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!
October 21st, 2008 at 8:32 pm
A lot of money is going to npc vendors for pets, profession materials, mounts and more so that people can get some of these achievements. Now obviously it wasn’t their initial reasoning but do you suppose this is sort of a strategy to help battle gold inflation at the auction house? There may be less gold in the player economy while players dump it into npc’s.
October 21st, 2008 at 8:33 pm
Good point. I’m almost positive it was one of the main reasons for some of the gold sink achievements.
October 21st, 2008 at 10:28 pm
Oh ya, achievements are like a hidden gold sink. I am not very big on vanity items or mounts, but lately I have been spending some gold to get them done. Like spending up to 10g on white vendor items since I’m too lazy to fly around everywhere. The 50 mount achievement requires you to dump a good amount of gold by purchasing all those mounts. I personally couldn’t care less about most achievements, but rather some of the more rare and hard to get ones. I’ve been working on the fishing/cooking titles, rare since most people couldn’t care less about these things, let alone the achievement for them. As a side note, I’ve made some good money with these professions, its a small market and people would rather pay someone else to do it.
October 21st, 2008 at 11:17 pm
Selling horde only pets on the shared AH (and obviously vice versa) is also win.
October 22nd, 2008 at 8:25 am
How would being on a PvE server help a Hordie wander around Stormwind? We can’t exactly meander the streets unmolested or anything. You do get flagged the instant you walk in the town. And, even if you could get into Stormwind without problems, waiting around for Lil Timmy would not likely happen. And even then, I don’t think Timmy talks to Hordies. Smart boy.
Neutral AH is the only place we can get the white kitty.
October 22nd, 2008 at 10:33 am
By PVE server, I meant you have the leverage of creating characters on both factions. You’d create a bank alt on Alliance, maybe two so you can run one down to Booty Bay or Ratchet. Transfer a few gold from your Horde main to your Alliance alt, and use the Alliance character to wander around Stormwind.
October 23rd, 2008 at 6:04 am
Even on a PvE server you need separate accounts to transfer money/goods like that. Or a friend to help you out.
October 24th, 2008 at 2:06 am
Probably a friend, bug if you’re on a PvP server, it’s going to be difficult to find a friend of the opposite faction. I suppose you could post a message in the forums, but that would be chancy.
On an interesting side note, I heard a rumor (but haven’t been able to confirm) that during the zombie invasion going on currently, zombies of different factions can talk with each other and can trade with each other. If this is true, players could bypass the neutral AH completely. That would be really nice, I’ve had more then one auction hijacked by somebody who realized what was up and bought the stuff I had listed for 1c before I could grab it on my other account.
October 24th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
does not really work well for me.
October 25th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
The zombie thing is confirmed. I made an alliance toon and met up with my horde friend in Booty Bay. Once we were both zombified, we were able to talk (via /say) and trade freely. I moved over about 40 alliance vanity pets, and I’m going back for more. And recipes!
October 25th, 2008 at 7:24 pm
Actually, it’s unconfirmed again. I tried it this evening, and got a “that target is unfriendly” message. Bliz must have hotfixed it this morning.
Oh well.