Monday Money Making: It Ain’t Easy Finding Greens

Happy Monday!  Hope you’re selling your Small Eggs or Gingerbread Cookies for absurd prices this time of year.  If you’re trying to get the Gingerbread Cookies, stop buying them.  You’re almost guaranteed to get them in a present from the Greathfather on Christmas Day.  But today isn’t about profiting from Winter Veil.  Instead, I feel the need to point out with transmogrification the (gold) game has changed.

Using the shoulders I have pictured here as an example, there is some very unique gear out there even at the uncommon level.  In fact, the Thick Scale is the only shoulder model that matches up with Wildthorn Mail.  You can see the combo here.  I checked the Auction House multiple times a day, before I happened to come across them late Friday night.  They were the only piece I couldn’t craft for that outfit…and they cost me 2g.  Don’t get me wrong, as the buyer and someone becoming trasmog obsessed (which was obvious some time ago, I suppose), I’m not going to complain.  But I would’ve probably paid up to 50g for them.  In another case, I offered 25g a piece on my forum for any Ironhide gear.  I needed several pieces, but not one person responded.  Instead I bought two components off the auction house for less than 3g each.  The people that listed these items missed out immensely. 

I know, I know.  I’m a special breed.  But it isn’t just me.  I came across a pair of uncommon leggings the other day, and previewed them.  They were Headhunter Woolies (of the Falcon, if I recall) and I thought they stood out.  So I put them on the Auction House for 20g.  Within an hour they sold.  I’ve had the same thing happen with a couple of blues that didn’t have the best stat combos but looked good.  The reason being, people are starting to transmog more.

I’ve seen it on my servers, and people I talked to either have little gear to replace at this stage of the game, or have started looking into outfit combinations.  One person told me the gloves they used were a fluke drop and they decided to build an outfit around them.  I’m sure other people are doing the same.  Green level items that would’ve been tossed on the AH for next to nothing are being kept for outfits.  So, if you start finding greens with unique looks or components of some of the look alike outfits people have designed, reconsider selling them for the sake of getting rid of them and actually post them for a few days at a higher price.  It’ll cost you a few silver to try and success results in gold.

Monday Money Making: Stacking The Deck

So what did you think of the new Darkmoon Faire?  Giving it an island is a nice feature and as it’s only around for the first week of each month, we shouldn’t get sick of it.  Also, it gives you 3-4 weeks in between to stock up and take advantage of cheaper cards. Darkmoon cards sell pretty well and there could be several contributing factors:

• grinding Darkmoon rep
• acquring level appropriate epic trinkets
• flipping the decks for trinkets and profiting on the Auction House

For standard decks, patience can make all the difference in the world.  Don’t feel you have to gather the Ace to Eight in one fell swoop.  Granted, there are instances where that actually is a wise move based on their current pricing.  Most often you’ll better to nickel and dime the deck until you complete it.  As an example, I calculated the Lunacy Deck cost me approximately 430g to create over the course of two months.  I then sold it for 1100g.  It was towards the end of the summer, so it’s recent enough that it’s accurate.  That number could be even higher if the Faire is on at the time.  People tend to clamour for the decks while the Faire is on instead of stocking up prior.  Use that to your advantage.  You can do it with full decks, and in acquiring individual cards.

Speaking of individual cards, I’m amazed at how often cards from the Rogues, Swords, and Mages sets go for.  The Rogues might be the easiest of all.  Most servers it seems they’re 2g or less each (in some cases much less) and it takes a whole three cards to build the deck that sells for 10-30g.  That’s one of those no brainer math equations.  You can usually work the same math with the Swords and Mages cards.  However, don’t make the same mistake I did with the Mages Deck. 

I was building Mage Decks for 5g-20g and flipping them for about 50g because people were insanely listing them for 200g.  Of course, this perceived insanity was brought about by my own ignorance.  If you’re as unfamiliar with the results as I was, here’s the thing.: relisting the Mages Deck will make you a decent return.  Doing the quest yourself and listing either reward?  That’s a much more profitable option.  This is why it pays to do a little homework. 

Of course, this doesn’t even take into consideration being a Scribe.   If you can farm the herbs or pull them from the Auction House cheaply yourself, then convert that to Darkmoon cards, even the RNG will be rewarding enough to make it worth your while.  The bottom line is Blizzard removed running in-game casinos last year, but that doesn’t mean you can’t take the decks and stack them in your favour.

Monday Money Making: Don’t Fear Old Tricks

The Ghost of Auctions Past

World of Warcraft is a game which, for the most part, is evolving.  The content, the playerbase, and even the auction house.  But just because that is true, doesn’t mean abandoning what you know to have worked in the past.  Crowd Control is a great example of this, but Mondays are meant for gold so you’re wondering what I’m getting at.

As gold makers look to new ways of generating their income they find success in unique ways and opportunities but many drop what got them there in the first place.  A prime example of this is the Saronite Shuffle.  Saronite Ore is unqestionably more than it was when Northrend was the end game content because no one is really there to farm it.  But that also means the gems aren’t as common.  Now, the shuffle changes a bit in modern time depending on your server.  Some days Shadow Crystals are actually worth 3-4g so don’t just vendor them.  Plus, the blue gems are viable because Lich King epics are far too expensive and Cataclysm gems require higher ilevel gear to be able to use.  Do a little research, but I can almost guarantee you this is still quite profitable.

In fact, I’m going to take things a step further and look at an older money maker for every other crafting profession:

• Alchemists. You’re raking in the money transmuting Truegold these days, but are you limiting yourself to just that?  From the Saronite Shuffle you can generate Eternals (Air/Fire), and goodness knows Arcanite Bars are worth much more than Arcane Crystals.
• Blacksmiths.  Are you watching the price of (or farming) Silver, Truesilver, Cobalt, Adamantium, and Fel Iron?  Why not?  Enchanters are still being trained every day and they need Rods to get the job done.
• Enchanting.  You pop on the auction house on occasion and check the price of green gear versus their disenchant value right? 
• Engineering.  You’re still making the non-combat pets right?  
• Inscription.  I’ll touch on it more next week, but Rogues Deck and Swords Deck are easy money.  Doesn’t matter if you buy the herbs or just the ink, or the individual cards because people made them to level their profession. 
• Leatherworking.  Remember your under 40 twinks.  You have 4 classes seeking gear instead of just two.  Items like Deviate Scale Cloak and Barbaric Bracers are your friend. 
• Tailoring.  Netherweave and Runecloth.  Netherweave Bags will always be a hot seller and Runecloth is usually dirt cheap.  Buy it up, make Headbands and then get them disenchanted for ridiculous profit.

Not one of the suggestions here is new.  In fact, I’ve even mentioned several of them in the past, but the thing is they still work.  If something used to work for you but the market dried up, depending how long it’s been why not go back and try it again?  There’s never any harm in trying and if it doesn’t work then you’re no worse off.  But when some of it does you’ll be smiling and counting your gold in yet another way.

Monday Money Making: Starting Out Continued

Last week I talked about getting your gold income flowing when you just start out.   In the seven days since, I’ve spent approximately a half hour on my new server and I now sit with 20g.  I still haven’t locked into a profession, but I’m leaning towards Enchanting for the very reason I discussed last week.  Some low level greens are incredibly cheap compared to the Enchanting materials they transform into.

A great way to increase your coin purse at this stage of the game, remain guildless.  Odds are this is a toon you’re going to play for a reason but at low level you’re not going to provide much to the guild and despite the bonuses to xp you can get from higher level guilds, below 20 you won’t notice a huge difference.  Instead, use this time to sign charters.  People are constantly advertising in trade chat, usually offering 2g-20g depending how desperate or impatient they get.

Now that I have a little bit of money, it’s time to hit one of the local pet vendors.  In this case, I bought two of each snake.  For starters, I have little bag space at this time and I really don’t want or need to flood the market.  It’s not like selection is limited.  Based on current reputation, each cost me 40s and I’m listed them at 2.99g.  I probably could go higher as these pets tend to average 4g based on my experience, but it goes back to every server being different.  It’s always more beneficial to determine what something will sell for rather than find out what it won’t sell for.  As a side note to this, so far I’ve found the Brown Rabbit Crate at Amberstill Ranch to be the starting region pet that seems to sell the best.

I mentioned rare spawn recipes at city vendors, but should also add in vendor materials.  Enchanting and Engineer vendors (among others) tend to have limited supply of certain items that their profession can make and it’s usually at a level close to or less than what they sell for on the Auction House.  I prefer to make a few trips and patiently build up a stack before I list some.  Depending on how you like to do things, you could also buy up items like Copper Rods and Vanishing Powder and list that.  As I said, it comes down to personal preference.  I also can’t discuss the success rate as it’s not something I’ve done.

Combine these few suggestions with the ones from last week and you should be able to develop a level of success that will set you on your path to a gold pool of your own satisfaction.

Monday Money Making: Starting Out

You can choose to start making gold at any time, but let’s say for the sake of argument you’d like to begin generating income right away.  Now, you can roll a Death Knight on a new server and end up with about 30g or so by the time you enter Orgrimmar or Stormwind.  That’s without trying to make any money while you get out of the start zone.  However, not everyone wants to roll a Death Knight and the start zone is lengthy (by comparison).  So what about when you’re starting low level?

I recently rolled a Goblin on a brand new server, knowing nothing about the economy there.  By the time I came out of the start zone (lengthy in it its own right, as is the Worgen zone) my Rogue was level 11 with just over 2g.  That’s from vendoring almost everything I came across and ensuring I grabbed the items that had the most vendor value on my quest hand-ins.  I also had a stack and a half of linen and a couple of Malachite.  While not worth much, Plans: Copper Chain Vest also dropped for me in the Lost Isles.  Armed with just those things, off to the Auction House I went and the first thing I did was hit search.  Sorting by price, I could see the cheapest items listed.  Before you buy anything, be sure to search out the same item with your Auction addon to see what the going rate is.  For instance, I found Malachite for 99c, which is low compared to my regular servers.  However a quick search found that to be the actual rate.

The next thing I did was list what little I could.  A single stack of Linen Cloth went up for 2.5g.  The blacksmith plans I tossed up for just 15s as the auction house had plenty.  I could’ve held on to them, but I didn’t expect it to vary much.  The Malachite I hung on to and I put in some low bids on Copper Bar.  I would recommend bar or ore, whichever is cheaper.  The eventual plan is to get a Mechanical Squirrel Box (or several, depending on finances) built.  Even though I wrote about the benefits of the Squirrel quite some time ago, it’s still a great source of money.

I’m keeping things relatively basic, but there’s two things you can do next.  The first would be get a profession and put it to use.  If you’re not going anywhere, I recommend Enchanting.  You can pull tonnes of low level greens off the Auction House and disenchant them into Strange Dust.  It often has a reasonable value by comparison.  The second option is seek out what rare spawn recipes are in your city and grab them, putting them on the Auction House.  The Pattern: White Wedding Dress always sells decent and quickly, for example.

Cap that off with starting to run auction house scans right away, and you’ll begin getting an understanding of your economy (and start spotting deals).  This will vary based on faction, server type, and population.  When starting out, I prefer the low risk/reasonable reward method.  You don’t have much capital to start with and the wrong investment could leave you with little to work with or completely tap you and result in having to quest or grind for startup once more.  As you begin to generate gold, keep in mind previous methods I’ve mentioned for making gold.  On a new server, the best one I can remind you of is Making Others Work For You.  While that post suggested end-game items, there’s nothing to stop you from using the exact same strategy with lower level items as you can afford them or as you gather the materials.  Really, it always comes down to strategy.  The more you read and develop them, it comes down to learning which ones work best and applying them.

Monday Money Making: Transmogrification Means Expanding Your Profession Book

We’ve talked a lot about professions in the past and how some recipes like Spidersilk Boots, the Pet Bombling, and Enchant Weapon – Fiery Weapon are some must haves for easily generating gold.  I’ve always said any profession can make gold, and they can all do it equally well -you simply need to determine what sells on your server.  One of the keys to that is having a diverse recipe book.  Very soon, those professions that can make various types of gear and weapons are going to have another reason.  You might have heard of that little thing called Transmogrification.

One of the biggest knocks I’ve had against craftable gear is that a lot of the items are essentially useless for their level compared to what drops or is quest rewarded even.  In some cases, that’s still going to hold true.  However, if they fit a certain look someone is trying to establish, then they’ll be sought out.  If people are looking for something to be made, they tend to tip.  Don’t you want to be the one they’re giving their gold to?

Many people aren’t going to go through the time to track down rare drops or reputation related recipes like the Flarecore Robe.  Even the ones that will use their profession to generate some gold are going to focus on end game epics.  There’s nothing wrong with that, and I’m certainly encouraging that when I say expand your book, but a key to making gold is offering something others aren’t.  Even advertising on your server’s forum can help with this.  Yes, it will encourage other people to do the same but there are a number of factors that you should consider before that deters you.  People may not have the recipes you do which means tracking them down, but also the number of players that use the forums is not as large as you might think.

If you are looking to flush out your recipes, the best thing I can suggest is to go download Ackis.  I’ve talked about it before, as it is an easy addon to use.  Once installed you merely open your profession book and run a scan, which takes seconds to complete.  It will show you what recipes you’re still missing, as well as how to obtain them.  If they’re a drop you’ll find out what mobs they drop from (unless it’s a World Drop), as well as coordinates on where they are.  Another addon to consider is MogIt.  It isn’t designed for professions, but you can make it work for you with a bit of digging.  Find a piece of gear you like the look of and see what it is.  Many have more than one skin and if someone wants the look of something like Skyshroud Leggings, you can save them farming for it by offering to make Runecloth Pants.  They’re the exact same and saving them time will result in more money for you.

So it might be a good idea to start visiting those Quartermasters, hitting some instances for those BoP recipes (that are BoE gear, of course), and keeping an eye on the auction house for folks simply looking to get rid of the recipes that you’ll end up profiting from.  But you’ll want to get a head start, as Patch 4.3 is likely less than a month away now.  People will want their transmog gear, and there’s some holiday coming where they’ll want to do some shopping for others, too.

Monday Money Making: Gold Guides -Just Say No

You know very well how easy it can be to get gold in World of Warcraft.  Obviously if you’re really lazy you’ll just buy it somewhere and then one can only hope you get caught doing so, but that’s another post for another day.  Today, I want to talk about gold guides.  There are a tonne of them out there.  Just Google the term “gold guide” and see what all comes back.  Some of them are going to be complete scams and others are going to indeed show you ways to generate income in the game (most of which will be on the up and up, but we know there’s a few shady folk out there).  Above all else, they’ll all have one thing in common: they’re not free.

Not that I blame the developers of these guides, because let’s face it the old adage is why give away what you can charge money for.  Think about it for a moment, if you could make a dollar a player off of instance runs for lower level characters, no questions asked, you would probably do it.  Averaging just three players a day would net you almost $100 dollars a month.  So, again, the people that make the guides need not be cast down upon.    In fact, most of the guides offer sound strategies and you can learn a great deal from them to the point that it’s almost worth the investment.

The reason I say almost is because quite frankly you can build your own guide for free.  If you really and honestly want to make gold in World of Warcraft you will.  There’s so much free information out there that it’s ridiculous that anyone would pay for it.  I never have and without trying really hard, I can make more than enough gold to suffice.  Peruse places like Just My Two Copper and other gold guru bloggers, as well as columns like this very one, and you’ll find a tonne of ideas from flipping, to shuffles, to rare recipes, to Netherweave Bags.  There are so many options.

You might be thinking, “that’s true, but the guide has all that information present and already gathered.”  That’s half true.  For starters, the absolute first thing anyone should ever tell you about making gold in WoW is grab an addon. Whether it’s Auctioneer, AuctionLite, Auctionator…doesn’t matter.  Start scanning NOW.  Well, there, you just got that tip for free and it’s one (again) mentioned across the interweb.  Now, the guide will have solid information for you but most of the time it isn’t the person’s best tricks and in some cases it might be outdated.  Or, if the guide is updated, they might tell you the best thing to farm is Obsidium Ore.  Meanwhile something like Khorium Ore might be so rarely farmed (instead of the current content Ore) that it’s worth twice as much.  But the guide maker won’t know that because they aren’t on your server.  Also, patches have a funny way of changing things and unless you get free upgrades each patch, that means your information isn’t necessarily accurate.  Doing it yourself ensures accuracy.  You’ll also see what applies to you and begin to develop your own strategies as you evolve in making gold.  So, since you’ll reach the point of doing it yourself anyway, why pay someone in the first place?

I know today’s column isn’t really about generating gold, but I’ve seen a great many advertisements lately and even had a discussion with a player this past week regarding gold guides that I wanted to write on the subject and this is the place it belongs.  I recently rolled a Goblin on a brand new server and will get out of the start zone this week, so next week it will be back to normal, as I will flat out detail what I’m doing to start generating some money on said server.