Now it's your turn

I first started this blog when a couple of the existing gold bloggers bowed out.  They had done their time, and were moving on.  It was time for a new wave of bloggers to step up; and new sites to be formed. 

I was a noob with half baked ideas and 'a cunning plan'.  I was interested in writing about it; and it turns out others were interested in reading it.  200,000 page views counted by google stats, plus countless other views read via places like the undermine journal and via RSS feeds.

Very few of the authors writing when I started blogging are still talking about WoW gold making.  While it is sad to see old names go silent; there are plenty of new names coming into the scene.  This really is a reflection on the players and not on the game itself.  A game that hold daily attention for 4 years is doing something very right.

To pull a number out of the air, it seems like there is about a 3 year authorship for WoW blogs.  Plenty of time for you to be keen, eager and learning.  Even more time for you to be strong and established, and to shape your community.

The hardest post is number 1.  Number 2 isn't so bad.  Getting to a dozen posts is a hard (all these posts and no-one is reading me).  Getting to post 100 is a thrill.

To get a readership, it is almost necessary to get the eye of an established site. Some of my early posts had a readership of 1.  But some those early posts were read I was picked up by other blogs.  Writing relevant information will also get you picked up by search engines.  Established bloggers have seen new sites come and go; and most of us hate removing sites so want to ensure that you have some longevity and quality before adding you to our lists.

As an open invitation to any upcoming bloggers, even if you have just one recent post;

• Leave a comment on this post.
• Read up about the new blogger initiative
• Leave relevant comments on other wow blogs as a logged in user.  We check your bios and the linked websites.
• Once you have a dozen gold posts under your belt, submit your blog to https://theunderminejournal.com/ and http://chronicle.powerwordgold.net 
• If you have any niche in WoW, after a few posts also submit to http://www.wowheadlines.com/ (a newish and nice looking blog aggregation)
• Write more posts. 
• Persuade us, Inform us, Entertain us.  Dare to be right.  
• Dare to be wrong.  I have publicly disagreed with the views of many bloggers.  So what?
• Read this post about self censorship, and the difference between engaging the argument and engaging the person.

 If you wish to follow my latest exploits, I am still blogging over at foo-eve.blogspot.com

AFK for a little while

I still have a couple of months to go on my annual pass, and will see it out.  But I currently don't expect to be on much.

I started this blog as a fumbling wannabe gold maker, seeing blogs that I had read sign off and the community shrink.

I ended up as a fumbling gold maker, and even managed to make my way through Dragon soul normal; no small surprise to me.

I have listened to many departing players state "The game just isn't what it used to be.  Back when I started it was new, shiny and I had so much to learn.  Now it's a just little more of the same."  Every player I heard say this started raiding in the previous expansion of WoW, while also saying how great that expansion was.

What has changed is that I accomplished my goals.  I made my gold; more than I thought I could; less than I should have.  I spent most of my gold; sometimes frivolously; sometimes with deliberate forethought.

I herded cats;  the single most demanded and unappreciated role is not tank, healer or dps; but is instead the organiser; the herder of cats.  Each player has different skills, and is not always tolerant of others.  As organiser; I went grey and lost hair; but very rarely had to sit out; even when I was the weakest link.

I also spent far to much time in /trade looking for 1 more any role - you must be gemmed and enchanted; but the runs happened anyway.

And I downed pixel dragons; on two levels of difficulty.  But I was not up to the final challenge; herding 9 others through hard modes and heroics.

As such, there is still room for me to 'fail better', so I would not be entirely surprised to see myself back into WoW at some later date.

I am quietly confident that PokeWoW (otherwise known as pet battles) will not only fill /trade with even more nether region 'jokes' around downtime, but also create the raiders for the next 4 years.

It is a bold move, and will alienate older players who had to walk 20 miles to the local shops, uphill both ways, in the freezing snow without shoes.

WoW was a bold move.  It gained dominance by breaking out into new fields doing what no-one else had done.  It lost membership by doing the same thing it had always done with minor tweaks and being copied by everyone else.

However, for me currently I am failing in another game.  Things to learn and places to see.

I do however have one more post up my sleeve.

Spirit of Harmony

Professions: Living in Perfect disharmony.  We want crafters to be out in the world adventuring instead of camping out in front of an auctioneer.

I can only think of a couple of times that I joined a general QQ chorus and they generally revolved around real names or real id.  But this one ... ugg.

This is designed to raise prices for most players and encourage more casual crafting and discourage anyone likely to be reading this blog.

There are several types of player in the game that get involved in the market in a serious way.

• Casual gatherer.  This person picks up loot, and sells it.  Sometimes at the auction house; more often at a vendor.  These farmers do not gather a lot individually but there are a lot of them.
• Casual crafter.  This person makes their own gear, and that for their guild/circle of friends.
• Casual buyer.  This person goes to the AH to buy stuff and complains about how expensive everything is.
• Dedicated farmer.  The majority of players - when they need gold, go and farm on their gathering toons to sell later.  I have poor friends and those running GKP runs doing this.  And the bots/gold sellers do it too.  These players do not like the risk involved in crafting and putting items on the AH.
• Dedicated crafter.  The core readership of this blog.  You like your bargains, know different ways to buy and sell.  You love the grind of crafting (even milling and glyphs) and generally dislike the grind of the world out there.  You keep the prices down by your wars with each other.

With the changes for (sic) spirit of harmony, dedicated crafters will not be able to be dedicated any more. will need to be out there more often.  You might have a regular raid, but the chances are - most of us are not interested in spending 7 days/week raiding/dungeoning or even questing.  Blizzard has said - that for most professions and most items - dedicated crafters are not welcome.

Now; what drives prices down so that Joe Average can afford items. Two or more dedicated crafters in competition with each other.  Leave me to my own devices and remove competition, and I will charge what I like.  And what I like is far more than what regular competition will let me get away with.

Since I started playing there has been restrictions on starter gear in the form of Chaos or Frozen orbs.  At the start of the expansion when we are interested in running dungeons these have been fine.  Later on they were turned into tradable items, and crafters kept crafting.


But by sending crafters out to farm their own gathered items, you remove the main buyers of farmed items.  Yes, before, many crafts were restricted by drops from end dungeon bosses or raiding bosses, but more and more crafting is being bound this way.


For those that like simply to farm, or simply to craft (and there are a lot of each), then this direction is unfortunate.

The winners will be those that farm their own mats, then craft their own gear.

MOP Leather and Blacksmith

Leatherworkers and Blacksmiths

Given Blizzard's stated intention that "Initially, we want crafters to be out in the world adventuring instead of camping out in front of an auctioneer, hoping to score some cheap mats.", consider taking up gatherer + crafter.  I do not make this suggestion lightly, and it will still be wrong for a lot of players I will have a post dedidcated to the spirit of harmony later - and it will not be pretty.

My recommendations on tailoring also apply here:

• Be ahead of the 'pack' levelling these skills, or be behind them.  The way to be the most out of pocket is to be the average player these skills when everyone else is; following the same leveling guide.
• Consider making some top end cataclysm PVP items to get your first few points
• You will make some items you are unable (or at least unwilling) to sell.  This is what (dis)enchanters are for.  Have one or know one. 
• Assuming that LFD/LFR is again gated on gear level; PVP gear will be demanded by newly dinged players.  Of course you will level these skills mostly on the back of PVP gear, so supply will be higher.

Blacksmiths

Read Kaliope's recent Blacksmithing  posts.

You know that belt buckles will sell like hotcakes.  As an added bonus, the (only) levelling guide I have read so far avoids them.  You could justifiably craft these for every skill point you need.  Every raider in the game will be getting multiple belts over the next few months - so on average every raiding blacksmith will need to make probably a dozen buckles each.  Some will make more - others will only make their own.

Leatherworkers

Read Kaliope's  recent Leatherworking posts.

Legging enchants will be your bread and butter, but not as many leather leg enchants will be needed as belt buckles (1/2 of the population will use the tailor leg enchants instead.

MOP Alchemist

At the start of cataclysm; there was an absolute flood of flasks; with them being sold below cost so that guilds could level for their cauldrons.  Even I fell for this; making far too many flasks that were simply not needed at that time.

However, elixirs were still significantly cheaper; and while two elixirs had one offensive one defensive bonus; they were still a solid option.  As such they sold well; and profitably.

This means that if any class of item is needed for new guild achievements, let the seller beware.  They again are likely to be sold below cost.


Speculatively I think potions will be in large demand.  I suspect that many healers will be reaching for some form of mana regeneration potions during MoP; Mana regeneration is designed to be tight this expansion. Instant mana for dungeons; and mana over 12 second potions for raids.

It looks like alchemists will (again) learn the majority of recipees randomly after creating stuff, with new recipes being made available as you level up.  It might be worth creating a few potions or elixirs every 25 skill points or so, and rotating between potions, elixirs and transmutes; and seeing what recipes 'pop' up.

Also be aware that for this expansion; simply transmuting gems to red may not always be the best option.  I have read that the importance of many secondary stats have been significantly increased   I am already reading a few healing blogs recommend spirit over intellect. Watch the auction house and transmute what you can; and of those recipes; transmute the most profitable items.  Keep an eye on class specific sites (or elitist jerk forums) for what gem colours are being recommended.

Make sure you have a specialisation (potions; flasks/elixirs; tranmutes); and concentrate on those recipes.  You may find that it better to concentrate on pots and elixirs early.  Flasks were created in too large a number early as guilds were trying to grind out their flask achievements.

Regardless of your specialisation; make sure you find your profitable transmute and do it every day. I am uncertain of whether you will get to choose the elemental transmute the same way we did in Cataclysm.


As I have mentioned ad nauseum; read Kaliope's website for MoP changes.  I have not been bribed.  For yet another expansion, Kaliope has some of the best Beta investigative reporting of any blog I can think of.


(PS.  now that the patch has dropped and the rush is no longer entirely there, the next post will be my Monday morning)

MOP First weeks - the patch that dropped

One thing I didn't expect was that you could create your 11th character now; before you have upgraded to MOP.


Well, starting today; there is a new rush of alts.  Not as many as there will be come September, but definitely some.

(So many monks; so many pandas - most of them panda monks).

Scribes rejoice.  You sell glyphs to levelling toons. You also have new glyphs to learn;  very few glyphs destroyed.

Tailors rejoice.  You sell bags to levelling toons.  For the record; I still don't think that netherweave bags will be required in large quantaties (and yes I still think you will make some gold from them).

However, a large number of tailors have apparently jumped on the Frostweave bag bandwagon (see wow midas).   I am contrarian - so will recommend making Embersilk bags instead.

I also expect a pick up in raiding as players get used to their new rotations; with some loving it; others hating it (and even more re-rolling because of that).

Enjoy the lead up events (or hate them);  either way you have one month to experience them.

MOP Tailor

Tailors your cloth at the start of MoP will be demanded, just like it was at the start of Cataclysm and Wrath.


For those that are hunting (and I looked at the incoming search results on the blog - there are a lot of you), according to WoWhead the mists of pandaria bag size will be a 28 slot Royal satchel (tailors to make) and a 24 slot Gummelpack (possibly quest).  I have not seen any evidence yet of new profession bags.


There are two recipees to make advanced cloth: one on a daily cooldown and uses 8 bolts of normal cloth;  The second requires 5 bolts and the 3 of the new 'time gating' item Spirit of Harmony.

Until demand settles down (probably 3-4 months in); you will want to make your special cloth daily; there will be something to use it for.

For the mega-rich who needs crafted product NOW you will need to find a tailor comfortable with farming; you should be able to buy some Spirit's of Harmony off the AH.  There wont be enough to go around for most players for several months.  However, like chaos orbs becoming tradeable, during the close of Mists of Pandaria, you will probably be making a lot of special cloth this way.



When live hits check if your advanced cloth (Imperial silk) is soulbound. If so, then you will be making product for a while to come (if in doubt - check the spellthread prices).  If not; then every tailor will be crafting them long after they are profitable to make.

There will again be 3 spellthreads; Basic/cheap; expensive; and tailor only.  From my view, there is surprisingly little demand for basic spellthreads; as most players seem to only want 'best' or 'nothing'.  While there will be anemic demand for basic spellthreads; there will be a much higher demand for the expensive ones.

Assuming that LFD/LFR is again gated on gear level; PVP gear will be demanded by newly dinged players.  Of course you will level tailoring mostly on the back of PVP gear, so supply will be higher.

For all crafters looking at profitable crafting; you either want to be out in front; or slightly behind the other crafters.

If you are in front (realm first or similar); and can get a supply of Spirit of Harmony; you will be able to demand a premium for starter raiding gear.

If you merely are meh - I will level cloth when I get to it; using the same levelling guide that everyone else uses; you will still pay a fortune; but won't be able to sell stuff.

I have always looked at the cost per point of crafting; taking a bit longer but doing so much much cheaper; and having stuff to sell later.  If you are looking to level on the cheap; there are always options.  Look at that recipee that gives a chance of a level but no one else is selling on the AH.

Finally; you will have useless cra. crafted stuff that no one wants to buy.  That is why you either have or know an enchanter to get something useful out of it.

Finally; for week 1-3; either

• Already be very rich; and strive to be among the realm firsts now (or not be far behind them); OR
• sell it now and buy it back for 1/2 price next month instead.

MOP Profession firsts

Are you considering achieving a realm profession first?

Apart from vanity, there are good reasons to do so;  some may recall me mentioning Wek at the end of Wrath and the start of Cataclysm.  He achieved realm first Alchemist.  His elixirs were much in demand, and more than paid for his skill leveling costs.

You need some things:

• 525 skill; 
• on a level 85 toon.
• Gold;
• Probably a willingness to rush to level 89.
• Some farmers hooked up ahead of time.
• An idea of what recipes you will use, with the flexibility to cope with a lack of some mats.

The realm first seeker should read Kaliope's website.  Kaliope is the best research site I know of for Beta tradeskills.

You need your gold stockpile.  If Wek remembers right, he got his alchemy realm first for 15K;  Speculatively, I would allow for at least 5 times as much as that.

Those farmers that you had lined up to gather for you will currently have good intentions.  The road to hell is paved with good intentions.  Bribe and remind; but accept that your farmers might be more interested in the new shiny expansion.

I normally would not consider it, but a second account or the remote auction house can keep an eye out for those missing mats while you are still questing.

Set your hearthstone appropriately.  This should either be at an auction house capital city or where you are currently questing.  You might still be able to use your teleport cloaks and have group will travel once MoP hits; but have a backup plan just in case Blizzard turns these off.  Warlocks can summons; and Mages can teleport.

Have mats on hand for crafting out the last few points of yellow or green recipes for your existing 525 skills.


Can you get mats or recipes for any skillpoints ahead of time?  The cooking dailies in the prequal to Cataclysm had some of these.

You needed to have level 84 toons to access some of the vendors and recipes.  My recollection was that some of these were required to get to 525 skills.  This kind of change can be tweaked by Blizzard with very little notice.  Be prepared to level quickly (including flasks, potions and food).

MOP Gathering

Sell your gathered items as soon as you can.

Your biggest earning day for the entire MoP expansion will be day 1 of MoP.

Your 2nd biggest day for the entire MoP expansion will be day 2.

Your next biggest day will be day 3.

It will continue like this for the first couple of weeks; where finally you will start seeing gathering days followed by consumption days.

What does this mean to you?  Day 1: Miners and Herbalists : level only by gathering.  Traditionally, 1 node is worth 4 mobs of XP in the same area.  Skinners; skin everything.  Picked up meat, cloth?  Then sell that too.

Have a banking alt sitting next to a mail box and auction house.  Every opportunity mail your loot back to your bank alt, and post it on the auction house.  At least daily if not more often.

Ask a lot.  At first, the demand will outstrip supply.  Secretly - what would you rather be doing?  Gathering or exploring new quests.  So will the other gatherers.  There will be rich buyers out there with nothing to buy.

Some guildies will ask you to donate to the guild bank; so next month they can start leveling their tradeskills.  SELL YOUR STUFF NOW AND DONATE LATER.

Sell everything as soon as you get it.  If you feel generous, buy it back again in a month's time when prices have dropped.  If you feel inclined; you will be able to donate more than you had gathered, with a nice weight of gold sitting in your pockets.

Gatherers; the start of an expansion is your time to earn.  The gathering bots have not yet been written.

Go make hay while the sun shines. 

MOP cooks and anglers

Cooks

Speculation: If Blizzard follows the same trends as for Cataclysm; you will be able to start doing cooking dailies during the pre MOP launch.  There may also be parcels of food available via daily tokens.  If you are going for cooking realm first you will want not only the cooking tokens but also the food.  For Cataclysm this food is trad-able so presents opportunies to both buyers and sellers.

Even if you are not going for realm first, the raiders that I talked about earlier will want your buff food.  I assume that +max feasts will not be available in the early weeks.  Do your dailies as soon as they come out.  Consider doing them on all your max cooking toons to maximize your tokens and food.

Raiders and even dungeoneers will want food buffs to start dungeons.

Cooking will not be a huge earner (there are few restrictions on the amount of competition out there), but should be good for a few gold.

On that note: Sell your meat.  As with all gathering; have a bank alt sitting next to an auction house.  Every time you come across a mailbox; send your crap to the bank alt and post it before logging off for the day.

Fishing

Speculation: and probably fixed.  During the lead up to Cataclysm, enterprising fishermen stood on the boundary of new cataclysm zones and fished away.  This was considered 'enterprising' but undesirable by Blizzard; who then turned off the fish catching until Cataclysm was attached to accounts.

Water walking elixirs can help fishermen with reaching hard to get spots.

Fish for feasts are still very much in demand today.  I think that there will be some gating on fish feasts limiting this. but I fully expect that for certain fish demand will exceed supply.  Look at cooking training choke points and best buff foods, and when feasts are available - what is needed for them.

Anglers; keep an eye out for your new pets; there are lots to be fished up.

MOP Raiding firsts

There are a set of players that are rushing towards dungeon and raiding firsts.  I won't be one of them.

They are competent raiders; have booked time off work/school (or simply call in sick);

They have at least some wealth; having sold valor purchased bind on equip gear; epic gems; and boe drops.

This release; they are going to have a whole week to level and do dungeons (again and again and again) and even grind out honor, to get the best gear they can before they start raiding in week to of MOP.  (I have read that raids will not be released until week 2).


These players will buy buffs; and spend what they need to.  Many of them will spend gold on BOE valor gear and save their valor points for BOP items.  They already know what gear and buffs they want; and are spending time raiding on the beta server.

Your preparation now is to find out who these players are; and ask them what they want.  If you don't already know who they are, look at http://www.wowprogress.com/ or similar sites and ask them what they need.

Keep an eye on the forums at elitist jerks for your class; looking at what gear; potions/elixirs/flasks; gems; enchants, food they are recommending; and learn those recipes.

They are gold rich and time poor.  Not as gold rich as those working on profession firsts; but good enough.  I will have profession specific advice in later posts, but you want to be selling to these guys; and to the wannabes that follow after.

MOP Scribes (inscription)

Before MOP prequal

I recommend converting inks before MOP drops.  Assuming the MOP lead in events follow that of Cataclysm; you will no longer be able to convert your inks 'down' from (now) cheap blackfallow ink.

I have re-worked the schedules of posts specifically for Scribes; because of this post http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/08/14/patch-5-0-4-releases-on-august-28/

Assuming Blizzard do not change the inks required; you need the following inks from most to least:

• Ink of the sea (most)
• Ethereal ink (many)
• Lion's ink (some)
• Midnight ink (some)
• Jadefire ink (some)
• Celestial ink (some)
• Shimmering ink (theoretically some; but I have never needed to trade down for this ink)
• Blackfallow ink (few; and definitely no rush)

From Kaliope's site, there is a new Scroll of Wisdom that you can make to learn new glyphs.

However, I would keep aside mats for the existing Minor Inscription Research(Moonglow ink) ; Northrend Inscription Research (Snowfall ink) and a few Books of Glyph Mastery; just in case.

Before MOP drops

Some glyphs will most likely be 'charred' during the transition to MOP - i.e. turned into vendor trash.  However, Blizzard stuffed up a few glyphs during the transition to cataclysm.  For several weeks I had the only remaining stockpiles of a Mage armor anywhere on the server - for both factions.

This more than made up for the glyphs that got charred.

Many of the old glyphs simply were turned into new glyphs.  We did not know what ones those would be ahead of time.  If I recall, I even gained some of the new glyphs from this transformation

Also; glyph making takes time.  When MOP drops, do you want to make glyphs or do you want to be levelling?

That is make your glyph stockpiles early.  There is no time like the present.

After MOP drops

At 570 you make the new BOE shoulder enchants.  You will want to be in this market; and it appears they use the new advanced ink.  These will be in huge demand.

According to Kaliope's current research, there  will be 20 points of grinding of Runescrolls of fortitude.  If this proves to be true; there will be a huge glut of them, and this glut will last a long long time.

Darkmoon cards can be made at some stage. The prices due to shoulder enchants also consuming rare inks not withstanding; it is worth considering the experience from the start of cataclysm.  These will not be able to be completed until the first darkmoon faire starts.

Off hands; Staffs will be wanted.

Both Gevlon and I recommended selling rare inks as soon as you got them.  We made a lot of gold that way.  Breevok instead made (incredibly expensive) darkmoon trinkets; and posted his trinkets almost as soon as the faire dropped.  He made more even more gold on these than Gevlon or I did on inks.

For darkmoon faire trinkets; what is your risk profile.  If you are a high roller, willing to risk it all for the chance of a fantastic return; then trinkets are for you.   If you are a conservative investor (and I am) then you may consider just selling inks.  Caveat Venditor.

Speculation:

Unless Blizzard changes the milling return rates; the new advanced ink will be very expensive due to the consumption via the shoulder enchants.  Every raider will be replacing shoulder gear regularly and will want these.

I think early trinkets will sell well; reversing my opinion on cataclysm.  However darkmoon trinkets are already subject to RNG; In Cataclysm, the numbers were roughly 32 cards to make your first deck; and then needing 9 cards to make each (8 card) deck after that.  (10 cards if you do not do trading).

MOP Engineers (Pets)

Engineers; well you still are not designed as a gold grinder.  Enjoy your utility though.

Portable mailboxes, portable banks, teleporters are all things to keep you on the road for longer.  Temporary and flimsy crafted tanks can help with levelling - especially for clothies.

But the biggest thing for you this expansion is pet battles.  Love it or hate it; Blizzard are aiming for the next generation of players with them.  My high school child loves them.  My primary school child looks up to them with awe and will work them out.

I already have 'Dad - can you buy for me this pet?  What about this one?  And this one?'

Engineers - you can make pets;  On the topic fishing and archaeology are other very good sources for pets.

Look at your favourite recipe site (http://wow.crafterstome.com/recipes/engineering.html will do), look at the pets and find their sources.

Guns and triggers sell well.

Portable anvils (I could not see if they are bound in any way) will be very popular.  I have played the collect from mailbox; run to forge/anvil; run back again, and groan. I am not even a serious blacksmith or miner.

Blizzard really really wants engineers to also be gatherers; with a new pair of goggles to spot additional nodes herb/ore.  If you are an engineer with either of those two skills; get the new goggles sooner rather than later.

There are two new mounts; As speculation (because I was not in the mount market at the start of Cataclysm), I don't think that most mount collection will start until the collectors have several alts at lvl 90; but there probably will be a couple of wealthy collectors.

MOP Addons

How will you survive when your addons break during the changeover?

One of them will break.  It will most likely be when either the initial patch launches, but might be when MOP is released.  It will be the addon you consider most important **. 

When do you want to learn how to live without addons?  Now, when you have time?  Or later when you are trying to level, your opposition is getting all the sales, and you can barely login?

You could practice living without them right now.

You could hop onto Beta (or PTR), and let your addon authors know of your joy or otherwise.  You could get involved in fixing or testing them.

You could be a small time supplier using the remote auction house. Note that you are limited to the number of auctions you can have up; and it is incredibly easy to use up all of your remote AH slots selling multiples of glyphs.


** Confirmation bias will back me up.  Those with important broken addons will find this post come MoP; those without errors won't even remember it.

MOP Backup

If the blizzard updater fails; are you going to be locked out of WoW for a week while you have to re-download the entire client again?

This very nearly happened to me during the start of Cataclysm. My WoW installation became corrupt during the upgrade.

As a solution, I managed to copy the base WoW install from my son's computer, and only had to re-download some of the patch.  It took about 4 days to recover (during glyphmass - and some may know how much I like my glyphs), and once I got into WoW there were already too many things for me to do.

I can help you with Windows XP (yes, an old operating system; but better than Vista that was offered when I last bought PC's).

If you are on Windows XP; copy your c:\program files\World of Warcraft folder.

• Take a copy now. 
• Take another copy everytime you download a big patch
• If you have access to another computer, put your copy on it and run WoW from there.

If you are running another operating system; do your research now not later when things have broken.

As an aside; the patches are huge and consume both quota and network capacity; if you have 2-3 players in the household; you only need to download the patches once and can copy the patches to other computers; it is much faster.

Ideally; you will have:

• a current WoW installation you are using; 
• a current backup on another hard drive
• a slightly older backup (say for the previous patch) not currently connected to your pc.
• have used a backup to restore WoW and continue playing it.

MOP First weeks

Cataclysm is dying; We are now looking at getting those last tasks finished before MOP hits; those bosses (at whatever level of difficulty) down, achievements done; those unused alts and skills that leveled.  Those who are finished with their goals are AFK.


We are looking at the next patch.  There is a huge demand for information and speculation.  Anything I have written .  I have posted very intermittently and am still getting large numbers of hits.  New readers want to know about stockpiles, and what to do with skills.  I have a reading tracker on the bottom right of this page; and that doesn't include those who read entirely via RSS feeds or via sites like the undermine journal.


What I always intended to do; and am currently writing, is a series of posts about what to do for the first weeks of Mists.  I have already talked a bit about stockpiles, and they are important; but so is your plan for your first month.


Starting today, I have posts scheduled (1 per day for about a fortnight); for the dealing with the leadup to MOP, and the first weeks and months on:

• Backups
• Addons
• Raiding firsts
• Profession firsts
• Cooks and anglers
• Gathering
• Tailors
• Alchemists
• Engineers
• Jewelcrafting
• Enchanting
• Scribes (Inscription)
• Leatherwork and Blacksmiths.

Some of the posts will contain the blessed obvious;  Other posts are bound to be controversial.  It will be most interesting when the posts that some consider obvious are exactly the same posts that others think are controversial.  My posts are a retrospective look at the end of Wrath and the start of Cataclysm




You will also read Kaliope's blog.  If it is not yet on your reading list, you are missing a crucial edge.  My advice will be historical; what worked and didn't for the start of Cataclysm.  Kaliope's is about what is going to happen.

The intention is for easy to write; useful posts and short (just like this one was going to be. Oh well.)

Mild authenticator sync issues

While mostly AFK; I am still maintaining my wow account subscription.

With the recent security notice where blizzard recommended that you change your password, I decided to log back in and change mine.

I have an authenticator fob I got a couple of years ago, that is meant to last for 5 years.  However, my authenticator got out of sync (grumble).  It happens when the clock in your authenticator runs at a different speed to the clock at blizzard.

The game launcher gives the same message regardless of whether you have a password or authentication token number issue. However the battle.net website gives a different message for authentication token problems.

This has happened twice.  The first time; I had tried to search for an online resync tool.  I found one; it didn't work; and I locked myself entirely out of my account.  That only happened about 2 months ago.

A phone call to blizzard and in a reasonable amount of time; the tech support reset my authenticator.  Despite that there is meant to be a 5 year life on an authenticator; mine is only 18 months old; and the tech support suggested that I change it already.  Mmmm. Incidentally - those of us in Australia will often get priority phone support - Blizzard doesn't like our rates for keeping someone on hold.  (There really are times that those outside of the US get faster support.)

When I tried to change my password; I again had the same problem with authenticator synchronization.  This time I thought I would try to figure it out myself.  Again I went looking for the reset synchronisation tool; but this time I could not even find the page I found last time, so that failed.

But then I got thinking.  Authenticators work by two different machines, with two different - but meant to be accurate clocks, generating the same number with the same algorithm at the same time.

It can go screwy when one clock runs faster than another. In this instance; it is possible that the Blizzard clocks were 'slowed' by the addition of a leap second 30 June this year. As far as I know - authentication servers try to adjust their local clock to allow for the the tokens last use; but I have not been logging in much.

But what I tried worked.  Instead of entering the authenticator code as soon as it came up on my token, I typed the code in straight away; but waited until the token's code changed before hitting enter.  It worked and let me in.  My authenticator's clock was faster than the Blizzard server's clock.

This approach will only work if your authenticator is faster than the server.  If you have problems with your authenticator codes; it is worth trying.

I also set up my SMS alert at the same time; which will allow me to disable the authenticator should this error occur again.
 
Incidentally - if you re-use passwords (and you shouldn't but most do), then you should change the password for anything that re-used your blizzard one.  Especially if it is your email account's password. (No I wasn't that bad at least).

As a final note; I had *awful* problems with the Cataclysm installation when it came out, that were fixed by restoring from a second copy of WoW on another PC.  I will be writing about how I restored my Window XP installation.  I can theoretically tell others how to fix a Windows 7 installation (which will be similar), and might be able to work out a Mac or Wine install, but thing that it would be better if fellow bloggers wrote about how to back up and restore a their own operating system's WoW folders.

An update and some shoutouts

As you may have guessed, I am not as active in WoW as I have been; I still have my annual pass to see out and will probably become more active in Mists of Pandaria.  Apart from a busy first life; there is another distraction; highlighted somewhere on the right hand side menus of this blog.

As those who have regularly raided with me; I happy when I am failing a lot.  However, my primary goals for this expansion have been met; I have defeated every boss in this expansion on normal; and the Dragon Soul on two different toons at two different levels of difficulty (LFR/Normal), and a heroic boss on the side.


I am not sure I am up to herding 9/24 cats through heroic mode. In first life I have been crazy cat man - with as many as 6 cats at one point.  From experience, herding 6 cats is easier than 10 players.

First shou-tout: If you don't have 8/8 DS normal or want more normal gear, and have at least 10K gold you are willing to bid on gear; send an in game mail to Jetfoo (one of the only Foo's on the server isn't me) asking for a spot on Friday nights. Every week they pug clear 8/8 25 man normal with the possibility of a Heroic boss or two (it's where I got mine).

That said, if you are interested in Heroic Dragon Soul, Friday and/or Saturday nights Australian Eastern time on Caelestrasz Alliance; let me know; either in game mail to Foofixit, or comment on this blog.  Toon prerequisite for a raid that I lead is 8/8 DS normal on the toon you want to bring (guild membership not required but available).  I like to fail better.  I am interested in running 'wipe-a-lot' raiding; smash heads on a heroic boss then move on to the next boss; possibly extending the odd raid.  If you need DS normal gear see the shout-out above.  If wiping bothers you, the raid I envisage is not the one you want. 
 
Alternatively if you are running Heroic DS and need a (all but) normal BIS holy priest healer or (slightly less geared) DK tank Foolich on Caelestrasz Alliance on Friday or Saturday nights, also let me know.  While I have DPS specs and reasonable DPS gear - mid 390's on both toons; I haven't seriously played DPS since Wrath heroics. 

Finally for those interested in glyphs, another shout-out.  This time to Faid for the glyph primer post.  Long time readers of this blog probably know the blogs he she points out, but go read it anyway.

Bob wants a MoP stockpile

Bob (not his real name) had some questions about making gold with an eye to Mists of Pandaria, and managed to track me down while not playing WoW


I have not prettied up the spelling.  I find it hard enough to spell properly when writing a post, and it's even harder to do when typing instead of talking.

Please add your own advice for Bob as a comment.


Bob: Hi foo.
Bob: umm I'm looking to jump into auction house stuff with release of MoP
Bob: and I have read quite a bit of your blog and others
Foo: Cool.  :)
Bob: and have no idea where to start
Foo: Thats a start :)
Bob: blacksmithing
Bob: and enchanting
Bob: are the 2 main proffessions i have
Foo: Ok.  First of all - do you have 525 in those professions yet?
Bob: yes
Foo: Ok.  Do you have either TSM or auctioneer installed?
Bob: i have 525 mining and bs on 1 character and 525 enchanting and herbalism on another
Bob: auctioneer
Foo: Ok. First thing you need to learn is how to disenchant for a profit using auctioneer; and probably a spreadsheet.
Bob: okay
Foo: How much gold do you have at the moment?
Bob: 30k between all characters
Foo: Same server?  30K is a start.
Bob: umm not same server atm but is going to be because i switched and want to switch back
Foo: Regardless; its something to work with.
Bob: i like farming and have farmed up about 800 elementium ore as well in the last few days
Bob: but there is bugger all profit in elementium
Bob: hardened elementium yes but it sells very slow
Foo: Ok.  Sell it slow then.  Set up an alt  next to an AH.  Give it your elementium bars to sell - probably on a 48 hour auction.  Log on to him every day or two - collect mail and repost.  If he runs low - then craft more.
Foo: Next thing to look at is belt buckles.  Do they sell at a profit?  (some spreadsheet skills would come in handy).
Foo: Some servers - yes; others no.
Bob: mine yes and they are extremely highly priced atm
Bob: with bugger all on AH
Foo: Ok.  You have a blacksmith.  Fix that problem for buyers :)
Bob: do i do little undercuts or buy out the 21 that are there and repost at even higher prices or do i do the moral thing and do decent undercuts to gain a lot of profit but not be greedy like hte 21 or w.e that re there atm?
Foo: I dont like buying for resale.  If they are below your costs and you know they will sell is one thing.  speculative buying to relist (especially when you only have 30k) is a good way to lose gold.
Bob: okay
Bob: so small undercuts will still get me like 4x the cost to make them
Bob: or large undercuts pick a price i think is fair?
Bob: say 2x cost
Foo: try both.  Start of with smaller undercuts and see how it sells
Foo: If they sell - then its fine
Foo: If they don't then go for a larger undercut.
Bob: small undercuts post for 12hours or longer?
Foo: The smallest impact is 12 hour small undercut.
Foo: If you get immediately undercut you know you need to go harder.
Bob: okay
Bob: if it ends up i need to do large undercuts but then someone just keeps undercutting me what do i do if i want to own that market?
Bob: i assume post for no profit for a large period of time
Bob: until they go away?
Foo: Read the TL;DR summary of my last post : http://foo-wow.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/glyph-thresholds.html
Foo: It applies here too.
Foo: There is no *need* to own a market.  You may make more gold with an unofficial cartel.
Bob: okay
Bob: i have other motives other than gold for owning markets
Foo: Ok.  Then (A) hope that they don't mine.  and (B) sell for 50s above what you would get for selling raw mats.
Bob: i want to make the server like me lol
Bob: so
Bob: cheap prices
Bob: im restarting guild
Bob: and want some fame
Bob: as that really nice warrior blacksmith
Foo: You can't buy 'like' from decent players.
Bob: with the lovely guild haha
Foo: You can buy like from leeches that can't dance.
Bob: hmm
Bob: okay
Bob: ture
Bob: true*
Foo: For those you want to attract; they will see your belt buckles and your ore.  You can even put your selling alt in your main guild (though there are reasons not to)
Bob: okay 1 more thing. with the enormous amount of elementium ore i seem to be addicted to farming
Foo: You really want a JC in that mix
Foo: JC's can consume guild banks of ore without problems.
Foo: (profitably)
Bob: should i wait and use it in release of MoP to make cash, or use it to help level those early 525-5xx of bs
Bob: for my guildmates and myself
Foo: If you can - do both.
Bob: okay
Bob: well i plan to get about 2k
Bob: ore
Foo: 2k is not huge amounts.
Bob: no
Foo: Its a lot but not huge.
Bob: well if i can
Bob: i will fill my 4 32 slot mining bags
Bob: and inventory
Foo: 6 months in - elementium ore will be in very much demand.
Foo: Guild banks.  See if you can buy a couple and fill them.
Foo: Max your alts on your server; get all personal bank slots and fill them.
Foo: Put some bags - at least netherweave - bigger if you want on those toons.
Foo: (by max I mean 10 toons - not 10 85's)
Bob: so the demand for elementium ore will be larger at the very start of mists or 3 months in or 6 motnhs?
Bob: months*
Bob: do you thinkk
Foo: I don't know the answer to that.  My educated guess is that Pyreite ore will be in demand for the first week; demand for ore might fall off as players unload their stock.  Once everyone else has run out - that is the time to sell.
Bob: so post little amounts of pyrium and elementium all the time
Bob: and then really go hard once i see a decrease in the amount of people in market
Foo: First there should be no need to go hard.  For a longer term stockpile (like ore for levelling toons), wait untill you see very little ore on the AH.
Foo: But you are essentiall waiting for 2 things.  Stockpiles to run out; and new levelling toons.  This means you probably should not sell to the initial wave of pandas.  But should start to sell when you see guildies/friends levelling new toons rather than quiesting on their mains.
Bob: yeah
Bob: from what i can tell your theory is the more markets you dip your toe in, the more profit there is to be made
Foo: Yes.  There are good arguments *not* to level a new toon to 85 (or 90).  But any max level toon should have 2 professions that can be used to make gold.
Bob: one of my closest friends is a JC willing to prospect all the ore in the world for free. (I provide him with all the repair/flask and food/gearing gold I can)
Bob: should i use this to get gems
Foo: But you should still try to understand one profession at a time.
Bob: are gems more profitable in general?
Foo: It depends on your market and prices of gold; but as a rule the 'ore shuffle' of the day is very profitable
Foo: web search  'elementium ore shuffle'; You can replace elementium with any ore of your choice.  for any expansion including Mop when it gets here.
Bob: the shuffle is when you get alchemists and stuff to change gems into other gems and you craft some items and disenchant etc?
Bob: it's why JC is like the most flexible gold making proffession
Foo: Ok.  Shuffle is traditionally : Miner mines and posts on AH;  JC buys ore and prospects.  Crafts rings etc with cheap gems.  Sells any random blue item that is produced.  Sends rest of green items to enchanter for Disenchanting.  Cuts Rare gems and puts on AH.
Foo: Enchanter can then use mats in scrolls for extra profit.
Foo: Alchemist can transmute gems too.
Bob: hmm
Bob: so with my enchanter and miner and my friend as JC we could do that
Bob: for quite substantial gold
Foo: Yes.  Especially at the start of MoP when gems and enchants are needed.  There was a 'gold rush' at the start of Cata.  There should be at the start of MoP too.
Foo: Do not be afraid to mine your way to Lvl 90.  The one time that a gatherer makes more than a crafter is in the first week of a new expansion.
Bob: apparently the absolute fastest yo ucan level from 85-90 is 8 hours thats with addons to ignore all quest text and to accept quests by running near the quest givers
Bob: so i think mining to level
Bob: woul take a long time
Bob: would*
Foo: 1 mining node gives the same XP as killing 4 mobs in the same area.
Foo: Would it take longer than the fastest possible way?  sure.
Foo: Would it make more gold for a gatherer in the first week than they would see in a month ore more of mining at the end of an expansion?  Yes to that too.
Bob: okay seriously final thing. bars or ore
Foo: Yes.  one of them.  maybe even both.
Bob: haha
Bob: okay
Foo: Ore is usefull for everyone; but takes up space.
Foo: Ore is also a shortcut for levelling miners.
Bob: yeah
Foo: But bars take up less space and are usefull for Blacksmiths and Engineers.
Foo: Do 50/50 : that way you can be 1/2 right.
Bob: hmm
Bob: i like 30/70
Bob: bars/ore
Bob: bars are too limited
Bob: when i think about it
Foo: Simply by stockpiling now and selling later - you will be in front.
Bob: okay
Bob: the current belt buckles completel useless next expansion?
Foo: Only useless if you want a new belt.
Foo: (thats a clever donkey way of saying yes)
Bob: yeah i picked up on that lol
Foo: By the way - these questions are meaningful - and not just for you.  I am changing names to protect the guilty - but will be posting this conversation as a blog post.
Bob: i assumed you might =)

Glyph thresholds

TL: DR; If you are determined to own the market at any price; sometimes you will only be able to own it at a very low price.   Sometimes you will make more when you mix it up.

Definitions for this post:

• threshold is that price that you are willing to sell an item (glyph) (If you are not willing to sell at your threshold - then it is too low)
• fallback is that price you want to sell an item (glyph)

These definitions apply regardless of the tool you use to post auctions and regardless of the numbers you put into those tools.


I will cope with 'my' market going below my threshold and hence being knocked out of it.  What gets me irritable is the constant sniping where other scribes are obviously prepared to sell for less but try to maintain an overpriced market.

So: I asked the other scribes where their thresholds are : That cheapest point where they are still willing to sell glyphs.  I did not however ask them personally.  People lie or simply do not really know what their threshold really is (and I am not- I used the AH for that.  The answer was that the fiercest of the competitors was prepared at the time to log out at 18g.

Since then they have reconsidered their positions and decided that they really can do glyphs for 15g.  That makes sense to me:  Even buying my herbs I price the most expensive glyphs around 6-8g each in mats; so 15g is double that.  For farmers (both the herb and inferno ink milling variety) that place zero value on their time or byproducts their 'cost' price is even lower.

Sometimes a competitor wants some (or all) of your market.  If you wish to 'own' a market at any cost; you will need a low threshold.  If you are willing to work for your threshold for longer than your competitor is; you can own it.  Nothing personal; the competition is simply working for their own interests to get the best they can for themselves.  In trying to own the market - for them - you are the competition doing the same thing.

Anyone can have a 'sale' below their long term threshold.  Sometimes the results of that sale can make you reconsider what your threshold should be.  Sales can drive competition out of business.  In WoW where players can have many alts with different skills, we can put a business section on ice, to be brought out when prices rise back to our real thresholds.

I showed the market that 14g 50s per glyph was achievable.  In turn it showed me that people's belief was that their thresholds are actually lower.  There are several players all scrambling to post glyphs at the 14g.

Names hidden to protect the guilty

Players can set their threshold wherever they like and can afford.  They can post as often or as rarely as suits them; I have little direct influence over their behaviour.

What I can influence is setting the price in such a way that maximises my total earnings. Failing that I can ensure that the heavily fought over glyphs that will be immediately undercut are below my threshold, so I they don't consume my time collecting unsold auctions.

I made more horde glyph profit in 24 hours by crashing the prices than I had in the previous month.  The market has decided that for the majority of glyphs the price really should be 14g.  I merely showed scribe the water; they chose to drink from it.

However, if you want prices to rise, you have to let them.  Yes you will miss out on a sale and will no longer 'own' the market.  Set your threshold closer to your fallback (i.e. where you want to sell glyphs); get it right and you will in turn make more gold.

By then raising the prices I again make more profit.  Apart from when I crashed the glyphs, this too represented more profit than I had for many days.

Profit at last

I got these prices by walking away from the market for 3 days, letting others work themselves into a frenzy to defend 'their' patches and forgetting (or not being able to) re-craft replacements. 


P.s. for those that are wondering - yes I am using my blog to talk to competitors.  However this conversation applies to most realms and factions.

Glyph insanity

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein

I was making a comfortable amount of gold by selling horde side glyphs.  Something I have done before, and will do again.  However recently I have been shutout by a very efficient 1c camping undercutter.  This was to the point where I have sold no glyphs all week, despite posting twice a day.  This compares to 5K per week posting once every 2 days about 3 months ago.


About a month ago, I decided it was time to start restocking glyphs - herb prices were not going down any more and I was out of many of them.  My stock levels are 20 horde glyphs, 20 alliance glyphs.  Even if you have glyphs to start with - that is a blessed lot of glyphs to make.


About a fortnight ago, I put a ceiling on glyph prices of 60g.  Over the weekend I brought over the last of my horde backlog.


I am not capable of 1copper undercutting and camping; either mentally or (normally) timewise.  Over the weekend I made an exception.  To the camping bit - not the 1c. 

This wall of glyphs was brought to you by a 1c undercutter and myself.  Every time he 1c undercut; I posted deeper undercuts in return.  You note that he cancelled postings; I kept postings.


Over the last week, I made zero in glyph sales; today, I made a profit.  Not a large profit but even at 14g I am still in front.  I also stopped posting once I stopped being undercut.  This glyph was in my last batch (about 1/3 of glpyhs) and I waited for an undercut that never happened - so I stopped posting.  My competition however is still stuck with the 18g50 wall on almost all glyphs.


If you try to own a large market at large profit margins, it is inevitable that someone will ... allow you to own the market at negligible profit margins.  This has happened to plenty of players - myself included.


To those fellow competitors on Horde Caelestrasz, nothing personal.  I just am not going to be hounded out of a large profit on glyphs.  I am however perfectly prepared to be hounded out of a negligible market profit.

Change in blogger modified time

Just a short note:

Once upon a time when you wrote a google blogger post and left it as draft for a while, when you finally published it - it kept the old date.  This mattered because of how posts were ordered on your blog; and more importantly - how other websites linking your blog 'aged' your articles.

Well, it appears that this behaviour has changed, and now updates the 'date' of your article simply by editing it.  Hence my Gold bid run advert again became my most recent article over the place sure looks empty since Diablo and what you should do about it article.

For the record; despite having a few newer faces due (a) us losing players to diablo and (b) new players being available due to their guilds all playing diablo; it was our best night for the pot.  Having several players wanting the mount that dropped of madness didn't hurt at all.

Caelestrasz Alliance Gold Bid runs

Do you have too much gold and not enough gear or boss kills?  Are you vain enough to think you bother me on the AH but are missing Deathwing kills?

Are you Squatbanker, Looksgood, Ðitto, Ïke, Xariara, Ultramechia, Scalineatiar, Zalectrial, Rhonstra, Cazzora, Certenton?  (Notfoo is me of course).  If not, do you have 10k to your name?

The gold bid run that I am in has room to carry buyers.

My priest Foofixit has Ilvl 397, 13 best in slot (according to Ask Mr Robot) pieces with another 2 so close that it doesn't matter.  So I must farm dragon soul a lot?  No. On Foofixit, my first Madness kill was 31 March 2012.  I downed Madness (and 4 other bosses) only 5 times. The only boss I downed more is Zon'ozz at 6 times.


As someone who has regularly pugged since forever, I have found the majority of players in the gold bid runs better than average.  We are currently working on Heroic Morchok; but then clearing DS easily (no wipes and very few deaths in normal mode).  If you are willing to buy, we want to take you.

As far as I recall, these are the rules:

• Willing and able to spend 10k on gear
• Have vent
• Patterns, rares, essences 1k minimum bid
• Normal Morchok armor 2.5K min, weapons from 3k min
• Weapons, offhands, trinkets: 7.5k min
• Rogue clusters @500g each (i.e. most bosses in 25 drop 2 for 1k) min (edited)
• Spine, Madness, Heroic bosses 10K min.
• Armor from other bosses 5K min
• Must be on at invite time (7:45pm) and stay till end of run for pot (11:30pm)

I am not the organiser of these runs (but a willing buyer).  Jetfoo (not me - and yes there is another foo out there) had this advert up on the realms forum.

Please whisper or in game mail Jetfoo, Acidburnx, Bbella or Vaul for a calendar invite.  It would not hurt to let them know how much you are prepared to spend.

The Diablo effect

A recession is "two down consecutive quarters of GDP".  A single week of Diablo probably does not qualify, but there may be two consecutive weeks of significantly lower numbers.


The bored have gone away to play. They are not farming; they are not raiding; they are not buying my gems, and are elsewhere instead.

I am currently buying large quantities of herbs, some uncut gems; and selling cut gems.  I am not currently selling a lot of glyphs, but anyone who has read my blog for any length of time probably knows what I do with herbs.


Normally when I buy out cheap herbs, they might temporarily spike in price but restock fairly soon.  That is not happening.  This means that I am significantly affecting the herb stores (possible) or that mass farmers are simply not there (also possible) - Diablo and maybe a bot banning.

Farming normally happens mid-week - not when raids are occurring.  Well this midweek - another small event happened - at least for those that could login.  There was no influx of super cheap herbs.  sob sob.

For gems, I am not being significantly undercut.  Sure there is some competition, but no-one seems to be working terribly hard to squeeze every last gold, and I at least have been earning nice profits.  (something has to pay for my gold bid run habit).  

Midweek I sold next to nothing;  Not from an increase in competition, but from a lack of buyers.  The Stormwind - dwarven district AH looked as (not) busy as the Ironforge AH.


I am still selling expensive Yellow Epic Cata gems (about 1500g) but the Cata Red epic gems are down to about 650g.  There are only two options for this - the drop rates of madness epic gems have changed to favour red or there is serious duping of some gems (which is a whine for another day).  Scatter shot selling (of anything and everything) still works for a nice profit and is keeping me liquid.  I picked up a few extra sales this morning, but expect the weekend raiding to be interesting - and not necessarily in a good way.

However, it is worth looking at new markets at the moment.  Maybe your traditional customers or your old competition is /afk.  Dust off those alts and see if they have something to sell into your AH.

New blogger initiative.

Have you ever thought about writing a blog?

I did - and look what happened. You ended up reading a meta-post about writing blogs. Have a read of the forum at New Blogger Initiative, and possibly read up on Matticus's take at  World of Matticus .

Blogs are work.  They also make you think about the topic you are blogging about.

For a lot of us, Blogging about our activity is as much fun and as engaging as the game itself.  The play of ideas works well.

Write about what you feel passionate about; and what you want others to know.  You may end up with a blog lasting years and hundreds of thousands of pageviews.  You may end up with 4 posts and decide it's not for you.  You won't know until you have tried.

Please leave a comment if:

• If you have recently started a WoW blog with gold related topics, with the URL of your blog; or
• If you have a post you would like hosted here;or
• If you have an appropriate blog with to 8 or more WoW gold related posts over a couple of months.

If you have an Eve ISK making blog; leave a comment over at foo-eve.blogspot.com

Panda stockpile : Pets

This is a speculative post.

My priest has two professions - inscription and engineering.  In case you didn't guess, inscription got a workout.  I took Engineering to fill out my set of professions - plus Jeeves and a mailbox is usefull.  To date; I have not made much gold from this toon.

Mists of Pandaria has something for the engineer in my priest - the opportunity to sell pets. Pet battles will be 'fun'. I have read (can not remember where) that pets will be casual friendly.  You will be encouraged to look at your wins - and will be discouraged from looking at your losses.

My young child that sneaks onto my PC and take my ilvl 390+ tank Elwyn Forrest so he can duel lowbies - and lose; He also still watches pokemon.  He will love pet battles - and is part of the target audience.


I have not bothered much with engineering pets before but have found few articles worth looking at:

• WoW Insider : guide to making BOE pets
• Kaliope's Engineering : Choose type of Miscellaneous, and 'check' small pet.
• MMO Champion Pet battle companion list 

Over the next few months, I will be dedicating a stockpile to making pets and getting boe recipees.

Like all speculative posts, if everyone jumps onto the bandwagon, then we may end up with oversupply and a price crash.  For my personal opinion - I would be reluctant to call it an upcoming petmass just yet, but I do expect a huge demand for pets.

Back in action

PC is back up and restored - woo hoo - or actually - a fair bit of time.  I knew there was a reason I paid them to build my last PC.

I had not been on much during the week - and nearly missed out on a very successful gold bid run on Friday night.  Scheduled start time to madness kill - 3.5 hours.  Very nice for a pug; I have found that many of the richer toons also have done well at raiding. 

I am bleeding gold on those things - so many purples to buy; though not for long.  My tank is nearly normal best in slot and has a few (ugggh) DPS pieces.  My priest still has a bit to buy.  In case you didn't know - I don't DPS much.  On a positive note for the blog, it at least gives me something to go and earn gold - and hence to have something to talk about.

If you are on Caelsetrasz Alliance, and wish to participate in 25 gold bid raiding, either leave a  message here, or in game mail foofixit and I will pass your name onto the organizers.  And yes - DPS are needed even more than tanks and healers (and I am a truly awful melee DPS ).


On a different note; for me; normal Madness is down - on my tank and my healer; still with mostly one night/week raiding (though I have put in a second night a 1/2 dozen times).  This means that I am now looking at the next step - Heroic raiding.

Ideally - the gold bid runs will start some bosses on heroic soon - though I can well imaging the desire to spend a few more weeks farming Madness until the gold rich  have the purples they want.   (Yes I know the organizers read this blog - but that need not stop me from wishing.).  Many (but not all) of my preferred comrades at arms are in the gold bid run, and they are still getting nice drops.  Even I am happy to get a few more pieces.

That leaves the possibility of Saturday nights learning heroic modes.  I have been advised to try Heroic Morchok, then Ultraxian; and that seems reasonable.  If you need a 'destroyer' tank or healer on a (probably) Saturday night, or are interested in joining a group for the same - let me know - again either on this blog or via Caelestrasz Alliance - Foolich or Foofixit.

Good news, bad news

Woo Hoo - I have Mists of Betadaria.  I should be able to find something from this to post about.

Sad news. My PC crashed - again. Last time it was a power supply failure; this time it is a hard drive failure.  Nothing says irritating like a PC deciding to reboot part way through the startup sequence when you are meant to be logging in for a raid.

Fortunately I had a second PC with WoW.  It pulls 3 frames per second at the auction house - so it just might not be up to Ultraxian 25 man.  It was also out of date and I had to install two separate patches.  I did login and let a couple players know that I was unable to raid; and withdrew my acceptance of the (quite successful) 25 man gold bid runs.

For those of a technical mind: I installed Knoppix on a USB drive and used this to copy my files from my failed hard drive to another network drive (1/2 day); and am in the process of running a drive diagnostic (smartmon - another 3 hours).  I will then reformat and re-install my windows installation.

Now; where did I put that windows install disk?

Bags for Mists of Pandaria?

For the record, I am almost certain you will make a profit on bags for Mists of Pandaria.  I am also certain I could make money from Engineering. If you are after a post to cater to your confirmation bias, then you may need to read another blog.

My biggest concern about bags is that we know bags will make gold, so the supply will outstrip the demand; and we won't make a copper coin. Of course I could be wrong, I have been before, and I will be again.  But lets look at what we know, and can demonstrate.

• Players will go from 10 toon slots/account/server to 11 toon slots in Mists
• Bags need cloth
• Cloth is traditionally farmed.
• Cataclysm came out about 7 Dec 2010.
• We have a price series of basic mats from WoW Midas.  Please remember that there are statistical limitations to how far we can push this data, but some trends are very clear.

Now, assuming - as some comments do - bags will be huge sellers in the first days, and make us all a gold cap very early on: some things should happen.

• Other tailors won't cotton on
• Players will leave their bag buying to the last moment.
• Players will want bags on their pandas as soon as they logon - all 11 bag slots.
• Players will be able to put bags on their pandas as soon as they logon.
• As the prepared tailors sell out, there will be a mad consumption of any bag making cloth.  i.e. the prices of cloth with be a reflection of the prices of bags

Similar things should have happened with Worgens/Goblins for Cataclysm

I have build a chart based on the last expansion's inflation numbers.  I have taken the Classic, BC and Northrend cloth prices, turned them into indexes, and compared them against the relevant indexes of prices since cataclysm's launch. 



In looking back; I am looking for items that beat the Northrend index.  Similarly, in the future, I will be looking for items that beat the Cataclysm index.

If bags were important then the cloth line will beat the underlying index.  There may be other reasons why cloth sells or doesn't sell, but bags will be a large factor - especially initially.

You should be able to click on the picture for the full series, and on this link for the source document.

What does this graph tell me?

• Northrend cloth (Frostweave) was the flavour of the month; leaving everything else behind.  And it continues to do so.  Wild swings certainly (and I would expect that given it's a single item on a single realm), but Frostweave cloth out performed everything I have looked at so far.  Assuming Frostweave was turned into bags, this may have been a good bet for Cataclysm.  I wouldn't know - I didnt sell them.  None of the blogs were recommending them either - everyone that suggested bags promoted Netherweave.  Do a google search.  Bragging rights go to the blog that recommended Frostweave bags as the bag to sell before Cataclysm - and to the reader that finds that blog.
• BC cloth (Netherweave) was and still is anaemic; badly underperformed vs the BC index.  There simply was insufficient demand for this cloth to consume the available supply.  I am sure that Netherweave bags sold at a profit, but no explosive demand can be seen.  Not at the start of Cataclysm, and not now.
• Classic cloth (Runecloth not really used for bags) outperformed Netherweave at every point.  It didn't perform as well as the Wrath index, let alone Frostweave.

All the blogs knew netherweave bags would strike it rich.  Only one blogger that I know of explicitly talked down Netherweave bags heading into Cataclysm.  I provided some moral support but merely followed his advice.  Looking at these numbers, this negativity was borne out by the chart above.  Sure you could make gold; but there were better places to do it.

When we look at Mists of Pandaria, there will be a new bag in the mix - Embersilk. 

Assuming that the transition to Mists of Pandaria (MOP)  will be similar to the transition to Cataclysm, if you thought bags were a good bet (and even if you are not sure), Embersilk is likely to be a very good purchase, and frostweave might be OK.  (Caveat emptor; I know my blog can influence prices; so I just bought a lot of embersilk cloth immediately before this post).

Doing this research was useful for me : I have hardened my resolve not to get involved in netherweave bags, I won't touch frostweave bags, but will look at embersilk in a more favourable light.

This post is part of a series on my stockpile for Mists of Pandaria, with thanks to Cold for his reminder that it is time to think about this topic via his April carnival topic.

Finally, I am flattered by the increase in readership (probably because I am writing something useful again).  However, if the blogging community suggest things to look at; we are probably right.  If anyone tells you about a sure fire bet; they could be wrong.  If everyone tells you there is a gold IWIN button - then they are almost certainly wrong.