a short time for a reduced cost of $89.

Could this be satire? ; )

Stay liquid folks,

M.

5. Epic Gems and Mega Gold from Mega Guilds

2011-05-11T06:01:00.000-07:00

Anybody hear that? It's an... It's an impact tremor, that's what it is... I'm fairly alarmed here
Dr. Ian Malcolm at the approach of an as yet unseen T-rex (Jurassic Park)

If you listen you can hear it – a distant booming sound, it’s getting closer and it’s getting stronger… it’s as inevitable as the seasons and has the slow and residing power of the deepest of ocean currents. It is the rise of the Mega Guilds. These strange artificial structures have changed the social landscape of the game with many now stating that they are harbingers of WoW’s ultimate doom. Rewards and achievements come quicker the more guildies you have – by the time Blizz capped these monsters many already had over 1000 members.

The effect of this odd imperative to ‘require’ players to become socially cohesive seems to have been the direct opposite to Blizzard’s intentions with many members of these behemoths reporting a greater degree of dislocation and “numberfication” with the current guild mechanic than previously experienced.

Yes, these guilds do not appear to be player-friendly…

… but are they GOLD friendly?

Oh most certainly!

Would you build a cabal of JCs from your allotted 10 toons on server? No, of course you wouldn’t, but what if your Mega Guild had already done the work for you?

There are some GMs who are already farming these guilds for the passive income they provide but these guys are thinking waaay too small. In order to make massive amount of gold from your mega guild you need to engage in an more socialistic business model. You must provide for your peons and appropriately reward your farmers and crafters.

Let’s get specific. You have a 1000 member guild with a large core of raiders. There’s almost certainly a sufficient number of min/maxers to have JC maxed on at least 10 toons. At peon level you have your rank and file – these guys have joined for the 10% levelling / PVP bonuses but they also provide passive income to the guild’s coffers. This income either purchases directly, or is leveraged to purchase, ore. Next are your farmers who are paid a hefty percentage under AH listing price, but guaranteed sales. No matter how much pyrite ore is offered you buy everything (and have been doing so for months). Finally comes your crafters. These members need only build about 25 tokens each in their stockpile and suddenly you’ve got a multitude of cuts to place where you will.

Wealth will have to be distributed but a wise GM will not let any one member know the master plan. Ore will be procured, prospected for gems and cut. A percentage of profits to the guild coffers, a percentage to crafters, the rest into the pockets of the GM and maybe his/her captains.

And why can Mega Guilds now utilise this strategy where normal guilds could not before?

Coverage. A mega guild will have sufficient toons, when correctly marshalled, to let them entirely cover the JC profession for epic gem cuts. Only the most careful and forward thinking of jewelcrafters will have started stockpiling tokens early enough to match them.

JC is one of the most profitable professions. Mega guilds, and more pertinently their GMs can have the coverage come release of epic gems to take huge profits from the market and establish a hold on the jewelcrafting market on their server that will last weeks if not months into the patch.

RAAAWR!

How about you guys - suspect any Mega Guild action incoming to your server?

: )

Mogul.

4. well /played sir!?

2011-05-10T05:26:00.000-07:00

As I write this I have around 275 days /played - 51 of those are on my AH alts so one might argue that they don't count. After all until the nerf to autoposting came in my process was to post and then afk leaving the alt online to hopefully annoy the stuffing out of the competition.

That in mind one could say that over four and a half years I've played approximately 3 1/3 hours per day...

That's a lot!

What this stat misses is that in the early days of WoW I was playing with much more intensity. In terms of the longest play session I had I'm pretty sure we're talking somewhere between 8 to 10 hours. This was de rigueur in our old Aman'thul guild during Karazhan clears. People went afk to get Hungry Jacks, we lacked dps, or healing, or tank expertise and wiped continuously, people had to port out of the instance to /2 broadcast for more members. Themz were the days (not)! And it wasn't uncommon to do two such days in a week whilst grinding for advancement.

These days I'm playing about 8-10 hour a week, sometimes less. Not raiding is a big factor but even so I'm finding this is sufficient time for my rest and relaxation which is primarily why I play this game.

The forums love this topic. I'm considered soft with my 275 days /played. 400+ is where the action is. Invariably it comes down to a slanging match - I did say "WoW" forums right? - heavily based on people who play this game stating that other people who play this game have no life. Defences offered are:

It's my time and I'll do what I want with it (i actually think this is the only one with rigor)
At least I'm not watching TV (not bad)
I play less than people who watch TV (fail - it's true that many people do watch a lot of TV - seemingly hours each evening but playing less than people who watch too much TV does not cut it)
I play with my family (Umm...)
It's cheaper than drugs (okay I made that one up)
It's the only way I see my husband (sorry, that one I didn't make up)
I'm actually saving money playing WoW (comparatively true)
It's high-quality entertainment, it's social, can be done with friends of similar interest, requires active brain activity ("Active brain activity"? Well, even with that I still like this one the best /agree)
TV again - quoting the average time spent per day watching TV - quoted as 4 hours - and noting that it's considered more socially acceptable than WoW (tru dat)
Production of a shopping list of achievements achieved "while" playing 50 hours of WoW per week.

Okay - for 10 I had to provide the poster's list - here goes:

While playing this game I managed a few things:

Graduated with a Master's Degree in Computer Engineering.
Got Married
Bought a House
Adopted 2 kids
Had 3 of my own kids
Started working on my Doctorate
Started working my dream job
All this without getting a divorce :D

So where do I sit with this? Well, I'm a little uncomfortable with the time I put into this game. It's a pleasant and enjoyable distraction but it occurs to me that there are other things I could be doing. Food for thought.

Talking of which let me leave you with this thought... WEEKEND CRICKET! People who play it regularly engage in two to three 2-hour training sessions during the week and then a couple of 6 to 6 1/2 hour game sessions over the weekend during the season. With travel taken into account they're logging up around 20 hours a week.

Games... humans have always enjoyed them.

Feel like sharing your /played? : )

Stay liquid folks,

Mogul.

3. WoW X4… WoW Movie? WoW X5? Transition to Titan?

2011-05-08T06:47:00.000-07:00

Hi folks - have a gander at this:

Supposedly leaked back in December last year this one has been of great interest to me, not so much as to the "is it accurate, is it real?" - I think I just channeled Gandalf. Although it does look quite likely, if not provably authentic. The interest came in the question as to what I'd be doing by the time the alleged WoW X5 came out - that's over two years away. O.o

So here's a history lesson:

The initial release of World of Warcraft occurred on November 23, 2004.
The Burning Crusade was released on January 16, 2007.
Wrath of the Lich King, was released on November 13, 2008.
Cataclysm, was released on December 7, 2010.

Blizzard announced at BlizzCon last year that there will be a fourth expansion, admitting that they didn't know just what form it might take.

Now I started playing this game just before the release of BC which means I've been playing for almost four and a half years. That's crazy!

Titan though... this is what Blizz COO Paul Sams had to say when interviewed by Gamasutra:

"As it relates to that other [MMO], we think that it's going to be very impactful in our industry and, we hope, very impactful to the world," Sams continued. "We think that that will be, after Diablo III, the next big thing from us. The thing that we hope will happen is that it will not stop World of Warcraft but we believe will eclipse it."

Eclipse it? Really? Titan is rumoured to be a MMOFPS, or MMO First Person Shooter. The logistics of this are tricky though not insurmountable. Will it be space opera, wild western, post apocalyptic?

Will I be on board for it?

By the time 2014 comes about I'll have been playing WoW for around seven years. Just typing that seems boggling.

What do you think? Will you be around for WoW X5? If so would you be likely to transition to a Blizzard MMOFPS? Thoughts on its theme?

: )

2. you started your blog why?

2011-05-07T04:57:00.000-07:00

Oh oh Telephone Line, give me some time, I'm living in twilight

Oh oh Telephone Line, give me some time, I'm living in twilight

Olla compadres! Today I'm thinking back to how this whole blog thing got going in the first place. Now dial up some ELO and listen to Telephone Line - it's only mildly pertinent to this post but if my brain went there and is currently singing the above I see no reason why you shouldn't have to too. ; )

So yes, you guessed it, this blog came about due to a disconnection from the interwebz. Not that I hadn't been meaning to put it together for a while prior to that, but moving house, no WoW, a little bit of after-hours work access and a blog is born.

There's something deeper than this though... making gold in WoW, serious gold, is a relatively singular pursuit. What's more, many of your fellows in the guild or otherwise will not understand why you plug away at it, setting up your systems, getting your addons organised, seeking out farmers, CONQUERING THE AUCTION HOUSE!!1!1!1!!!!

...ahem, 'scuse me.

As I was saying many of your fellow players won't understand, especially as you pass that 100K mark. So one element of blogging for me was to correspond with like-minded folk walking on golden road.

I was also keen to make a contribution. I loved reading gold blogs and wanted to join in and pass on the things I was learning as well.

Finally, I was interested in charting my progress. Blogging at its most fundamental is about the individual documenting their experience. I enjoy playing WoW and various experiences, though lost to the everyday, are always sitting on my post list, ready to be rediscovered.

So I recommend it folks - give blogging a try. It's definitely rewarding.

: )

Mogul.

1. A blog by any other name

2011-05-06T00:43:00.000-07:00

'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;

Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.

What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,

Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part

Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!

What's in a name? that which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet

What’s in a name? Why did I call my blog wow mogul?

I’ll tell you…

When I started this blog I wanted it to detail my gold-making journey and I had some definite ideas about how I wanted (and how I didn’t want) that journey to proceed. My early readings were Greedy Goblin, Hit the Cap, WowEcons and others. So when it came time to name my blog I thought about who I, as a gold making entity, might become. I could become an Auctioneer…

auctioneer
n
(Business / Professions) (Business / Commerce) a person who conducts an auction by announcing the lots and controlling the bidding
vb
(Business / Commerce) (tr) to sell by auction

Dry, dusty, fusty! And a relative misnomer in WoW terms. When I’d built up my business to a state where I was having post 60K weeks would I wish to be called Auctioneer? Definitely not.

I could be a Goblin:

goblin
n
(Myth & Legend / European Myth & Legend) (in folklore) a small grotesque supernatural creature, regarded as malevolent towards human beings

Well hi there Gevlon! : ) I found myself too often on the opposite side of the fence from Gevlon and his followers for this to be any sort of likely. Additionally this word in WoW is mostly reserved for the style of AH play where one deliberately sets out to perpetrate such swindles are Single Arrow sales or the modern day equivalent, barking Mysterious Fortune cards. I’m always happy to price gouge should it be feasible but setting out to deceive in the first place was not something I adhered to nor wished to stand for.

So something else then… here’s what I came up with:
mogul

A small mound of snow on a ski course, from Old Norse mugl, "little heap."
See also related terms for heap.

Umm… wait a minute:

mogul

tycoon, lord, baron, notable, magnate, big gun (informal), big shot (informal), personage, nob (slang, chiefly Brit.), potentate, big wheel (slang), big cheese (slang, old-fashioned), big noise (informal), big hitter (informal), heavy hitter (informal), nabob (informal), bashaw, V.I.P. an international media mogul

Now that's more like it! I liked the opportunities this word presented me with, a tycoon, a baron, a personage! What's not to like? I even occasionally use mogul in place of goblin or auctioneer but it's a rare conceit. ; )

The rest is history – I added wow to the front so that I’d be distinguishable from the rest of the moguls on the interwebz and here we are. : )

As a side note, Mogul was the name of my first guild bank, still run by the ineffable Bankgrrl!

Have you got a story about how your blog came to get its name?

Stay liquid folks,

30 days hath Postember

2011-05-05T02:26:00.000-07:00

Yes folks, welcome to Postember!

Postember is a celebration of things WoW game and things WoW gold. Posts are aimed at being interesting and thought provoking – and there’ll be 30 of them. It’s an experiment – I’m posing questions that I’d like to see answers to… and then I’m answering them. You can too!

Feel free to get involved, I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences.

Below are the posts I “think” I’m going to make. Management reserves the right to change direction at a whim. Towards the end of Postember I’ll review and see how closely I stuck to the plan. ; )

So here’s the starting line-up!

1. What's behind the name of your blog?
2. Why did you start your blog?
3. WoW X4… WoW Movie? WoW X5? Transition to Titan?
4. You play “how” many hours each week? – what was your longest play session?
5. Blizzard micro-transactions something for $100 – what is it?
6. What has been your best wow experience?
7. Is there a class you gank on sight?
8. Mounts Shmounts!
9. Dailies… numbing your mind, filling you coffers or things that make you go Om?
10. Most embarrassing WoW moment?
11. Gold “flaunts” I have witnessed…
12. Warcraft Achievement obsessions!
13. What is your favourite way to make gold?
14. Which toon do you enjoy playing most? What’s your toon transition?
15. What's your grind threshold: longest session, enjoyed grind, hated grind?
16. Zoned in – where would you rather be?
17. LFD and memories of olde
18. Most useful post(s)?
19. Favourite gold-making profession?
20. Watching your sales – Wake up man, Iz flippin ya petz!
21. Most enjoyable raiding experience?
22. Favourite play style – quest, 5-mans, PVP, raiding?
23. Blizzard puts something in-game for 200,000 gold – what is it and who is the vendor?
24. “Goblin, James Goblin” – your online persona.
25. Blizzard puts in place a new “change” option – what is it?
26. What new vanity pet would you like to see?
27. World PVP – if a tree falls in a non-BG forest has PVP really hapund?
28. What’s next… Platinum?
29. Marooned in the Skinner Box!
30. How was Postember for you?
31. Capping and the gentle art of persistence

Postember starts tomorrow – I look forward to seeing you all there.

Stay liquid folks,

Mogul.

I don't have to level to 84?

2011-05-03T06:06:00.000-07:00

Really?

Cold posted this just recently passing on the information that the vendor recipes, previously only available on the Twilight Highlands vendors, are now available in all major cities.

This - All major cities will now have every type of profession trainer and their associated trade supply vendor - from the patch notes gave no indication that every type meant every type.

I know I should have expected this change and it will most certainly benefit me as I can roll out new craftables ahead of when I otherwise would have been able to but I've been greatly enjoying playing my alts up through the levels and the Twilight Highlands vendors were a nice endpoint to my efforts.

Of course if the new season PVP recipes are only available in the Highlands then there's still plenty of reasons to level.

: )

Stay liquid folks,

Mogul.

a few of my favourite things...

2011-04-20T06:01:00.000-07:00

Mogul steps out of the Stormwind auction house and leans nonchalantly against the doorframe. He wears a top hat, tux and spats and squints expertly though a ruby monacle, his hand rests upon the enormous diamond topping his cane. He smiles a mogulish smile and waves a mogulish wave then winks to an assistant - somewhere the opening strains of a familiar tune are heard over a tinny gnomish boombox. Mogul bursts into song!

Elementium Ore and Portable Holes
Bright Shadowspirit diamonds and True Bars of Gold
Full sets of Emberfire, Glyphs tied with strings
These are a few of my favorite things

Backsmithing blues that sell despite the knockers
Personal guild banks overflowing their coffers
Beer-Basted Crocolisk the new food of kings
These are a few of my favorite things

Mogul dances down the steps patting a dwarven hunter's bald head as he passes - the hunter scowls at him.

Cata JC rings for 350 gold
Stockpiles of Wrath chants that sell though they're old
Gold-filigree toolboxes wobbling on springs
These are a few of my favourite things

When the patch bites
When low sales sting
When I'm feeling sad
I simply remember my favourite things
And then I don't feel so bad

Shuffling his spats Mogul jumps to the lowest tier of the fountain, splashing water at those checking mail with his cane

Cheap stacks of pyrite and gems almost epic
Discussing the breakpoints of financial ethics
Grinding out Jeeves for bank accessing
These are a few of my favorite things

Rare Savage Leather and bars of all types
Boycotting fortune cards for all of their hype
Flipping purples on-mass for the profit this brings
These are a few of my favorite things

The tuxedo-wearing Auctioneer skitters up the bank steps through the teller area to arrive at the guild bank vault. He spots Banker Kristin Cazarez and makes the well-known "like a tiger" gesture to her. Catching her up he twirls her impulsively and kisses her on the cheek. She laughs.

Cruisin for lowballs and buying them out
Undercutting glyphers they cry and they shout
Breaking the opposition and stealing their blingz
These are a few of my favorite things

When the patch bites
When low sales sting
When I'm feeling sad
I simply remember my favourite things
And then I don't feel so bad

A single golden rose is thrown to Mogul from off-stage left which he catches without looking then presents to Kristin Cazarez - they laugh again. There is an audible "click" as a boombox is turned off. The vault door swings quietly closed.

: )

Stay liquid folks,

Mogul.

perks of the vendor pets

2011-04-15T01:37:00.000-07:00

I was going to write a reminder post on the vanity pet market and found this great site called Perks N Peeves whilst I was looking for links. It's a GREAT site run by Quintessence with good information on those hard-to-find pets delivered in a very readable style. As a pet collector from way back I'm now motivated to get on my old main and go looking for the elusive Baradin Fox Kit.

So here's my WoW pet procedure and pricings for Alliance:

Onto my mage and hearth to Stormspire to visit Dealer Rashaad. Altoholic provides my numbers of pets held in stock, I purchase until I have 5 of each pet
Rinse and repeat after porting to SW at the crazy cat lady
Port to IF and take a flight to Amberstil Ranch to buy bunnies from Yarlyn Amberstill
Then off to Darnassus to buy owls
And Exodar for moths
Lastly a quick port to Dalaran to pick up the big guns from none other than the rgeat Breanni for albino snakes, calico cats and obsidium hatchlings

Add to the above once in a blue moon I'll head all the way out to Plucky Johnson and buy about 50 Ancona Chickens and also watch for Darkmoon Faire to stock up on frogs from Flik - it's wise to camp her here for the Wood Frogs which are in limited supply.

So I post five of each pet except the 50g pets which I only post two of each in order to give the impression of rarity. As to how I price I have three Zeroauctions categories:

Pets less than 2g which I sell for 35g
Pets at around 9g which I sell for 59g and,
Pets for around 50g which I sell for 199g

Now it's important to realise how these pets sell - in general you'll see only a few bites here and there but occasionally you'll sell one of everything to a new collector and I'm including the 199g pets here of which I think there are four. On a big sale day you could make over 1000g which more than balances out the relatively minor cost of holding all these pets in stock. With a little planning this market really is easy money! ; )

Well there it is folks - happy vendor petting and once again congrats to Quintessence on a very enjoyable site!

Stay liquid,

M.

Tokens, and BOAs, and Jeeves! Oh my!

2011-04-13T01:17:00.000-07:00

What’s been going on?

Stockpiling: saving my tokens for epic gems – it certainly “feels” like this is coming soon, especially with the downgrading of vendor returns on cut greens which is rumoured for 4.1. My advice is stop buying those blue recipes now until you have sufficient jewelcrafting tokens in place to grab about 6 recipes – I’m thinking that’s going to be somewhere between 18 and 24 tokens. Personally I’ve got a gbank tab of pyrite ore ready to go so well see how it pans out.

BOA gear: I’ve hit honoured with the guild and have purchased ALL of the BOA gear on offer. Cost me about 13K and was well worth it. I’m looking at taking my druid, hunter and DK through to 85 over the next few months and these puppies really up the XP return from quest turn-ins. I recently hit 82 on my druid simply from repetitively doing the JC daily. : )

DK: First cab off the rank I picked up my DK Chrøme at level 75 after a long hiatus and am enjoying questing on him. I’ve played with all three specs and am finding frost to be the most fun. I’ve done a fair amount of reading on PVP specs and know I need to learn unholy but my first run in with it wasn’t pretty. This guide though is excellent for the aspiring DKs amongst us.

Rep grinding: Still on it with my lock – specifically for the BOA enchants but the rep item rewards are also very good.

Eng grinding: Got my Jeeves! Woohoo! This was heaps of fun and I recommend it to all Jeeves-capable engineers. The process reminded me of when I got epic flight on my druid (and I don’t mean when it fell into my lap at the trainer – I’m talking old school!). I loved that I had to grind for three separate engineering recipes and craft a bunch of bots before I could pick up my shiny purple. There’s whinging and bitching on the forums about the lack of Cata engineering items but this Wrath item still provided me with a great experience to procure. Plus of course I now have bank and gear fix at call. : )

Gold: Still well over the mill but spending it only a little slower than I’m making it currently. Glyphs have really dropped off as the server population post-Cata stabilises but BS gear is taking off. Savage leather can’t be purchased at all. Levelling is over for the moment and without botters taking this up the server has been dry on this commodity for weeks now.

Signing off with a big shout-out to Smallperson (horde goblin shad priest) who handed my fledgling Cata DK ass to me three times in a row. The first time she /hugged my corpse, as I charged in the second time (now in frost lol) she /greeted me warmly and after the third kill she /patted my corpse gently. My helm is off to you madam – not for winning necessarily as I doubt I offered much resistance – but for the excellent way you comported yourself. Made me smile.

Til next time compadres,

M.

daily guy

2011-04-03T06:41:00.000-07:00

Well hi there folks!

It’s all been a bit interesting since cap. I’ve made good coin but I’ve also invested a lot back into mats. I did try to spend some gold on shiny BOEs for Shortcut – pants and a belt was all I could find in the shiny purples range but that'll do for now.

I’ve crafted my goggles – a) cause they kickass; b) cause they look fantastic.

My first heroic was fun and due to reforging for hit my PVP gear was perfectly viable for PVE. So in terms of gold going out I bought up big on the following:

Cheap Twilight Jasmine to add to the stockpile;
Big Embersilk buyout as I’m due for another crafting run;

Cheap Obsidium to be folded for BSing;

Well-priced Elementium which I split between bars for crafting and ore which I prospected to bulk up my flaqging gem stocks.

I also gave 5K to a mate who came back on server. He’s apparently already made a few K on top of his start-up funds : )

4 portable holes for Shortcut

BOE purple belt and pants for Shortcut

Gems were big sellers early as was BS crafted gear (I again crafted up two of everything that uses Elementium on my BS this week). On Sunday I cleared the mailbox from the Saturday-morning post and found about 10K worth of sales. I didn’t BS during Wrath so have no comparison but I have to say that the Cata greens and blues are really worth crafting. I’m doing an extremely good trade in BS crafteds each week.

Onto gems – although I’m supposed to be saving my tokens for epic recipes I just can’t stop buying the blue recipes. That said, the gem market is getting fierce and less reliable, especially as I’m now on a longer posting cycle…

Yes yes, I’m starting to take it easier. I’ll be fierce myself on the weekends but with the 1mill under my belt and any further milestones in that area a way off I’m turning my attentions to other things.

What other things?

Well – levelling guild rep for a start. I’ve exhausted all the quests in Twilight Highlands and so started on other areas but here’s the thing… because guild rep is calculated on the XP a quest returns I’ve noticed I’m getting less as I finish off questing in Deepholm then when I do dailies. It still varies between dailies but in general these are calculated to return XP relevant to current level. So I’ve become a daily guy. Cooking and fishing in SW, 5 dailies in TH and now I’ve added the dailies in Tol’Barad. Other ways to get gulid rep are boss kills and rated BGs.

A heads up – Tol’Barad quests are tricky but I find them very rewarding. You’re back on a ground mount and the mobs are virulent and everywhere. You need to keep your focus doing these dailies. There’s an interesting vibe with the horde here too – because it is a riskier place to quest horde and alli tend to give each-other room. I accidently violated the code yesterday when I had targeted a rogue to check his hits and accidently dotted him (hey – I’m a lock, we don’t always watch where we throw those things :P). He waded in and realising my mistake I apologised and backed off… so did he. Nice.

Stay liquid,

M.

guild relocation service

2011-03-23T20:57:00.000-07:00

A quick note - should you wish to move your level 25 guild to a new server Blizz is working on it.

This post relates back to Anaalius' examination of passive income.

Now potentially you can build your guild on a high-pop server and for an in-game gold price relocate it to a low-pop server where such a guild would be very difficult to grow.

Work up guild
Pay RL dollars for relocation
Recieve in-game gold

A fully-perked guild that toons would flock to on some of the broken servers might sell for between 100-250K I'm thinking.

It certainly feels like this stratergy would be against the EULA but I can't see how yet.

: )

one million gold

2011-03-20T08:13:00.000-07:00

Well folks I’ve done it – capped the 1 million. Here’s a pic of my lock looking a great deal more excited then my druid did last time. : )

It’s been a great journey with a lot of fun and gold on the way.

This week's take was 56,687G making this the second biggest week I've had. : ) Again this week it's been the crafted BS, tailoring and LW gear that's brought in the big Gs. I've certainly had a few big glyph days but mostly it's been the crafted greens and blues.

Now onto the interesting stuff...

Hi folks, I’m Stormbear of Thaurissan server aka Mogul of wowmogul.blogspot.com. Back when I was raiding my main was a feral druid. We ran exclusively 10-man content and I loved tanking and DPSing through first Ulduar and then ICC. It was a great guild, well led and run (Hi Syltaryn and Dudeman!). Since those times I’ve been active on server levelling trade skills and in general playing this game less time-intensively then one has to as a raider but with an equal amount of vigor on the gold-making front. More recently I've taken to playing my lock Shortcut as main - he's a bunch of fun! : )

History buffs will know that Thaurissan was the first server to receive a free PVE to PVP transfer. My home server was Aman'thul and when a transfer was offered almost overnight the main raiding guilds from Aman’thul, Nagrand and Khaz’goroth ‘appeared’ on Thaurissan – instantly these guilds got access to the much larger PVP player base. I was soon hard at work in the AH making good coin as I’d come with a well-stocked vault of enchanting goods and the server was resource dry and the incoming guilds cash rich. I remember my own trepidation at the transfer - retrospectively… it was the best move I ever made. Of course these days those guilds are gone and Thaurissan is a very unbalanced server with an Alli to Horde ratio of about 1:10. Even so I find myself, oddly, to quite enjoy playing on this server - the world PVP is great and the AH markets are chaotic and fluctuate wildly.

I'd like to give a big shout out to the great folk I've been learning from in the blogosphere, special mention to Anaalius and Stokpile: Stok for his great work and attention to detail, Anaalius (who’s gold pile has oft times been a similar height to mine) for showing the extents of where you can go with this minigame when you’re happy to risk it all. Also Tella from Hit the Cap definitely inspired me and provided a lot of my early direction in gold making; and of course Warcraft Econ with their rogues’ gallery of goblins (and moguls ; ) are right up there. Finally I’d like to thank my wife who’s tolerated with good humour my strange obsession with this MMO and digital gold in particular.

Where to now?

In a wow sense I’m going to keep on doing just what I’ve been doing – why would I stop? I’ll likely rein back my glyph empire but I’ll certainly keep it functional. I’ll definitely be working to expand my other areas of trade just to see what’s out there that’s interesting to sell and I’ll be levelling toons to cap so that I can start to finally make use of those new recipes. The discipline will continue but the intensity will be scaled back.

I'll be posting here regularly of course and maintaining a presence in the blogosphere - like making gold this is simply too much fun to give up.

I'm sure longer posts about the process of capping and something a bit more in-depth on what I'm going to get up to will follow but for now I'd like to say thanks for reading and stay liquid.

: )

Mogul.

relevance deprivation syndrome

2011-03-16T21:29:00.000-07:00

Okay – I’m saying not this Sunday. It’s looking to be a slower week and I’m doubtful I’ll get the 50K or so I need to cap. I may get quite close though. Big ‘reveal’ post coming at cap guys! : )

Now onto matters at hand:

As things stand on our server on any given day there are usually about 5000 auctions (yes, we’re ‘that’ small). Of course horde-side there are about 37,000 auctions but let’s not dwell on that… So 5000 auctions – guess how many of those are mine?

… about 1250.

Yep, I’m responsible for about a quarter of the faction’s AH traffic. Were you to go to The Undermine Journal (and know which server was mine :P ) you’d find four of the top 13 posters are my alts.

As I move closer to cap I’m pondering taking time off to reflect on the process and take a break from the discipline that gathering this amount of gold together in one place takes… and I find myself wondering What will happen to the AH without me?!?

O.O

Have I fallen victim to the myth of the great benefactor? Do I think the faction can’t make it without me?? I’ve noticed it before in the Hall of Fame posts: some auctioneers who’ve controlled AHs for long periods of time come to believe that they are providing product for the common good rather than for their own profit. As though they’re a feudal lord guarding their vassals’ plots.

It’s easy to see how this belief might form over time. As auctioneers we do influence the way the system works, we snatch the cheap mats and make the opposition pay through the nose to craft their goods; we often do sell goods cheaply, providing utility to our faction. When the weather is good we raid the opposition’s fiefdom, when the snows set in we hunker down and chew quietly on the grain from our cellars. It’s all part of the fun!

And in this instance – maybe, just maybe there’s the smallest kernel of truth to my concerns. I’m currently providing a lot of reasonably useful product to the AH. That is, I’m making things people will want to buy. A portion of the items on any auction house are not things people really want or need – many are left over memes whose time has long past, selling for under the price of a gold. So proportionally my own contribution becomes greater and I start to wonder were I to go off server would there be anyone pumping this type of product onto the AH. Would there be a new Mogul? And would he or she have the crafting capacities I have? Would they bother to craft every single glyph? Given the fact that I am often the only poster of the less popular glyphs it doesn’t seem likely.

As far as auctioneers go we do provide some form of service, even if it’s a relatively self-serving service ; ) It’s not our system but we still mould it into something that reflects us – our values, moods, whether we act aggressively or cooperatively, whether we plunge the AH into war or form cabals… Using our crafters and our equity it’s likely do we in fact provide something useful to the faction at large.

So it seems that the myth of the great benefactor, like all myths, has ‘some’ basis in truth. And when we leave a server it’s likely we will be remembered…

… briefly.

Stay liquid folks,

M.

week 4 - 950000G

2011-03-13T00:30:00.000-08:00

That's right - 950K +

What a week! 62830G net! This is officially the biggest earning week I've ever had - I had two 15000+ days. No huge sales, just a steady stream of mid-range product. If it's priced between 50g and 1000g chances are I've been moving it this week.

You all might remember a while back I was talking about cobalt sets - here's an example of how they move, someone dings and bang!

I also finally took the time this week to dive into my saronite and frostweave stores and get some bags up and running again. The netherweave bags are a staple but I'd run out of the frostweave and the effort it takes to shuffle and then craft had slowed me down. Back at it now:
I started buying mats for these items about three months out from Cata - netherweave I bought at a max price of 6g/stack, frostweave at a max price of 8g/stack. So everytime I sell netherweave bags as per above I'm making about 23g profit. I make about 100 bags a week atm.

Will I hit cap by next Sunday? I hope so - it would almost need another 50k week though and I'm not certain they're that common. ; ) If not by Sunday it's certainly going to be soon!

Now as to what this little fellah got up to this week I can report that I now remember why I enjoy world PVP so much compared to the standard BGs... Alli don't usually cover themselves in glory in BGs. : / It's been a week of firsts on the BG front - through the random BG tool I've been through most of em. It's still enjoyable but more reheated pizza rather than fresh from the delivery guy. TL;DR - Alli loses a lot.

The Call to Arms for AV on the weekend was the saving grace making the process enjoyable again - AV is one of my faves plus Alli tend to win.

I've been working my keybinds, uncoupling a bunch of standard functions and shifting them to the F9 to F12 keys. I've been playing with Gladius for when I make it to the arenas and found this guide which is pretty good.

There are plenty of cooldowns I'd like to start monitoring but am having trouble getting Power Auras to play nice. If anyone knows something that can monitor things like the Nitro Boosts tinker on my belt I'm all ears. : )

The guild I've joined seems good. I'm still neutral and so am completing quests in the Twilight Highlands to build rep. We're now level 19 and the sooner I can access the honour bonus the better. Or am I getting it now? - I'm finding being part of such a mammoth guild more than a little confusing and am still getting my head around the new system - fun though! There are some great perks to come at level 20 such as heirloom cloaks and the like and all I have to do is keep questing and doing dailies which I enjoy anyway.

Before I sign off I thought it a good idea to put up a screenie of glyph sales. I'm making less and less from this profession as my other proffs take off + I have a camper who logs on before you finish posting. On the weekends though the AH is mostly mine as I carry out single glyph overpostings at irregular intervals:
That's it from me this update guys.

Stay liquid,

M.

week 3 and warlockery

2011-03-06T00:22:00.000-08:00

Hiya guys -it's week number three and I gotta say I'm liking the numbers. After slacking off in the middle of the week I tried to come home to a strong finish over the weekend:
So that puts this week's take at 29801G. Those numbers aren't bad - they might have been better but I spent a reasonable amount of gold this week on the lock fellah as he hit 85!!!!!! Here's a pic and my lock and his new best friend. : )

At the moment it's all standard BGs but I've got myself into a level 18 PVP guild which runs rated BGs every night of the week so even with my two little blokes I reckon I'll get a few runs in.

So before we get onto the gold here's some great warlock links that I've assembled to help me with my guy - bear in mind many of them have a PVP bias.

For a start Cynwise is a great site about PVP in general with an excellent sugary coating of warlockery goodness. Amongst other things follow the link here explaining how your dots work in Cata. It's astonishing how often you'll find locks who are unaware of their thresholds. Don't be one of these locks!!!

This thread from Arena Junkies was invaluable I got a bunch of info on crafted gear from here and some more great PVP macros from here in particular the Fel Flame mouseover is great.

Finally here's a great all round site, The Warlocks Den which will keep you up to date on what's happening in the world of warlockery in general in addition to PTR info and a good forums page.

Now this week on the gold making front there have been no great stand-outs. I spent a fair amount of coin levelling my inscription up so that I could make the PVP off-hand and again levelling up tailoring so that I could make the PVP gear... which I'm now selling : )

Here's a snapshot of some of the non-glyph items:

As you can see much the same as last week - the older items still sell people. I also levelled enchanting to near cap this week and can report good sales. All in all I'm selling a bit of everything with an almost even split between crafted items, gems and patches. Of course all these items still come second to glyphs which are still pulling in large coin. You can see the Nerubian Leg Armour above - it's definitely worth a mention. I noticed when going through my screenies in prep for this post that, somewhere in the 80-100g range, this item is a constant seller for me - servers differ of course but it might be worth your time to give it a look if you're not doing so already.

Just a short update this week guys. Hope the lock links were helpful : )

Stay liquid,

Mogul.

week 2 update

2011-02-27T03:40:00.000-08:00

Olla folks - another week in the big city, another 20K closer to the target, more levels on the clock for my warlock.

This week my guy and his winged friend there passed through Deepholm, then Uldum and finally are now in the Twilight Highlands. I enjoyed these zones: Deepholm for its caverns and 'dungeoneering' feel (yes, I used to play AD&D - with dice!); Uldum for the wonderful birds eye movies with your toon front and centre; and now (at 84) I'm loving the Highlands as it again has that Northrend feel to it. I was afforded plenty of PVP as per usual and would like to give a special shoutout to the ret pally who landed next to me while I was at a questgiver in Uldum and squared off against me indicating he was ready for a match. While I'm not particularly into RP I thought this was an excellent way for a pally to behave and /bow(ed) at the completion of the festivities.

"Use the force, Luke." ... c'mon, I can't be the only one who thought that!

Now how about the gold making? Well, as alluded to I pulled in just under 21K this week:What you can't see is the 7K I spent on herbs but even so I had a surge in non-glyph sales. Here's a screeny to show you roughly what's moving and for how much: I should have but didn't take a shot of the huge run I had midweek on crafted BS and tailoring greens and blues. Thanks be to you O' levellers. : ) You can also see from the above that pets are going nicely, 70-80 BS gear still sells around the 100g mark and gems are still kicking goals. I've read on other gold blogs that cata blue gems are slowing - not on my server, we were slow to get going Alli side due to the large faction imbalance so these markets are still playing themselves out.Finally, I mentioned a while ago about Hyacinth Macaws and even further back about Argent Tournament pets. I bought most of these guys for around the 500g mark (the macaws closer to 5K of course) and am now busting them out.
The macaw I've got listed for the server 100% - I haven't seen any of these for ages now and still have one more in the bank. On the Argent Tournament pets I'm flying the kite at the 4500g mark hoping that the rarity will see them move - should be interesting to see what happens.
Stay liquid guys.

: )

Mogul.

week 1 update

2011-02-20T04:20:00.000-08:00

Week 1?!?

Hi folks - this all seems familiar but strange. The last time I was doing weekly updates was at the beginning of this journey, so what's going on now? Well, have a look below:

This week I pulled in about 29000g so am probably about 6 to 8 weeks away from capping the 1 million. Keeping a weekly update as I head for the new cap seems like fun.

This week about 75% of sales came from glyphs - blacksmithing midlevel blues continue to do well (81-83 crafted weapons in particular) and I think the faction is finally mature enough for me to get into alchemy properly again.

Got back into enchanting this week and will begin posting scrolls following spreadsheeting to determine my minimum sales position.

Best flip this week was finding four powerful spellthreads for 200g each. 800g later I had them all listed for 650g each - two have already sold.

Lotsa fun levelling this week - my lock is almost 83. I've levelled engineering on him to 450+ and am loving it. Little of fiscal value, my fellow engineers are pricing our few saleable items into the ground but fun, oh it's there. I have to go back and grind rep for my chopper but you get that. I've made my Roflcopter though and can report it's a hoot! : )

Lots of PVP, I've like to thank my grossly unbalanced server population for that. My kill ratio is still right up there - I'm pretty sure this is what locks were made for. ; ) Interestingly I've crafted pretty much everything I'm wearing, full deathsilk, trinks weapon, offhand, rings neck - my wand is the only thing I didn't create. No proper chants as yet, just a bunch of heavy savage stam patches. See below for a shot of my guy doing what he can for horde/alliance relations:

That's it for this update guys - looking forward to the coming week.

Stay liquid,

Mogul.

undermine journal

2011-02-08T23:15:00.000-08:00

Hi folks – big and excellent news – the Undermine Journal is back up and running again.

For those of you who are not familiar with this site – get familiar! It’s going to show you who your competition is, how they post, what they’re posting and even give advice (based on mat pricing) on what price you should be selling your crafted gear for.

This is a GREAT site!

A side note – on the alliance faction on our server there are 13 top selling toons, four of which are mine ; )

Stay liquid,

M.

JMTC Blogging Carnival - How would you make gold if you had limited play time?

2011-02-01T00:44:00.000-08:00

It’s almost the 2nd of the month and that means JMTC is hosting another gold making blogging carnival! This month’s topic is: How would you make gold if you had limited play time? I couldn’t resist this as it perfectly describes where I’m at with regards to my gold making.

I started playing WoW back just after BC came out – at that time I had a girlfriend. That girlfriend is now my wife and I’ve got two kiddies into the bargain, one at 7 months the other just gone 2 and a half years. I usually get some playtime once everyone has gone to bed for the evening – sometimes it’s a couple of hours, sometimes less.

I should say at the outset that for me a gaming session where I only play the AH and/or craft items is a good one. I really enjoy the mini-game that is making gold – hence the blog :P That said, I also like levelling, so…

Let me answer the question of how I make gold with limited play in one word: Handling!

Handling : definition
1. the manner of treating or dealing with something; management; treatment.

There are other definitions of course but this is the one that I think applies to making gold quickly and efficiently. You need to be mindful of the efficiency of your operation and try to do things with limited handling. If you’re spending all your time flicking between alts on a crafted item by item basis then you’re doing it wrong. You need to group your tasks so that you have as few links in the chain of your daily AH activities as you can.

For example, you have an alt who is your JC crafter and your glyph crafter. Before you swap to that alt to restock make sure your have done your mat buying first on your bankalt. And while you’re at it make sure you do all your buying for the evening at once and then send mats to your crafters, don’t flick.

People will tell you not to double handle but the opposite of that, single handling, is potentially more wasteful of your time. Imagine if you wanted to make a complex BS item which required a cloth element, a gem and a metal element. Under single handling you’d need to go to each one of your suppliers for each component before crafting and then do that all again for the next item.

So here’s my process:

Daily
Log on to bank alt
Collect sales
Repost
Make trade good purchases
Distribute goods to crafters

Log onto individual crafters
Use cooldowns
Carry out dailies
Create items to restock
Send items to bankalt

Log on to bankalt
Post

Every 48 Hours
Log onto each of my three glyph alts
Gather sales
Gather glyphs
Repost

Every week
Log on to glyph crafter
Gather mats
Mill
Create glyphs
Distribute to glyph alts
Post

That’s it in a nutshell people. There’s a couple more few things I should add though on the ‘handling’ front.

Post for 48 hours unless it’s going to make a difference
I post glyphs every 48 hours as I pretty much own that industry on server but gems, patches, potions are all posted daily due to competition. Metals are posted daily due to high listing costs but other areas such as rods and BS items where competition is low are posted every 48 hours. The upshot of all this is that your competition in each area should be your guide to frequency of posting.

Use your addons intelligently
I use Zero Auctions to post and keep my posting lists. Every single item I craft is automated by this program (well, such as the automation is in this post 4.0.1 world) from the bags of my bankalt. Simply, I craft something new I send it to my bankalt and after the posting is done I check what’s left in my bags and create new categories for the items or add to an old category. The exception to the rule is the netherweave bag market where margins can be quite small – I still like to do that manually. ; )

So that’s it folks – I’d like to thank the good folks over at JMTC for organising these carnivals and remember to check out the rest of the articles at the Wow Gold Blog Carnival! . This is my first run through and I’ve had a bunch of fun.

Stay liquid guys,

Mogul.

ore-rly?!

2011-01-20T23:14:00.000-08:00

Greetings fellow auctioneers!

Guess what?!

Last night I cleaned the AH out of Elementium Ore is what!

290 stacks went my way for 79g a stack which is pretty damn good on our server where this ore has been going for about 100-115g a stack. So with an initial investment of 22910g I’ve made about 9K on the purchase. Following this I’ve sent a bunch of ore to my miner (to turn into bars once he hits level 75 O.o), put about a banktab away to track the market with and the rest has been prospected. I’ll put some before and after shots up of the tab with my gems on it. Needless to say I’m now well into the Cata shuffle and loving it.

This escapade took me from about 734K gold down to 712K but I’m confident that my gold will head up over the 750K mark on the back of this purchase.

Plus it’s FUN! I feel like a junior mogul in a gold foundry!!

Other news:

My druid turned 81, purely from carrying out the SW dailies. I laughed. But I also realised that with my crafting appetite now thoroughly whetted I’m going to have to start taking toons to 84 soon for those great Twilight Highlands recipes; particularly the two bloodied and emberfire/fireweave sets, for both sale and my own toons. Order-wise it should be my druid (LW/JC) first, then hunter (Tailoring/Alch) with DK (BS) and mage (Inscrip/Enchanting) following. Assuming I can tear myself away from my lock – which seems unlikely. Under those circumstances it’ll be lock (Sk/Mining) and hunter simultaneously followed by druid, DK and then mage.

My lock is now 73 and has been around a couple of months to get to that level. He’s a lot of fun to play plus I’m taking my time and levelling up trade skills such as cooking and fishing as I go. I tried my hand at archaeology but the mind-numbing repetition makes this a skill I’ll be picking up in short bursts – could take me a while.

I am now an active member of arena junkies which has one of the best PVP lock starter on the web imo.

Our faction’s AH is recovering somewhat. We are now averaging about 7000 auctions a day up from the pre-cata 5000s. 7K is still minute by comparison to a large active-population AH but the rise in numbers is proof of people coming back to the game which is good for the server economy. Fun fact – I currently carry about 16% of all auctions on the alli AH. ; )

Stay liquid guys,

Mogul.

grapefruit

2011-01-13T19:45:00.000-08:00

Cata herb prices are like a fine race horse at the beginning of its career: nervy, highly strung, full of promise, and likely to throw off aspiring riders, leaving them broken and hoof-marked. That said, surely this is where the fun is for Inscription?

So let’s review said ‘fun’ shall we?

The flask market on our teeny tiny Alli faction has only sprung into existence within the last fortnight but it’s solid. I can’t say the same for the herb market as supply pitches and tosses with price gouging rife. Stormvine is the most affordable herb, sometimes dipping as low as 120g a stack but it, along with others, regularly sits closer to 200g a stack or higher. Now a good auctioneer will buy when prices are low and during the week, as per normal cycles, this does occur. “Low” however is an extremely relative term at the moment.

So how do I continue to roll my glyph steamroller along the gold-paved road that is Cata?

Other proponents of the wow gold game will tell you that there are ways to purchase herbs cheaply; these pretty much rely upon Inferno Ink as an offset though (plus of course the ‘mystical’ naïve farmer who offers you Cata herbs for 50g a stack and never checks the AH to see what they’re really worth… we’re all still looking for one of those O.o). Unfortunately the Inferno market doesn’t yet exist on our server. Elsewhere these inks might sell for 200g each which makes a certain sense when you realise that there’s about a 0.5 ink drop per stack. For me to sell Infernos for 200g though I need someone to want to buy them. Our server simply isn’t there yet. So here I am with a capacity to turn out about 5 Blackfallow inks per stack and no Inferno goose to lay me any fiery gold eggs.

The solution? Casting off my pre-Cata mindset and entering the age of plentiful gold and unbridled purchaser capacity (yes, I said “unbridled” O.O)! Previously, I had thought that my bold price of 69g a glyph was way out there. I set this price about three or four weeks prior to 4.0.1 and the gold streamed in. I revelled in my shininess as goblins and auctioneers fell about me, either suffering from lack of foresight on stockpiling mats or simply giving up and going off server. I sailed forth on a stack and a half of each and every glyph in game. Gold tumbled into my coffers and I was happy…

… except now, I’m getting dangerously low on some stocks, and buying Cata herbs at prices between 100g and 200g seems crazy.

Or is it?

If I’m buying for 140g to 175g a stack maximum price here’s how things drop out:

My sell value is break even + 45g which gives me, at 140g stack price, glyphs at 129g each.

A jump from 69 to around 150g (I included the 175g stack price as I know I’ll be tempted to buy higher to flesh out my stock) is a big one but this is not WOTLK, this is Cata and these glyphs are a one-off purchase that will continue to provide value for the life of any character. I always try to think what I’d pay for a product and so… 250g glyphs? Not for me! Additionally I won’t need to buy all my herbs as Cata herbs – I’m running three macros at the moment for milling and regularly clean up the AH for lower-level herbs under 40g/stack – so if glyphs from those herbs sell there’s a good deal of offsetting profit against the more costly items to craft.

So what price shall I post for… ?

The mogul steps through a tall archway to his side verandah and out into the grove of fruit trees beyond. He observes a grapefruit: they’re bitter, but juicy and good… and once activated (with sugar) are wonderful…kind of like a high-priced glyph. He thinks about how much he likes gold… thinks about what a glyph might be worth to an aspiring main, or alt. The ripe grapefruit drops from the tree but before it can strike the ground he catches it. Inside he places the fruit on the kitchen’s cold stone counter and separates it into two halves. Sugar gently falls from above, forming a sweet and sour crust over the tangy flesh. Raising an eyebrow, Mogul is pleased with the result and goes looking for a spork.

75g to 179g is my starting range for glyphs – buying out all stacks under 160g. Knowing our market there’s really very few other players who cover the whole AH. I believe most will follow me up to 179g. Then it’s a matter of seeing if the server goes into cost shock and refuses to buy.

This is going to be fun!!! : )

M.

fraud factory - mysterious fortune cards

2010-12-22T06:12:00.000-08:00

Whilst I thought I'd let his previous post pass through to the keeper Cold's salacious licking of his fiscal chops has thrown me over the edge into response land:

"I admit that I do feel a little dirty from swindling so much gold away from other players by getting them hooked on in game gambling."
Cold - Cold's Gold Factory

Admitting it is the first step they say…

It's single-arrow sales time all over again people except that this is quite a lot darker. But I’m not interested in Cold himself here – yes, he’s is an early adopter and a highly visible one but his is more a cautionary tale within the in-game gambling into which Blizz is delving.

It's worth considering for a moment why Blizz introduced this product in the first place.

I read a forum comment where a pundit was asking ‘how could this be a gold sink’ when more money was being created. After all the purchaser buys the ticket, the ticket pays money and the initial purchase money goes to the poster – ie, ‘more’ gold is there than before. Sure it is but it’s not the amount of gold in game that’s the issue, it’s where it ends up – or rather who ends up with it. Another 60g in a goblin’s bank is a drop in the ocean, whereas to the purchaser that gold could be the last 60g they had – yes, there is a chance he/she will walk away with 5000g but excuse me if I tell you now, I don’t think it’s a very high one. It’s far more likely that on average these cards will return less then they were bought for. So now our optimistic purchaser has less than they started with and needs to farm/quest for more gold. They will spend more game time and consequently play for longer. Good work by Blizz imo – they haven’t created less gold, but they have created more time spent ingame and as a result, more RL money in their coffers as game time is purchased. Goblins hawking these cards are not the Pimps they imagine themselves to be, they’re occupying a lower rung on the ladder.

Now a couple more points before I get off my soapbox:

Firstly, the World of Warcraft works on an abundance system. When people say that making gold in WoW is hard, that's irony! The system is designed to allow you to profit from your work and hence inspire you to continue, seeking further rewards. The saronite shuffle is a good example, there are so many ways to turn a profit that unless you buy the initial mat at crazy prices you will make gold. The introduction of the Mysterious Fortune Cards is a definitive move away from abundance towards paucity. Now Blizz is trying to motivate you to play/work longer not but giving you nice things, but by arranging to have them taken away from you so that you can work to get them back again (endgame/new expansion model in microcosm ; ) Further, you may also find it harder to gain gold in the future due to your new addiction to games of chance on the AH – it’s a worrying trend for WoW and certainly not a pretty one.

Most disturbing about these cards is what happens outside of WoW. Young folk play this game. Sometimes they are young of heart (ie, old ; ) but often they are young in age. Deliberately introducing to a young person’s game what is in effect online gambling is neither a cool nor a responsible thing to do. You're setting people up to chase similar experiences in RL.

The thing I think we, as Auctioneers, need to ask ourselves is which way we fall on this? As Cold points out this is a totally legitimate part of the game, as supplied by Blizzard. I myself, however, will not be selling these on the AH. I think they mark a departure for Auctioneers from supplying products which are of use and help people pursue their ingame aspirations (at a reasonable profit certainly) to supplying, occasionally gold, but mostly... thin air. Our usefulness to our communities becomes diminished, and so do we.

Golden Opportunity – Hyacinth Macaw

2010-12-20T19:37:00.000-08:00

Okay folks – this one’s an oldy but a goody. This sweet little bird is on everyone’s snatch list as we all hope for the ‘noob factor’ of a 50g posting.

Since Cata though there’s been a change – this bird is still a 1 in 5000 drop but is now a ‘zone’ drop rather than just a pirate drop. So though the drop rate remains unchanged there is now a larger pool of mobs from which it might drop and at the moment as the levelling wave passes through STV a lot of these fellahs are popping up on the AH.

The Undermine Journal gives a spead of about 15K from a few 5K sales through to the standard 20K.

So where’s the opportunity here? Well, the levelling won’t be here forever and once the wave of goblins and worgens passes we can reasonably expect these items to become not ‘as rare’ as before but definitely ‘rarer’ then they will be for the next couple of months. Some servers are reporting two or three birds up on the AH at once.

So if you see this item for between 5000 – 10000g I’d buy and hold for the next three to six months at which stage your investment should have matured. This one is not without risk but potentially will have sizable payoffs.

Cheers,

M.

on triple cap and the dangers of fishing

2010-12-19T23:38:00.000-08:00

Current liquid: 650K.

Woot! Triple cap! The old cap anyway. ; )

The stockpiling that I did for about three months or so leading up to Cata appears to have been worth it. I was buying both netherweave and frostweave for 6g a stack max with the occasional frostweave purchase going up to 8g a stack when I got excited.

Netherweave bags are now selling for between 25g and 29g, or on average 20g profit and the frostweave bags are going for around the 95g mark; about 50g profit.

Glyphs are also selling very well - in terms of Outwit, Outlast and Outplay, glyphs at the moment come well and truly under the Outlast category on our server – as the days pass I’m uncontested in more and more glyphs. The new Cata herbs are still very expensive and in sufficiently small volumes as to not be worth buying; the old world herbs can be very cheap but supply is patchy/laughable. I have a fallback on my glyphs of 65g and its very rare that I see anything sell for less than that. Stocks are starting to run low but I'm still holding at least a half stack on most glyphs.
I’ve started selling Cata green gems and am putting the dailies together for JC. This evening I should get my first blue pattern though I don’t intend to delve too deeply into this market, saving my tokens instead for the epics.

Looking forward - where to now? Well, a couple more months on this server before I start putting my exit plan into effect. At that stage I'll be purchasing a second account and moving most of my gold across to horde, taking a 15% loss in the process. There I'll stock up on whatever epic goodies / high-end mats I can and will then be moving them back across the neutral AH for peppercorn gold.

Why move all that gold to horde and the mats back? Well, I like playing Alli and there are no mats on our side of the fence, certainly I doubt we’ll ever see BOE Cata purples in any great abundance. The horde side of our server is very strong; the alliance has fewer than 1000 active toons. Mats might kick in when people have finished levelling professions and if so I’ll change my strat but it ain't looking rosy.

There is of course another option… level all 10 server toons to 81 and carry 500k out that way. ; ) I should be able to move at least 300K on characters so there’s that.

Here’s something amusing to finish on:

I had an epic pvp last night with a 62 pally (my lock is 61). I logged in to see a bunch of dead, skinnable hellboars dotted away into the distance and instantly started following the trail before they despawned, skinning as I went. So preoccupied was I that I didn’t notice the pally who was creating the trail until I was almost upon him. He mounted up and came straight at me. So with no Soulstone or Healthstone I only had a pot, Drainlife and Deathcoil to get my health back up. He charged across the red plain, jumped off and got into it – I slapped Exhaustion on him, whacked up a couple of dots and kited the bugger. His Exorcisms hit like a truck; I dotted and bursted him down as I was able whilst running. In one of my longest PVPs so far I got him close a number of times, forcing him to stop and heal himself up, but finally he got me low enough to finish me. I was itching for a rematch but by the time I rezzed, got all buffs and so forth up and jumped on the gryphon he was long gone. I was surprised at how tough he was and decided now might be the time to get those Knothide LW patches to up my health. As I logged out to swap to my crafter I saw that instead of beating on the pally whilst holding my heirloom staff I’d be doing it with, you guessed it, my fishing rod. My SP with fishing rod equipped is 334, with staff equipped is 540.

: )

Ahh fishing… such a pleasant pastime and yet, so unexpectedly dangerous.

Have fun out there guys,

Mogul.

pvp happund!

2010-12-16T18:23:00.000-08:00

This past week as the furore that is horde levelling on my server died down I dusted off my druid and braved Vash'jir. This fellah is ICC 10 and 25 geared and at 80 is quite competitive for deeps although unlike my mage he’s done little pvp and wears no resilience gear. I respecced, put on my deeps gear, reviewed my deeps rotation (I’ve been tanking on this guy for a very long time), glyphed, remembered where ‘stealth’ was and headed out.

First things first, Vash’jir is beautiful, hats off to Blizz for creating a lovely zone. Not that I saw too much of this as I was looking over my shoulder the whole time. Although we’re a while after Cata dropped the start zone was still awash with horde. As mentioned I love a bit of pvp but because of the sheer mass of horde toons around no sooner have you engaged with that rogue who jumped out of stealth and begun making him regret his decision but three more horde jump in on the fight and that’s it. Luckily ocean-going druids are built for speed with angry-sea-lion form properly glyphed being very fast. Regardless of this I would still not class the 80-85 zones as ‘fun’ yet.

So again I find myself considering the levelling experience on an unbalanced PVP server.

Blizz has placed many of the quests for horde and alli from the same quest givers. This is not a new trend but it seems to be more prevalent in this expansion; more prevalent also in the reworked areas below 80. On servers such as mine this bottlenecks a minority in with a majority – merciless ganking of said minority follows. Soon after that follows a litany of claims as to what should be done to fix the problem.

There’s no answer for this although the forums present many amusing views:

Blizz should open free transfers for X (minority) faction from other servers.
Why would they do that? You’re playing on a PVP server because you like a fight – now you’ve got one. Also, when you eventuially get tired of being ganked you’ll transfer off = more money for Blizz.

People should not pvp when levelling!
I love this one – it seems rational, world PVP is often unequal and as a result can be unfair. Either levels are not aligned or you get others joining in to gank; doesn’t it make more sense to simply live and let live until we’re all 85? Why yes, yes it does but many folks who play our grand game like dishing out regular gankings to those of lower levels, many are so skilled they can stroke their epeen at the same time. So good luck with that one. I’m reminded of the classic MiB quote:

Edwards: People are smart. They can handle it. Kay: A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.

Get a bunch of your faction together and gank em back – it’s what world PVP is about!
Coooeee! Anyone out there? …. anyone? There’s no one there, certainly not on my server where in the aforementioned crowded start zone I was the “only” alli around, but in general as well. People are enjoying levelling their toons and dropping everything to traverse a zone to come to your aid when often the assailants have flown, does not usually doesn’t happen.

So if you’re PVPing on an unbalanced server then you’re doing it on your own. So how do you enjoy the process?

Well, PVP seems most enjoyable when the odds are even. So if you have to be on your own then make sure that those you’re PVPing against are on their own as well. And at this stage of a new expansion that means you need to be in the lower levelling zones. 20 to 75 is where all the fun is at. : )

Since my lock broke free of his dwarven nursery I’ve been having compound fun on him. He’s geared in BoAs and I know how to play him + horde on my server, if you’ll pardon me for saying, can’t PVP for shit! It’s not their fault directly, they get no practice on what is largely a PVE server for them and have not for some years now. The few roaming Alli who are brave enough to venture out on the other hand get a bunch of practice. Of my recent encounters I have to say 80% have gone my way, sometimes with a serious level imbalance not in my favour. I’ll stop there ere I stray into the epeen stroking myself. My point here though is that the game is not just enjoyed at cap, in fact in some instances the simpler world of levelling is where the most joy is.

So enjoy yourselves out there guys and remember, 80-85 will still be there when you want it. In the mean time roc those lower levels and get yourself into some trouble.

; )

M

Elementium my dear Watson...

2010-12-08T20:39:00.000-08:00

What an odd time to take a break from WoW right?

Surely levelling new crafters is a buzz no mogul could resist. Well you’re right, I can’t resist it but I can’t do it either. I have mentioned in the past that I’m on a very small server – well a very small server Alli-side anyway. So here’s what being outnumbered 10 to 1 on a PVP server at the release of Cata looked like:

Cata drops – very smooth, thank you Blizz : )
I fly in Dala – how very useful : )
I fly for the first time in Azeroth – simply wonderful : )
I carry out the prequests and hit Hyjal…

…only I don’t. The closest I can get to the quest giver for the jump-off point is to hover overhead while a mass of horde toons crawl all over each other like a thousand drones trying to impregnate their queen. Straying too close earns me a bunch of dots and leaves a buzzing noise in my ears.

Now this might be starting to sound like a whinge and yes, the simile above does stray close to invective. But, I play on a PVP server and a severely unbalanced one at that so I was kinda expecting this. Alli-side the discussion was that we’d all be levelling worgens and goblins for the first few weeks and that was cool by me. And don’t get me wrong, PVP server = good. More horde = good, more chances for me to find foes for world PVP, which I rather enjoy.

What I hadn’t counted on was the severe restriction on mats that this festival-of-the-horde would create. I knew mats would be low due to the low Alli numbers but was confident I’d be able to use my muscle to get what I needed. No dice! Very little is finding its way on to the AH at all. The multitudes of horde are finding the Alli rarespawn too tantalising to resist and I assume that the few Alli farmers brave enough to venture forth are getting ganked mercilessly; a couple of stacks of Savage Leather does not a capped leatherworker make.

It’s an interesting take on the standard WoW supply and demand. I’m sure I’m not the only person Alli-side on server willing to pay the big bucks for mats at this early stage of the expansion. But why pay those big bucks for an amount of mats that won’t allow me to reach my goal quickly? Under the circumstances I should wait until supply is better established and costs are lower.

I’ve also realised that I’ve missed a vital element of what one might call “small faction procurement”: normally I’d proudly proclaim that I would never farm mats for myself. At the release of an expansion though it really is opposite-world. Farming is big and profitable and I should have been better prepared, levelled up my DK and lock and been out there seeing the new sights and making good goldz.

Ah well…

So I’m taking some time off. I’ll do a little lock levelling and will refresh my bags and glyphs every 48 hours but for the next few weeks it’s going to be mostly WoW holiday for this mogul.

Let me know how supply and demand on your PVP server is working out.

: )

Mogul.

600000

2010-12-06T15:39:00.000-08:00

Well folks it's the end of WOTLK and I've hit the 600K mark.

This make me a very happy Mogul.

What have I been up to recently? Levelling this guy! : ) I've got to say that levelling an affliction lock feels perilously close to cheating and is a bag of fun. It's likely though for the next couple of days I'll hop onto my crafters and open up the higher levels.

What was my Cata prep? 3500 glyphs, 5x 32 slot bag of all sorts (well, almost), 200 Netherweave bags and 80 Frostweave bags. I'm pretty relaxed about it and am not expecting huge things early as all those worgens need a chance to level out of the starting zones before they really start buying.

So thanks for coming along for the ride in WOTLK guys - it's been fantastic fun, both the gold making and the learner blogging.

Have fun guys,

A new life awaits you in the Off-world colonies!

2010-11-25T18:36:00.000-08:00

A chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure!

New Shattrath!

New Shattrath is a master-planned community that has been designed to capture the essence of the vibrant Outlands region. With streetscapes reflecting the mystery that is space goats on elephants you can now enjoy the rustic and technologically-challenging aesthetic of crashed spaceship while basking in a powerful sense of civic pride: streets are lined with a variety of interesting refugees whist the city itself is sited amongst winding walk trails which link the beautifully landscaped parks of Terokkar Forest. It all combines to offer you the ultimate in relaxed sanctuary living.

Did I say sanctuary? That’s right people, in beautiful Shattrath that pesky other faction won’t be crashing your auction house cause A’dal won’t let em! Gone are the days of post post post “Awww c’moonnnn”. Plus the Shattrathians have gone all out to provide a higher and better standard of trading than their Azarothian rivals. Sure the décor is a little rustic but the Shattrathians have provided a one-stop-shop of auction house, bank, guild bank and post box. It’s all under one roof people! With potentially the shortest AH to bank run in game and a non-lethal auctioneer environment the only cutting you’ll receive in this fine city will be “under”cutting!

So call 555-Sanctuary now and one of our friendly mages will be on your doorstep and before you can say “recombined DNA” will port you away to New Shattrath!

taking stock

2010-11-13T02:26:00.000-08:00

I’ve been firing along on wowmogul since 11 December 2009 – that’s about 11 months. I love to go big picture on gold making and I hope that folks like hearing about what I personally am doing as much as I like reading that sort of content (Hit the Cap and Stokpile still remain my favourite blogs).

After hitting the ½ mill recently and getting my interview up on Warcraft Econ I stopped to take stock of where I've got to. Initially this blog was a vehicle to chart my progress towards, and hopeful achievement of, gold cap. It’s the first blog I’ve kept and it’s been a great ride full of discovery and fun.

I’m taking things in a different direction now and I’m letting you guys know as I believe that within blogging is the unwritten social contract that the author will provide content in keeping with his or her stated interest. As I’ve blogged I’ve been conscious of making sure that I stuck to my initial premise which was the charting of my gold journey. Other posts have been put aside if they did not fit the general meme of the blog. I'm changing direction now and as a courtesy am letting my readers know. I'm hoping you'll stick around though as writing for you guys is fun. : )

So where will I be going in the future? Well for a start there will still be plenty of posts about making gold – I would always want to write on this front, it’s simply too much fun not to. Cata looks amazing and I can't wait to start crafting the new gear and working out the best path from raw mats to gold in the bank. I'll be giving myself the leeway though to write about anything WoW that takes my fancy. Even a little philosophy might creep in - but is most likely to be connected back to WoW in one form or another. ; )

So thanks for being along this far guys and I hope you stay for what's to come.

Cheers,

Mogul.

making gold on a dying server

2010-11-07T19:34:00.000-08:00

It’s true – my server is dying.

Raids have not been run for a long time and last night although a small and merry band (yay the 10 of us!) held WG this is indeed a very rare event. Usually we play spawn camp bingo with our horde compadres – it surely can’t be any fun for them either. It’s taken about six months but with the departure of the last of a string of big Alliance raiding guilds (swapped to Horde last week – others went off server entirely) the last nail was tap.. tap.. tapped into the coffin.

Still, there is a pride on server. Alli know how vastly we’re outnumbered and many of us revel in it. Where though does this leave a mogul with a vault full of gold and a rapidly drying well of mats?

Nowhere good – that’s where. : ( I could sit on the gold and use it to quietly progress through Cata without needing to make gold again – but making gold is a part of the game I love. >.< and making gold without a mats base (or a consumer base) is going to get increasingly difficult.

Mats are hard: Herbs are non-existent and when they do turn up are going for 30-60g a stack (five whole stacks posted this morning); rare components such as golden pearls turn up about two a week; cloths and metals are also sufficiently rare as to make crafted items expensive to make and expensive to buy – I’m selling eternal belt buckles now for over 100g and the few I can get mats for are snapped up.

So what am I doing then? How does the economy of a dying server faction play out?

Glyphs: Making a bunch of gold still – 30-40 sales per day at 20-60g a pop. Most are selling in the 60g gold range. I’m still making good money here. Mats though are insane; I’d pay very high prices indeed for mats but simply cannot get the herbs.

BS: Buckles, weapon chains and the occasional cobalt or saronite armour sale. Rods sell here and there.

Tailoring: Am I the only one making bags on server? Almost – my large stock of netherweave (bought for 6g max a stack) is selling for around 20g a bag. Frostweave bags are going for 65g and sell.

JC: Out of it – the odd epic. Transmuting still but nothing much in this area.

Alchemy: As above, transmute only.

Enchanting: Gold here – I’m converting my huge stock (and buying for 2g an eternal in the AH) of eternal earths and shadows into chant mats and crafting five of each chant in game. When trade chat has people begging for enchanters you know it’s time to capitalise on the market.

So I’m simplifying, I’m buying cheap mats where I find em for levelling Alch, I’m clearing out the rest of the crap from my three guild banks… I’m lamenting that in order to continue to enjoy playing this game I’m going to have to move off-server.

Now as to the “how” of that process – I’ve got some ideas but it won’t be simple. I can see a second account for a period being essential due to there being nothing within my faction to fill my bags with for resale when I go. I’ll post on this as soon as I’ve firmed my program up but “staying liquid” is unlikely to be something I’ll be doing in the future.

Have fun out there guys,

Mogul.

argent tournament pets = sweeping profits

2010-11-03T20:39:00.000-07:00

Find them – buy them – store them – add a zero.

This is a “keep for later” acquisition but one that should pay off quite nicely. I recently swooped on an Enchanted Broom and a Mulgore Hatchling going for 500g each. I won’t be trying to sell these pets until about six months into Cata but when I do I’ll be adding that zero.

Argent tournament isn’t going anywhere but it’s unlikely that people will spend their time grinding here when far shinier things will be beckoning them at level cap. These pets are likely to become quite rare and serious collectors will definitely want them.

Play the long game folks and grab these pets for future resale.

M.

through ruby-tinted shades

2010-10-27T23:36:00.000-07:00

Sometimes those of us who follow the golden path need to step back and have a think about who’s buying our stuff! It’s fine to sit in our gold-encrusted ruby-studded floating mage palaces (it really is) but part of moving product is understanding just what its worth. This knowledge of item worth becomes more important the more rivals you stomp into the dust. Oh sure the stomping is fun but as your competition wanes (as it will as we approach Cata, regardless of stomping) you could be paying a hidden price…

That price could be sales.

“You’re crazy Mogul,” I hear you shout through your platinum-plated sapphire-studded megaphone, “I’m selling plenty of stuffz! Look at all my goldzz. Look at mah hog!”

Oh but are you? The less competition you have the more you creep your product prices up – and the less likely you are to move that product.

Here’s an example: Cobalt sets are a must have for all 70s plate-wearing tanks. I stock these and they sell. The demand is constant but not high. I stock two of each piece of the cobalt set at all times. For those of you who don’t BS here’s a breakdown:

Now when this set does sell it sells all 9 pieces (or 8 if you’re a DK). Even at 2g50s per bar there is only 102g outlay here. I’m currently the only person selling these (bar levelling blow-ins) and I know there’s a demand – so what do I price them at? 100g each? That’s about 753 gold profit after the AH 5%. Sounds great, except that crafted epics on our server are having trouble holding 200g so what are the chances of selling these bad boys for 100g each? Slim is what they are… slim.

So what price do we sell these at? Okay, here’s where it gets a bit fuzzy. Put yourself in the shoes of a level-70 tank. Assume they don’t have your financial backing, assume it’s a standalone toon.

- steps inside tank’s head -
WOW, it’s cool in here… strategies, weapon skills, situational awareness, a neurotic concern for keeping my healer alive – umm… a bit dark – but roomy! Focus Mogul – hone in on the issue at hand… I’m excited about tanking Wrath instances – goood – and I’ve got some gold – excellent! – do I want to pay 900g for a tanking set I’ll replace relatively quickly – No! – for a full set I’d pay a max of 500g I reckon. It’s not too crippling and I can get tanking NOW which is what I want.

- steps out, shakes off urge to hit the gym -

So that’s about 55g a piece! There’s your price point. Yes it’s fluffy reasoning, yes you will find starter tanks out there who will pay more but what you’re aiming at is “moving product”. These items are cheap as chips to make and even at 55g return almost 370g on sale (bar listing costs).

Now I like price-gouging just as much as the next guy and when demand is high it has its place. But there is great opportunity over the next 6 weeks to move product with little competition as periodic posters fade out running up to Cata. Price like you were going to buy it and you’ll catch the “charge of the alts” and move more units and make more profit overall then you have in a while.

Stay liquid guys,

Mogul.

five hundred thousand gold

2010-10-17T08:13:00.000-07:00

It's done. I was hoping it would happen before Cata and here we are:

The night of the patch I had 443,723g. Over the last 5 days the coffers have swelled with 56,312g to now put me over half a million.

I was prepared for this patch - on the morning before I put up 3500 glyphs, five at the market price (nothing below 20g though) and five at a 60g fallback for every single glyph in game. Just as well as once the patch came down I couldn't get on until Thursday evening. My glyphs timed out Thursday morning but even still when I finally was able to log on that evening I'd sold 440 glyphs, making over 25k gold. The rest came in quietly until Friday night and then in two big chunks over the weekend.

Prior to 4.0.1 I'd also been converting my entire herb stock to inks and ink stock to glyphs. I went into the shutdown with 10,000 glyphs in my inventory. : )

This is my glyph guy - he's enjoying the moment!

So where to now? I believe this is officially more than I could ever spend - still, I'm thinking 310 flight on all my toons is a good start, then I'll wait and see what Cata brings by way of fun gold sinks. ; )

I'll be taking my DK to level 75 (once I get used to blood tanking) and then starting on my lock. I'd like to have him up to level 20 or so before Cata drops so that I can outgun the horde levellers - Alli are considered rare spawn on our server so it's useful to have the advantage if you can get it.

And gold? Well, I still have a bunch of glyphs to burn through and will be riding what's left of the wave but believe this could be a very uncertain industry going forward. It's likely I'll be focusing on gems in Cata although I'll never give up glyphs; they're too much fun.

I'm fascinated to see what changes are coming in Cata and how my cadre of crafters can rise to meet new situations. Thank you all for taking the time to read my blog. : )

Stay liquid friends,

Mogul.

For I am the GLYPH STEAMROLLER

2010-10-13T20:39:00.000-07:00

Stand aside you petty posters
With your one-copper undercuts
Your single-glyph postings
Your sticky insistence, dogging me for months
You are sticks before my steel
A paraphernalia of paucity

For I am the GLYPH STEAMROLLER
Gleaming in the firestorm’s blaze
Burnished and honed
I roll and I roll and I roll

Ten thousand glyphs thick my red hot rollers
Slapping paper down on the AH floor
Dare you post against me?
BAM! You’re gone!
And I, the glyph steamroller
Post on!

Anyone else feeling like this at the moment? : )

I was warned...

2010-10-12T19:08:00.000-07:00

For the past two or three weeks my modem has been dropping out at odd times and I’ve needed to power cycle the unit and restart the PC. Now I’ve had this modem for about 4 years and replacing it was on my list of things to do. This morning it was functioning well until I started to download the patch – whereupon the modem and all peripherals were kicked offline. A freak occurrence – nope – 4 more tries gave the exact same response.

Obviously my modem knew that 4.0.1 was coming and tried to warm me. It’s done good work and needed to be retired. I just didn’t listen.

So a new modem today and hopefully online later this evening.

Should I have been surprised? No! Since I’ve been actively playing the AH (late last year) I’ve not been online for a single patch or release: ISP issues (for days), software corruption (entire OS reinstall and client download); moving house (even with forewarning no connection); and just plain ol glitchy downloads from Blizz.

At lease this time I threw up 3500 glyphs prior to patch – they oughta drop out tomorrow morning local time so I’m a whole heap better off than previous patches : )

Something else – I couldn’t get the ipod app to go either this morning. Has anyone heard whether it’s down?

Hope you’re all having fun out there in patchland guys!!

M.

wow economic review

2010-10-10T19:27:00.000-07:00

This mogul shed a tear this morning for the passing of the wow economic review. A much-loved website for not only it's terrific linked content but also the great posts of it's owner.

I'll be updating my blog list in the next few days to try to capture all the great sites I previously went through the Review to find.

Stay liquid guys,

M.

expectations

2010-10-08T00:56:00.000-07:00

Since bidding for my jewel-encrusted bra in the eBay charity auction has exceeded our original expectations, I'm concerned that some of you may be confusing this bra for something that it's not.

- Britney Spears

The glyph industry makes me philosophical. It makes me think.

I can’t help it – it just does.

Here’s an example: Recently I’ve had issues with a camper. He only posts a single glyph of each sort at a time… that’s all he needs to do cause he’s always at the ready to post again. If I post at 7am in the morning – he’s there. 12 midnight – he’s there! During a day off from work – he’s there! At any time over the weekend or on a weeknight – he’s there ! It’s truly astonishing. And no, I don’t think he’s a bot as he’s offline and then logs on the instant I’ve logged to another toon.

To say the least this got to be quite frustrating.

I tried to think of ways to defeat this fellow and decided upon creating for him his very own category in QA3. He’s doesn’t carry a full contingent of glyphs so I now post glyphs under two separate sets of parameters. The camper’s glyphs get a 2g25s fallback with a 1g90s minimum – 4 glyph posting, every other glyph I have is set to a 59g fallback and a 4g80s minimum – two glyph posting. My process is to scan the AH and search under his name – every time he learns a new glyph it pops to the top of my search and I reassign it and crash it down to 2g25s. On a good day our little AH moves about 80 glyphs – now at 50g that’s 4K but at 2g25s it’s only 180g.

Unless he’s herbing himself and his herbs are therefore “free” ; ) surely this limited gold is sufficient to move him to another patch – after all, on each glyph he potentially has an investment of somewhere between 1g50s to 3g50s. So that really oughta crush his spirit and move him on – surely…

Apparently not. : )

So expectations then. For this fellow making 40s a glyph could be an incredible high – a windfall of unprecedented proportions. Or… he could be financially backed and working up to having the full contingent of glyphs. Been there myself – it’s fun! What I’m getting at is that his expectations of the process he and I are engaged in could well be being met and/or exceeded. He might be happy with a crashed glyph market – he may be exuberant in the knowledge that he is building his stake and not expecting to make much gold at all.

So where does that leave us?

With “my” expectations of course. They’re the only thing I really have any control over. Control over the glyph market – an illusion… control over a camper – doubly so! I used to expect to see a minimum of 8K glyph gold a week. Now I expect to see about 450g every 48 hours. …so this is still a good industry for me as my (adjusted) expectation are being met. ; ) Every non-camper-glyph sale is a success, every camper-glyph-sale a victory!

I’ve said it before – glyphs are a long game. Due to the general view that there is easy money to be made competitors tend to come and go. This fellow may be going back to school on Monday and his time investment may come to an end, or he might be independently wealthy and sit on the AH day and night for the next two years. So I’m fascinated to see how this plays out – I’ll keep you all posted.

Stay liquid guys,

M.

Blizzmas

2010-10-04T18:50:00.000-07:00

Well well well… December is the month and the 7th is the big date but what does this mean to us oh gold-making members of the blogosphere?

Here we go then:

Level all “profession” toons to level 75 so that you can max professions. This will get you around that embarrassing situation of all the other goblins laughing at you as you spend the first precious days of the new release levelling toon X (where X = your major gold maker)
Stock up on a few things – are you levelling a toon come Cata? Yes? Then work out now what they’ll have as profs and get the mats together. Prices will start to peak soon but you should still have a bit of time to get together that alchemy 1-450 mat list for when your worgen gets up. There is some risk here as levelling mats may change but I'm thinking Blizz will have enough to worry about without changing too much here.
Organise yourself. I said it before but I’ll say it again – clean up that bank vault and stock it with things that you know will move. The 10 stacks of BC healing potions can go now. This should also make you a little room to craft extra items and stockpile them for release date.
Reserve your copy. Store clerk: “I’m sorry sir we just sold the last copy of Cata in the country to that guy”. You:
Negotiate. You heard me! I think it’s time to chat with the other goblins on your server and get a nice little cartel going. I don’t mean one of those intricate cabals where people decide who’ll sell what on what day – I’m talking a bit of the old-fashioned price fixing. A million glyphs will hit the streets on patch day that have previously seen one sale per every 1000 of their more attractive cousins. I’m talking real back-catalogue stuff… Anyway, many people will soon be flocking to these dogs like Goths to vinyl – curiosity, amusement, completionism – who cares! Wouldn’t it be nice if they snaffled them for 25g a pop? Wouldn’t it be nice if you and the other glyphers started all glyphs at a 50g fallback and undercut from there. This process (or organising goblins) will be much akin to herding cats but for the potential profits it’s worth a try. Talking to goblins has worked for me in the past ; )
Lastly – on glyphs remember there’s two dates to work from: 7 Dec AND … either tonight of next Tuesday shutdown for Patch 4.0.1. This patch is where a bunch of glyph changes are coming in. Likely not the new herbs/inks, maybe only the new template – I’m looking into this at the moment and will report back. If the capacity of toons to hold multiple glyphs happens with 4.0.1 then glyphers will be getting their present early and will need to be ready.

Oh and one more thing – DOUBLE CAP! I was going to post on this but then hit 440K and the moment had passed : )

Stay liquid folks,

Mogul.

I would have hit double cap too, if it wasn't for you meddling kids.

2010-09-23T19:37:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you have to be the villain. (twirls moustache) This mogul finally crashed the glyph market! : ) I’ve danced around it here and there to make the odd point but am now doing it from a more strategic position.

I’m 3k from double cap and have just reduced my earning per glyph to one tenth of its value. All down to an AH camper who has been signing on immediately after I post and undercutting – which tbh was really starting to annoy me. I spent about an hour last night playing that game and then decided this morning that I was going to ruin his fun and have a little of my own.

I cut to 3.5g min and 5g fallback and posted 10 of each glyph. Immediately there was an undercut of 4.99g. I couldn’t be happier : ) Now he’s selling his stock for low prices which the folks who’ve been paying 50g will hopefully snap up. Tonight I’ll craft back up to full stacks and then tomorrow morning will cancel all and repost with a 65g threshold and 4.80g min to take advantage of the glyphs he’s not posting on. Going forward I’ll be undercutting on a 48 hour cycle by 50s a go. Too big a drop each time and he might lose interest or, worst still, I might sell some glyphs.

I’m looking at this period as a kind of holiday. Glyphs (as those of you who post this market will know) are a relatively intense business on the AH. The rewards are good but the process is continuous. What I’ll be doing for the immediate future will be focussing on all the other markets that I’m posting in but am not a knowledgeable player about. I’ll also level up my BS – I’ve been sitting on all the mats for this for a while – and start experimenting will selling rods, buckles and a few purples.

So how long will this current glyph cycle last for? Who can say – glyphing is a long game, I’ve seen a bunch of competitors come and go. This new guy might have transferred from a server which has had a capped AH – reducing his profit might not bother him in the slightest… or, given that it’s just gone school holidays here, he might be a kid with nothing else to do for the next two weeks. Weeks, months… all that’s required is to stay the course.

Time will provide the answers.

Stay liquid folks,

Mogul.

It’s spring and a young man’s mind turns to… STOCKTAKING

2010-09-14T07:52:00.000-07:00

That’s right folks it’s all gotta go. I’m keeping 1 tab of curios but everything else must have a purpose in this post-Cataclysm world.

What has brought this rash of rationalisation on I hear you ask? MMO-Champ reckons that at the recent drop of 4.0.1 we have 8 weeks before Cata comes out. Hmmm – that date is suspiciously close to one previously put forward by a relatively unknown gold blogger about a month ago.

Now I’m not suggesting you clear out all your active stock – I’m in agreement with Markco on that one; I’m making very good gold at the moment selling all the things I've always sold as the alt army continues it’s rampage through the AH. What I’m talking about is the junk that no longer has a home in your vault. Turn you vault into a model of ruthless efficiency – start Cata as you mean to go on: as a lean mean gold-making machine. ; )

Selling update: I spent 6K on very cheap Eternal Lifes recently and created a bunch of decks. I felt it was high risk and went into this venture knowing I could get burnt. I’ve been posting them for slightly under the moving price and guess what – everything’s been moving. I’ve easily made back my stake and am into profit now with a good amount of stock on hand. When I made this move I thought it was risky and bold. No way! It was timely and an opportunity almost missed. My advice is that if you’re putting together Nobles Decks in particular then convert them to cards. Many people new to the game do not remember the hype around Nobles and often don’t know what the decks convert to. When you’re converting go for str and agi decks. I’ve noticed the str variety moves much faster. I’m calling this the DK effect!

If you’re feeling truly mogulish then why not sell the decks twice! How? Sell the rep from the decks and then sell the cards. There are folks out there chasing DMF rep who will pay a couple of hundred gold per deck hand in (it’s cheaper than buying the deck). Of note is that the cards are BOE so you pass them the deck, they hand it in and they then hand you the card to sell. The careful amongst you may require a deposit before this happens but basically you sell the rep separately as a commodity all in itself.

One last thing which is exceptional news for the crafters amongst us – Blizz is making farming herbs and ores properly profitable. On the PTR when you hit a node as either a herber or a miner you get XP. This is a smart way of getting those mats onto the AH without relying upon botting gold farmers. Skinners kill a mob get XP and get a mat, tailors kill a mob get XP and get a mat – now the other guys get something too. It’s encouragement for every levelling toon to have a gathering profession and gives a much better provision of supply for crafters. Love it and hope it makes its way through to release.

That’s all for now folks.

Stay liquid,

M.

400K

2010-09-08T20:11:00.000-07:00

I’m approaching the big double cap peoples – by my calcs I’ve been pulling in almost 15K a week which is modest but compelling over time.

Chants are playing a part in this as are gems and inscription purples and a bunch of minor decks I’ve been turning out recently. The biggest earner though is glyphs! I don’t check earnings every day but it looks like my wall of “competitively priced” glyphs is grabbing about 50 sales a day on our low pop server – I’m averaging somewhere between 35g and 45g a sale.

Mats I have in plenty following the AH splurge of our low-price listing botters – hence the previous post – and yes, unfortunately they appear to have been found out with prices rising back to 40g a stack. “Unfortunately” I say? Maybe, maybe not. I’m pretty sure that not many of the other glyphers got a look in on the cheap herbs – which could be why the market is clearing of competition. I managed to buy almost everything they had there for about a month, producing a bulging inbox and full bank tabs. I figure my supply should last through to Cata and hopefully double cap. ; )

Other news:

My hunter is finally at 80! Now grinding rep with some factions necessary for crafting recipes.
My 71 DK is next on the list but I'll likely only take him to 75 so that he's good for the expansion.
Mats are drying up on our low-pop server like spilt cordial on a hot sidewalk - chant mats are now impossible to get. Cloths are the only mats turning up in abundance - sometimes borean leather and saronite. Gold is made by shifting quickly through a variety of processes - ie, saronite shuffle when it's cheap, borean to furs when it's cheap, cloth to bags when it's cheap.
I've been spending some Gs on my hunter - PVP is fun but I need some PVE pieces to bolster him at this early-80 stage. 245 and 264 epics incoming (bid only of course :P )

Current gold: 400,000

Stay liquid,

Mogul.

my botfriend's back

2010-08-29T19:11:00.000-07:00

Warden got him but you hung around
And bothered me, days and nights
And when I wouldn't buy from you
You said things that weren't very nice

My botfriend's back and you're gonna be in trouble
(Pay yah late-ah my botfriend's back)
You see him comin' on your margins he will pummel
(Pay yah late-ah my botfriend's back)
You been spreading lies that I was untrue
(Pay yah late-ah my botfriend's back)
So look out now cause he's undercutting you
(Pay yah late-ah my botfriend's back)

With apologies to Feldman, Goldstein and Gottehre.

more gold

2010-08-17T07:17:00.000-07:00

Let’s see – time for an update people:

Gold – 366,224G:

I’ve been spending a bit here and there – bought a Hilt for 9500 and a tundra mammoth for my DK while he levels. I’m happy with where the businesses are going and although I’m not focussing on pulling in the gold I am finding double cap just a bit alluring. I’ll keep doing what I’m doing and see how I go by cata which I’m thinking is about 11 to 12 weeks away. My cata speculation being based upon:

Blizzcon 2008 – Oct 10/11
Wotlk release – Nov 13 2008

Blizzcon 2010 – Oct 21
Cata release? Nov 22/23???

Professions
Coming along – I’m now the proud owner of a lvl 71 DK and a lvl 77 hunter. Hunter has Alch and Tailoring (hahaha tailoring on a hunter – I LOVE to fly around on my frosty carpet). The DK is soon to have BS and I’ll keep Skinning on him for cata. I'm now at 440 LW on my druid after swapping out Mining.

While I’m on this here’s a tip for all those skinners out there: Rugged Leather is a chokehold for this profession – you need a boatload to level LW and at this stage of the expansion there was only a stack or two of either this or knothide on the AH. I actually had to farm about 300 pieces of each myself. Arranging artistic screenshots of dead yetis was my only release.

Guild Banks
I still have 2 – went to 5 tabs on both and now a 6th tab on my crafting bank.

BOA Gear
Hello – yes? Ok – I am indeed grinding through 5 mans for emblems on my bear – I need 50 more and I’ll have the chest, shoulders, wep and two trinks for my new lock and worgen priest come cata : ) My DK is already wearing chest, shoulders and wep and the hunter has chest and wep.

Master List
Here’s what I’m regularly posting on the AH.
Glyphs – full listing of all glyphs – hold a stack of each glyph, posting 2 at a time and over posting rather than cancelling when I’m lazy – I’m riding the AH pretty hard atm and soaking up what herbs I can which seems to be weeding out the nuisance posters.
Inscription purps – they keep turning over, I’ve been posting these at 210g for ever – sell one of each ever 2 days or so
Blue gems – reds have a top listing of 99g, everything else is capped at 55g – I keep 2 of each gem up and recently bought 135 ore stacks for prospecting.
Epic gems – small business for me – I cut transmutes and anything I snag in trade. I got on the epic gems late and am really waiting for Cata to revive JC as a money maker given that my current workhorse inscription might not survive the changes coming it’s way (Link here).
Flasks – nothing doing, no one is really raiding so I’m sitting this one out. I am holding sufficient stock to produce about 2 or 3 runs of flasks though so will either mill them or have a couple of last hurrahs in the market and see how I fair.
Vanity Pets - Still a good business – slow selling for a while then everything sells for max price in a few days as someone decides to build their pets up – I’ve capped price on 40s pets at 35g
Decks – got quite a few of these up at the moment as I liquidate a portion of my 2000 strong snowfall stockpile (hey, don’t point, it just happened) I’m selling them too expensively atm and will continue to do that until Darkmoon, then I’ll drop the price if they don’t move.
Bags – I’ve felt out the market a few times and am stockpiling netherweave and frostweave but won’t post seriously until Cata on this one. This is more of a hobby than anything else – I have at least a banktab full of netherweave bolt stacks and half a tab of frostweave bolts – assuming netherweave bags go for a conservative 10g more when cata drops I’m only looking at around 8-10k profit. Still, it’s a fun enterprise.
Weapon / Armour Vellums – autopost 5 of each when I refresh chants – good sellers
Scroll of Fortitude – I post these in 2s for 25g on my server. They sell at a low but steady rate.
Snowfalls – I post with everyone else at about 15g each then once a week or so drop to 10g and post about 5 stacks at 200g. They usually all sell.
Chants – I’m flush with this profession at the moment, lots of chants selling well. Weekend turnover is around 2-3K a day. Difficulty with this one is mats. When prices were low prior to ICC going easy mode I bought everything the server had (and I mean EVERYTHING). I’m turning chants over now for good profit. Mats can dwindle very quickly on our little server though as is happening now. As a result this profession may choke prior to cata coming out.

Coming soon – BS. I have full sets of mats in the bank to power level to 440 – now I just need the time to do it. : )

What am I adding to my master list for Cata? Crafted purples for BS and LW (and JC if they’re in demand), patches for LW and tailoring and belt buckles.

I’m looking at crafted purps as the next stage in my AH strategy as you need a high stake to get into this field but the margins are good and the rewards for patient sellers are there. I won’t hop in until the first patterns from Cata drop.

Other news: I recently went auto with KTQ and the associated addons needed for compiling a buy/crafting list – In a word this addon is Brilliant. I’ve been manually processing on QA3 for glyphs – now I simply hit the "20" macro to get back to full stacks (following a bunch of crafting ; ). Look here for the youtube tutorial, very nice work by AH-whoring. Not to mention Kevmar’s great work in creating the addon.

: )

Stay liquid.

M.

I visualize a time when we will be to robots what dogs are to humans…

2010-08-16T19:40:00.000-07:00

It’s official, the botters are back.

For the past two weeks I have been very carefully pulling about 20 stacks a day of Icethorn off the AH from a fellow who sells only Icethorn and nothing else. He’s been keeping his stacks under the craziness of current prices on our low-pop server but high enough that he ‘looks’ legit. I have been buying his wares in toto every time he posts – my strat has been to starve the other glyphers of resources and it’s been working nicely with prices popping up to my fallback as the competition drops out of the market. This weekend just past a new poster has turned up and stacks plunged down to 7g50s – so time for a new strat as with plentiful cheap herbs come plentiful cheap glyph posters.

Recent Fun Facts:

Had my biggest day ever recently pulling in 11.9K gold. I can’t be absolutely certain it was all within a 24-hour period as I can’t reliably remember when I opened mail previously. Still it’s close enough – most of the 12K was from glyph sales.
All glyph stacks are now at 20 – I have become a very lazy poster indeed although I still make sure to do a full repost every 2 to 3 days.
I’m such a miserly bugger that I still resist buying my 6th tab on my second Gbank. : )
I’m about to level blacksmithing and a large part of my excitement is to see what new icons Blizz uses for BSing mats lol
I've got a substantial post coming soon showing what I've been up to over the last few months and what I'm currently making money on - watch this space ; )

Total gold: 350,000G

Stay liquid folks!

herbification

2010-04-16T05:34:00.000-07:00

And the old stories tell of one who shall come from the darkness in a time of great need.
And he shall have instant flight form and catch only the purest of cuttings within a bowl made from naught but gold.
His eyes will shine like diamonds and his flesh will gleam with the inner light of a thousand captured suns.
Where he goes prosperity will follow, where he goes the tyranny of scarcity has no place.
And though he labours through the hours of darkness when others raid or sleep, yet shall thou know his name.
And though his watchword be caution and his body be marked by gankings past, yet shall thou know his name.
And though he toils in the knowledge that his only thanks will be bad poetry, YET SHALL THOU KNOW HIS NAME!
So verily does he now stand revealed in his glory! He is… THE FARMER! And he was returned to us.

See previous post :P The farmers are back – well, one is – bought many stacks for between 10g and 15g. Oh happy day!

blizz broke my server

2010-04-09T08:02:00.000-07:00

Hiya folks – I’ve come to the patch late unfortunately due to a kerfutted graphics card followed by having to reinstall a bunch of corrupted software. Unsurprisingly upon my return I find things are not where I left them.

I was very interested to find how ol’ Frozo had gone in his role as creator of panaceas:

Problem 1 – Frost Lotus is rare and therefore flasks are too expensive, Blizz would like them to be plentiful and cheap so that raiders raid rather than bitching
Problem 2 – most servers are swimming in near-vendor priced frozen orbs on the AH, there’s a million of em around and they’re getting underfoot.

Eureka! – Blizz 1) ups the drop rate of Frost Lotus; 2) Brings in Frozo who will do a 1 for 1 swap of orbs for lotuses + he’s good for a bunch of other goodies.

Problem solved right?

Wrong!

There are a variety of key ingredients that go into a flask: yes yes, the Frost Lotus is definitely one but there is also a mix of various Northrend herbs. On my server Frost Lotus has stabilised at the price of orbs pre patch, roughly around 20G, so less then half their previous AH value… but the Northrend herbs have gone way up. Most are trading at 180-300% or their previous base value. As a result flasks have gone through the roof settling at somewhere around 35G – 45G a flask up from the low 20s. This is great for the moguls around who have stockpiled orbs “and” herbs but pretty bloody awful for the punters who are now paying even more for their raiding mats.

Why did this happen? Because herbers, similar to all farmers are used to getting a random payoff when they hit up a node. In almost Pavlovian antiscipation they’re used to waiting hopefully for the frost lotus drop and when it does BANG they’ve made 40G. Now it drops a lot more often but due to the Frozo Effect it’s worth only half as much and sales are not guaranteed – they have to battle against every man and his dog who might get an orb and throw it onto the AH. Many of them have, understandably, become disheartened. With a much reduced hit of WHOOPEE to sustain them many appear to have packed the game in – at least for the time being. So the serious farmers appear to be taking a holiday (or, the horror the horror, may have retired permanently) – well fine, everyone needs a holiday sometime. But as a result pressure from the big consumers, ie, the inscription and flask barons, is driving the market into the stratosphere. Lichbloom is sitting at 80G a stack on server with most others hovering around 55G. I’d imagine other larger servers are fairing better but on my low-pop server when a large farmer drops out it’s felt – when several go it’s bedlam.

For myself I’m making hay in the flask market with a bunch of stockpiled mats but I have stock for only about 4 or 5 weeks of heavy trading (or 6 to 8 medium trading which is more normal) but if the farmers haven’t returned by that time it’s going to get interesting. And I’m not talking “My what an unusual downturn” interesting I’m talking “Let’s eat that guy over there” interesting.

So I’ll report back in a week or two on this one and let you guys know how it pans out.

My advice… If you need mats and are able to focus on other money making ventures... do so. Prices will drop if not back to pre patch values at least a good deal lower then currently. If there is indeed a void in the farming market peeps will rise to fill it.

Stay liquid,

M

glyph flipping

2010-03-12T08:23:00.000-08:00

Wut?!?

I’ve noticed a particularly industrious dwarf buying out my low-priced glyphs and reposting up around my cap limit.

Art imitates nature?

I should be annoyed but in fact for lowbies or for those making their first stack it’s a great scheme. You want a gold boost? Get out there and get on with your herbing/mining + skinning then when your stake is big enough buy out a bunch of low priced glyphs and reset back to the post limit (that's for roughly 10 times your original outlay on my server). All you need to do then is join the repost cycle and get a few wins – voila you’ve just had a very nice return on your original investment.

Glyph flipping – seemed like a bad idea when I first caught him at it but in the right circumstances it’s very effective.

I should be annoyed but just can’t bring myself to get cross at the little fellah – he reminds me of me.

M

at gold limit

2010-03-07T07:13:00.000-08:00

I certainly am!

Here’s my guy – looks happy eh? Trust me he does, that’s how nelfs look when they’re happy.

It's taken 11 weeks work to get from 38K to here. That’s an average weekly income of about 16,000G per week. And the knowledge that in the future nothing that requires gold in this game will be out of my reach. It’s a good feeling.

Here’s the breakdown by week:

Starting capital – 38,000
W1 – 48,324 (10,324)
W2 – 64,205 (15,881)
W3 – 78,435 (14,231)
W4 – 92994 (14,559)
W5 – 107,769 (14,775)
W6 – 118,745 (10,976)
W7 – 143,015 (24,270)
W8 – 153,582 (10,567)
W9 – 170,421 (16,839)
W10 – 195,322 (24,901)
W11 - 218,256 (22,934)

Markets I am involved in are Tailoring, Inscription, Alchemy, Jewelcrafting and Enchanting.

I got into chant scrolls late but the numbers show their relative power (the 81K is on my chant scroll alt) – there’s work involved but if I wanted to have a big week then I knew I’d need to have a fully stacked scroll list up on the AH. DKs, druids and warriors were well represented in terms of glyph purchasing patterns - multiple trees being used for deeps or tanking really put these classes into the "respectable earner" category.

Overall I’m pleased as punch to have pulled it off. I remember when I engaged my first farmer– it was a stretch to make that deal, something very different to what I was used to in wow. Farmer number 1 sent me about 24 stacks in the mail per week at 12.5G/stack. I’m still working with him, it’s just that now I have at least 2 or 3 other farmers all of a much larger scale supplying on average 200-350 stacks per week.

What’s next? Well, I’ve said a bit on that already but I should add that I there’ll be some skiting to a few close friends and then I’ll move on to the next stage of both wow play and wow gold for me. I would be lying to you if I didn’t admit that I’ll be doing this with a very self-satisfied glow. I'll also be spending some of the gold I've been earning - as we speak I'm back down to 198K having grabbed one of these from the AH and got going on the primordial saronite I'll need for crafted gear.

I hope you guys have enjoyed coming on this part of the journey with me – gold updates will no longer be weekly but I’ll still be cataloguing my experiences as I refine processes and look for new ways to make da goldz!

All the best,

Mogul.

week 9 & 10 update

2010-03-03T05:57:00.000-08:00

Greetings friends,

Here’s numbers for weeks 9 and 10:

Total liquid - 195,322G
This week’s gold – 24,901G

Total liquid - 170,421G
Week nine gold – 16,839G

As I write this I’m over the 200K mark and closing in fast – I’m thinking that I’ll cap sometime early next week : )

Then what… ?

Refinement that’s what!

I’ve definitely felt the pull towards making cap but after this am keen to see if there’s better ways to do what I’m doing. I’ll be focussing primarily on time and money exercises – better ways to track inventory, new addons for following AH data, maxing professions and even levelling characters to fill out my crafting profile (I see a DK in my future O.o) Basically a total revamp on how I conduct my business – I’ll keep you guys front and centre on that journey.

I’ll also be doing a bunch of min/maxing on my raiding toon. Our 10 man raiding guild and recently brought down LK which was a total buzz! On my bear I’ll be will be making the most of blitzing ICC as I won’t be raiding in Cata. You’ll hear less about this but a bit will no doubt filter through ; )

Making gold will still be uppermost in my activities though. I’ve plans to put about 30K against a campaign in the glyph market to weed out the cappers and will be making my third guild bank to hold the stock I seem to be accumulating at a rate of knots. Also I’m going to need the space as I stockpile heading towards cata.

I’ll be spending the goldz too : ) My mage who was my old main will be getting some nice gear and I’ll be vanity petting out my druid (who’s almost at the 75 pets). There’s also a vanity mount in my future, not a motorcycle (unless I can ride it in bearform) but definitely something fun.

In short – after cap I’m gonna enjoy my wealth and set about making a heap more.

Cheers guys,

Mogul.

mogul’s ten not-so-well-kept secrets to becoming capped

2010-02-25T05:32:00.000-08:00

I know – presumptuous hey? But I have the feeling nothing can stop me now and the below is why/how so I thought I’d share:

1) Take risks – and scale your risks as you get bigger. When you’re starting out you might buy abyss crystals whenever they’re under 20g – as you get bigger remember to use your size. Buy out the store – grab every crystal on the AH. You put at risk some known profit as perhaps you paid 28g max on the buy for some items. Your reward though lies in the potential profit of drying up a bunch of enchanters who were going to use those crystals to put competing scrolls up on the AH.
2) Have a system – and work your system with self discipline. You can have every gem in game and a flawless delivery system but if you don’t replace stock when it’s low, or neglect to stay across new cuts when they emerge then your great system doesn’t mean nuts.
3) Always look for new revenue avenues – at a simple level this means opening up new crafter skill sets, at the more complex levels it’s anticipating trends from patches or even more advanced, finding new pathways within the existing framework. Hey! – where do you think the saronite shuffle came from?
4) Marry well – no seriously, those of us who take the golden path towards cap are probably a little “too” goal focussed. After all you can get by perfectly well in this game with 10K, you can have all the latest BOE gear with around 50K – what do you need 214K for!?! A supportive home environment in which to work your magic makes making gold a lot easier.
5) Know your supply chain. Where does infinite dust come from? Who uses it and for what? In what other areas are you competing with them? What changes are upcoming ingame that might effect its value and/or it’s availability. What do you use it for and more importantly what “can” you use it for? What areas of gold making are you neglecting because you don’t understand the products you’re dealing with?
6) Develop relationships – and keep them sweet. If a favourite herb supplier always throws a few items in at the end of the transaction for free are they going to stick in your memory? – you bet. These items (herbs, eternals etc) mean very little in a monetary sense – after all you probably just spent 5K, however “free stuff” still cements him in your memory. In return of course throwing the odd BOE his way that might be useful or interesting is going to work for you. This relationship and the lower-priced goods it garners will “earn” you invisible revenue. Personally I’m working with a couple of herb suppliers now and calculate that these relationships earn me between 500-1500g a week.
7) Addons addons addons – you will never hit the high earning levels without installing and customising time-saving addons. QA3, Auctioneer, Postal, Altoholic, Skillet, these are your bread and butter, unless you learn how to use them you will never hit the high numbers – I guarantee it.
8) Enjoy yourself – reward yourself. You’re making the gold cause it’s fun in its own right. Reward yourself as well to make it even more fun – pets, mounts, the latest BOEs, that chopper you’ve had your eye on… Use your gold every now and then to keep your motivation fresh.
9) Keep your friends close and your enemies… closer. Got a friends list? For goodness sake don’t put your friends on it – to an auctioneer that list is for the opposition. You want to know when they’re on and what they’re doing. I’ve been known to swap to my mage, port to distant AHs and follow the opposition around… who knows what you might learn.
10) Keep it secret, keep it safe. Anonymity is your friend. It’s likely that eventually your guildies will get wind of who your alts are – this is not a great outcome but it’s not the end of the world. Now your opposition working out who your crafters are and being able to tie them in to your posting alts is disasterous. From the safety or your crafters or your main you can see the competition log on, or more importantly off – clearing the way for some retributive posting ; )
11) Read your wow gold blogs – there’s a bunch of talented, scheming, devious gold-making dudes all publishing some pretty interesting stuff on the interwebz – stay across it.

BTW – that 11th one there, that’s for free ; )

M

to hold down a pillow

2010-02-22T08:10:00.000-08:00

"To Hold Down a Pillow" means not allowing the enemy's head to rise.

In contests of strategy it is bad to be led about by the enemy. You must always be able to lead the enemy about. Obviously the enemy will also be thinking of doing this, but he cannot forestall you if you do not allow him to come out. In strategy, you must stop the enemy as he attempts to cut; you must push down his thrust, and throw off his hold when he tries to grapple. … The important thing in strategy is to suppress the enemy's useful actions but allow his useless actions".
From Miyamoto Musashi’s Go Rin No Sho.

My 5G undercutter has shown intentions. Kboom has begun undercutting but only by 1s per time. So it looks like he doesn't have the patience to starve me out (by putting the entire server under 5G and waiting) and also that he feels he is not making enough gold (the 1s undercut tells me he would “like” to be getting the 5G). Even though my 57G glyphs are disappearing at a rate of 1 or more a day this recent development has made me a very happy mogul. If he wants gold then he’s very firmly in my territory.

My strategy with this guy has been to deny him. I am always lower then him with sufficient glyphs to cover the time period. He posts infrequently on a 48-hour post so this isn’t too hard.

I cannot control the price he posts at but I can effect what happens after that. So what have I done? So far I’ve simply dropped my threshold to 3g50s (as he’s still above this) and due to the large stock on hand I have now I can comfortably throw a post in before work without having to cancel. Tonight I’m making kboom his own QA category where each time he drops a glyph I’ll take it out of my main list and add it. The kboom category posts 5 or each glyph instead of three and has a threshold of 2G and should he fail to keep his glyphs up falls back to 57G.

If the 2G to 5G band is to be my new playground then I’m going to revel in it. I’m going render his actions useless. I’m going to hold down a pillow.

week 8 update

2010-02-16T05:50:00.000-08:00

Let’s see:

Create a new 4-tab guild bank… tick!
Engage Mr 100 as full-time farmer… half tick! (I think I got him but not sure yet)
Level tailoring… tick! Past 400, making the lesser leg enchants, bags soon.
Start using QA3 – bow booowng Didn’t make it – too much going on, too many stacks to turn to either flasks or inks. This is on the list for next week… along with swapping in Altaholic. Ever since I went to 2 Gbanks my old addon gets confused and doesn’t track mats properly, the Gbanks have become invisible.
Get back into blue gems… tick!

So on the whole – good progress this week.

Midweek Mr 100 turned up with 230 stacks – I bought them all. It felt pretty damn good to clean out a serious farmer. I grabbed all the eternal lifes he had and frost lotuses as well; fodder for my growing flask business. By my calcs I earned about 1000G in the transaction, although I parted with 4200G. It was a lot of fun. Especially the bit where he said “Nothing left lol”.

I’m now swimming in stock – and it’s inspiring me to be a better mogul!

Total liquid - $153,582G
This week’s gold – 10,567G

So not that great but here’s the expenditures:
New guild bank – 4 tabs – 1940G (bought sigs for 10G a pop)
3 Stacks frost lotus – 2475G
230 stacks herbs+eternal lifes+more frost lotus – 4200G
Firefly – 1000G

So there’s about 9K expenditure, the 4200 should come out as although it was greater then I’d normally get (sunk a lot into getting my stack numbers up on herbs) it’s still going towards standard product. So that puts me around the 15K mark.

Oh and the Firefly… what can I say, I couldn’t resist. I used to farm Zanga every time I went through for one of these little fellahs to no avail; they’re quite a low percentage drop. They’re rare on the AH too – only 9 showing from my data and a moving price of 2600G, so when I saw this guy I couldn’t swap to a monied alt fast enough.

He’s a pic of the little guy… awww... I’m going to call him “Sparky”

Now a couple of things before I sign off:

Blue gem market
Is good – I’m posting with a 15G min sell and a 55G max on lesser blues (which is everything except reds). It costs me about 30G on a 12-hour cycle to post and I’m making about 400G back on a good weekend post. This process is young yet and I’ll report back once I have more data; it seems quite viable though. Saronite ore is a problem with stacks fluctuating from 16G to 24G but the surge in chanting mats on our server actually makes the saronite shuffle a reasonable process again – all mats go straight to scrolls for me though. I’m working a “total coverage” angle with 2 of each and every blue going up. This is the way I sold gems in the past and it was very profitable – this time out I’ve been selling greens for 55G. It seems the alt market is pretty big.

Flask market
Is a whimsical beast – On Saturday I got my post time correct and sold almost everything and made a stack, on Sunday I got it wrong and sold 6 flasks. I experimented with Mojo and tanking flasks this week, they sell out quickly. Contrary to what I’d heard I think the flask market makes good money – the difficulty of getting one main reagent though is the problem and I don’t think this will ever be a reliable area of income.

That’s it for the week guys. I’ve been thinking about streamlining my operation so that I’m not double handling – I’ve put two crafters into the new Gbank but am going to overhaul the whole operation and reorganise… all the way down to how I post. More on this throughout the week.

All the best out there guys,

M

week 7 update

2010-02-08T07:31:00.000-08:00

24000G people!

Yep – that was this week’s take.

Here’s the numbers:

Total liquid – 143,015G
This week’s gold – 24,270G

Ok, now we get down to how this /boggle of a number happened. Two words – Darkmoon Faire! There’s 4600G from a Nobles Deck, another 700G from a single card + another 400G from a lesser deck. Even without these numbers I pulled an 18K week. Surely this is rare and I’ll drop down to 14K next week again. Surely… ; )

Actually I’m in for a decent amount of expenditure this week as my much-neglected tailoring levelling starts to get up there. I’ve been buying frostweave as I go but the 2750 cloths required is still a fair way off. I was lucky that mageweave finally turned up on the AH for about 10G a stack – I happily paid it; that cloth has been ‘very’ rare over the last few weeks. I almost farmed it myself which is a particularily un-mogulish thing to consider. O.o

My campaign for a half stack of all glyphs is coming together – I added another couple of classes over the weekend but this has been playing havoc on my stock-in-hand. I’m sucking pretty much any herb I find that’s under 17G out of the AH which is hopefully freaking out the competition. Sunday saw neither of my two major glyph competitiors repost for the entire day. Is this a result of them being “herb starved”?!? I doubt it but it’s nice to think that might be the case.

The benefits I’ve found of having this level of stock is that you simply over-posting when you don’t have the time to carry out a cancel/repost cycle. Additionally, it never hurts for the other posters to see that you’re capable of throwing a big chunk of stock up just for convenience’ sake.

Pots went off over the weekend – I posted 100 dps pots (50 of each) on Saturday eve just before raid time and then again on Sunday. I’m posting in stacks of 1, 2 or 3 with a slight discount for numbers. I’ve decided to start looking into other areas of alchemy where profit might be made – particularily elixirs. I’m assuming that I need to make “discoveries” for this but haven’t done my regooglesearch yet.

Focuses this week:

1) Level tailoring
2) Set up blue gem “pathway”. I have set up three categories: low and high selling blues (ie, greens through to reds) and an epic category. I need to establish how I get the gems regularily through to my posting alt. I’m posting prior to raids on a 12-hour time limit - getting much better sales this way.
3) Assess QA3 – yes, I’m still using QA2… I need info as to whether all of my various lists will reset with the new version. If they do then there is “a lot” of work in setting things up again which will slow me down.
4) Complete snatch list – a lot of items/mats are on there now but I need to complete and close this out.
5) Engage Mr 100 Stacks as a permanent supplier – I missed him this week and it hurt. Time to lock him in. I’m going to offer 14G/stack, 38g/Frost Lotus, 19G/Eternal Life. I’m going to ask that it all arrives in a bulk lot though – I don’t want him to think he can send dribs and drabs through as he might decide to send to other buyers that way. A bulk send should focus him on sending just to me! ; )
6) Create a new guild bank – what can I say, I needz more room.

Cheers,

Mogul

journeyman mogul

2010-02-06T00:24:00.000-08:00

The mogul works quietly in his bank chamber. Gems ordered into baskets sparkle flawlessly on the shelves, bundles of glyphs in gossamer-fine wrappings are stacked untidily on the floor, their magic quietened… for now. Potions, elixirs and flasks, images swirling within their cloudy confines, are arranged row upon row back into the darker reaches of the vault. Vellums and inks too; so many bottles that they get underfoot. Skins, ores, bars, fine cloths of every description and above all gold, chest upon chest overflowing with gold – he breathes peacefully in the quiet vault.

Outside he hears the bustle of the market place and from farther away the clang of the auction-house gong. The deals, the intoxicating draw of commerce – closing his ledger he gets to his feet and walks towards the heavy vault door, anticipating new trades and new markets.

Securing the vault behind him the journeyman mogul is drawn towards opportunity… and gold.

week 6 update

2010-01-31T22:37:00.000-08:00

I'M GOING MAD WITH MONEY!!!

Well... not really 'mad' as such. I did have a mondo spending day on Saturday though. I bought chant mats, Northrend herbs, Eternal Earth, saronite ore, titanium ore, Eternal Life (for cards), Frost Lotus... all in bulk. All in all I spend roughly 10K over the weekend and made about the same amount back + a few grand.

Here's the weekly take then:

Total liquid - 118,745G
This week's gold - 10,976G

So not the normal 14+K but after the weekend I'm left with a stack of mats and one each of these:

Nobles Deck
Undeath Deck
Chaos Deck
Prisms Deck

with another Chaos on the way if I can find an Ace!

Saturday night Mr "100 Stacks" comes back on - I took all 100 stacks again and this time took the Eternal Lifes and Frost Lotus as well : ) I paid about 37G per lotus (AH 45G) and 19G per Eternal Life (AH 25G) so I was pretty happy!

I had my first run at DPS flasks this week. I put up about 70 flasks (60 with 14 procs!!) and everything sold. It looks like with the Saturday pricing I came out about 600G - so far so good. Quite a few of my compadre wow gold bloggers have suggested posting just before raid time - this worked a treat. Due to where ICC is up to I won't post again until Wednesday night. If other guilds are like our 10 man then they've already cleared the content for this week.

The proto prospecting of titanium ore this week was less exciting then I'd hoped.

2 3/4 stacks (ie, 11 prospects) gave:

4 blues

3 epics

10 greens

8 titanium power

So blues at conservatively 20G (80), epics at 170G (510) discount the greens, titanium power at 30g (240). That's 830G. The ore was purchased for 630G - 2 stacks from the AH, the rest from trade. No a lot of work for 200G but not great - cheaper ore is required.

Very happy with my buying strats this week - I focussed on buying out everything that was reasonable whenever I found it. This gives me good stock levels (I'm working towards a stack on hand of every glyph) and forces other players to pay higer prices if they haven't been stockpiling.

More throughout the week fellow moguls!

Cheers,

resetting the market

2010-01-29T19:25:00.000-08:00

Why post 60% of the market down to 1/10 of their potential value?

1) You’re an aspiring goblin and intend to own the market through deep undercutting;

2) You’re testing the market to judge where other players’ fallback positions are – ie, post lower and lower and watch the prices bump from the minimum up to the fallback – good information to have;

3) You’re screwing with people to put them off-balance – a valid technique ; )

Ok folks – this time I paid more attention when Kboom came online and posted the 5G glyphs. He was undercutting a few 55G glyphs but for the most part it’s the mid teens and mid 20s he’s going for.

So…

4) You’re resetting the market on another toon in order to increase your profits overall (a few days of other people’s pain for a bunch of future gain for yourself).

Of my two competitors on the glyph market (let’s call them Ig and Og) I’ve also noticed that Ig does not post on any of the Kboom glyphs. She is also my main competition and quite aggressive, using QA to repost regualrily.

So I rode out the 5G glyphs and continued to post under Kboom, selling good number of glyphs. Here’s what happened…

… nothing!

After 48 hours the Kboom glyphs disappeared from the server and my prices reset back up to 55G. So if Kboom is a goblin he’s the laziest gobllin in wow. He could still be a noob trying his hand every now and then but I think the evidence now points towards one of my competitors resetting the market under an alias.

As to who's alias - Armory shows him in a 1 man guild.

It's a good idea and one I'd previously considered - using an alias keep it friendly with the competition. Something to try in the future.

Sunday post tomorrow guys.

Cya,

M

week five update

2010-01-26T00:43:00.000-08:00

Hi folks,

Ok, now I know I said I wasn’t going to clear the AH of herbs, and I didn’t!

I did however grab 100 stacks from a guy in trade, which on our low-pop server is kinda the same thing. I got a good price though ; ) The risk was in that I didn’t know the breakdown, the payoff was that there was a very high proportion of Icethorn and Lichbloom, which are the highest-proccing Northrend herbs. I negotiated 14g/stack – Deadnettle and Tiger Lily usually go for about 15-17g and Icethorn and the like usually around 19-22g – so I was happy with that price. So potentially there’s around 600-700 inks in there between the Deadnettles which usually proc enough for about 5 inks and the Icethorns which go about 8.

The guy also had 3 stacks frost lotus for 800g a stack and I’m now kicking myself for not negotiating the price down and scooping them up too. Next time. : )

So here’s the numbers:

Total liquid – 107,769G
This week's gold – 14,775G

Another 14K week : ) this is one happy Mogul! I’m looking to alchemy to move things ahead.

So what’s happening this week?

I’ll be experimenting with alchemy to test and gain a better understanding of how the flask industry works on our server (posts to follow);
I’ll be dropping herbalism from my hunter and levelling tailoring;
I’ll be duking it out with my ol’ friend kboom who has resurfaced this last weekend with almost 60% market coverage for his 5g glyphs (posts to follow this too).

Can’t wait! : )

Catch you guys,

Mogul.

100,000

2010-01-22T06:47:00.000-08:00

100,000G!

This is a BUNCH of FUN people! I love opening the mail to see all the goldz coming in!

I’ll post on Sunday as per usual with numbers but here’s a few things I’m focussing on at the moment:

Create a neutral AH alt
I’ll put my guy down at Booty Bay. I’ll need to get a guildie to come escort duty. There are a number of uses for this bankalt – selling faction pets, snagging DE items, posting wolf books. Aside from this though it’s a good idea to have a toe in as many markets as you can – opportunity costs me nothing here.

Stockpile books for Cata
I’m buying these at the moment when they get below 25g and using them on my crafter. He’s almost at 100% coverage. Once he’s there I’ll stockpile them for Cata – I’m expecting around 75g profit per item when Cata drops. How many to stockpile is an interesting question. How many crafters on server? How much need will there be? How many other people on server with the same idea as this? I might cap stock numbers here at a few stacks.

Clear the AH of herbs
A fellow mogul has done this and had fun with it. On my AH though there’s too large a spread in prices not to lose gold – however, what this idea did do was to focus me on my buying strategies. As I was working out what the breakeven price was for me on different herb stacks I realised I could be buying at far higher prices then I have been – especially on the higher-proccing herbs such as icethorn.

Create a list of vendor pets
Calico cat and albino snakes are selling well – what else can this semi-reformed rabbit purveyor procure? Pets that are either newer or difficult to get to are the ones to go for. Auto posting on QA2 will need to be set up and I’ll have to think through supply chain (ie, 1 run per month getting lots and lots of product).

Buy big
I have 100,000G now – how can I use my money to create profits due to scale? The first thought that comes to mind is buying low (during the week) and selling normal (on the weekend). I’ve read of folks doing this with dusts and making good profits. Dust is dead at the moment though due to the dungeon DE option and increased DE rates in general so where to go with this one? I’m thinking of trialling on the Eternals market. The important question to ask here is: how much of this stock can I move? Will keep you guys informed.

Create another guild bank (Gbank 2)
Boy do I need this. As I have developed my knowledge of the crafting/AH system I’m appreciating more and more the power of buying low, and buying for ‘events’. Bank 2 will be a venture bank with riskier product.

Organise / Rationalise Gbank 1
There’s a bunch of stock in there that can be sold for profit. Time for a garage sale, then rationalise my inventory between the two banks.

Buy a grand’s worth of titanium ore
With a price of less then 165g per stack – I get a chance at 6 epic gems… which sell for around 200g. So that’s my break-even point for a first run at buying. I’m more interested to see what amount of additional product drops – blues, dust, greens. I’m building a picture of profitability. Will report on whether I can do better then 165g and what profit I find here.

Level LW
My raiding main currently has 450 mining. This used to be great when I was building my initial stack but farming runs have been a thing of the past for some time now. Time to drop mining and level something useful from a crafting point of view. LW is perfect for my guy who runs feral/feral tank/deeps – bracer enchants are win in these circumstances and provide a deeps buff into the bargain over the current stam buff that comes from mining. So, mats upfront on this one as I’ll want to keep buffs as high as possible – 0 to 450 in one go? Maybe.

Buy myself a present
I’ve hit 100k – think I’ll buy a pet… or just max out tailoring ; )

Or both!

: )

Mogul.