9. my most devious gold making strategy is…

Patience.

My most devious gold making tool is…

Size.

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

1. Patience - Building your crafting capacity - toon by toon, profession by profession. Patiently levelling up and getting things ready. Slowly and surely;
2. Patience - Calmly building your Auctioneer data via daily scans so when you strike it will be from a position of knowledge;
3. Patience - Hauling your arse around Azeroth dealing with time wasters as you create your guildbank(s), yes, you will definitely need more than one;
4. Patience - Diligently building your pile of gold until it starts getting substantial and useful (100K);
5. 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;
6. 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

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:

1. 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.
2. 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 ; )
3. 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 : )
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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

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:

1. 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.
2. Gold Cap – the 1st. Struggle, study, application, success – BOOM! Gold cap – At Gold Limit!
3. 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!
4. Discovering my new main and the joy that is warlockery. Many posts on this – especially the PVPness.
5. Gold Cap – the 2nd. 1 Million Gold! Woohoo!

What about yourselves? Just give me the number 1!

: )


M.

Postember stalled

Blue screen

Will not start in safe mode

That is all.

6. Blizzard micro-transactions “First 60” program

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

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!?

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:

1. It's my time and I'll do what I want with it (i actually think this is the only one with rigor)
2. At least I'm not watching TV (not bad)
3. 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)
4. I play with my family (Umm...)
5. It's cheaper than drugs (okay I made that one up)
6. It's the only way I see my husband (sorry, that one I didn't make up)
7. I'm actually saving money playing WoW (comparatively true)
8. 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)
9. 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)
10. 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?

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?

 

: )

 

 

M.

2. you started your blog why?

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

'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

n.

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,

M.

30 days hath Postember

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?

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.