WoW Economist

Gold-making tips from a WoW millionaire

Apr 19, 2009 Auction House, Gathering, How-To, Investing, Resources, Videos

I saw this a few days ago on World of Raids and was drawn to the “0 to 1,000 gold in 4 hours” title. I was a bit skeptical, but I watched the video anyway. Turns out there’s some pretty good information in there! He’s since released another video and a PDF that explains some really efficient gold-making tactics.

This one summarizes his basic strategy and more-or-less proves his “quick gold” claim. I was still a bit skeptical as it could be faked fairly easily, but his 2nd video and PDF proves that he really knows his stuff. I’m excited for his next video.

His site, WoW Auction Mastery, has the same videos in high-def and the PDF I was talking about. He’s supposed to have a few more videos coming in the next week. I’ll probably review them in more depth pretty soon. I’m going to put a few of the techniques to use and report back with my findings! Leave a comment and let me know what you guys accomplish as well. Maybe I can get him to write us a guest post!

Profitable Prospectin’ for WotLK

Mar 22, 2009 Auction House, Crafting, Patches, Professions, Resources, Wrath of the Lich King

This is the first of many guest posts. Richard (Twinkletoes - EU Kul Tiras) sent me this article two months ago and I promised him to post it as soon as I could. Unfortunately, my recent injury significantly delayed it, but the basic concepts are still valid. A belated thanks Richard!

Ever since the release of the Profitable Prospectin’ article from last May I have been an avid prospector making enough gold to kit out my main and alts.

With the release of WotLK came new Ore and new Gems. AH prices have been fluctuating for the core materials and it took some time for this to settle however the wait is now over and we have enough information to dust off the article and give it an update.

The basic principles are still the same, work out the price of the resulting gems a prospecting session should make; if they’re worth more than the raw materials then it’s worth it. In the original article we stuck to Adamantite Ore and for WotLK Saronite Ore is the ore of choice.

I will leave the maths explanation for the original post but the theory is still very similar. There is a 24% chance to drop a blue gem and a 108% chance for either 1 or 2 green gems.

Test Results

Over a two week period I bought 112 stacks of Saronite Ore at 35 Gold each for a total investment of just over 3.9k. This prospected into the following:

If we AH everything we prospected this would result in sales of 7.6k. With an initial investments of 3.9k that leaves us a profit of 3.7k.

For the theorycrafters amongst you the 112 stacks should result in 3.5k profit (I was lucky on a few extra Scarlet Rubies).

What’s interesting is the time required to make this much gold. By far the most time is spent doing the prospecting itself and then placing the gems on the AH at the right price. I would estimate that I spent about 1 hour game time for the above test.

Tips

This probably goes without saying but spend a little time tracking Saronite Ore on the AH at different times and on different days. Find the highs and lows on both prices and availability.

Ore is generally cheaper on the weekend and on my realm there are only 10 or 12 stacks below my target price at any one time. I aim to clear these out most days depending on how much I have invested in gems.

As with the original Profitable Prospectin’ post, this will only work over a large amount of prospects. Prospecting for profit works on the law of averages and you need a large enough sample size to justify the expense.

Although I put most of my green gems on the AH I am also saving a fair number of stacks back for the soon to be released Icy Prism. On that note, look out for cheap Frozen Orbs.

Having a Jewelcrafter at your disposal will greatly increase your profit on the blue gems. The higher level gem recipes are gained through the daily JC awards and running various instances. As a guide, the top ten gems from my realm make an extra 50 to 70 gold per sale. We got 99 blue gems from the test above and if we converted just half we would have made an extra 3k on top of our 3.7k of profit.

Enchanting changes in patch 3.0.8

Jan 5, 2009 Auction House, Crafting, Farming, How-To, Investing, Patches, Professions, Wrath of the Lich King

As we covered a few weeks ago, some enchanting recipes are being changed in the upcoming patch. Thanks to well-formatted post at MMO-Champion, we’ve got a much better idea of what’s being changed - nearly all the Wrath enchants!

Many of them are having their dust and essence (especially essence) requirements lowered, some have had Dream Shards added or Dream Shards to replace Abyss Crystals. With the additions of two new tanking enchants, we can definitely expect Dream Shard prices to rise - probably double or triple their current cost. I’ve been stocking up over the last few weeks and I’m already seeing the prices climb from 4-5g each to about 8-9g each. And the increases in price isn’t stopping any time soon.

I have not yet heard if the patch is coming during tomorrow’s maintanence or not, but it has to be soon. You still have a chance to pick up some more dream shards before the auction house is cleared out and inflation sets in.

Merry Christmas! Go open your presents!

Dec 25, 2008 Auction House, Holidays

Short, quick post before I head to girlfriend’s parents’ for presents and dinner.

If you’re as lame as I am and you’re playing WoW on Christmas Day, go open your Christmas presents next to Greatfather Winter. I think the number of presents you can open depends on your level, five total presents for level 80. I also think there’s a good chance of getting one of the holiday mini pets in one or more of the gifts. And seeing as many people are going after the entire mini pet collection, now’s a great time to sell. The prices won’t stay up there for long, so get rid of em quick. You can always buy them back in a few days when there’s a lot larger supply. Prices on these WILL come down, they always do.

Merry Christmas everyone! I’ve got a few spiffy tools to give you in the next few days, they are almost finished!

Upcoming changes to Enchanting

Dec 23, 2008 Auction House, Investing, Patches, Professions

More opportunities for profit in the next patch have surfaced in a blue post on the official WoW forums:

“In BC we thought that dust was too common and enchants were basically gated by the cost and availability of shards. We wanted to adjust this for LK and in retrospect overcompensated, such that dust is now the rare, limiting reagent.

As Excrusiate points out, this should be better next patch.”

From what I’ve gathered in the post above the blue, some of the enchants that require dream shards will now take a few more than they currently do. Initially, I assumed they’d just be slightly increasing the chance to gain dust/essence from disenchanting, but I guess not. Having just finished collecting all the Wrath enchants, I can tell you the enchants that are likely to change and cause the value and demand of Dream Shards to rise:

• Enchant Gloves - Armsman (currently requires 2 shards)
• Enchant Gloves - Crusher (currently requires 1 shard)
• Enchant Cloak - Major Agility (currently requires 2 shards)

The other few enchants don’t have near the demand (1/100th, if I had to guess) to cause any change in the Dream Shard prices. Of the hundred or two enchants I’ve done, I can remember doing Armsman twice and Major Agility two or three times. I’ve sold one or two scrolls of each flavor as well. So there probaby won’t be a huge increase in shard prices, but perhaps enough to stock up on them now so you can sell scrolls in a few weeks and earn a tad more profit.

Winter Veil Inflation

Dec 16, 2008 Auction House, Crafting, Farming, Gathering, Holidays, How-To, Investing, Professions, Wrath of the Lich King

I’m sorry I didn’t get this post up sooner so you guys could start preparing. Wordpress has been giving me some trouble lately. If the most recent updates don’t fix it, I might have to move to a new blogging platform.

Winter Veil is finally here and so is the inflation. Most of us have seen it before - hundreds of gold for stacks of Small Eggs among other things. It brings back memories of WoW’s first Winter Veil and farming the hell out of owls in Teldrassil for eggnog.

With many players going after the Merrymaker title, a few of the player-created items are in very high demand. This demand has caused the materials to skyrocket in price, giving us an opportunity to earn some major cash. Seeing as this post is a little late, we won’t be able to invest in much. But some quick and easy farming, even on low level alts, will prove to be very profitable. Here are some items you should look out for and sell while the demand lasts:

• Wool Cloth and Bolts of Woolen Cloth
• Runecloth and Bolts of Runecloth
• Rugged Leather
• Copper Ore and Copper Bars
• Small Eggs
• Deeprock Salt - this is a big one, going for about 20g each on my server. Deeprock Salt can be turned in with 5g for five Preserved Holly.

The following may be profitable investments as they can be purchased cheaply from vendors. I’ve often started earning funds on new bank alts by selling a few Rune Thread on the auction house for a few hundred percent markup - the markup and demand are likely much more significant at this time of year.

• Rune Thread
• Green Dye and Red Dye
• Holiday Spirits and Holiday Spices
• Ice Cold Milk

Hopefully there’s still time for you to take advantage of the holiday madness. Let me know how you do!

Tags: Seasonal

How are you preparing for Wrath?

Nov 2, 2008 Auction House, Patches, Wrath of the Lich King

In less than two weeks, we’ll be exploring brand new territory with thousands of new items. We’ll have to transition to the new (lower) value of gold and it’s going to be a bumpy ride. For a while, the market is going to be out of whack with Outland items being dumped into the market to make room for the goodies in Northrend.

It’s hard to predict exactly how the economy will react to these changes, especially considering I wasn’t playing during the launch of the Burning Crusade. On one hand I could say prices will drop drastically because everyone will be eager to get rid of them for new gear, mounts, etc. in Wrath. There are dozens of gold sinks to motivate players to spend, spend, spend. Many players believe dumping everything they can into the AH is a great way to make some quick gold. And it is, but it has its consequences.

But, then again, the value of gold is going to drop. There will be a lot more gold in the economy with the new quests and it’s going to take some time for players to adjust to seeing these larger numbers next to the gold coin in their bag. They’ll feel wealthy initially, willing to spend more on new and old items. This could drive prices upward. I definitely believe this will happen long term. I just can’t say much for the short term.

My guild is slowly emptying the guild bank and stock piling gold to buy ourselves the first BOE recipes we can get our hands on. There’s a lot of crap in there that’s been rotting since the first days in Karazhan. I’ve yet to see a guild use their guild bank effectively. We do well dishing out epic gems and enchanting materials to our raiders that get new loot, but there’s still four other tabs full of crap that’s rarely touched! Today I offered to take the position as the guild accountant, at least for the liquidation process. I’m sure it’ll be worth clearing out the bank to make room for new materials, patterns and consumables, but I’m not sure how far the 15-20k gold will get us.

I personally just bought a few yellow, red, and purple gems with my badges, had them cut, and sold them for 250-300g a piece. I’ve also bought some of my guild’s high end mats to craft into BOE epics and sell. I’m mostly shooting for one of the server’s first two-passenger mammoth mounts. It’ll be nice having my own vendors attached to my mount for repairing and restocking on ammo. I just hope they are part of some faction I can get exalted with for a 20% discount.

So, how are you preparing for Wrath of the Lich King? Please take a few minutes to post a comment and share with all of us. We all benefit from each other’s insight, and you may spark an idea for a new WoW Economist article before Wrath!

Overachiever Wealth: Vanity Pets

Oct 21, 2008 Auction House, Factions & Reputation, Gathering, Investing, Vendors

With the introduction of the Achievement system in pre-Wrath patch 3.0, more opportunities for profit have surfaced. Many pet collectors and skunk lovers are going after the 50 vanity pets achievement for their own Reeking Pet Carrier. Since the release of the Burning Crusade and the addition of the skunk critters throughout Terrokar, many of us have been dying for our own skunk mini-pet. Now that our wish has been granted, we’ve been sucking up all the vanity pets we can get our hands on.

High demand and lowered supply - you do the math! Here’s an opportunity for some really easy profit, especially for those playing on PVE realms. There are about 30 different companions that can be purchased directly from vendors, and I don’t think any of the vendors have a limited supply. A quick trip around the world will earn you some exploration and trick-or-treating achievements while you stock up on these vendor-sold vanity pets. Selling these on the Auction House will usually return 10x your investment, sometimes more.

If you are Alliance or you play on a PVE server, keep a close eye on Lil Timmy as he is a rare spawn NPC that sells only one White Kitten before despawning for hours. The last White Kitten I saw on the AH was priced around 200g. I can’t say if it sold or will sell, but if it does, that’s a hefty profit for wandering around Stormwind.

I personally spent the time to travel around and collect the pets while exploring and I’m very close to getting my own Stinker. I’ll need to spend a few hours farming for the oozling and whelplings before I’m done. The skunk is definitely an awesome and unique pet and well worth the effort. I’m not the only one who thinks so, either, so get out there and make some money off ‘em!

Wrath: Inscription coming sooner than expected

Aug 26, 2008 Auction House, Gathering, Investing, Patches, Professions, Wrath of the Lich King

I was a bit surprised when I heard that the new profession, Inscription, is coming well before the Wrath launch. Eyonix stated that the pre-Wrath content will be patched “in the coming weeks” and according to some of my own insider info, Wrath isn’t scheduled to launch until early November. I can only assume the patch will land somewhere in the middle. I’m hoping for sooner than later.

Iktomi hinted in a comment in our last post that we might have some success selling “tradeskill power leveling packs” of herbs to new inscribers. Perhaps even a step-by-step guide to go with the raw materials. That will likely fetch more profit than the soon-to-be-inflated market price of herbs. Did anyone try this with Jewelcrafting in the Burning Crusade?

Whether you plan to sell your herbs individually on the auction house or in packs directly to new inscribers to quickly boost their skill, I’d highly recommend investing gold into herbs as soon as possible. Once the patch hits the test realms, I’m guessing prices will slowly rise on the live realms, then sky rocket when the patch goes live. It’s also worth noting that Cenarion Herb Bags aren’t that expensive to craft and hold 25% more herbs than Netherweave Bags. I was recently invited into the Wrath beta so I’ll be working on an Inscription power leveling guide as soon as I get a stock pile of herbs to transfer over.

Fireworks, ground flowers, and sparklers!

Jul 4, 2008 Auction House, Holidays

Happy 4th of July, everyone!

The Holiday Fireworks Vendors are out and it’s the only day of the year to get some insanely cheap Red, White, and Blue sparklers! According to Wowhead, the price of these sparklers averages anywhere between 4g and 7g - a pretty good return if you ask me. They will take up quite a bit of valuable inventory space though.

Like the snowballs, you’ll probably have to wait a few months before they actually reach this price. But I bet you could start selling today and make a gold or two per sparkler if there’s no competition.

So if you have a few extra character slots, store some extra sparklers and ground flowers for a rainy day! By the time you remember you still have a stock pile, they might be worth selling.