What gold cap has taught me

I did it guys! I hit the goldcap for one toon of 214,748 gold 36 silver 46 copper earlier this week (I actually went a couple thousand gold over if you count several toons). It came much earlier than anticipated for two reasons. First, one of my biggest inscription competitors left the market in December. I am almost certain he left because he hit the gold cap. Second, the influx of triumph badges via the new LFG system has allowed folks to gear up their alts, thus increasing demand.

The details? About 70% of this gold was made via inscription and 30% was made via alchemy. Though in all reality, the impact of inscription was even greater because it was made over a much shorter period of time. I know a lot of people are curious about inscription. If you really want to use it to make gold, you have to go big. I was posting over 500 glyphs a day. And yes, addons are an essential component of it, specifically Quick Auctions 2 and Postal. Ky at Casual Hardcore has an excellent guide on how to post and cancel auctions via Quick Auctions 2.

So while inscription was my big money maker, I do have to say that I've always been able to make money much more easily than most. Back when I was leveling up, I always found a way to play the AH or make the most of my professions. Now I don't want it to seem that hitting the gold cap is easy. Yes, inscription made it easier, but it does definitely take time and effort. Towards the end of my gold cap run, I started to get a bit impatient and tired, so I also dabbled in a bit of reselling based on market timing. What does this mean? Let's take a quick look at a graph because I am a super geek.

Yay, econ! Yay, supply and demand curves! Basically what I did was buy things like Frost Lotuses on weekends when a lot of people have time to farm them (large supply, thus decreasing prices), and held them to sell on big raiding days like Tuesdays or Wednesdays or when a new patch came out (high demand and lower supply, thus higher prices). Yes, a profit of 15g may not seem that much, but when you do it in large enough quantities, it adds up.

So does this mean I have only always saved up gold and never bought anything? Heck, no. I bought the traveler's tundra mammoth as soon as it was available, I bought all the Kirin Tor rings, and multiple gear upgrades for high amounts of gold. I probably spent 75k on these items which weren't really necessities, but things I wanted. All in all hitting the gold cap was a personal goal of mine. I wanted to see if I could do it, plus I've always been intrigued by the WOW economy (remember I'm a geek).

My plan has always been to share this money once I hit the gold cap. Now this is where the story gets very interesting. My initial plan was to give away almost 70% of the gold, because really one person has no need for over 214k gold. Especially a person who has no level 80 alts. Because gold making is a personal hobby of mine, one that I am very good at, I wanted to share this gold with friends and guildies who have meant a lot to me in this game, those who let's just say may not be so good at making gold. I affectionately call them gold noobs.

Now I knew that the hardest part of this would be convincing some folks to actually accept my gold. I anticipated that I may not succeed with a number of people but I thought that I would be able to convince/beg/argue my way into making them take my gifts.

When it came time for me to individually talk to folks to tell them my story and why I was doing this, it was one of my most memorable moments in WOW. Yes, there were some folks who I ultimately was not able to convince to accept my gifts. It was very interesting to me that money, even virtual money in WOW causes different reactions for different people. I very much respect the folks who couldn't take it, because I would not want them to feel uncomfortable at all. They were however very touched by the gesture. A wise guildie said to me that he understood why some may not feel right doing so, because even if it is virtual money, it represents my actual time and effort. Hmmm.

Now for those who did accept my gifts, folks were shocked and touched. It was very sweet. It was fun to brainstorm with people about what they would use the money for, now that they had more gold than they've ever had in this game. Again, gold noobs (though I love these gold noobs). As time passed folks whispered me with what they ended up using some or all of the money for. It was fun for me to see them accomplish individual goals in game. I did really feel like Robin Hood and all philanthropic like. It sounds so cliche, but truly it was better to give than receive.

At the risk of being super sappy, reaching the gold cap and then being able to share my gold has taught me again that at the heart of this game (for me at least), are the relationships with the people you play with.

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Prices back down?

I have also noticed over the last week or so that prices on Drenden have come back down from the ceiling they plastered on after patch 2.4. This includes prices for herbs, super healing/mana pots, and earthstorm/skyfire diamonds (which is bad for me since I am selling these) as well as for green level gems and primal earth (which is good for me since I buy these). Is it the same on your server? Is it because we're losing more and more end-game raiders pre-expansion?

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Why you have to do these three dailies

This post is now somewhat out of date with patch changes. Updated post here.

If there is one thing I do well in this game, oh yeah besides heal and yes, fish, is making money. It's actually sort of become another game for me, how high can my gold total go? I've started to wonder what I could do with it... could I become a wow loan shark? Could I start being some crazy philanthropist and give it away to random people? Could I see what people would actually do for wow gold? Actually I will probably save it for a rainy day, that rainy day being when I can't play that much anymore and won't be making as much money.

Now I don't think making money in the game is just a matter of putting in a lot of time. It's about getting a good return on your investment whether that investment is time or money (here's my MBA talking). It's about knowing what to farm that takes the least amount of time but at the same time brings in the most amount of money. It's about looking at what the current trends are on the AH and using them to your advantage.

So not everyone is a herbalist, alchemist, and fisherman (the three professions I use together to make my gold... and yes alchemy and fishing go well together). But there are three new daily quests that everyone should be doing every day (hence the word daily...) because they are easy, quick, and have a great return on investment. Now these are the only 3 that I do besides the fishing daily and Gaining the Advantage (gather 8 Nether Residue), which not everyone can do (because not everyone has a gathering profession or has leveled up fishing) or wants to do (because fishing is too boring for them). But these three quests will take you 30-45 minutes and will easily net you 40-50g. The reason I really only do these three dailies is because they are easy, drop other stuff that sell well, and reward you with Shattered Sun Supplies. Here's exactly what I do and the order I do them.

1. Gather the quests. Intercepting the Mana Cells from Exarch Nasuun in the middle of Shatt, Sunfury Attack Plans from Lord Torvos (to the left of the flight master in Shatt), and Multiphase Survey from Harbinger Haronem (outside of the Scryer bank in Shatt).

2. Fly to Area 52 in Netherstorm. We're going to do Sunfury Attack Plans first. From Area 52 fly west to Manaforge B'Naar. I go here because it's close to Area 52. Any of the sunfury mobs will drop the attack plans, though I usually go for the Sunfury Geologists (who crack me up when they throw a rock at you), Warp-Masters, and Bloodwarders. Now while you are grinding these mobs to drop the attack plans, they will drop a lot of Netherweave Cloth, some Sunfury Signets and the occasional Arcane Tome. So while you're doing this quest, you can work on your scryer rep or gather stuff to sell on the AH. Just watch out for a wandering elite in this area... a large yellow robot guy.

3. Next from Area 52 fly to Evergrove in Blades Edge. Then fly north to Bash'ir Landing. What I do is fly down to the little rocks/barriers between the mobs. Then I can easily pull whatever mobs I need. First you will need a Bash'ir Phasing Device. I really only go for the mobs that are named Bash'ir something. So the Bash'ir Raiders, Arcanists, and Spell-Thiefs. I just fly from little rock to rock until the Phasing Device drops. Then when you activate it, you will see these little pink boxes around. Those are the mana cells you need to collect. I find its easiest to fly around to collect them. The boxes will be protected by Phase Wyrms. You can fly to a mana cell that isn't protected, but here's why it's not so bad if they are. These Phase Wyrms have a really great drop rate of motes of mana. Again, while you're doing this daily quest, you are going to farm something else that you can use or sell on the AH.

4. Now from Evergrove you're going to fly to Telaar in Nagrand. Fly west towards Oshu'gun until the top corner map of your screen says you are in the Spirit Fields. Now put on the Multiphase Spectrographic Goggles you were given by the quest giver. I've found that if you put on these goggles before you arrive in the spirit fields, sometimes you won't see the firey things you need. So wait until you get there. Once you have it on, also put the goggles on your action bar. Now you just fly around looking for these little balls of fire. Then swoop down and click on your goggles. Sometimes there are a lot of people doing this, because its such an easy quest. People can rush each other to reach these firey things. I've found that there are a good number on the northern end of the spirit fields/oshu'gun area (sort of south of Aeris Landing) that a lot of people miss.

5. Fly or port back to Shatt and turn in these quests. Now just turning in these 3 quests is going to give you 30 gold 30 silver. But you now also get 3 Shattered Sun Supplies. They will have either a crappy green, decent green, or Badge of Justice. I've gotten 6 or so badges from these supply packs. Now even if you don't get a badge, you are going to get a green that you can sell on the AH, sell back to a vendor, or get disenchanted to then sell or use those mats (many thanks to my busy disenchanter, Jess' alt Muriel). Now don't forget that you will probably have Sunfury Signets, Arcane Tome, or Motes of Mana as well! This is why doing just these 3 quests alone can make you 40-50g. For the time and effort involved, I would say thats a mighty fine investment.

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The economics of WOW and further proof of my geekiness

As if it wasn't readily apparent already, I present more evidence of my geekiness. One of my grad degrees is from the University of Chicago, a school that is known for economics. So I thought I'd put some of my economics concentration to good use and see what it can teach us about the WOW economy.

Now here's Econ 101... basic supply and demand. Demand always slopes down while supply always slopes up... now where the two curves meet is the equilibrium price and quantity.

Now here is my philosophy on selling Earthstorm diamonds, a major money maker for me. When there is a great supply of them (supply shifts from red to purple curve), price goes down so I save up all my diamonds for a better day. That better day would be when there is a low or no supply of them (supply shifts from red to pink curve). This means its price goes up and I am happy.

Now here is a theory as to what has been going on since patch 2.4 came out last week. With all these new dailies and the ability to do 25 a day now, I've seen prices for a lot of things on the AH go up. Now why could this be? Well perhaps since people have more money now, demand has increased (demand shifts from blue to green curve). Just having demand shift out means price goes up. But I have also noticed that there is a decrease in the number of sellers. Perhaps because they can make money with the easy dailies, they are not farming stuff to sell? Has supply shifted in (from red to yellow curve)? Basically it seems to me that there is less stuff on the AH and everything is more expensive.

I was mentioning this in the guild the other day seeing if others saw the same thing. I said I wondered if this was because of the patch changes. Our hunter Nio said that and because of rising gas prices. lol. He joked whether the Grand Poobah (whoever he is) needed to institute a price freeze in these difficult times. lol x 2.

Now a couple of months ago on Drenden, we had one player from the top raiding guild on the server try to use the principles of supply and demand to support his guild's raiding. He was buying all of the Primals and top end gems on the AH and relisting them at much higher prices. So he alone was controlling supply. While people bitched and moaned about it, and some said Blizzard should stop him, he was able to do it because demand didn't seem to change. People were buying at his high prices. Now doing something like this takes so much work, because he'd constantly have to buy out whoever listed those items he wanted to monopolize. So yes, he did get terribly rich, but eventually he couldn't keep up with all that work and stopped. Then his guild imploded and I think they all transfered servers.

But me, I am all for a free market. Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to buy the recipe for elixir of major mageblood for 5g the other day. This recipe is actually worth anywhere from 500-100g. This in economics is called information assymetry... basically one side, the buyer or seller has more information than the other. In this case, this seller was the uneducated one, aka the poor unfortunate one who doesn't use auctioneer. Free market enterprise FTW!.

So have you seen something similar on the AH on your server since patch 2.4? Any thoughts? I hope I didn't embarass my school with any econ mistakes...

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The motes... they calls me

Last night I did a marathon 2 hour fishing session, which I haven't done in a while. I would have stopped earlier, but I couldn't stop! The motes of water, they kept calling me... begging to be fished. And who am I to refuse them?

I know I keep harping on this crazy fishing thing, but here's what I got in my 2 hours:
- 70 Motes of Water, yes 7 Primal waters
- 60 Icefin Bluefish
- 57 Figluster's Mudfish
- 4 Huge Spotted Feltail
- 7 Enormous Barbed Gill Trout
- 21 Fel Iron Ore
- 8 Knothide Leather Scraps
- 10 Netherweave Cloth
- 5 Scrolls of Spirit V
- 2 Scrolls each of Stamina V, Protection V, Agility V, and Strength V

On another front, I am ready for this Saturday's race. I started my gnome last night. It's going to be weird to have a non healing character! Anyways, thanks to Jess (my tank, my in-game and real-life therapist) for the naming suggestion. I have this thing where all my alliance characters start with the letter K.

So introducing my new gnome warlock Kimchee. And yes, she's spicy.

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Living the high life...

I mentioned last week how I've started the quest chain to get the swift flight form, costing me a pretty 5,000g. I'm to the point now where I just have to run heroic Sethekk.

I've become known in the guild as the loaded one, always having money to throw around. I've had some people ask me exactly how I make money. I've mentioned my gold making ways before (i.e. fishing), but haven't divulged my full secrets. Maybe I'm just in an extra generous mood, or maybe since I've already spent my 5,000g, I don't care as much anymore... but here is how I've made money. I've made back about 1,200 g in the last 10 days, and that isn't even with K full on fishing every day. So here are the questions you may be asking...

So K, what are your professions?
K is an herbalist, alchemist, and a mad fisherwoman.

Why do you refer to yourself in the third person?
Um, because I'm a dork.

So fishing, eh?
Yup

Why? Tell me more
Ok. I fish in three main zones. Nagrand, Zangarmarsh, and Terokkar.

In Nagrand, fly to the area south of the horde base. Fish the streams south of the base and the area around the lake north of the base. Depending on the time of day, you will find pools of pure water, mudfish, and bluefish. An hour of fishing there can net me anywhere from 15 to 45 motes of water, and 20-30 mudfish and bluefish. Stacks of cooked mudfish can sell for 17.5g, bluefish about 15g on Drenden. You could sell the motes of water (Primal Water on Drenden sells for about 17g), but I save them (more below). I generally share some of what I fish up with guildies, but 1 hour of fishing in Nagrand could make me anywhere from 50-80g if I sell everything I fish.

In Zangarmarsh, you fly around the perimeter of Serpent Lake and Coilfang Reservoir. Here you'll get Zangarian Sporefish, which can be cooked up into Blackened Sporefish. Stacks sell for about 15-17.5g as well. You'll also get some steam pump debris that can be sold back to vendors for 50s each. Don't bother with the Spotted Feltail, its not really worth your time to fish to sell them. Unless you want to cook them up for yourself, into Feltail Delight for the +20 stam buff.

In Terokkar, fish the streams between Allerian Stronghold and Tuurem, mainly for Golden Darter. Stacks of them or cooked up into golden fish sticks will sell for anywhere from 15-20g. Again, I generally ignore Spotted Feltail pools. In addition, in Terokkar, you should go check out the three elevated lakes for Furious Crawdad. They will sell as is or cooked into Spicy Crawdad for about 30g per stack.

In addition to the fish, you'll get some cloth and a good number of scrolls from all three locations, which you can keep or also sell for anywhere from 1-2g each.... sometimes more for the Scrolls of Strength or Agility, generally less for Scrolls of Spirit. You'll also catch Enormous Barbed Gill Trout which can sell for about 1.5g each and Huge Spotted Feltail. One Huge Spotted Feltail can now be cooked into 6 Fisherman's Feast (it used to be only 1). A stack of 20 Fisherman's Feast can sell for about 30g, similar to the Spicy Crawdad since its the same +30 stamina buff. So one Huge Spotted Feltail is worth about 9g. I've been finding that I'm fishing them up more frequently now.

So how does alchemy come into play?
Well with all of the primal water I fish up, I save them to make Earthstorm Diamonds. Then the only mats I have to buy are Primal Earth, which is only about 3g each, and the stones which cost about 4.5g for 3 deep peridot, 3 golden draenite, and 3 shadow draenite. So I spend 10.5g in mats to create a diamond which I sell for about 65-70g. Yes, you economists out there will say that there is a time value of money involved as well around the time I spent to fish the Primal Water. But basically I'm making a good amount of money with my daily Earthstorm Diamond transmute.

Do you make any money from herbalism?
I could, but I don't. I'm currently saving all my herbs for when I drop herbalism to pick up tailoring to craft my primal mooncloth set.

Any final fishing tips?
Leveling up fishing sucks... and its boring. But its well worth it at the end. Also know that the game will only allow you to "see" a number of pool at a time. So unless you start fishing some pools, no more pools will be visible to you. When you start a fishing run, make sure you have plenty of empty bag space, I like to roll with at least 25 empty slots. I've referenced this site before, but for more specific fishing tips and locations, go to El's Extreme Anglin fishing guide site.

Well thanks K!
No problem. Happy fishing as you hear the cha-ching of your gold stacking up!

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Grinding gold

Ok, I can only blog so many times about how lucrative fishing is. (However, if you are on Drenden, please disregard what I just said. If I see you in any of my fishing spots, it's on baby!!! I will whack you upside the head with my 46.5 dps fishing pole.) Anyways, I know not everyone has the patience to fish or to level it up to fish the Outlands.

So I thought I'd give another (non-profession tied) suggestion for making gold, grinding materials needed for various reps. The mobs that drop these items are easy kills, level 61-64 I believe. Lots of people need rep and are not willing to grind the stuff themselves. Thus, they can go for a pretty penny on the AH. On average, I would say each of the items below are listed on the AH for anywhere from 50-75 silver. That's 10-15g per stack... sometimes more.

1. Collect Firewing signets which are used for Scryer rep. Grind them up in Firewing Point in Terokkar. I'm sure the same applies for Aldor rep, but I'm not Aldor so I don't know what their thingies are.

2. If you are an herbalist, collect Unidentified plant parts for Cenarion Expedition rep. Even if you are not an herbalist, a great place to grind is the Dead Mire in NE Zangarmarsh. Unidentified plant parts and Motes of Life (1 primal life averages 7g on Drenden) drop frequently from the mobs.

3. Collect Arrakoa feathers for Lower City rep. The market for these may go down a bit in the future with the rep requirement changes to run heroics. But there will still be people who need to get to honored. I found the best place to grind these feathers was Veil Shienor in Terokkar. Drop rates vary, but on average an hour of grinding got me 45 feathers, 6 decent selling greens, and tons of cloth.

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When to buy? When to sell?

Is there a day that you think is the best day of the week to shop the Auction House? Similarly do you think there a best day of the week to sell?

On Drenden, it seems that I sell my stuff best on Mondays and sometimes Tuesdays. Is Monday night a big raid night? I would have thought that I'd sell best over the weekend, when maybe more people are able to play. But perhaps there is more competition due to more sellers on the weekends? Or do people play more over the week and spend time with family on weekends? I'm curious, what do you find on your server?

Also, anyone else having a hard time selling Outland green drops? I guess with the good quest rewards plus instance drops, people really don't need to buy gear pre level 70?

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Crazy fishing

My guildmates will laugh that my second post on this new blog is about fishing. Maybe because I enjoy fishing and cooking in real life, I've leveled up these two secondary professions from the first day I played WOW, especially fishing. I find it relaxing and a change of pace from the violent killing to sit back with a cup of coffee and do some ingame fishing. And once you have the fish, leveling up cooking is a breeze. At one point my guildies had to do an intervention to get me to level again. The fishing was so lucrative, I couldn't stop!

Now I won't say leveling up fishing isn't time consuming. It is. And it may be too boring for some. But for those of you willing to put in the effort, the rewards are worth it. In Azeroth, Oily Blackmouth, Firefin Snapper, and Stonescale Eel sell well. And there are always pools on the western coast of Wetlands and Feralas where you can fish up various boxes of cloth, leather, and green items.

I made a decent amount of money from fishing in Azeroth. But fishing and cooking in the Outlands is where I've made an incredible amount of gold (much much more than from my two primary professions, herbalism and alchemy). Now I won't tell you exactly what sells well or what time of day and where to fish for it because :

• #1: With a little effort you can find it easily online
• #2: K still makes a lot of her money this way and doesn't want to easily give away all of her secrets!

Anyways, I love how cute some of the Outland fish are. For example:

Finally, speaking of fishing, have any of you been attacked by those crazy Mudfin frenzy out in Zangarmarsh? Sometimes they even leap out of the air to attack you. Maybe in real life it would look like this? I'm not sure what language he's speaking, maybe Portugese. But this video cracks me up.

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