I get my glyphs for free because I farmed all the mats myself; or so the argument goes.
Well, I suppose if you do not value your time at all, you might consider them free.
Me; well I place a value on my time. It's valuable. I don't really have that much time. Even when I do have time to spare, I want to be doing 'stuff' with it. I don't remember the last time I was stuck for 'something' to do. (Doctor's waiting rooms not withstanding; but even there I read blog posts).
When I go to work in real life each day, I don't earn a salary for free; I earn it with my time; skills and effort.
When I am levelling another alt, I am doing it to satisfy the collector on me. The collector in me had 2 hours of satisfaction in the last month. While he was levelling he was also gathering; performing (low level) valuable tasks. By gathering I increased my wealth. It did not mean those mats I got were free, merely a compensation for my time.
The same goes for herbalist/scribes. You are making value with herbalism. You could easily stop at the herbing and sell the mats. This sets a floor for the value of your herbs.
By milling your are also creating value. Your inks can be sold easily; lets call it 4g per ink for a quick sale of blackfallow, and 12g for a quick sale of inferno (and prices are still falling).
Now, you can decide to cross subsidize. If you manage to get better prices for your infernos (either by crafting cards yourself or simply from a higher sale price), then you have profit to be made. You could also cross subsidise your cards by doing dailies and using the profit from it to sell your cards 'cheap'. There is no difference. If you don't value your time, then it doesn't matter: Give your cards away - you have plenty of free time to make more.
As for me, my time has value. So do my herbs, glyphs, cards and inks.
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Why do I get the feeling this was prompted by my comment over at Critical Goblin?
ReplyDeleteI never said ink was free. I said Glyphs costs most scribes less than 10g to me, then elaborated how if you mill your own herbs Blackfallow Ink costs you less around 3.33g at the most.
I never said ink was "free" and I don't sell it at my cost either. In fact I almost never sell it and I'll even buy it slightly higher than my cost sometimes.
Hi MoxNix. There are times that your feelings are correct.
ReplyDeleteOk. It's good that you agree that inks have a base value.
If you sell glyphs made from those inks at less than 3 times your cost value, then you are cross subsidising.
Sometimes it is worth it for unrelated markets. In Australia, the big supermarket chains do this with milk to gain and promote customer loyalty. No such reason exists in WoW.
If your time is cheap enough, you can subsidise glyphs by doing dailies. You can also subsidise glyhs by selling inferno ink.
Any time that you are selling glyphs made from (converting) blackfallow ink, at less than 3 times the price you can sell blackfallow ink for, you are taking a loss.
Yeah, a lot of people don't understand opportunity cost.
ReplyDeleteIn the time you spend farming herbs, you could be doing more valuable activities - either gold-wise or IRL-priority-wise.
If this discussion interests you, different points of view are available over at critical goblin criticalgoblin.blogspot.com and WoW Midas wowmidas.com.
ReplyDeleteThe comments on CG's site are also of interest.
I would also re-itereate one of CG's comment. Comments here, and posts on other blogs provide me with much of my inspiration for new articles.
Speaking of free mats...
ReplyDeleteThis guy's been giving me some random stuff free the last few days. I got to talking to him tonight and found out he's working on the flask achievement for his guild. He farms his own herbs and VENDORS most of the flasks.
Now I have a deal with him to CoD all the flasks he makes to me at about what it costs me to make them. :)
@MoxNix's supplier of flasks - sob sob.
ReplyDelete@MoxNix; apparently you are being generous. All he needs is vendor prices. Oh well; still win/win.