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Banned: The Most Redonkulus Ways To Easily Make Crazy Gold On The World of Warcraft Auction House

December 21, 2011 Leave a Comment

hearthcast logo 300x300 Banned: The Most Redonkulus Ways To Easily Make Crazy Gold On The World of Warcraft Auction HouseWe hear the goblins say it all the time… “time is money, friend!”… but do we ever stop to think of what that really means?

It’s not just a cliché from an NPC telling us to hurry up with whatever business we’re conducting with them, but rather it is a secret formula that leads to unheard of profits within the game.

Let’s look at some basic auction house secrets explained by some simple clichés.

Keep Your Nose To The Grindstone!

Over on Hearthcast, Carnage gives a weekly tip with a grind that results in pretty good returns. That grind usually involes going somewhere, killing someone, and looting something… over and over again, then taking that something you got frome someone somewhere and selling it on the auction house for crazy gold.

Location, Location, Location!

Patterns, recipes, limited quantity items, and tradeskill ingredients are bought from vendors for mere silver and sold on the auction house for easy profits every day.

One Mans Trash is Another Mans Treasure!

BOE items you can’t use for any of your toons, items you bought with extra Justice Points, raw materials from gathering skills, things from random chests or lockboxes… even some trivial grey items that you fished up… all of them hold a value to someone else on the Auction House

Another Day Another Dollar!

When I was conducting the “Phatwallet Experiment”, (where i took a level 1 toon, ported to a major city, was given 100 gold, and could only make gold by way of reselling vendor items or relisting auction house items) I practically lived at the AH. I spent hours each day scanning the auctions, looking for deals. I made a ton of gold, the key being the consistency in which I was performing my actions.

Measure Up To The Business At Hand

Here’s a secret for you: whenever I leave the game to look up information, and I have to actually “work” for that information, I make a mental note of it. Case in point, Winter Veil and ginger bread cookies. I had a slightly difficult time locating the vendor in Orgrimar who sells the recipe. The information online wasn’t all in one place. It took effort to find out who sold it, their general area, and their name. Once I found them (10 steps away from the quest giver),I bought 21 recipes. One for me, 20 to list on the Auction House…. at 10 to 15 gold each. I sold out within minutes, and went back to buy more.

Laughing All The Way To The Bank

When I make a big sale on the Auction House that fits into the clichés above, it makes me giddy! I smile, and sometimes laugh, at how easy it is sometimes to make gold on the AH in WOW.

So remember, when you’re wandering about Azeroth, pay attention to the very things around you – they could be untapped piles of gold!

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Auctionator Proves To Be Better Than Auctioneer For This World Of Warcraft Auction House Player

December 7, 2011 9 Comments

I was an avid Auctioneer user, up to patch 4.3, which left me with a broken addon making the Auction House rather useless to me. By Auctioneer not being up to speed with their add on, they gave me no choice but to seek another solution.

Auctionator Proves To Be Better Than Auctioneer For This World Of Warcraft Auction House Player

4.3 left me with a broken Auctioneer, but gave me the opportunity to expand my horizons by allowing me the opportunity to install Auctionator.

Within just a few moments after installing Auctionator, I was incredibly impressed – and slightly confused.

I visited the Auction House, and, logically, scanned the AH. Instead of the 20+ minutes Auctioneer took, I was done with the scan within seconds. What had I done wrong? Nothing. It’s simply a better system. (Time is money, friend!)

Auctionator Basic Setup

auctionator basic options Auctionator Proves To Be Better Than Auctioneer For This World Of Warcraft Auction House Player
Enable alt-key shortcut allows me to alt-click an item in my bag and have it automatically post to the AH.
The other options are pretty straight forward, but you can easily see they’re designed to save the user time.

Auctionator Tool Tips

auctionator tooltips Auctionator Proves To Be Better Than Auctioneer For This World Of Warcraft Auction House Player
Again, pretty straight forward tool tips. These will give you very good pricing information on the items you loot. I like to get the individual price first, and then the stack price when I hold down the shift key.

Auctionator Undercutting

auctionator undercutting Auctionator Proves To Be Better Than Auctioneer For This World Of Warcraft Auction House Player
FINALLY, a semi-decent way to logically undercut someone! These are the defaults it comes with. You’ll most likely want to tweak those settings out a bit for your server. I am so happy to have options in an undercut market place!

Sellling With Auctionator

In Auctionators Basic Options, my default tab is set to SELL, and my bags automatically open up. That means as soon as I interact with the Auction House NPC, I’m ready to go. Then I just Alt-Click on the item in my bag, and it’s posted up for me.
auctionator create multiple auctions Auctionator Proves To Be Better Than Auctioneer For This World Of Warcraft Auction House Player
I will point out that you need to tell Auctionator how many stacks of how many you’re going to sell. 2 stacks of 20, 4 of 10… your choice. It does tell you the max, but it can be hard to see, as it’s kind of greyed out under the option box. As soon as you make your choice, it will create the auctions you set.
auctionator creating 1 of 2 Auctionator Proves To Be Better Than Auctioneer For This World Of Warcraft Auction House Player

Buying With Auctionator

Sometimes, you gotta buy.. ok, a lot of the time… and, Auctionator makes it super easy. Shopping lists? Remembering what I searched for? REALLY? AWESOME
auctionator shopping list Auctionator Proves To Be Better Than Auctioneer For This World Of Warcraft Auction House Player
Small Eggs are a wonderful investment (and even better if you farm them!). People will toss a stack of 20 up for 20 gold, but when a seasonal even that requires Small Eggs comes up, they’ll easily sell for 40-50 gold… And, of course, Auctionator makes it easy to buy multiples!
auctionator multiple buys Auctionator Proves To Be Better Than Auctioneer For This World Of Warcraft Auction House Player

Auctionator Checks For Undercutters

While there are some other addons that do this for you, I like that this one is inside Auctionator. You scan, it tells you if you’re being undercut, and then lets you start cancelling your auctions.
auctionator undercut check Auctionator Proves To Be Better Than Auctioneer For This World Of Warcraft Auction House Player
Click the start cancelling button, and it does the work for you…
auctionator cancelled Auctionator Proves To Be Better Than Auctioneer For This World Of Warcraft Auction House Player
Then simply relist the items to undercut the person undercutting you – let the wars begin!
Coincidently, when I was screen shotting this stuff for this article…
auctionator a buyer has been found Auctionator Proves To Be Better Than Auctioneer For This World Of Warcraft Auction House Player
I managed to make a quick couple hundred gold! icon wink Auctionator Proves To Be Better Than Auctioneer For This World Of Warcraft Auction House Player

I also mentioned on Twitter that Auctionator pulled in an accidental 2K for me. It’s true. While I was toying around with the features to decide if I wanted to stay with Auctionator or wait around for the other guys to figure things out, I found over 2K gold worth of stuff I had lying around, over priced, or poorly listed. With just the help of the tool tips and the scans, I was able to turn 2K in less than 30 minutes, all by accident.

Why Auctionator Proves To Be Better Than Auctioneer For This World Of Warcraft Auction House Player

    Speed Of Auction House Scanning
    More Fluid Options For Selling
    Better Undercutting Scanning
    Tool Tips With Options!
    Shopping Lists!
    Designed To Sell And Make You Gold!

It’s my honest opinion that Auctionator was extremely well thought out, and that with just a few moments of tinkering, the average player could be easily on their way to making gold in the Auction House.

I installed Auctionator using the Curse Addon Manager. It was painless, and I highly recommend it as the tool for the World of Warcraft Auction House
~Rewt

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Timing on The World Of Warcraft Auction House

July 26, 2011 Leave a Comment

Timing on The World Of Warcraft Auction House

Ah, the joys of weekend warriors, and what they mean to the World of Warcraft Gold Maker. They show up Friday evening, buy a bunch of materials, toss up a bunch of Greens, cloth, and other nick-nacks, and are gone by late Sunday night.

The three things that make a difference for physical stores is “location, location, location”. The same could be said for the World of Warcraft Auction House, just make it “timing, timing, timing”.

We all know the Weekend Warriors will be invading the servers, and if we neglect to take advantage of that, we’re losing out on a shedload of gold. Timing on The World Of Warcraft Auction House

What do you do right after you log in?

When I talk to other WoW Players (BTW, BRK told me he’s Raiding up to 3 nights a week now!), I make a point to ask them about their routines. For the most part, people tell me they log in, press I, queue up for a Random, and then go about their business. Be it Questing, doing Daily’s, some Farming. After a couple Dungeons, they head to the Auction House to unload their loot.

The WoW Gold Maker has a different Schedule: Log in, maybe press I, head to the World of Warcraft Auction House to check on things, run a Scan, see how prices are, see if they can pick up anything on the cheap, etc. Then they work on their professions, and maybe go do some farming. It’s all about Timing on The World Of Warcraft Auction House.

It’s not all about us, you know!

As Gold Makers, we need to know how the other half lives so we can meet their demands – the old “See a need, fill a need” scenario. Find out Raid Schedules from the bigger guilds on your server, find out what positions they’re advertising for. At one time on my server, there was a big demand for Enchanters. That translates into higher prices for Enchants on the Auction House. I bought a bunch of the high end Enchants, and relisted them at a higher price – easily turning them for a profit. Now, my server is quite Enchanter happy, and prices have become quite stable. Consequently, I’m not in the Enchant Reselling business anymore. Timing on The World Of Warcraft Auction House.

Right now, Patterns seem to be in high demand, and as was pointed out in last weeks entry, there are some wonderful addons to help locate patterns to resell on the Auction House. Since the demand is there, right now, I’m in the Pattern Reselling Business. Once the timing on that niche has gone away, I’ll move on to the next big thing.

Knowing how your server ebbs and flows is important, and of course, will vary slightly from server to server. It doesn’t take much to figure out either. I like to use Bitflarelabs.com’s Realm Status Tracker (http://rst.bitflarelabs.com) to check Queue Times on my server, which gives me a pretty good idea of at least what’s going on. Combine that knowledge with Trade and General Chat, and I pretty much feel like I have my hand on the pulse of my server.

So what’s all this nonsense about timing mean, anyhow?

I’ve recently found Highland Spring Water is selling quite well. I buy it in Stormwind, for just over 1 Gold, and sell a stack of 20 for 40-50 gold easily on Friday afternoons. My guess is that Raiders are using the Remote Auction House to prep for raids later that night. Like I said, it’s all about Timing on The World Of Warcraft Auction House.

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WoW Scams 101: Auction House Scam #3 – “NPC” COD Scam

July 12, 2011 2 Comments

mailfraud 300x198 WoW Scams 101: Auction House Scam #3 NPC COD ScamWoW Scams 101: Auction House Scam #3 – “NPC” COD Scam

In “WoW Scams 101″, I’m going to take a pretty good look at how some ongoing “scams” work in WoW. Most of them can be easily spotted and avoided by following the simple mantra of “if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is”, however, these grifts still warrant some light shedding.

Auction House Scam #3 – “NPC” COD Scam

“The best things in life are free, but you can save them for the birds and bees…” ~The Beatles

Blizzard Doesn’t Randomly Give Anything Away – Much Less Charge You For It.

The “NPC” COD Scam has been around a while, and while Blizzard has cracked down on it, it still persists today.

Here’s the basics:

“The Mark” finds themselves hanging out in General Chat or Trade Chat asking questions or making comments that would generally label them as a new or inexperienced player. All the Grifter has to do is watch and wait. Once they’ve identified their Mark, they go to work.

The Grifter will write a very well crafted (well, sometimes anyhow) letter that sounds like it’s from an NPC in the game. They’ll use a crafty character name that could pass off as something Blizzard would actually have in the game. The message can be welcoming them to the game, congratulating them on an achievment, or even claiming to resolve an issue the player might have been having with a quest. Anything that will not raise too much concern. The letter will also contain a wrapped gift, and a COD amount… usually not too high, because, remember, the marks are usually new players to the game.

The mark reads the letter, sees the package, and pays the COD rate. Then they open the wrapped gift and usually get a piece of trash not worth anything near the amount of gold they just paid.

Blizzard Doesn’t Randomly Give Anything Away – Much Less Charge You For It.

Usually this scam goes by unreported, because the mark doesn’t even know they got scammed. They think that what they got was somehow part of the game. They’ll keep the item in their bags or bank and wait until they’re supposed to use it.

I’ve spoken with a couple of people who have fallen victim to this scam, but only realized they’d been scammed quite some time later – I’m talking months or years later. By then, it doesn’t really matter. 10 gold at level cap isn’t a big deal. 10 gold when you’re starting out is, but now that so much time has passed, people don’t worry about it.

How To Avoid The Trade Chat Shuffle Scam

I’ve gotten items in the mail from NPC’s before. I’ve gotten quest rewards, pets, mounts, beer of the month, and a whole lof of other things – it’s a common occourance. COD is also commonplace in the World of Warcraft. It’s the unrequested COD that has a very inticing letter that should raise flags for you. Did you ask for it? Was it part of something you were doign in the game, or is it related to something you were complaining or talking about in chat?

Why The Trade Chat Shuffle Scam Won’t Go Away

Since this scam goes largely unreported, and since Blizzard can’t go around banning names that resemble their own NPC names, and since there are still new people joining the game each day… this scam will be around a while.

What To Do If You See The Trade Chat Shuffle Scam

If you ever get a suspicious email (in or out of the game, for that matter), let a GM know. If you get the NPC COD scam, before you pay any gold, let a GM it out. You may wait a bit, but the evidince will be there for the GM to look at, live. It’s much easier for them to just cancel the email than it is to get your gold back to you.

Auction House Scam #3 – “NPC” COD Scam

“The best things in life are free, but you can save them for the birds and bees…” ~The Beatles

Don’t forget to check out Hearthcast over at http://www.hearthcast.com . Hearthcast – it’s about World of Warcraft.

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WoW Scams 101: Auction House Scam #2 – The Trade Chat Shuffle

July 5, 2011 6 Comments

scam 300x225 WoW Scams 101: Auction House Scam #2 The Trade Chat Shuffle

WoW Scams 101: Auction House Scam #2 – The Trade Chat Shuffle

In “WoW Scams 101″, I’m going to take a pretty good look at how some ongoing “scams” work in WoW. Most of them can be easily spotted and avoided by following the simple mantra of “if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is”, however, these grifts still warrant some light shedding.

Auction House Scam #2 – The Trade Chat Shuffle

Another preface before I get into this: This does not happen all the time. There are legitimate deals made in Trade Chat quite often.

The Trade Chat Shuffle is all about timing, convenience, savings, and service.

This Auction House Scam can happen various ways, but the jist of it is the same:

Player A has an item that Player B is looking for. One of them advertises in Trade Chat that they want to buy or sell said item, and the other messages them indicating they want to buy or sell that item. Bottom line, this is a player to player transaction that is happening off the auction house.

Price negotiation starts. The buyer, of course, wants a price significantly lower than the AH. The seller wants something close to the going rate. The buyer throws out terms like, “guaranteed sale”, “no auction house fees”, “no competition”, “no waiting” as they try to bring the selling price back down. The buyer may even play the sympathy card: “I have no gold”, “I’m a lowbie”, “I’m just starting out” .The seller agrees. A deal is made. The item is sold to the buyer.

The buyer then turns around, runs over to the AH, and puts that item up for market value, thus making a profit on the deal.

Remember, The Trade Chat Shuffle is all about timing, convenience, savings, and service.

Timing

Knowing what items are selling well on the Auction House is important. Monitor the Auction House for trending items, and watch for Trade Trolls as they try to pull this scam off.

Convenience

The buyer was partially right. With Trade Chat, you don’t have Auction House fees. However, the rest of what they said was garbage. There is competition with other people in Trade Chat, it’s not a guaranteed sale (you could both disagree on price), there is time loss (waiting) as you’re getting to the persons location (or they yours) and negiotiating. However, the buyer will push the convenience factor quite heavily.

Savings

The “No Auction House Fees” term is tossed around like yesterdays fruit salad. It’s total hogwash, too. What the Auction House doesn’t charge you, the buyer will try to by inflating the price. Often times, sellers come out worse that if they sold the item on the Auction House.

Service

Really, there was no service provided. Only a 3 card monty game of service. “I saved you from having to put the item on the Auction House” is not a service – it’s a scam.

How To Avoid The Trade Chat Shuffle Scam

Avoiding the Trade Chat Shuffle Scam is, again, fairly simple: Know your market, and excercise patience. If you have a high supply item, hang on to it. Wait for the supply to drop, then list it. If you’ve got a high demand item, knowing the real worth and value of the item is curcial.

Why The Trade Chat Shuffle Scam Won’t Go Away

There are too many impatient and greedy people in WoW who don’t take the time to install simple addons that will let them know the value of the items they’re trying to sell.

What To Do If You See The Trade Chat Shuffle Scam

Usually, when I see it, I call the person out in Trade Chat. Not the best practice, I know – but it’s one that gets temporary results. People love to jump on the hate-wagon, and usually the Scammer will log off for a couple of hours.

The Trade Chat Shuffle is all about timing, convenience, savings, and service. All of which, the Auction House readily supplies, by default, in the World of Warcraft.

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WoW Scams 101: Scam #1 – Lower Than AH Doesn’t Always Mean Best Price For WoW Gear Or Items

June 14, 2011 4 Comments

scam 300x225 WoW Scams 101: Scam #1 Lower Than AH Doesnt Always Mean Best Price For WoW Gear Or ItemsIn “WoW Scams 101″, I’m going to take a pretty good look at how some ongoing “scams” work in WoW. Most of them can be easily spotted and avoided by following the simple mantra of “if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is”, however, these grifts still warrant some light shedding.

Scam #1 – Lower Than AH Doesn’t Always Mean Best Price For WoW Gear Or Items

The vast majority of WoW Players have seen it before; someone jumps into Trade Chat (or General chat, but we’ll leave that for someone else to talk about) and says, “Hey, I’ve got <insert item name here> for <insert gold amount here>. That’s <insert another gold amount here> gold less than current price on the Auction House!”.

So, you being the careful, informed buyer that you are, check the Auction House. Sure enough, <instert item name here> is listed for <insert item gold price here>, which is indeed <insert gold difference here> gold more expensive than what the person in Trade Chat is selling it for. It must be a good deal!

Stop. Right. There.

Here’s the grift: A person jumps on Alt #1, checks the AH for <insert item name here>. If it’s not listed, they list it at a grossly inflated rate. One so high it’ll never sell. They then quickly swap toon, jumping on Alt #2, and start posting in Trade Chat about wanting to sell <insert item name here> for less that what the one in the Auction House is currently selling for. If they sell it, they just jump back on Alt #1, and cancel the Auction, and let it cool off for a bit… then wash, rinse, repeat.

How to spot and avoid this scam.

The savvy scammers won’t make the item they’re selling linkable. Because if you have addons that keep historical scan data, this scam is pretty trivial to avoid. Just click on the linked item, and a pop up will give you enough information to make an informed decision. Without addons, unless you know the price of <insert item name here> this task becomes a little more difficult, but not impossible. Watch Trade Chat a bit, or ask questions about the price of the item in Trade Chat. A lot of times, people call out the scammer for trying to pull this scam off. Remember, Lower Than AH Doesn’t Always Mean Best Price For WoW Gear Or Items.

Why this scam won’t go away.

The World of Warcraft is constantly getting new players, so to quote <insert who you really think said this here>, “There’s a sucker born every minute” (<a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%27s_a_sucker_born_every_minute” target=”_new”/>see what I mean</a>). This scam is not just pulled on new players though. Often times, it’s seasoned players who suddenly think they’ve come up with a brilliant idea to make gold in WoW. Sadly, they think this grift has never been tried before.

What to do if you see this scam.

Avoid it. Keep on doing whatever it was you were doing. Don’t add any fuel to any fires, don’t trash anybody… just move on. Blizzard’s not going to do anything about it, so don’t bother submitting a ticket for it. Unfortunately, when enough people are involved in anything, someone will try to scam someone else…

Lower Than AH Doesn’t Always Mean Best Price For WoW Gear Or Items

~Rewt

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