This week I've seen the Elemental Goo Jewelcrafting daily three times. This has lead to a huge drop in the price of gems as the other dailies require you to cut some of the green Cataclysm gems. This drop in price has presented a large gold making opportunity because many people are selling green gems for less than 9 gold. I've even seen some people selling them for less than 7 gold a piece.
How can you make money with this? Simple. Buy any green Cataclysm gems you can off of the AH for less than 9 gold (set up your snatch list to make this easy). Then use a jewelcrafter to cut them and you can sell them to a vendor for 9 gold each. I made over 600 gold profit doing this today alone and while it takes a little time it is almost all /afk time (I ate breakfast while cutting the gems). So get out there and check your AH for cheap gems and have fun raking in the gold!
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Friday, February 4, 2011
Are Farmed Mats Really Free?
Welcome to my first Gold Making Basics Friday! I've decided that every Friday I am going to focus on the basics of making gold. Anything from Addon usage to basic strategy to simple things anyone can do to make more gold in WoW. For someone who has just decided that they are tired of being broke and want to make more gold so they can buy the mount, equipment, fluff that they want it can be hard to find the information on how to get started. There are a ton of gold blogs out there and tons of information but in my humble opinion the information can too often be geared to people who are already making gold but just want to fine tune their technique - so every Friday I will go back and revisit the basics.
For my first Gold Making Basics Friday I want to focus on farming. A lot of people view farming as a way to get "free" mats for their crafting profession. There are still a lot of profession guides for new players that suggest pairing a crafting profession with a gathering profession so that you can gather your mats. "Have a leather worker - you should also have skinning; have an alchemist -herbalism is the best profession to go with it" - I think we have all heard or read this advice before. There are many, many players who have been playing for years who will still quote this advice anytime someone asks for some profession advice in guild chat. There is just one problem - farming mats for your crafting profession does NOT give you free mats.
If you farm for leather, herbs, or minerals you don't have to spend gold but you do have to spend time. This is time that could be spent doing something else. You could be questing, doing heroics, leveling an alt, or using a crafting profession to craft things to sell. All of the above activities provide you gold and if you are out farming for materials so you can craft something that is time lost to these other activities. In economics this is known as, "opportunity cost" but it can be better described as, "time is money".
Imagine two people, Sam and Susan. Sam has alchemy and herbalism maxed while Susan has alchemy and inscription maxed.
Sam goes out and farms for one hour. In that hour (including travel time to and from the farming area) he gets enough herbs to make 3 Flasks of Steel Skin which he sells on the AH for 600 gold. (1 hour = 600 gold)
Susan, on the other hand, buys all of her herbs on the AH. She has her snatch list set up so that she buys herbs whenever they are cheap (to see how to set up your snatch list you can go here). She manages to buy 10 stacks of Cinderbloom, 10 stacks of Twilight Jasmine, and 18 Volatile Life for 1,800 gold (10 minutes). She then makes 5 Flasks of Steel Skin which she sells for a total of 1,000 gold (5 min). Now Susan is still 800 gold in the hole but she still has 45 minutes and 140 Twilight Jasmine and 140 Cinderbloom. She mills all of the herbs she has left and makes them into inks getting 10 Inferno Inks and 75 Blackfallow Inks (20 min). She uses the blackfallow inks to make 25 glyphs that sell for 50 gold on average for a total of 1250 gold (5 min). She then rushes to the Auction House and buys 30 more Volatile Life for a total of 180 gold. She uses her Volatile Life and Inferno Inks to make one darkmoon card and gets the Six of Winds which she sells on the AH for 1,200 gold (5 min). Susan has now spent 1980 gold but she has made 3450 gold for a profit of 1470 gold in 45 min (she still has 15 min on Sam!).
In this example Sam is thinking that he made 600 gold profit but if you take the opportunity cost into account he actually lost 870 gold and 15 minutes!
Now this is just a simple example. Susan could have had a different profession mix, she could have quested, done heroics, or hundreds of other things. The real opportunity cost of any one activity in WoW is very difficult to determine because of all the activities people can undertake but the important thing to remember is that in no way did Sam's farming of mats equal free mats.
If you are one of the people who farm mats for your crafting profession start asking yourself, "Is there anything I could be doing now that would make me more money?" If you have an idea do some research to see if it is more profitable and if it is start doing that as opposed to farming. If you do this you have already started to become a gold master.
I hope this post helps people newer to gold making and that you all have fun making gold!
For my first Gold Making Basics Friday I want to focus on farming. A lot of people view farming as a way to get "free" mats for their crafting profession. There are still a lot of profession guides for new players that suggest pairing a crafting profession with a gathering profession so that you can gather your mats. "Have a leather worker - you should also have skinning; have an alchemist -herbalism is the best profession to go with it" - I think we have all heard or read this advice before. There are many, many players who have been playing for years who will still quote this advice anytime someone asks for some profession advice in guild chat. There is just one problem - farming mats for your crafting profession does NOT give you free mats.
If you farm for leather, herbs, or minerals you don't have to spend gold but you do have to spend time. This is time that could be spent doing something else. You could be questing, doing heroics, leveling an alt, or using a crafting profession to craft things to sell. All of the above activities provide you gold and if you are out farming for materials so you can craft something that is time lost to these other activities. In economics this is known as, "opportunity cost" but it can be better described as, "time is money".
Imagine two people, Sam and Susan. Sam has alchemy and herbalism maxed while Susan has alchemy and inscription maxed.
Sam goes out and farms for one hour. In that hour (including travel time to and from the farming area) he gets enough herbs to make 3 Flasks of Steel Skin which he sells on the AH for 600 gold. (1 hour = 600 gold)
Susan, on the other hand, buys all of her herbs on the AH. She has her snatch list set up so that she buys herbs whenever they are cheap (to see how to set up your snatch list you can go here). She manages to buy 10 stacks of Cinderbloom, 10 stacks of Twilight Jasmine, and 18 Volatile Life for 1,800 gold (10 minutes). She then makes 5 Flasks of Steel Skin which she sells for a total of 1,000 gold (5 min). Now Susan is still 800 gold in the hole but she still has 45 minutes and 140 Twilight Jasmine and 140 Cinderbloom. She mills all of the herbs she has left and makes them into inks getting 10 Inferno Inks and 75 Blackfallow Inks (20 min). She uses the blackfallow inks to make 25 glyphs that sell for 50 gold on average for a total of 1250 gold (5 min). She then rushes to the Auction House and buys 30 more Volatile Life for a total of 180 gold. She uses her Volatile Life and Inferno Inks to make one darkmoon card and gets the Six of Winds which she sells on the AH for 1,200 gold (5 min). Susan has now spent 1980 gold but she has made 3450 gold for a profit of 1470 gold in 45 min (she still has 15 min on Sam!).
In this example Sam is thinking that he made 600 gold profit but if you take the opportunity cost into account he actually lost 870 gold and 15 minutes!
Now this is just a simple example. Susan could have had a different profession mix, she could have quested, done heroics, or hundreds of other things. The real opportunity cost of any one activity in WoW is very difficult to determine because of all the activities people can undertake but the important thing to remember is that in no way did Sam's farming of mats equal free mats.
If you are one of the people who farm mats for your crafting profession start asking yourself, "Is there anything I could be doing now that would make me more money?" If you have an idea do some research to see if it is more profitable and if it is start doing that as opposed to farming. If you do this you have already started to become a gold master.
I hope this post helps people newer to gold making and that you all have fun making gold!
Ink Vendors Are Coming to Stormwind and Orgrimmar!
I just saw a post on MMO Champion about the upcoming patch and there is blue confirmation that ink traders will be coming to Stormwind and Orgrimmar! I am super psyched about this as my inscriptionist is also my alchemist and is thus spending pretty much all of his time in Kalimdor farming for the Vial of the Sands recipe. Heading to Dalaran regularly to use inscription was getting to be a major drag so I am sure inscriptionists everywhere will rejoice at this news.
On another note I believe that due to Murphy's Law I can now confirm that the patch will be released next week. I am flying home next week (early Wed morning) to visit with the folks for a couple of months. Now I know that realms go down for maintenance on Tuesday mornings but since I am in Bangkok that is Tuesday evening for me. This means that at most I will have a couple of hours (just enough time to download the patch - I hope) between the time the realms come back up and I have to leave for the airport. By the time I land, get home, and get everything set up so I can play I have no doubt that I will have already missed many great gold making opportunities. So just remember, you heard it here first, the patch will without a doubt come out this Tuesday.
Have fun making gold!
On another note I believe that due to Murphy's Law I can now confirm that the patch will be released next week. I am flying home next week (early Wed morning) to visit with the folks for a couple of months. Now I know that realms go down for maintenance on Tuesday mornings but since I am in Bangkok that is Tuesday evening for me. This means that at most I will have a couple of hours (just enough time to download the patch - I hope) between the time the realms come back up and I have to leave for the airport. By the time I land, get home, and get everything set up so I can play I have no doubt that I will have already missed many great gold making opportunities. So just remember, you heard it here first, the patch will without a doubt come out this Tuesday.
Have fun making gold!
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Making Gold Making Dresses
Well the Lunar Festival will be over in about a week. Now the Lunar Festival isn't the best for making gold but there is one thing you should pick up before the festival ends. If you are lucky enough to have a tailor you can pick up Pattern: Festival Dress from the Lunar Festival vendor in Moonglade for five coins of ancestry.
While you won't sell tons and tons of these they do sell for a nice profit. I'm not 100% sure why they sell but I think it is because there are some Night Elf and Blood Elf women out there who want to look classy while they dance on a mailbox. On my server they can be made for about 15 gold and can sell for up to 100 gold. The price for them also tends to rise throughout the year as people who have the recipe switch toons, stop playing WoW, and/or switch professions so even if they aren't profitable on your server now they might very well be profitable in June or July.
So go grab this recipe if you don't have it already and have fun making gold!
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Auction House Routine
One of the most important things to making money is having a good routine at the AH. It is one thing to know all of the strategies that you should use and another thing to implement them successfully on the AH to show a profit.
Currently I post and scan the AH twice a day (12 hour postings). As soon as I scan I post everything that is currently selling at 80% of value or more. This generally takes about 1/2 hour per posting (including the time to collect the mail and scan the AH). Once I have posted everything I do my snatch scan and buy mats for my professions and things that I will resell. I empty my mailbox again and send any crafting mats I bought off to my crafting toons. Then once a day I log onto one of my crafting toons (2 professions) and craft whatever is selling and I am low on. Lastly I set aside time every week to check to see if there are any items that aren't selling, update my spreadsheets, and update my addons. Using this method I have been bringing in 50-60k profit a week lately.
Do you have an AH routine? Do you just post randomly or is their a method to your madness?
Currently I post and scan the AH twice a day (12 hour postings). As soon as I scan I post everything that is currently selling at 80% of value or more. This generally takes about 1/2 hour per posting (including the time to collect the mail and scan the AH). Once I have posted everything I do my snatch scan and buy mats for my professions and things that I will resell. I empty my mailbox again and send any crafting mats I bought off to my crafting toons. Then once a day I log onto one of my crafting toons (2 professions) and craft whatever is selling and I am low on. Lastly I set aside time every week to check to see if there are any items that aren't selling, update my spreadsheets, and update my addons. Using this method I have been bringing in 50-60k profit a week lately.
Do you have an AH routine? Do you just post randomly or is their a method to your madness?
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Making Gold with Limited Time
First of all welcome to my new home! You might have visited my blog before at a different site. I just decided to switch from wordpress to blogger and this is my new home. I will be updating only here in the future so please subscribe if you would like to get my daily takes on making gold.
This is my post for the JMTC carnival. The question for this month is, "How would you make gold if you had limited play time?". Now I am assuming that if you have limited play time you won't be using all of the professions to make money so I will organize this post by profession with some other methods added in for all players.
Inscription:
Make, bark, and sell Mysterious Fortune Cards. Cold over at Cold's Gold Factory has been using this method extensively and he has some great posts on how to do it (which I won't try to recreate here). Head over to his blog to get an overview, get some barking tips, get info on pricing, and learn how to deal with undercutters.
Tailoring:
My tailor is currently level 79 so I don't have access to all of the recipes but that doesn't stop me from making bags. Set up your snatch list to buy netherweave and frostweave cloth for a good price (you can find instructions on how to do this here) and then make the cloth into bags to sell for a nice profit on the AH.
Enchanting:
My enchanter is also my tailor so I don't have access to max level enchants yet but if you also have a Jewelcrafter you can craft rings then disenchant them to sell the mats. I am also able to sell Avalanche, Crusader, and Hurricane, enchants for quite a bit of profit on my server now and while these might not be profitable on other servers almost all servers should have at least a few enchants that can be sold for a nice profit.
Jewelcrafting:
First make sure you do the JC daily everyday. The more recipes you have the more ways you have to make a profit. I'm currently making most of my money by buying up Obsidium and Elementium ore, prospecting it and then either selling the gems raw, cutting them, or making rings to disenchant with my enchanter. Sterling posted a good spreadsheet you can use to estimate your gold per hour while doing this here and I have a post that shows you how to set up your snatch list so that you can buy cheap Obsidium and Elementium here.
Blacksmithing:
Most servers should have a few higher level Blacksmithing recipes that sell for a profit (Lifeforce Hammer and Obsidium Executioner for me). In addition a great way to make money that should work on almost all servers is to create enchanting rods. I sell about 10 of each a week and they are a great way to make gold. Enchanters need them to level up and since there are always people leveling enchanters the market for the rods is constant. Lastly both Ebonsteel and Eternal Belt Buckles can be made and sold for a profit.
Alchemy:
If you are lucky enough to have the recipe for Vial of the Sands then make these. Besides that make sure you transmute, transmute, transmute. The transmutes for Truegold, and Living Elements (make sure to do this one in Uldum so you get Volatile Air) should make you some nice money. Also make sure to check the price for Potions of Treasure Finding. I am able to make a nice profit with these and the price should rise with the next patch as the drops you get from them are supposed to increase in value slightly.
Engineering:
Engineering is traditionally the worst profession for money making. You can, however, make the pets (Mechanical Squirrel, Pet Bombling, Mechanical Yeti, and De-weaponized Mechanical Companion) and sell them on the AH for a bit of gold. In addition if you have the Northrend Wormhole Generator you should use it whenever the cooldown is up in the hope you can get access to the vendor who sells access to some rare recipes. If you are lucky and get to her buy her recipes and then sell them on the AH.
Leatherworking:
Well my leatherworking isn't maxed and I just moved my toon to a different account with REALLY bad Auctioneer data so I am not really sure the best way to make money with this profession right now. I'll update my blog in a week or so with more info on this profession.
Mining:
I would farm in Uldum. I have a map available of where to go here.
Herbalism:
I would farm in Vashj'ir. I have a map and video available here.
Skinning:
This is the only profession that I don't have at all. I will eventually switch one of my toons to it and level them up to try to find a nice spot to gather leather. Once I get this done I will make a video and map like I have done for herbalism and mining in previous posts.
Quick ways to make gold regardless of your profession:
The best way to do this is to simply run resale scans with Auctioneer. Change the minimum amount depending on how much money and time you have. If you are just starting out both gold and silver ore are great items to flip. Because they are green items it is hard for someone to flood the AH with them, the prices tend to naturally rise and fall, and people who are trying to level up mining need them if they want to level up by smelting. In addition I've found that running resale scans is the best way to get a feel for your server's economy as you will start to see the same items popup again and again. Just be careful of seemingly common items that popup with a high resale value. This is usually due to someone artificially raising the price in the hope that someone running a resale scan will buy them without knowing the true (very low) value of the item.
Well that's all I have for you today. If this is your first time here please subscribe to my blog as I'll update it everyday with tips for making gold. Also please leave some comments below to tell me what you think.
Have fun getting rich!
This is my post for the JMTC carnival. The question for this month is, "How would you make gold if you had limited play time?". Now I am assuming that if you have limited play time you won't be using all of the professions to make money so I will organize this post by profession with some other methods added in for all players.
Inscription:
Make, bark, and sell Mysterious Fortune Cards. Cold over at Cold's Gold Factory has been using this method extensively and he has some great posts on how to do it (which I won't try to recreate here). Head over to his blog to get an overview, get some barking tips, get info on pricing, and learn how to deal with undercutters.
Tailoring:
My tailor is currently level 79 so I don't have access to all of the recipes but that doesn't stop me from making bags. Set up your snatch list to buy netherweave and frostweave cloth for a good price (you can find instructions on how to do this here) and then make the cloth into bags to sell for a nice profit on the AH.
Enchanting:
My enchanter is also my tailor so I don't have access to max level enchants yet but if you also have a Jewelcrafter you can craft rings then disenchant them to sell the mats. I am also able to sell Avalanche, Crusader, and Hurricane, enchants for quite a bit of profit on my server now and while these might not be profitable on other servers almost all servers should have at least a few enchants that can be sold for a nice profit.
Jewelcrafting:
First make sure you do the JC daily everyday. The more recipes you have the more ways you have to make a profit. I'm currently making most of my money by buying up Obsidium and Elementium ore, prospecting it and then either selling the gems raw, cutting them, or making rings to disenchant with my enchanter. Sterling posted a good spreadsheet you can use to estimate your gold per hour while doing this here and I have a post that shows you how to set up your snatch list so that you can buy cheap Obsidium and Elementium here.
Blacksmithing:
Most servers should have a few higher level Blacksmithing recipes that sell for a profit (Lifeforce Hammer and Obsidium Executioner for me). In addition a great way to make money that should work on almost all servers is to create enchanting rods. I sell about 10 of each a week and they are a great way to make gold. Enchanters need them to level up and since there are always people leveling enchanters the market for the rods is constant. Lastly both Ebonsteel and Eternal Belt Buckles can be made and sold for a profit.
Alchemy:
If you are lucky enough to have the recipe for Vial of the Sands then make these. Besides that make sure you transmute, transmute, transmute. The transmutes for Truegold, and Living Elements (make sure to do this one in Uldum so you get Volatile Air) should make you some nice money. Also make sure to check the price for Potions of Treasure Finding. I am able to make a nice profit with these and the price should rise with the next patch as the drops you get from them are supposed to increase in value slightly.
Engineering:
Engineering is traditionally the worst profession for money making. You can, however, make the pets (Mechanical Squirrel, Pet Bombling, Mechanical Yeti, and De-weaponized Mechanical Companion) and sell them on the AH for a bit of gold. In addition if you have the Northrend Wormhole Generator you should use it whenever the cooldown is up in the hope you can get access to the vendor who sells access to some rare recipes. If you are lucky and get to her buy her recipes and then sell them on the AH.
Leatherworking:
Well my leatherworking isn't maxed and I just moved my toon to a different account with REALLY bad Auctioneer data so I am not really sure the best way to make money with this profession right now. I'll update my blog in a week or so with more info on this profession.
Mining:
I would farm in Uldum. I have a map available of where to go here.
Herbalism:
I would farm in Vashj'ir. I have a map and video available here.
Skinning:
This is the only profession that I don't have at all. I will eventually switch one of my toons to it and level them up to try to find a nice spot to gather leather. Once I get this done I will make a video and map like I have done for herbalism and mining in previous posts.
Quick ways to make gold regardless of your profession:
The best way to do this is to simply run resale scans with Auctioneer. Change the minimum amount depending on how much money and time you have. If you are just starting out both gold and silver ore are great items to flip. Because they are green items it is hard for someone to flood the AH with them, the prices tend to naturally rise and fall, and people who are trying to level up mining need them if they want to level up by smelting. In addition I've found that running resale scans is the best way to get a feel for your server's economy as you will start to see the same items popup again and again. Just be careful of seemingly common items that popup with a high resale value. This is usually due to someone artificially raising the price in the hope that someone running a resale scan will buy them without knowing the true (very low) value of the item.
Well that's all I have for you today. If this is your first time here please subscribe to my blog as I'll update it everyday with tips for making gold. Also please leave some comments below to tell me what you think.
Have fun getting rich!
Welcome to My New Home!
Well I finally got Wowhead tooltips but in order to do it I had to switch to Blogger from Wordpress.com. This will be the new home for this blog. As always if there is anything you want to see feel free to contact me through the comments or e-mail. I'll be making some small adjustments to the blog in the coming day as I get used to what is available with Blogger.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
The Greatest Blog Post About Lore I Have Ever Read
Real quick post today. I am busy farming for the Vial of Sands recipe, trying to get Wowhead tooltips installed, and writing a rather long post for the JMTC carnival so I should get back to posting about gold making topics tomorrow. For today I just wanted to point all of you to what is probably the greatest post about WoW lore I have ever read here. I found it via Big Bear Butt. It is an old post but it is really amazing so you should definitely check it out if you have time.
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