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!
People have been stockpiling gold instead of raiding and doing PVP for a while now, so I imagine that anything in Northrend that’s remotely popular will cost quite a bit. Conversely, I imagine that all the BC items (fel arms, enchanting mats, etc) will go way down in price- even farther than they are now.
The sinks will help, but except flying, they’re all mostly vanity items that will not find many buyers among who haven’t already spent all the money they want to on their tradeskills and whatnot.
I’ve been prospecting Adamantite Ore and saving the gems.
Adamantite Ore price has taken a nose dive on my server recently meaning I can fairly cheaply invest in gems and see how they fair.
The new greens and blues in Wrath all have slots which need filling and most beat Kara epix.
I have a Gem cutter on standby to learn any new recipies and cut the most profitable gems from the “old stock”.
At least for the initilal turmoil any gems requiring new stones will be rare and expensive. So I figure I have around 1 - 2 weeks to shift my stockplie before the market stabalises and people start requiring the 80 gems.
Twinkletoes,
So you’re basically going to try to dump as many Outland gems as you can into the market as people get their first upgrades from Northrend?
I’d assume people will start prospecting Cobalt Ore for the new gems as soon as they can. And I’d bet a lot of the green gem cuts are done with trainer recipes.
On a side note, I just noticed these new “Dalaran Jewelcrafting Tokens” used to buy blue gem cut recipes. Will have to dig a little deeper with that - it might make a good article
I’m selling everything I can at the auction house. Raid materials, enchanting materials. Gems. Especially gems: the old gems are about to become worthless. Ie: compare Delicate Crimson Spinel (+10 agility, epic) to Delicate Bloodstone (+12 agility, uncommon in WotLK).
The other thing to dump right now is useless currency, particularly Badges of Justice. People are still paying 150g for an epic gem on my server for some silly reason, so that’s a great way to use up the badges.
I also just vendored 200g worth of epics to make room in my bags and bank.
The only thing I can think is worth stocking up on right now is Netherweave Cloth, to help level first aid.
Flyv, I don’t know if you noticed, but since 3.0.2 Netherweave Cloth will no longer skill First Aid
Personally I’ve been profiting by taking advantage of the weekly price deltas of the few items where demand is still strong- herbs for inscription, and cloth. Every character levels first aid (although that can be done through mob drops), and many characters pass in the donation of cloth quests every 10 levels to give them a time free experience boost.
In the end, I can usually buy stuff I know will sell on weekends for a good price during the week. This is something that works whether you’re right before an expansion or not, but the more esoteric ways of making money all require a demand level that’s just not there at the moment.
Great post, people should really start liquidation their things before they become almost worthless. My last couple of articles focuses on how to prepare for Wotlk. Keep in mind what all the new Death Knights will be using as they level. This will probably include mats for various professions. Even though prices on the auction house has dropped, there still room for profit. People are still buying all sorts of items, even for achievements.
I’m mostly buying tradeskill materials dumped into the markets. People will level tradeskills, of course not in the first week of WotLK but in the second-third month. While Arcane dust or felweed are cheap as vendortrash, they will sell nicely 2-3 months from now *cross fingers*
I’m selling absolutely everything I have before the expansion is out (been doing that for past two weeks already), even if I could potentially get more from them at some time in the future. And I’m on always on lookout for tradeskill leveling mats, not so much for resale, but to storage for my alts.
I’m planning on mostly observing the market for the first couple of weeks, as it takes time for the market to settle for the right level. And I’m not gonna buy anything for myself from AH if I can help it, just for resale, as it’s possible that at the start pretty much everything from expansion will have sky-high prices. Managing with quest rewards and drops and waiting for a month or so will save so much
Here’s a tip. The purple gloves and shoulders that you can buy with 15 Necrotic Runes can be DE’ed! That’s pretty unusual for a special event item.
It probably won’t last much longer, but I’ve been making a ton of gold this way.
lol i have been sharding them too, unfortunetly my server is overstocked on lps atm, so they sell for only 9-10g each. voids are 16-17… selling some, keeping some for later if price goes up in WOTLK.
for those doing this, late night search for the rares, 100% drop and easy to kill, no rep tokens however.
wish i could sell epic gems for 250-300g each..
on my realm they going for around 100g
Am trying to sell everything i possibly can since imo when Wotlk comes out, no1 will give a damn about BC stuff, especially gems…
so sell sell sell
We’re going to see lots of newly-minted Death Knights hitting the AH and the trade channel looking to get geared up. Virtually all of these will be the alts of well-heeled mains who are impatient to get their new toon leveled up so they can have some fun. I expect to see a decent run on rare and epic items appropriate for the class, enchanting mats, potions, and low to mid level tradeskill items. I’m not sure how well DK’s do in healing themselves, but there could also be a lot of demand for the linen, wool, and silk cloth required to level First Aid. Wool is already ridiculous, this could send it through the roof.
DK’s won’t need cloth. They rarely need to stop to eat or bandage due to lifestealing abilities (trainable death strike etc). First aid starts at 300 ish anyway, so they can do runecloth bandages right away. Cloth should still sell well, however, as they buy it up to gain the rep/xp from turnins.
There’s a ton of DK lists out there, and for the first few months most of the things on those lists will sell well.
I’m maining my DK and already have every conceivable turn in item, boe gear etc, but many players will be aquiring those items in the coming weeks and months as they level DKs as alts. good points!
Just noticed they added a Heavy Netheweave Cloth bandage
I’m banking on the Blade of Misfortune. I grabbed about 10 of them a while back. I just put my first one on the ah to test the waters. I did well with herbs , now I am hoping all the blues I bought do the same.
Update: Just sold my first one in less than an hour for 425. I am going to try 2 more for about 550 a pop.
Artificial undercutting:
In my server there’s a terrific arbitrage opportunity. The market has been flooded with Void Crystals. The cheapest listings go for about 2-3g. I bought 26 and had them shattered and tipped 15g for the shatters. Each void crystal yields 2x Large Prismatic Shards. The shards are going for around 7-8g a pop. So for a 2g void, I can sell 2 Shards and make about 15g. That’s a profit of about 13g per void crystal.
Now artificial undercutting. I placed 25 shards on the AH just shy of the previous cheapest listings. I put the buyout at 7g67s. Then I mailed 25 to a bank alt and undercut myself to also be the cheapest listing under myself. I placed the buyout at 6g99s99c. This is about 1.5g under the usual market price. This way I’m guaranteed sales no matter what and still turning an average of 13g profit on each void. That’s about a 450-500% markup. Checkout your server to see if this could also work there.