A Weekend Resumed

Looks different around here, I know. But so does Azeroth. No, not in the private sector where you’ve occasionally heard me from. The real deal. I resubbed on Friday…for a month. Who knows, I might wrangle enough gold to buy a free month as well. But in the short term, we’ll see how it goes. It doesn’t mean I’m back for Shadowlands. Much as I have to have the Collector’s Edition at some point for my collection, I’m in no rush. Instead I came back to see what everything else is like.

The first thing I did was putter about on a couple of toons. Elcombe still has a 6-tab Guild Bank full of pets. So, guess no one hacked me at any point. After checking that, I took him to the barber shop to see what the new options looked like. He ended up looking like Stephen Baldwin apparently.

After that, I did what I do most. Maybe best. Took a bag full of pets over to the auction house. It’ll take me a little while to get settled into the market. But if I can sell a lot of what I’ve got in stock, that free month might not be all that difficult to achieve. Heck, if I put all my toons in one place it would be mission accomplished. But, that’s not the case, though I do still know how to move money around to some degree if I so desire.

Then it was time for familiarity. Over to Zarahi and druid adventuring. She was sitting at the top of the toons at level 42. So I puttered in Warlords for 1-2 levels and then made my way to Azsuna. Apparently I had some quests there from the last time I logged in…a couple of years ago. So I went through a few of the storylines.

Then decided to take her to the Barber Shop. Holy crap, I can be a Druid of the Flame. Permanently. Didn’t see that one coming at all…and nope, didn’t even look at Bear Form.

At this point, I decided to go to Zandalar. Figured her last few levels would get me on track to unlocking Allied Races. Of course, I didn’t put much research into how to do so and was disappointed when I completed the Zandalari stuff and it turns out that’s just the beginning of what was needed. Oh well, still hit the level cap in no time at all.

When I realized I wasn’t unlocking the Trolls just yet I thought I’d visit a place I’d been dying to see: Siege of Orgrimmar. If I can’t have what I want, at least I can go kill Garrosh, right? Well, not so much. Despite researching the issue, I just could not solo the Scrolls of Pandaria. After dying about a half dozen time I gave up. Between the trolls, Garrosh, and this site causing me grief (hence the new look), I wasn’t in the best of moods by Sunday night. So, I needed to remedy that. Went to a favourite place. No, not Karazhan oddly. Instead it was off to Sunwell Plateau. Wasn’t long after I paid Kil’jaeden a visit and felt better. Even had the Chaos Pup and Wretched Servant drop.

So I experienced some of the new and some of the old. We’ll see what the next 30 days brings. I know Shadowlands hits this week and as I said off the top, I’m in no rush to get it. I haven’t played the game in a couple of years so there’s lots for me to do for my dollar (which, yes I was fairly certain I would never again give Blizzard…eh, times change I suppose). I’ve certainly built up a few thoughts on how things are in Azeroth now. We’ll see if I can get them out here with some semblance of frequency. No guarantees, but for now we’ll do our best and enjoy the ride.

When I Should Have Been Leveling

I set out a goal quite some time ago, to have one of each class at 100 by the time Legion hit. Granted, with the free 110, I could let one slide. As you can see from yesterday, though, I’ve only gotten five there. I certainly have my work cut out for me (good news is, the DK is now 83) to get several classes maxed out. Realistically, of course, I won’t. Life will get in the way of that, and I’m ok with it. I’ll get there eventually and then check out each class’s artifact quest chain.

So the question is, if I had the time and don’t raid…why didn’t I get more leveling done? Well once again life was in the way and my play time was reduced. I could have nickeled and dimed a character or two but I didn’t. Instead, I invested.

The relative sure investment in the game right now is pets. So long as you know their relative value, you can never lose more than 10%…if you lose any money in the first place. What makes pets so lucrative is their ability to be sold on other servers. What’s worth 30g on your server could be worth 300g on others. And you can always circulate the gold back to your server via the same process.

Now the way I see it, when Legion hits people are going to be all over the new content. That means out with the old and in with the new. This will include out with Draenor for most players, even new ones. So, for example, I bought up any Left Shark I saw for less than 50s on my servers. I also got an idea what several pets are worth overall. I flipped some so that I could keep my various economies stocked, but any time I had more than three of a pet at the end of the day they went in the bank. The end result?

So we’re looking at just shy of 600 pets, varying greatly in their value and rarity. Some are only going become less common (I’m looking at you Iron Starlette and Hydraling), meaning there will be a slight increase in their worth, depending on the server. I’d love to say I’m concerned about breaking even, but the truth is I already have. With these pets and others, I’ve made enough gold to cover what all of these cost me. Well, the ones I didn’t track down on my own. All in all I’m just about set to open my pet shops, I think.

A Month Of Money Making: Week Two

I came into the week thinking I had ample time for farming and generating gold. In the end, I made money…but not as much as I thought I might. Spent some free time leveling instead (Hunter hit 95, Priest 94, Death Knight 77) and then life got in the way as it often does. But I’m still curious to see how things went.

A Month of Money Making: Week One

(warning: this is long…and wordy…and…numbery?)

I talked last week about sharing how to play for free. Specifically, how to make at least 25 thousand gold a month. That gets you pretty close to the cost of a token, depending on the market at the time. What I have started doing, is charting everything I’m making over the course of one month, day by day. What I’m enjoying most about it is the opportunity to see for myself just exactly where the gold comes from, what I might be doing well, and what I could improve on. I won’t be capped or anything like that, but I’m happy doing enough to get by and can build on that. As I said before, my goal is simply to be able to continue playing the game for free. So let’s see how we’re doing, shall we?

30 Days In The Hole

To be fair, it’s more to the effect of “30 Days Back In Azeroth.” Miss me? Heck, remember me?

Indeed my friend, I have been back in World of Warcraft for just over a month now (though I was gone away for one week in that span). There is a great deal to discuss in terms of the game, the future, even yours truly as it pertains to the two.  I suppose I will take the easy route and tackle the last one first.

When I stopped playing WoW earlier this year it wasn’t because of the game itself (unlike a clear number of other people based on subscription numbers). I simply didn’t have time for the game. If I didn’t have time…why was I paying for it then? So off I went. I can’t say that I missed the game, but at the same time there were things I missed doing. More importantly there were people I missed talking to. But don’t get me wrong, that wouldn’t be reason enough to bring me back (as awesome as those individuals may be).

So why did I come back? That’s easy. I can play the game for free. Yes, the well-known WoW token. Some individual buys the token in the real world and all I have to do is hand over some gold for a month of play time. That means zero cash comes out of my pocket. I just spend a few hours generating some coin and I’m in the game as long as I want to be. Of course, there was a catch to getting back that myself and Flagsworth (remember that lad as well?) found as we both considered this option: how do we start playing for free without first paying to do so? Oh Blizzard, you have impeccable timing.

Shortly before I was set to go on holidays I got a Facebook notice inviting me back to the game for a free 7-days. Well, problem solved. So back I came and just before I went away at the beginning of August I purchased my first 30-day token. I just picked up my second one Sunday, and since I came back I still have enough for two more months. I do plan to share my means of doing so but that will be at another time.

In game, as of today, flying in Draenor is officially a possibility. Honestly, I’ve never had issue with us not being able to fly at any point during the game. I don’t see why folks have been so adamant over the issue, but when the realms come back online later it won’t matter. It is what it is and those who are excited may rejoice over the issue.

The aggravation I do understand, however, is over the Garrison. Well specifically that every character you send through the portal must do the chain and go down the same tedious path every time roughly until you’ve gotten your Garrison to level 2. There are ways around it, yes, but they aren’t necessarily viable or free of agony. I do wish we could be at the very least come through the portal and choose to take an “x” amount of experience (less than what you would get doing the quest chain) and appear at that moment after the Garrison is complete.

While Blizzard seems to have learned from some of the mistakes of the Garrison, it looks like they aren’t ending any time soon as the new Class Headquarters sound to be very similar if not identical. Time will tell. To be honest, the Legion expansion seems to be a mixed bag. I like the idea of the Demon Hunter, though I have no certainty whether I’ll play the class much (who am I kidding, I have to have one of every class). The artifacts mechanic is also interesting. Particularly for us Feral Druids! Some say the expansion is a bit of everything people want, but does that mean Blizzard shoots the moon in one shot? I hope not because it’s likely that being a bit of everything means not being enough of any one thing in particular (kind of like my play style…which works for me, but not millions of others). I plan to get it either way, but I’m uncertain if it will be at launch. That will depend on the release date as I have a bigger hobby now and it involves some pricey kickstarters coming down the pipe.

I haven’t written in so long because I had nothing to write about. I’ve said before no matter how excited you might be about something, if you aren’t active in it then it’s very hard to completely relate when sharing your thoughts on the matter.  Now I find myself and the Amateur Army deep in the world again, and the interest to write and share my thoughts is definitely there. But I shall provide no timetable. Whenever the mood suits me or there’s a topic worth mentioning then I certainly will. Who knows, others will spur topics for me. I do have a post I plan to start writing today, as the first of the month allows me a launch point to get a clear picture. It’s one I will share at the end of the month, though, and will hopefully provide insight into how to start acquiring your own WoW tokens.

With any luck you’ll be playing for free as well, or perhaps just find a new way to supplement a shopping spree now and again. Either way, so long as I can keep bringing in the tokens I have returned and will be staying. At the very least, I suspect that’s for the rest of 2015. How often I share my ramblings, I cannot say. But when in doubt, rest assured I am always up for a chat in game.

Cheers,
JD

A Gold Maker’s Loss

If you’ve put in any time making gold, then you should know of one of the biggest assets for doing so: The Undermine Journal.  For the past four years, the site has been an amazing resource for deals as well as just a great source for pricing on everything.  Whether it’s your server, or game wide, the financial info and item availability was a click away.  Unfortunately that appears to be ending this month.

According to the website, you can no longer subscribe and auction information is no longer updating.  Whomever hosts the servers for TUJ is not able to meet the needs of the site and as such it is going to close by the end of the month.  Whether it’s an official closing is yet to be determined though.  The folks there seem to want to keep it going but time will tell.

There will probably be a period where this site is completely closed. We may be able to find a new dedicated host, but there are a number of improvements that should be made here before Warlords of Draenor is released anyway. So if WoD is released and The Undermine Journal is down, it’s probably not coming back.

While I haven’t used the site nearly as much in recent months, I refuse to downplay how important it was and what an amazing resource it was for those serious about gold making.   Some days it’s hard to remember the days prior to it existing.  Heck, if not for the Undermine Journal I wouldn’t have my Deathcharger.  I certainly hope it comes back, not only because I was a fan of using it but because I think it’s incredibly valuable for the community.  I never like to see any part of the community permanently log out, and this is no exception.

Having said that, there’s going to be a shift in power for gold making for the next little while.  Add-ons are great, but they can’t run in real time on all servers like the Journal did.  Great deals and rare listed items can’t be accessed outside the game right now and that gives those with a little more time the advantage.  With nothing much to do before Warlords, the Auction House PvP is open for more aggressive folk.  So while we hope the Undermine Journal isn’t down for long, your opportunity just went up.

Laundering

Once upon a time we used to lament over the idea of creating a character on a different server.  In that universe, there was no cross-realm grouping via Real ID.  Heck, “LFG” meant rounding up a group of 5 (or full raid) on your own server and some days that took time.  More importantly, though, we didn’t want to “start over,” even if it meant playing with friends on their server.  My how the times have changed.  We can now group with who we want, when we want, where we want.  Heirlooms finally live up to the Account term in BoA, so our newbies are swinging hard right out of the gate.  Thanks to connected realms, we can now join a guild that isn’t even on our server.  That creates a bigger opportunity that most seem to realize.

Being able to be part of a guild on a connected realm allows for something very obvious: the ability to move goods across multiple servers.  Or, in a grander scale, gold.  To the best of my knowledge, no one has really taken advantage of this feature as of yet but it seems the kind of thing that is only a matter of time.  While the realms probably don’t connect full circle with each other just yet, that map probably isn’t that far off.  That essentially means getting your goods and money to wherever it suits you.

Now obviously the key to this is the guild itself.  If you’re part of someone else’s guild than this feature may or may not work in your favour.  Your best bet is to check with an officer or guild master to see if they mind, as you probably don’t have gold access for starters.  Even your tab access might be minimal, or there’s no room for such things.  Of course, if you run the guild yourself then the point is moot.

If you aren’t part of one, things can get tricky.  Your options are to either join a guild, and present a sound reason as to why they should allow you to perform such tasks (offering money, pets, or something else might increase your chances), or make your own.  If you make your own, remember you need to pay for the first tab.  This is where it might not be all that viable, because if you have to create a bank tab on each server in the chain, it’s going to add up.  But the fact is, it can be done.

As I say, I am surprised no one seems to be really taking advantage of this.  It seems to be tailor made for gold farmers to make transactions, and really anyone who frequents the auction house because you can work two markets from the same guild bank.  That’s huge because the markets can drastically vary, as we’ve discussed here many times.  It’s crazy to think that a few short years ago you couldn’t even message a friend on a different server and now there’s a strong chance you’re in a guild on a different server and have opportunities that were never thought possible.