We all know the glyph market is dead right?

I got back from my trip, even with a working PC, posted a few auctions thursday night, went to bed.  Raided DS10.

We know that the glyph market is dead.  Even WoW insider said so.

So, I collected my auctions (I don't camp, and am only posting once per day at the moment), and got:

• 500g in gem sales (that barely covers my deposit on the number of different gems I post)
• 4000g in glyph sales (horde side)
• Blessed all in alliance side glyph sales.

I have found that glyph sales are cyclical. 
 More alts or new toons -> more sales.  The new scrolls of resurection won't hurt either.  Prices go up a little.

• More sales means the competition takes notice, causing downward price pressure.
• Cheap players buy out glyphs they might want, providing some sales
• Eventually you get two or three toons slugging it out, and either by 1c undercuts, or by very deep undercutting, you end up without profitable sales.  Either way prices and sales go down
• Glyph sellers get emotionally tied up in their sales, and stay in the market far longer than any justifcation of gold can support.
• Then one day, they drop out of the market.  They will often blame outside factors, but I would not be surprised to find that spending hours earning 100's of gold causes outside factors to be more interesting.
• Prices skyrocket to what the market will bear.

I have seen several cycles of stiff competition.  It really does drive out the other manufacturers.  It even drove me away for a while.  When all the competitors get tired, and dissapear, then prices spring back up again.

But for the time being:  You go on thinking that the glyph market is dead.  Especailly Caelestrasz horde side.  Nothing to see over there.

PC goes boom

First life called, so I was taking this weekend off anyway.  Plans of an expensive week, fun in the sun and all that goes with that.

Then my PC went boom.  At first it decided to blow the circuit breaker.  Now it doesn't even do that.

4 years ago (can it be that long?) it was a great PC.  Now it is Ok, but creaks and groans in LFR.  Oh well, off to the PC doctor.  Hopefully the stay will be short and sweet, nothing too terminal.

But that next post with facts and figures might wait just a little longer.  And someone may as well move into my Northrend epic gem & nightmare tear markets while I'm more AFK than I had intended.

That wasn't polished

I have cut back a little on my WoW time, with a post real soon (tm) about where I am still making my gold.


Today's post, however is a whine and cheese post.  That wasn't polished - and no I wasn't talking about that last boss fight.  There are currently so many ungemmed, unenchanted pugs for DS10.

I generally only raid Friday(or possibly Saturday) nights.  We can now one shot bosses 1-4, and don't have too much difficulty on Ultraxian.  I still get nervous on Zonozz, and die to Ultraxian trash.  I like struggling on fights, for me it means I am in the right place.  Which I suppose means that out of the first 4, I prefer Zonozz.  And even more than that; I would rather spend an evening wiping on Spine than farming the first 4 or 5 (I've seen both Spine and Madness once but didnt down it on either occasion - both times pugging for a guild I have some association with).

LFR isn't raiding.  It's a glorified wrath heroic dungeon; good for valor points and a bit of ordinary gear.


Due to a re-organisation with a couple of allied guilds (Two tankards split amicably with a tank going one way; one DPS moved countries and another DPS joined yet another guild; Pratorean Guard decided they wanted to raid as a guild Friday nights too - and picked up one of the Two Tankard's DPS).  This left me down about 5 raiders.

For me - the best way of recruiting is simply to raid.  Organise tanks and healers and DPS come. No one ever waits for DPS (well wrong but more on that later).  I am picking up players that are obviously available and on my server, and are currently free.

Getting players for a fresh run Friday 8:30 pm server is easy.  When short, I have in the past encouraged players to either pick up their tank or healer toons - no more than 3 or 4 times a night (or fight or minute depending on my desperation).  When that doesn't work I resort to pure bribery.

I organise my tanks, healers and what DPS I can ahead of time, and advertise in trade for the rest.  When I first started DS, all players were gemmed and chanted.   They might have missed one or two, but are generally fine.  Now for F crying out loud S, get some enchants will you?  If it's 346 or 359, it had better well be enchanted and gemmed if you want me to carry your lazy backside through Ultraxian.  I can also get away with my apparently elitist attitude at Friday 8:30.

For regulars, I really don't mind helping out.  If you raid with me and do your best in the raid; I am happy to help out at other times.  I bring feasts and cauldrons because they save time in the raid and help other players.  I have loaned or given players: gear, gems & enchants.  It's only gold and I have enough of that.  What I need is competent players to help me kill pixelated dragons.

The last couple of weeks I have fresh farmed the first bosses on Friday nights, and extended Saturday.  Gathering 10 players for Saturday has been more of a challenge.  DPS apparently want fresh runs for gear and don't want to be saved to a single boss (or even worse? be on a learning night).  What's even worse is when I have people in the both the far east and far west raiding; the Easteners fade about 10pm (or 1am their time), but the for the Westerners, it is still only 7pm.  As it was nearly time for a couple to log, and I needed to pug some anyway, I called for players to bail if they wanted to.  I was left with 2 tanks, 3 healers and a melee DPS.

Check friends lists; they are already raiding.  Check guild - either logging off (westerners) or not able (new toons).  Ask in raid (nope).  Ask in friendly guilds (already have taken everyone they can recommend).  Ask in trade.

Last Saturday at 10:30
/1 LFM DPS DS10 Warmaster Blackhorn

I was met with silence.  Not even any trolls on.

A few minutes later, 
Some idle trade chatter, then

Tank LF DS10  (I am already full on tanks - and neither of us have DPS specs yet)
Healer LF DS10 (I'm in a 10 man raid and I already have 4 healers - sent one off to wear DPS gear).

I ask them both if they have DPS specs but, like me, they don't.

I 'joke' in trade that the night I need DPS, I find tanks and healers, with no DPS to be found.  I then get whispered that there are DPS around, but they want a fresh run.

I have gold.  I don't have enough players.  This generally works for tanks and healers.
So I respond /1 LFM DPS DS10 Warmaster Blackhorn; paying 500g (1/2 now; 1/2 at end of evening)
I get a bite, and invite the toon to raid.  Now, because of some bad experiences, I have a few players standing buy to inspect new players.  This toon is almost entirely ungemmed and unenchanted.  For .. crying out loud.  Sorry mate.  But but I'm now saved and you wont let me try the boss.  No; you are not saved until you kill a boss.  But but but.  No.

I also see
(Bob*) Melee DPS  LF DS10 fresh run
(Jane*) Melee DPS LF DS10 fresh run



(* Names have been changed to protect the guilty)


So I try 
/1 LFM DPS DS10 Warmaster Blackhorn; must be gemmed and enchanted; paying 800g (1/2 now; 1/2 at the end of evening)

I am sure I spent more time finding players Saturday night than I did raiding.  Grrr.  Rejected a couple of players for lack of large numbers of gems or enchants.

I finally am able to fill spots with DPS.  All Melee.  I am not kidding; So so many of the DPS that were on were rogues and warriors.

Again I try
/1 LFM *Ranged* DPS DS10 Warmaster Blackhorn; must be gemmed and enchanted; paying 1000g (1/2 now; 1/2 at the end of evening)



I'm starting to have doubts about Gevlon's advice; I'm paying peanut plantations (well probably 500g/hour) and well, ...still not enough polish.  Some players who know me have claimed that I wouldn't care if they were in questing greens as long as they had their enchants and all possible gem slots.  It's an exaggeration I tell you - I hope.

I have met a lot of great players as trade pickups.  Some I see just once or twice; others I keep for longer. I would like to keep more of them on my runs - but often the better players are filling in because they missed a regular spot.  That's OK - it happens.

However, if you are free on a Friday night on Caelstrasz Alliance server (Australian Eastern time), (or maybe even the odd Saturday night) and would like a run that is more about progressing casually than farming, let me know.  Send an in game mail to Foolich.  Both regulars and casuals are welcome.

Just be gemmed, enchanted, and if I dare hope - have potions too?

Woe is me; my auctions are undercut. But...

Well, ... my gems are at any case.

Recently there has been a flood of cheap gems; I've noticed it; The gold queen thinks it might be to hacks. While not discounting the possibility of hacked gems (I came accross my own suspicious gem deal), I am not so sure.

Who buys gems?  Main toons getting new gear. Just because I have my keep my (healer) alt ready to go with even a few epic cata gems; does not mean that Joe Average gems his alts.  I am starting to see a few ungemmed or unenchanted toons offer to join my pugs (I am current recruiting DPS), claiming to have DS10 experience on their alts.

What do mains not buy? Glyphs - they already have them.

So, what does Joe Average buy for his alts?  Cheap glyphs, and Epic BOE's. 

Trinkets are my BOE sale of choice, but I gave up on them when 4.3 dropped; a surplus of trinkets; all better than most Darkmoon cards.I wasn't the only one.  For a few Darkmoon cycles, you couldn't give some trinkets away.  I was starting to unload my unused cards.

Then I had another look.  I do this every month or so on the markets I have abandoned, and just re-check prices.  There were no trinkets for sale.  Zip; Nada; none.

Whenever there are none for sale, I try to sell at overinflated prices.  My trinkets sold quickly. I crafted some more; and I am currently getting prices (on everything but Volcano) higher than I did during 4.2.

I am again selling Darkmoon cards.

Glyphs have also raised in prices.  There were 3 sellers (not including me); keeping prices about 20g each.  I bailed out as I was having much better Gold per hour from gems. 

Currently there is one seller (where did the other two go?), selling many 100-200g glyphs.  I have posted a few glyphs to try the market out.  

The biggest advantage to having multiple tradeskills maxed is that if one market crashes; you can diversify easily.  When gold making gets tough, keep an eye on those older forgotten toons and their tradekskills.

Successfully cursing

Last post, I had a problem with transferring addon settings between PC's; using the curse premium client.

I think I have solved my problem; and I tried a few different options.

Now, the addon settings (on my XP pc at least) are in C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\WTF\Account\AccountId; with one folder per game account you have.  (Our household has 3 different WoW players, so many of the PC's have 3 different folders).

Also; both backing up and restoring WoW files are best done when not in WoW.

Option 1: Brute force and massive ignorance.  Zip up the WTF\Account\AccountId on the source machine; and mail it to yourself.  Mail often has a limit of 10MB; but my zipped up file comes to about 8M.  When restoring it; rename the existing AccountId, and unzip the mailed version.  This also works well with any file moving method; whether it is a thumb drive or an internet drop box.

Option 2, using the curse premium client.  I did something very similar to the above option, but also (for completness sake) moved the C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\Interface\Addons folder to one side as well, only keeping the addons that started with Blizzard_; then restored all the addons as well as their data files.  In reaility this is nearly the same as Option 1, but uses Curse as a dropbox.

Curse you

Whether it is raiding; crafting; selling and recipee collection; addons help.

Due to personal circumstances that I won't bore a lot of you with; I am bouncing between households and 3 computers a lot.  I have played WoW on all three of these computers at some stage, and manually set up addons on these.  But keeping 38 addons across 3 different computers in sync; and manually updating the settings to the be the same is beyond me.

So; I use the curse client to keep addons up to date.  You have to supply them with an email address and create a login; but nothing too onerous.  When using the free version you get a little advertising (which I disliked but accepted), have to click once per update that you want updated, and can have two addons being updated at once. All in all - adequate for a single PC for my purposes.

However, I said above that I now have 3 PC's that I am tyring to keep in sync; with the addon settings copied.  Normally the only things I pay real life gold for in WoW are expansions and the monthly subscription.  I also would not pay for a second WoW account with the sole purpose being for gold making.  (Though I am currently paying 3 suscriptions - one for me; and one for my two kids).  I broke down and am now paying real life gold for one extra option - a Curse Premium account.


The premium makes having the same addons and keeping them up to date easy.  With the right setup, the addons (nearly) update themselves, no clicks needed and no advertising.  It is also should make syncing addon settings between computers much easier.  

I have not been posting auctions as much as I could because of the settings difficulties.  So; over this weekend I used the curse client to backup the settings on my main PC, and restored it on one of my secondary ones. I then posted auctions.  All my inferno rubies sold within seconds.  For 160g each.  Cry.

A very important (sanitised) rule of computing : Anyone can make a mistake; but if you really want to ... foul it up then use a computer.

I did not manually check the prices after the restore; so I sold my inferno rubies at pre patch 4.3 prices.

I know better.  I wrote the computer disaster recovery plan for my (real life) work.  A backup isn't a backup untill it has been backed up, restored and tested.

A single posting of inferno rubies below cost isn't any where nearly as expensive as AH gearing a mostly 346 tank with the best BOE's gold can buy.

TBC - how to fix it so it doesn't happen again.

Justice Points and Epic Gems

I am still making a nice profit on cutting Epic Gems; and no - I don't mean Cataclysm ones.

I like to pretend that only twink toons use Northrend Cataclysm Epics; bonuses for twinking toons using gear with sockets or possibly a belt buckle.  This makes sense;  a Northrend gem can be placed in any gem slot regardless of level of gear; best upgrade available.  The last time I checked however, way too many of my Northrend gems were bought by Lvl 85 toons in cataclysm gear (where a cata rare is better than a northrend epic)

Similar buying patterns exist with Northrend rares; cut Reds sell better; followed by cut Oranges; followed by the rest.  However, I pay little attention to what is most likely to sell; and post the lot.

I am currently posting these gems for between 200-400g; and have very very little competition (so it is most often posted at 400g)

Supply is a solvable problem.  On my realm, there are not many northrend miners; for a while I was prospecting saronite and titanium ore; making icy prisms (from the uncommon gems) and transmuting the rare gems (converting frozen orbs into the required element).  However, this often left me with insufficient supply.

However, many players have an excess of justice points.  220 Justice points buys 1 uncut Northrend Epic; from the JC shop in Dalaran.  I have been paying players between 100-130g per uncut gem (depending on my current supply); generally selling cut gems for ~350g.

For those without patterns, they are bought with tokens; (Northrend JC dailies etc); but you then have to choose between JC cuts and dragon's eyes (resold on AH as nightmare tears). 

Some patients is called for; and I try to only cut what I will immediately put on the AH (for bag space reasons as much as anything).

Ragnaros

Edit: 13 Jan 2012; and Rag is no more.


Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our Alliance dead.

And once more we entered, and once more there were more Alliance dead.  I have not had this much ... fun with a boss since Yogg Saron.

There are a lot of players out there with 6/7 Firelands; I am one of them.  I'm 6/7 with an 11% attempt (he dies at 10%).  Aarrrgh.

LFM Tank/DPS Ragnaros only, you should have at least seen some of the fight; Bonus Queen's Garnet. (Boot ungemmed unenchanted toons.)

I have had 6/7 for a while now: allowed myself to join a fresh run, and took a couple of weeks off.  I now have a 6/7 lockout, and ... well it's worth more to me than most players have.


Two Friday's ago; we struggled on phase 2-3 transition.  Last Friday, Saturday and Sunday; we started struggling on the final phase. How many wipes : I dunno.  Don't want to know.

Now; in terms of players - I am not too fussy in terms of players; I do not expect others to have more experience than I do. There are a core of players that need Ragnaros too; a couple of DPS, myself as heals that have turned up every attempt; cast of 4 or 5 that have turned up for multiple evenings; and a few /trade LFM players - some good; others ... interesting.

I was convinced to try two healing (against my better judgment) : It works.  10 healers can't heal insta-death; 2 healers can heal the rest of the damage.

Now for the script (and problems)

Setup
Marker 1 on right hand side; against boss; about 1/3 around platform (on existing floor marking lines)
Marker 2 mirroring it on right hand side.

Set up macro with names of DPS1; Tank1; DPS2; DPS3; DPS 4; DPS5 (pref melee); Tank2, DPS6; Healer1 on LHS, Healer2 on RHS.  Pref 1 Melee in the middle, and 1 ranged on the left and right; then strongest DPS in the middle.

Tanks; don't run up and auto attack the boss; that applies to DPS too.  A dead DPS on the floor first up is an indicator.

Buff up.  No (deliberate) pulls until you do.

/readycheck
/dbm pull 10

Please prepot.  I am.  You can too.  Oh well.

Phase 1
Tanks in the front; taunt every 3 stacks.
Melee to the left and right of tank
Healers in the middle at range
Ranged spread out across the middle - in range of healers.
Everyone 6 yards apart.
Run out of swirly stuff; trap tripper; run in when it becomes a pool; use slowfall, blink, portal, something to land safely. (and yes - every trap not just the first one. cry)
Ranged and healers - watch for hammer; stand on the diagonals to avoid flamewall.  You can see from the circles where the walls will go.  Healers: remove debuff then heal .  (its magic not disease you ... wonderful healer)

Phase 1-2 transition.
Run to your pillar; checking your position.
Stun if you can; don't slow or trap.  Get your target to 50%, so it slows. (For blessed sake - no dots; !!@@ I said no slows or traps)
Move on to next target moving at full speed.
Healers help with DPS of fast moving targets.  (Why? - are you using dots again?)

Phase 2
Line up on right hand side marker - still 6 yards apart.
Avoid hammer flamewalls; wait for seeds then run to other marker.
Healers : use big AOE.
DPS: AOE the many adds.
Everyone : Watch for floor on fire; if it is on the marker scream MOVE MOVE MOVE!! (mute vent.  cry.  omg they died. again.)  Heal like mad if you had to move from AOE circles.
Spread out.  Watch for  firewalls.
Wait for it : Seeds haven't dropped yet.
Ok Seeds dropped : Run to first marker. and repeat
(Preferred) Rag to 40% or wait for seeds (how the hell can you run from seeds while dealing with a split hammer; oh well - run in ... again ... again)

Phase 2-3 transition
As per phase 1-2; but this time tanks only stun their adds; and then pick up the Lava Scions.
DPS the adds as before, but help out with the tank's add;
Healers DPS too on the close side; Tank takes damage - heal.  (panic, do magic; how did I survive that? How much health did I have? 500? don't look - don't ask)
Try to keep the furthest son's alive while you DPS the Scions.
If you get the debuff you poop fire that hurts you, heals them; so run around the back of the raid.

Phase 3
Pray that this is the time.
Pop hero, Get the Lava Scion's down and pop hero (or should that be the other way around?).  Drink pots, burn him, burn.
Kite the meteors (but not through the middle of the raid). Sprint abilities help (including a holy priests bubble).  Use a ranged attack to knock the meteor away from the raid.  Don't run against the outside boundary in case of being caught between the Meteors and the burning floor.
Die.  I am sure it's in the script somewhere.
Oh look 15% you can do it.  Really.  Tank & Healer (8 dead); it's only 5% with 20 meteors up.  GoGoGo.

Cry; rez; 

Oh look - someone has to go.  Thanks for coming; really it's all good.  The DPS that did how little? wants to go - look even harder.


LF DPS that has seen the fight.  Haven't seen him at all?  cry.  Gemmed and chanted - ok.  (remember to put the healer next to the newbie for extra dps on transition phases)

Oh look at the time; We got really close that time.  I know you said you could only do a few more attemps ... a long time ago.  If you need to leave thats OK.  If you want to stay, I won't boot you (but I have no idea how you will get to work tomorrow at 4am).

Oh.  Its ... that time.  I have no idea how *I* am going to get up in the morning to look after 6yo in first life.  Thanks for coming?  Same time next friday?  Calendar invites incoming.

Until next Friday night 13 Jan 2012; 8:30 server Alliance, Caelstrasz. LFM Ragnaros only, you should have at least seen some of the fight; Bonus Queen's Garnet; whisper/in game mail Foofixit, when we Cry Havoc, and let slip the dogs of war.

Building a new tool

I love tools like LilSparky's Workshop and TradeSkillMaster's Crafting; Addons that allow you to see at a glance what is profitable.

These are based in turn on AH scanning tools like Auctioneer, which you use to scan the auction house; and get recent pricing.

Bread and butter for established auction house players.  But...., we have new tools available.  First of all the auction house scan has been 'bettered' by The Undermine Journal.  Something that scans the AH hourly; every day; does far better than I can with my intermittent scans; plus it is much faster and doesn't consume my in game time.

There is also the auction house API.  It provides auction data (faster than I can scan inside the game) by item id, recipee lists (by item id, including recipee names) and names for items.  This is nearly enough to make an out of game profitable crafting tool.  What I am missing is an easily updateable, usable in a program, list of recipee and material items listing item id's.

The following websites (among others) have lists

• http://wow.crafterstome.com/home.html
• http://db.mmo-champion.com/

LilSparky's workshop and TSM's crafting also at least have a static knowledge of what recipees are. 

The tool that I am looking at building will be a tool for someone with my skillset (fairly technical, not much in the way of pretty user interfaces); but would be very easy for someone with a flair for UI's to either build upon; or use the design to re-implement.  This also is a project I would much rather someone else have written (rather than have to write it myself).  What I don't want to do is manually re-type data that Kaliope or DB-champion have already discovered.

What I would ideally love is a WoW API that returns the materials (including duration of cooldowns) of crafting recipees (and no - the current recipee API returns recipee name but not materials).  Failing that, a similar web based request to other reputable websites returning data would be good.

If we can put this last piece in the puzzle, we should be able to build a tool that shows us what is profitable, and what is not.

Zephyrite decision

Just before I disappeared on of the internet; I was thinking about those blessed Zephyrite's filling my JC's bags.

The current uses for these gems are:

• Fire prisms.  Who's making these, and anyway they consume all gems equally - you will still have a surplus
• Transmuting to Ocean Sapphires, but they don't sell either
• JC dailies (As was pointed out in my last post's comments), a strong contender, but still too much supply to too little demand. Plus who wants to be up at 1 am (or whenever dailies expire), so you post 48 hour auctions, hoping it will be soon.
• Vendor @ 50s each.  Hohum.
• Cut and Vendor @ 75s each.  Boring, time consuming, and still hohum.
• Levelling JC's

At the moment, the number of levelling JC's are few and far between; they exist, but their demand is dwarfed by the JC daily demand; let alone the requirement for useful shuffle gems.

Looking at a relatively useless gem from Northrend : Shadow Crystal, currently selling for 1g; but only 4 available.  It would not be difficult to put together a partial JC levelling kit; aimed at 1/4 of the raiding panda's come next expansion.  If I had more time or less spare guild bank space; I would probably recommend cut & vendor.  However at the moment I have empty guild banks (not just tabs), and a bit of time to catch up on.

So; I will keep a couple of 20 stacks of Zephyrites on my gem selling toon to be sold in stacks of 3; 1 stack in my JC's bank and put the rest in cold storage until I either have enough time to cut and vendor (unlikely), or try to sell in weeks 2-5 of MOP.  As with all speculation, there may not in fact be any demand (because of other speculators doing exactly the same thing), but at least I would still be able to realise cut and vendor costs at some stage.

I will also second guess this decision as time goes on and my stockpiles go up.  Oh well, if they turn out to be in demand by someone, at least I will trickle them out onto the AH.