What I am doing now

You are most likely here because you enjoy crafting. I have been reading up on some of the WoW issues regarding gold making, which make me realize that WoW is not the game for me.

If you want to play a game where gathering and crafting is the cornerstone of the economy, and are not faint of heart, I recommend EVE Online. EVE even has releases purely to support industry. You can play for free if you are good enough manufacturer or trader.

Be the builder in a villainous world.

My journey can be seen at http://foo-eve.blogspot.com.au

For a 21 day free trial, click here (Disclaimer: I do get a bonus if you become a paid subscriber)

30 December 2010

1500 Cinderbloom milled

On vent, there have been some discussion about what Cinderbloom mills into, with some speculation that drop rates may have changed.  So today, I milled 1500 of them, converting them into ink.  I now have cramped fingers and some real numbers.

The macro I used for milling is
/cast milling
/use cinderbloom

So the final results are available on my milling spreadsheet on the CinderbloomTest page, with
  • 65 Burning Ember (becoming 32.5 Inferno Inks)
  • 751 Ashen Pigments (becoming 375.5 Blackfallow Inks)
This gives 0.216 Burning Embers/ 5 herbs, vs an expected 0.25.
And 2.5 Ashen pigment/5 herbs, being the expected amount.

28 December 2010

Tank you very much

A couple of days ago, I finally dinged 85 on my DK tank.  (Yes, last of the great levellers but you get that).  Tonight, I tanked the last of the normal mode instances. - Halls of origination.
I want to 'shout out' a great resource for these at Sword and Board:
It doesn't matter if you are tank, healer, or DPS.  These sheets are great, and easy enough to copy/paste into party chat.

On a vaguely gold related topic, getting heroic rated gear is cheap enough - if you like PVP gear.  (I do not).  With my tank being a Dreani DK, the trinkets are nice, and the rings were levelling items.   (I have 529 JC yet no 'acievement' - vain, but I still want it).  All my gear is gemmed (where possible), and enchanted - using Northrend head and shoulders enchants before I get the rep for Cata enchants.

My prediction for the day : Prices of gems and enchants will go up as we start getting more 'real' gear, or as people start wanting to get through those heroics.  We will also get many many toons balking at the real cost of mats.

24 December 2010

Tomorrow is a special day.

Merry Christmas, but for this post, I am thinking what this actually means.  I don't recall what happened the Christmas that Wrath was released, so this is pure speculation. 

Ok.  I expect a lot of boxes of cataclysm under various trees.  So - a lot more Worgen, Goblins and starter zones.  Whatever sold well the first time round should sell tomorrow as well.  Bags, maybe water breathing elixirs for Vashir.  Those that start tomorrow are likely to be kids, possibly with gold from wealthy benefactors, or well wishers.  Pets will probably move.

It is still festival, so there should be an additonal focus on completing the outstanding achievements.

Casual farmers/tradeskillers are likely to stop farming, so I also expect the auction house to be 'off' with both bargains and sales opportunities. 

Single players - especially teenagers, will be playing in the afternoon with a vengeance.  PVP gear and battleground supplies might sell OK?

Happy Winters Veil

23 December 2010

Healing is easy right?

Umm.  Not so much any more.

I am an OK tank.  Not the best out there, but good enough to keep the agro of healers most of the time, and maybe even off the DPS too.  At the risk to an overblown ego, I might even be better than that.  However, I chose tanking, because of the 3 roles (ranged DPS, Healing and Tanking), tanking came hardest to me.  (Yes I started out as your typical wannabe DK 'tank').

I am not the fastest leveller, unless professions are involved.  I have 4.9 tradeskill professions at 525 (0.9 is because tailoring is 521), maxed cooking on 3 toons, but my tank is lvl 83, and my primary healer is lvl 82.  I will start working on my second healer's tradeskills once I run out of rested on my first two toons again.

My DK tank (Foolich) was first out of the rank, with Blackrock caverns, Throne of tides and Stonecore.  Tanking these, ... well it was tanking.  Nothing particularly hard.  Plenty of opportunity to use defensive cooldowns when DPS stand in bad stuff because the healers are struggling.  Being a JC/Enchanter, most of his gear is gemmed and enchanted - maybe with older stuff, but still kept moderatly well.  By the way - Blood is fantastic to level with.  I might not burn stuff down as fast as Frost/Unholy, but ... I need my 5 year old's help to die.  There is zero downtime.

My priest healer (Foofixit) has been neglected since I did TOC.  Now - for me - that was not that long ago, but still a few months.  Fixit's gear was a mix of 200's & 232's, with maybe a couple of 'recent' badge pieces.  But the last time I went healing, ... Yawn.   According to reports, other healers considered healing to be easy.

Last night I ran my first healing instance - (pug) Throne of tides as a level 82 priest.  Umm.  Hot keys not touched since TOC, no new spells, no practice.  Umm.  One DPS died due to mishealing, and a second due to standing in bad stuff while I was being thrown in the air by a boss. No wipes. Umm. Toto, I don't Think we're In Kansas Anymore.

Looking at dungeon finder times, there is still a shortage of tanks? I can only assume that this comes because a lot of previously 25 main raids are running 5 mans.  If I recall :
  • 5 man dungeons need 20% tank, 20% heals, 60% dps; 
  • 10 mans take 20% tank, 25% heals, 55% dps, and 
  • 25 mans take 12% tanks,  25% heals, 63% dps.
Some DPS standing in fire will die.  Some healers will become discouraged.  (Some tanks will remain arrogant - but I think arrogance will be roundly beaten out of healers).  I expect that with the same quality of loot dropping from 10's as 25's, more 10's will be run (but 25's will still happen for more loot), and this is worth considering.  Guilds - while you need your tanks now, look after your healers - you will need them later.

22 December 2010

Milling spreadsheet

As what might come to an absolute shock to regular readers, I have been playing with glyphs.  (Ok absolute shock might not be the right term).  Some of you may have read that I converted a lot of Ink of the Sea into other inks before patch 4.0.  I am running out of some of those inks, and in the main, blackfallow inks are still to expensive to trade down.

So, I have been buying older herbs and milling, for fun and profit.  I had an instinctive feel for how much to pay for northrend herbs, but very little 'feel' for older herbs, and blackfallow inks are still expensive.  So like any good min/maxer, I wrote a spreadsheet for milling.  It is written as a google docs spreadsheet.  If you use google docs, you can 'make a copy'.  If you use Excel or OpenOffice, you can download it.


Auctioneer's milling values seem to be based on the value of pigments.  Pigments are rarely traded at a reasonable value.  Consider selling the odd pigment for a 'reasonalbe' value.

Enter 'your' values for herbs, pigments and inks.  If the 'markeup' column is green (high profit), mill it.  If it is red (loss), avoid it.  If the markup is white (no profit) or yellow(small profit), consider it if you must.

This spreadsheet is still to be considered 'beta' quality.  I am still finding a few mistakes in it, but as a whole it works for me.

Have fun

18 December 2010

Buying for the future

At the moment a lot of players are madly levelling up tradeskills.

For example, and enchanter I know has 520 skill, trying to get to 525.  The mats are costing him about 500g per point, and he can only sell the scroll for 40g.  This is only sustainable while tradeskills are being levelled.

One day soon, there will be less toons levelling enchanting.  As I didn't pay much attention during the start of Wrath, I dont know how long this rush of tradeskill levelling phase will last.  What I do know is that in the long term, either mats will come down, or the cost of the scrolls will go up; probably both.

I have always been a contrarian investor - sell during panic buys, and buy during panic sells.  On average this has worked well.  I advocated hanging onto snowfall ink when the price fell to a few gold each.  On my server, snowfall ink is now selling for 13g.

I don't know what the long term prices of items will be, but it does seem that some items are currently oversold, and that oversupply will dry up. 

It may be time to go shopping.

17 December 2010

Volatile Air

We all want to have 525 tradeskills, and be working on paterns for heroic dungeons.
And I am sure at the top for some professions there will be gold to make.

However, to make those high end patterns: (A) toons need to get to 520 (or near enough), and (B) someone needs to make the underlying mats.

So much relies on volatile air: Engineers need electified ether, I hear that blacksmiths need it too.  Tonight I used my Alchy transmute to ensure I made volatile air.  Bought the mats for about 200g, paid 20g for a teleport to Theramore and flew down to Uldum (my alchemist is still 80, with no cata quests except cooking and fishing).  Aparently transmutes of volatile life in Uldum guarantee air.

The transmute netted 16 air, which I listed for 200g each.  Within 10 minutes 12 had sold.

This is a market worth watching, especially if you have an alchemy alt you are happy to park in/near Uldum.

15 December 2010

Out of traction, back in action

I have been spending too much, for too long, and not earning enough.

I have to purchase gear to for a single evening of attempts at lich king, tradeskilling up, purchasing cheap old world mats (my banks are still bulging at the seems), and generally acting as if I had bottomless wealth. 

I still have gold, but have hit a point where I am uncomfortable.

Problems/opportunities:
  • In glyphs, I still have too much stock and not enough sales.  That is an easy thing to fix.
  • My Auctioneer suite (Enchantrix I think) does not know what cata gear disenchants into.  There is a beta download of the suite at http://auctioneeraddon.com/dl/?dl=Preview/AuctioneerSuite-5.10.5043.zip
  • Market imbalances.  They are all over the place at the moment.  There is money working out what is needed alliance/horde side, converting scraps -> leather -> heavy leather, smelting, prospecting, milling, disenchanting, lesser <-> greater enchanting mats.
I still am not planning on selling northrend many mats, there are just too many in the market; and I will wait for the inevitable re-rolls that will come soon, as classes lose/gain favour, and toons get to 85 and are 'sufficiently' geard (whatever that means).

13 December 2010

Weekend observations

On Caelestrasz, herbs are now cheap enough for me to mill for fun & profit (and levelling inscription and alchemy), specifically Cinderbloom and Stormvine, at a significant profit margin.

I am mildly envious of both those who have time &  lack of distractions to play during the day, and the focus not to succumb to distractions.  My most advanced toon - Foolich, is now level 81. 
That said, I have Alchemy at 525, waiting on one more JC daily before nudging it up, and am 1/2 way there on Inscription. 

Transmuting alchemy seemed to be the most economical way to level it, with the resulting products being the same (or higher) value that the source materials.  I am not sure I want to play in the potions, elixir or flask markets at the moment, (though some flasks & elixirs seem OK).

Inscription has a forged document for me to level with.  I ... am not sure this is ethical.  Walking up to an NPC, with 'proof' that he gave someone food poisoning, and aksing to be paid off seems ..., well it is not 'nice'.  I can be 'not nice', Taking advantage of an NPC = good, while taking advantage of a game mechanic = bad? Mmmm.  Oh well, off to slay a few thousand pixelated people.  With Inferno ink selling for 200g+ each, I want to be sure I am not throwing thousands of gold away for a few points, so foofixit's conscience may just have to be paid off.

JC dailies are OK.  I've heard concern about the cost of doing the dailies, but it does not seem as expensive for me - possibly because I started a few days later.  Prospect your own ore, moving up to Elementium ore as soon as you can.  (If I recall, Saronite ore was almost always cheaper than Cobalt ore).  It also seems that vendors like cut green quality gems more than the AH.

On the guild front; after hints and concerns (both mine and theirs), I joined Breevok's guild - More than Raids, and have tanked a grand total of 1 instance (Blackrock Caverns).  In fairness to More than Raids my concerns were 'Oh my goodness, I don't have control'.  When I blogged about this, it immediately set up a red flag on their behalf as well.  I still don't have control, but so far that's OK.  The guild seems to be a good fit.

10 December 2010

Readership, a Glyph update, and the illusion of independance

Readership

We all are a little distracted at the moment. It happens. The quality of posts on gold blogs is down, as is readership:

Website%Change Month to Date%Change Week to Date
foo-wow.blogspot.com+2%-17%
network.phase3profit.net+11%-11%

So, for both of you that are still reading blogs, ...

Glyphs
I do not understand what is happening.  Where are the purchasers?  Where are the sellers?  For me at least, Glyphmas part 2 has not happened. 

Possibly this is due to setting prices in the 50-100g bracket (I only want to sell best profit glyphs at the moment).  I split my glyphs into 3 groups : Best sellers, OK sellers and poor sellers.  At the moment my previous Best selling glyphs are not even being listed; thats OK, lots of competition explains this. 

Some of my OK glyphs are being listed, without sales.  Most of my poor selling glyphs are being listed - with very little - if any competition, but still not selling. Mmm.  Distractions.


Maybe that is it.  So many distractions and players are not bothering to either list or purchase glyphs. 

The Illusion of independance
As I have said before, Blizzard is discouraging both micro-guilds and running a majority of out of guild 5 mans and dungeons, so I have been guild shopping. I didn't realise that I was so fussy.
  • Family friendly.
  • Large enough to keep regulars busy, and get various forms of guild achievements.
  • Small enough for me to invite toons yet still know everyone.
Last night I left Death's Head.  The gulf between a guild for primarily 17-23 year olds and family friendly seemed too large.  I have a standard of behaviour that I expect.  I am happy to run with any of them, providing the attempt is made.  My thanks to the players that tried.  In regard to a few of the players, absence will make the heart grow fonder.

I think I have found a guild that I should be compatible with.  They have an active blogger that the majority of readers here will be familiar with.  However, from our conversation last night, it is clear that I will not have the autonomy that I am used to, especially in terms of inviting toons.  In reality I don't invite a lot of strangers to guild, and the majority of players I do invite want to raid more than once a week (hence only having a few raiders in Arozcaldo).  The truth be told - I am feeling 'gun shy'.  Right now, I wish Blizzard did not implement the guild changes.  Let's see if I move beyond asking questions and join this new guild.

09 December 2010

Levelling professions - soon

The WoW AH - in some ways - is maturing, at least on my server.

Some cata mats (admitidtly food) is down to silver, others are merely coming down.

I will be levelling my professions soon, maybe this weekend, maybe Monday/Tuesday.

Talking about levelling professions, my Ackis recipee list had not updated. It is currently in alpha for cata recipees, available via wowace, or you can update your curse client to allow 'alpha' releases by right click - preferred release type - alpha.

Alpha means very early and likely lots of bugs and missing functionality. Beta means some bugs, but most functionality is done. Production means that everything is in, with no bugs.

Of course, we all know that 'Production' quality applications never have bugs don't we.

This server will be shut down in 3 minutes for urgent mainten.........

08 December 2010

Professions and guild drama

Random notes from day 2.  (No in depth analysis at the moment - not enough time either RL or in game)

You may have noticed that the prices of mats are dropping - fast.  This is because there are some players who must have max professions now.  These players are mostly loosing a lot of gold for the privlidge, with most of their items selling well below mats price.

Mats are not free just because you farmed them.  They have a price according to their current value on the AH.  If you wont (max) level your tradeskills for 3 days, sell your mats now, and buy them back later.  Your gold reserves will thank you.

Wek spent about 15k on a server first in Alchemy.  Grats to Wek, but it cost him a bucket.  I expect to spend much less in a few days.

Guild's are interesting.  With Cata ... penalising micro guilds, I have joined a larger guild.  I may have made a poor choice, time will tell. 
I have two children that also play WoW, and for better or for worse, we come as a package.  By raiding standards, I am also a part time raider.  I don't do much grinding of dungeons, preferring to run everything in order.  My raiding night is Saturday, with liberal use of raid extensions, but will run some dungeons throughout the week.  My requirements are:
  • Caelestraz Alliance. Too many toons to move
  • Toons to fish : I want the new fish feast recipee, and guild fishing of 10,000 fish is a bit much for me by myself.
  • A guild large enough to be able to get a Lvl 85 of every class, for the Stormwind teleport cloak.
  • (mostly) PG guild chat.  Innuendo is fine - I use it a lot, but if I don't want to hear my sons saying it, I dont want to read it. The same goes for vent.
  • A place for alts.  I have 1 tank, 2 heals and a DPS, all with max WoLK skills, and will have max Cata skills soon.
  • A place for my kids. My younger child is prone to randomly spam party invites, and is on occasion very chatty on vent. I wont be offended if he is occasionally ignored. My older child is mostly harmless.
  • Understand I raid Saturday nights, and am more likely to extend than allow a reset.
  • I have some other players that I raided cata with that I may be bringing with me
My preferences are:
  • A guild small enough for me to know (at least in passing) the majority of members
  • An active voice (vent/mumble/whatever) culture - or be willing to try one.  (I maintain a vent server).
  • A healer or two willing to heal my tank. Failing that, a tank or two for my healer.
  • Takes raiding serious enough to do basic research, and at least try not to stand in the fire.
  • Understands that many players do not just 'get' things.  (I wipe very well), or have very bad lag.
  • Privlidges to invite to guild vetted pugs that I want to run on saturdays with

I really like running with my new guild's GM. Regardless of starting late, we ran a significant portion of ICC togehter, with a majority of players in his guild. In fact he poached the majority of my players (I am fine with that - I don't raid enough to justify monopolising players time).

However, I can be a curmudgeonly old sod.  The expectation that I will either put up with foul language or not be included in the social aspect of the guild is grating.

I would like to turn the guild I recently joined into something that meets my requirements, but if not, will explore my options.

07 December 2010

Things that make you go hmm

I misremembered where the Throne of the Tides instance was.  I thought I read it was in Uldum, but oh well.  WowWiki for the win.

To get to Vashyr, go to the stormwind docs, pick up the quest, and have some reading material while waiting for the docks.

I also fail at breathing underwater in Vashyr.  Elixirs of water breathing might sell well, especially if you take them to the zone and offer them in /say (would probably sell for 50g+ each - at least while the chaos is on at the start of cata).  Once toons have got their permanent breathing they will not be interested.

WoLK flasks seem to be selling OK.  I suspect that health pots will too.

Remember to post your gathered materials on the AH before you log out for the night.  Mail everything to a bank alt and post it.  If in doubt, post it too high.  Take advantage of the players with gold that just want to level professions now.  Unless you are going for realm first, wait a few days to level your own crafting professions.

06 December 2010

Twas the night before ...

Well at least I think its the night before glyphmas part 2

Over the next few weeks we will all be very busy.  That said I intend to try and do a few things, in addition to finishing off this round of my 'What Profession?' series.

With luck, I will be posting highlights of market observations, things I think need to be done.



For tonight, before cata drops I am
  • am posting all my glyphs, 6 each, between 50 & 100g each regardless of the competition (APM 50g threshold, 100g auto fallback).
  • Emptying my bags on my toons that I will level first, mailing to alts/disenchanting/vendoring/throwing stuff
  • I have joined another guild - Death's head aux.  Blizzard are discouraging very small guilds, and I want some of those guild achievments (Flask cauldrons, fish feasts, teleporting cloaks)
  • I will attempt to get my BOA enchanting stuff on the AH.

Terrorism (Politics)

The US Republican Senate leader has called WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange a “high-tech terrorist”.  In my opinion the US Republican Senate leader is an ass.

I already have problems with the real and exceptionally expensive war on so called terrorism.  I can cope with a war on the enemy, but this "terrorism" is bullshit:

While I am not a lawyer, I suspect that Wikileaks might have broken copywrite law. It has published a lot of stuff that I think was written by someone else.

Wilileaks may be seditious. Every opposition party is probably seditious.

Terrorism is serious. Lots of people have died of it. For a point of reference compare the number of deaths by terrorism vs other causes. Some politicians will call those that disagree with them terrorists. This cheapens the term and makes it meaningless.

Australia's ABC News Radio has a newspoll (right hand side) about whether or not readers agree with the US Republican Senate Leader. There are no prizes for guessing my vote.

I will rarely subject readers to my political views. I know it is not what some of you are here for. I will label political posts in the title.

By today's definition, Guy Fawkes was a terrorist. One that the west has celebrated for centuries.

03 December 2010

Making gold - Writer's cramp

Inscription is like that.  Milling and Writing.  Again and again. Read the setup post for information on recommended addons.

This is about my 4th draft of this post. There are disavantages to being intimately involved in a profession. This draft has been published - whether it's ready or not.

This profession is yesterday's golden haired child.  More gold caps have been made via inscription than via any other profession. It became flavour of the month.  But now that young tanned 'hard body' is now old, flabby and is worried about skin cancer.  That's OK, there's plenty of money left in it.  I have made about 1/2 of all my gold with this profession.

Advantages:
  • Will make gold from new toons.
  • New toons have aboout 30 glyphs to learn - gotta catch em all.
  • A long startup time to keep out competition 
  • Good gold making for levelling players
  • Potential for huge markups
  • A changing profession
Disadvantages
  • Too many players in the market, with very heavy competition on most glyphs
  • Once a player has caught em all - very little left to sell
  • A long startup time to keep you out
  • If you want to sell it all, you may need 3 posting toons
  • Time consuming (Edit )
If you wish to take up this skill, do your research (minor and major) and read up on your glyph mastery.   Do each research every day untill you stop learning glyphs, and start researching again after patches (I discovered I was missing a minor glyph last night). If you know everything from glyph mastery, you will not be able to consume your book.

On our server, there are several scribes that list every glyph above their threshold - with the only difference being the threshold.  I have 3 'ideal' thresholds, from 0 profit for glyphs I am overstocked on, to a minimum 8g profit on 'best sellers'

Levelling scribes should do your research and read this post by Breevok.  Also keep an eye out for cheaply priced herbs to mill and sell on the AH.  One day Blackfallow Ink will be available and cheap enough to trade down (Jessia Sellors in Dalaran, not sure who else), but in the meantime you should check the AH for correct herbs/look for a herbalist.

For scribes, I do not consider that you are at 'maximum' level until you have completed all your research (Minor + Major + Books of Glyph Mastery), regardless of your skill level.  When first entering the glyph market, look at the expensive glyphs on your AH; make + sell those.

As you get up in levels, consider novelty items like the off hands that turn you into wolves.

Start regularly crafting and selling your money making glyphs. For something different, mill herbs and sell them where milling is profitable. Be warned - the auction prices for pigments is inaccurate. No one buys pigments.

Max Level scribes should consider two more addons:
  • Enhanced tradeskill window : Gnomeworks WowAce (Not yet on curse? You may need to manually install it)
  • Queing making tool : KTQ curse or CurseForge
  • Yet another auction poster : APM curse or Curseforge(or ZeroAuctions)
  • Multiple toon/account inventory : Altoholic curse or Curseforge
My thanks to the authors of these addons.  Gnomeworks does not play nicely with multiple accounts, but adding in KTQ + Althoholic works a treat. In order to keep this post to a vaguely reasonable size, I will post later on how I make glyphs.

You need to sell the most expensive glyphs that are on your server.  This traditionally does not involve too many vendor taught recipees - but I am always surprised. As always - get all the recipees (Ackis Recipee List) and sell if it makes a profit.

Consider darkmoon cards. The pricing and manufacture of darkmoon cards requires it's own post, with a lot of gold made and lost on these. (For the record I left the darkmoon card market when other trinkets became relatively easily available)

Blizzard has other plans to give us goldmaking, but I am reserving judgement.

TL;DR
Theres gold in them inscription hills, but by the great goblin - you'll hafta to work for it.

01 December 2010

WoW Econ Network

As you might tell from the right hand side of my blog, I read a lot of WoW blogs.

I have selected what I have considered the top 15 WoW gold making blogs on the net, and show a list of their recent posts on another site - network.phase3profit.net

I have just updated these lists as per this post

If you think that the list needs updating, please leave a comment; either here or over at network.phase3profit.net.