Starting Over

No I haven't left my server, but realm has been pretty dead lately, and when WowProfitz said he was moving to one of the highest pop factions in the US a few weeks ago, I had always planned of rolling a toon over there, and this past Friday I finally got around to doing it.  My main goal is to make gold on this realm.  It's just a fun side project, my main realm is slow now, and I've decided to take a break from it (not a full break though, still doing post scans and basic maintenance).

Day 1
So I rolled a Blood DK for quick queues, and got through the DK starter zone and to 60 on the first day.  I was really amazed by how quickly things sold on a high pop server.  I was selling my cloth I got from running dungeons, and it'd sell within the hour I posted it on a Friday night.  Something that I would probably need to repost multiple times on my main (low pop) server before a buyer came along.

Day 2
It was time to pick professions!  I initially decided to go with Enchanting/BS, because I thought Enchanting would be relatively easy to level with BS.  After looking at the markets, and thinking I might want a profession I can optimize before 90, I decided having a JC would be to my advantage, so I dropped BS in lieu of JC.  JC/Enchanting, the staple bread and butter of gold making.

After crafting the first ~100 levels of JC, I still didn't have enough mats to get enchanting to 75 so I started running SFK to get some greens/blues to disenchant (Enchanting 1-75 can be done solely by DEing items).  It was a pretty easy to mass pull the dungeon, I wasn't getting hit, even in the 60s, and I got a few stacks of Wool and Linen Cloth per run, so nice for some quick startup capital.

This was taking way too long, so I also transferred some battle pets from another server I was working on, where I don't really care about my gold total (was at about ~50k).  I was willing to take a loss on them as long as I had some capital on my main server.  I ended up transferring 2 level 25 pets, and they both sold, for a grand total of 10k!  Now I had some dough to level my professions!  I also leveled through dungeons to 65 (I had a slow weekend).

Day 3
With my new pile of money, it was time to start leveling my professions, and boy did I blow all that gold away as fast as I got it.  I rarely venture out on to new servers where I don't just focus on flipping, so leveling a crafting profession with limited gold did not come quick to me, in fact I blew it all.  Literally all 10k leveling my professions.  I have some surplus mats I'll be selling for gold, but I'm leveled up through Wrath now, and since my DK is at 68 that's as high as I can go until I grind out a few more levels.

Onward
Now I'm slowly leveling through BGs (taking the scenic route and enjoying it) while playing the AH.  I've exhausted my pet funds on my alt server for the time being, so finally to traditional gold making after selling a few more pets.

Last night someone in trade was selling a level 25 guild, so I quickly whispered and offered him literally all I had on hand, 10k gold.  He accepted, and this afternoon (literally just now) I've sold it for 25k!  150% returns on all my gold at once in < 24 hrs?  Can't beat that!

Below is the graph of my gold over time on the realm, as you can see I have not been able to curb my "I can spend whatever I want" habits I've acquired from having my millions on my main server, and I was constantly operating at close to 0 gold, tying most of my gold up in markets.  But this is what you should do, if you don't have your gold tied up in markets, it's just sitting there not making money.  Gotta spend money to make money!

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

If you like my blog follow me on twitter, @PhatLewtsGold!!

Drunken Musings of Insane Gold Makers

Phat Podcast
In case you haven't heard, I've officially joined GoblinRaset as the co-host of the Happy Hour Roundtable Podcast, and we're regularly going to be recording a segment called "Drunken Musings of Insane Gold Makers".

We recorded the first episode a few days ago, check it out here.  I'll be posting them regularly on the site, and I'll be adding a button to the top bar when I get around to it.

Stede's Podcast
Stede, whose blog I mentioned in a recent post has also recorded his first podcast, the Late Nite With Stede Podcast.  I was lucky enough to be in the audience for the live recording, but you can check it out at that link, it was a great show!


Cheers,
Phat Lewts

If you enjoy my blog follow me on twitter, @PhatLewtsGold!!

What Makes a Good Gold Maker

This post will be featured in Cold's Gold Blogging Carnival, now hosted by Selltacular on Copper to Gold.  Check out the other great posts on the 11th!

So this months question was written by Nev, and it's based off my previous rant about TGE, so how could I not participate?

What is your definition of a good gold maker?  How do you measure gold making success?

Good Gold Making

GoblinRaset and I addressed this question a bit in our podcast we recorded this week, which you can check out here!  You don't have to be a rocket scientist to make a whole lot of gold in WoW, but you do have to put in time to effectively master different markets, and experiment.  A good gold maker isn't satisfied when he has one method down, and repeats it over and over again, that's the same as farming.  A good gold maker explores other venues, and tries new things, and is willing to take risks to optimize his or her methods.

A great gold maker is never satisfied.  They've got their hands in every market and they still want to play with more niche ways of making gold.  The possibilities to make gold in WoW are seemingly endless (although they are indeed finite), and someone who always looks to comprehensively understand their markets is someone who's going to succeed in gold making.  They don't just follow, they lead.  People have this misconception that there's some big secret out there that we're all hiding, and we make our millions behind your back, but that's not the case.  I can say that everything I've ever done in WoW to make gold is somewhere on this blog, or on my comment history on The Consortium Forums or reddit.  I can't keep my mouth shut!

Some gold bloggers try to protect some of their secrets, but I know that keeping secrets won't be helpful for long.  People are going to find out.  There's no method you can think of that hasn't been thought of, or won't be thought of eventually by someone else.  Like I said it's not revolutionary, but putting your all into learning and experimenting with new methods is what sets people like me ahead of the pack.  That comprehensive understanding of markets, knowing why they're doing what they do.

How do you measure gold making success?

There's no true way to analytically compare two gold makers, success is in the eye of the beholder.  I used to measure it by how much gold I'd make, or how much I was beating a competitor out of a market, or even by how many angry whispers I got when I logged my bank alt.   While these are indeed functions of your success as a gold maker, the true measure for me is sharing your success.

What I have personally enjoyed over the past few years was being able to share my experiences with others, and the community of people around that are willing and eager to discuss and learn from each other, and even help out those who are new.  A great example of this is WoWProfitz, who although he claims to be an amateur gold maker, has gotten the spark going on many an aspiring goblin.  It's all part of the learning process.  No two people make gold the exact same way, and part of developing your own strategy is to see what others do, and create your own hybrid of methods.  I think that the quote "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants" really rings true here.  To me, I'd rather have 3 people message me saying I helped them make a million gold, than have the 3 million gold myself.

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

If you like my blog follow me on twitter, @PhatLewtsGold!!

Old Faces, New Blogs

I just wanted to take the time today to point you to two new blogs that I think will be excellent gold making resources moving forward, and great blogs to add to your reading lists!  Both of these are written by two fellow Wind Traders of The Consortium Forums, veterans of WoW gold making, but who haven't been active on the blogging side of things.  Now they've taken to blogging to share their thoughts and information on WoW gold making.

Mithrildar's Theoretical Gold Farming

Mithrildar's blog, Theoretical Gold Farming has already has a great post about Crafted Epic Gear in 5.4.  You can expect this sort of insight and deep thinking from his future posts, including an upcoming post I recently got a sneak preview of, on the topic of "shuffling without a spreadsheet".  Be sure to check back for that post, I know a lot of you will appreciate it.


Website: Mithrildar.blogspot.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Mithrildar


Late Night with Stede

Stede is no stranger to blogging, he is a long time gold maker who you might know from the Call to Auction Podcast.  He is starting up his own blog called Late Night with Stede which will include a short weekly 20-30 minute live podcast where he will be interacting with his audience.  His blog is bound to be a place for interesting and thoughtful discussion, and I would highly suggest adding his blog to your feeds, and participating in his podcast if you're around when he records it.  It will be a great opportunity to learn and discuss gold making in WoW.


Website: http://latenitewithstede.blogspot.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/StedeWoW

I'll be adding both these sites to my blogroll on the sidebar, so if you ever need the links, they'll be there.

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

If you like my blog follow me on twitter, @PhatLewtsGold!!

Supplier's Demand

Recently I was lucky enough to have two suppliers who were chomping at the bit to farm me hundreds of stacks of herbs/ore every day.  Both farm herbs and ore, and both have been very active as of late.  Of course not being satisfied with this setup, and getting a little backed up with the ore/herbs (have literally bought over a thousand of stacks of herbs and ore from the two of them in the past 2 weeks) I decided it was time to haggle.

Initial Offer
I'm only going to cover my GIO haggling for now, herbs followed a similar pattern but with different pricing, too much to get into, but is based on Inscription yield rates.  I get all of my mats from suppliers via COD, and if we need to contact one another it is done via Mail.  I reached out Supplier1, the stronger of my 2 suppliers (the one who farms more often), and asked him for a discount.   I had been paying 60g/stack for GIO, and I flat out asked him if he could do 50g/stack because the market had gone down a bit since I had stopped buying from it (I'm on a Low Pop realm).  He gladly agreed.

Kicking it up a Notch
I then mailed my Supplier2 and told him that I had an offer from Supplier1 to give me ore at 50g/stack, and if they cannot beat that price I'd have to stop using them as a supplier.  Now I've honestly been using Supplier2 for a longer time, and had a feeling he might offer 45g, but I was really happy when he said he'd go to 40g.  The best price I could snag from the AH would probably be around 70g/stack on my server, so quite the deal, and I got Supplier1 to agree to the same level.  All was good with the world.

Of course this won't work in every situation, but the worst thing that can happen is they say no.  Always try to pay less, your bottom line will thank you.

Cloth Farmer Makes a Mistake
I enjoy posting screenshots of some silly conversations I've had with people in game, this one in particular is excellent for me, see if you can find his mistake.

Needless to say I took them.

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

If you enjoy my blog follow me on twitter, @PhatLewtsGold!

TradeSkillMaster 2.0 Teaser

So, it's been a few days since I first got access to the TSM 2.0 beta testing, and I must say, after the initial re-learning curve, I've been really impressed with the added functionality TSM 2.0 brings to the table.

The Basics

The way TSM works has been changed.  Groups are now set up in a whole new way.  Groups are no longer just in the Auctioning tab, they are their own tab now, and now you add functions to the groups to tell TSM what to do with these items called "Operations":

Groups contain items, and you add them the way you used to, but what Operations do are implement rules for multiple categories you currently have in TSM 1.x  such Auctioning, Crafting, Mailing, etc.  You can create Operations on the Operations tab which looks something like this:

What I have open here are my Auctioning Operations or "rules for posting".  10st5 20g for example is rule to post of 10 stacks of 5 with a fallback of 20g.  Now that I've made that Operation, I can add it on to any group I want under that Group's Operations tab.  In all there are 5 Categories of Operations that you can apply to each groups (I'm going to go more in depth below):

1. Auctioning - Defined selling rules that can be added to a group.
2. Crafting - Defined rules for crafting of items that can be added to a group. 
3. Mailing - A set of mailing rules that can be added to a group Player & Quantity.
4. Shopping - A set of rules for buying items that can be added to a group.
5. Warehousing - A set of rules for storage of items that can be added to a group.

Mysterious Circumstances

It's been quite a busy week for me, and it's only Monday!  Sunday Night I got accepted as a Wind Trader at the Consortium Forums, and started working with TSM 2.0.  Those two alone were enough to consume epic amounts of my time, but today I also participated in the Happy Hour Roundtable Podcast which should be up on The Drunken Mogul in a day or two.  I've enjoyed TSM 2.0 so far, but I probably won't post about it until I have a better understanding.

Extra Ink
The past few days my herb farmer had gone a little crazy and farmed hundreds of stacks of herbs.  I milled a lot of them, but I still had a ton of extra ink.  So, I did what any self respecting gold maker would do, jumped into an old favorite market, Mysterious Fortune Cards.  I used to bark these things back in Cataclysm, and I even had the macros still.  They sold like hot cakes!  I sold over 400 in an hour and a half while futzing around with TSM 2.0.  If there's one thing I will say is that there is a lot to learn thus far, and I've really enjoyed it.

Confrontation
It seems I always get in the middle of confrontations on my server, maybe because it's small, maybe because it's me.  Anyway I was barking the MFC's like the good ol' days, and this guy starts complaining about the markup on the cards, saying he can make them at 5g/piece.  I of course told him if he wants to sell things below crafting price I'd gladly buy it myself.  He replied with "the crafting cost is the price of the parchment because I can farm the mats".  /twitch.  The old it's 100% profit if I /facepalm the mats.  He also added "I'd do it to just to get you to stop screaming in trade chat.  So I barked MFCs again, and off he went to Mt. Hyjal to farm some Cata herbs.  I got to give him credit, the man stuck to his convictions.  I did not stick around to see if he actually undercut me, but I like to hope he did and got 3-7 cards sold for his silly farming.

Any/Everything Else
That's about it for me.  I just want to give a special shout out to Bones, probably one of the highest commenters on my blog in the past few months, who just hit 1 million gold.  Definitely a big congrats to him, and hope he can find some good ways to spend it!



Cheers,

Phat Lewts

If you like my blog follow me on twitter, @PhatLewtsGold!!