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Making Gold In WoW: Looking Back For Improvement

March 7, 2012 Leave a Comment

This gold making blog post is being written as an entry into the March WoW Gold Blogging Carnival over at Cold’s Gold Factory.  Each month at Cold’s Gold Factory, a variety of WoW gold bloggers contribute articles all written on a specific topic chosen by the gold blogging carnivals host.  Be sure head over and check out all of the other great entries in this month’s carnival.  This month’s carnival topic asks us:

Using your knowledge that you have gained from auction house experience:  If you were starting over as a gold maker, what is one thing you would do differently than the first time, and why?

How Would I Change The Ways I Made Gold In WoW?

The biggest and most obvious change that I would make is that I would have started using auction house add-ons much much earlier. 

Back when I first started blogging, I often would talk about how I used hardly any add-ons at all.  The main reason I was so adamant against using auction house add-ons was because I wanted to feel like I had a sense of accomplishing the gold making aspects of World of Warcraft completely on my own.  I did not need add-ons to do it for me.  I was doing all of the math, the cross references, the comparisons, the spreadsheets, and every single thing that an add-on does for you.  I have a brain and could think on my own.  I didn’t need some stupid add-on to tell me what to do.

I also felt that a heavy dependance on auction house add-ons was a crutch that players leaned on too heavily.  By not using add-ons, I was unhampered on patch days, when others were stuck scrambling to find work arounds for their add-ons.  While those players were lost, I was still able to plug away on my auction house routine.

My other fear was that a reliance on add-ons would lead to a weaker understanding of the auction house markets.  I still believe that to this day, but since I made it to the Wrath gold cap without any add-ons I had a pretty good understanding of how all of the markets rise & fall and interact with each other.  I still don’t think a player should jump right into ways to make gold on the auction house by using add-ons.  You should learn how the markets interact and how the ebb and flow prior to installing the auction house add-ons. 

Today I wish I would have started using the basic WoW auction house add-ons much earlier.  Not immediately, but once I had a good understanding of how the WoW auction house and WoW gold making systems worked together.  Auctioneer was a great tool that helped save me a lot of time once I finally started using it.  Then when I finally made the switch to the Auctionator / TradeSkillMaster combination I really started to save a ton of time.  Less time in the auction house, meant more time for actually playing the rest of the game.  Add-ons can decrease your time relisting, posting, crafting, researching, purchasing, comparing, farming, and barking. 

So don’t be afraid of using add-ons to help you make gold in WoW.  I do recommend getting a basic understanding of the auction house before installing auction house add-ons.  If you do, your overall gold making process will flow more smoothly, you will understand what the add-on is actually doing, and you will be able to go back to the old fashioned approach when your add-ons get broken after patches.

 

 

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I Want To Make Gold In WoW, But Don’t Know Where To Start

January 11, 2012 Leave a Comment

Making Gold In WoW Isn’t As Hard As You Think

Anyone can make gold in WoW.  Whether your goal is to reach the 1 million single player gold cap or just to make enough gold in WoW to pay for your in-game WoW expenses, you can do it.  With a little studying, practice, and experimentation, you can be rivaling the best gold makers in no time.  For a little goblin, the World of Warcraft auction house can be a scary and intimidating place.  The big question is where do you start?  What market should you get into?

Make Gold In WoW – Where To Start?

There are a ton of markets and niches to choose from when making gold in the World of Warcraft acution house.  There are a ton of craftable items you could make.  There are items to buy for cheap and sell for a higher price.  There are vendor recipes to buy and flip for more gold.  Items you loot can be sold for more on the auction house than an npc vendor would pay you.  It’s all confusing for a new player or a new auctioneer (little goblin).  Here is my best advice I can give to anyone looking to make gold in WoW and get started in their first auction house markets.

Start With What You Already Know

Yes, that’s right.  Start with what you already know.  What type of player are you?  Each individual player has more knowledge in some areas than other areas of the game.  This individual learning is derived from what types of activities you have the most experience from within the game of WoW. 

When I first started in the auction house, I had 1 main character, my Rogue Skinning Leatherworker.  I liked to quest and was questing all over Azeroth.  How did this help me?  One of my very first niche markets I entered (back in Vanilla WoW) was the “Quest Required Items” market.  My love of questing had compiled me a nice long list of items that I found were needed for specific quests or subquests (remember Dire Maul-North Tribute Runs?) in the game.  Because of all of the questing I had done, my personal experiences led me to sell items that I too at one point had to craft myself or purchase to complete those quests.  Some of those items I sold within the “Quest Required Items” market were:

  • Deadly Blunderbuss (Ashenvale Quest)
  • Mithril Casing (Amy-E Ape Escort)
  • Thorium Widgets (Frost Trap In DM-N)
  • Darkmoon Faire Turn In Items (Old Darkmoon Faire)
  • Weapons and Armor Specialty Quests (Blacksmithing Specs)
  • Advanced Target Dummy (Centaur Quest Chain)

I posted what I knew about to get me started making gold in WoW.  As I learned more, I expanded my markets. I didn’t sell those weapons and armor required for the Blacksmithing specialty quest chains, until I had leveled my Blacksmith. 

Ideas For You To Make Gold In New Markets

If you PvP you understand what PvP players use more than a non-PvP player.  If you are a tank, you have a better understanding of what gems amd enchants a tank would use.  If you are a Twinker, then you understand twink gear, twink enchants, and twink buff items better than most.  If you are into completing armor sets for Transmogrification, then you understand the market better than any non-moggers. 

Maybe you are a rogue.  If so, you know how hard it can be to find good daggers while leveling.  I was on a constant look out for nice +agi leveling daggers to flip for a nice profit.  I learned that strictly from being a dagger using rogue myself. 

So think about what you do and what you already know and buy for your own characters.  Something within your current knowledge is the best plae to start looking to make gold in WoW.  Once you have mastered a few of those markets, then you can start to look into newer markets for even more ways to make gold.

Anyone else have any good examples of first markets they entered because they already knew the ins and outs from regular in game experience?

 

wow warcraft alliance horde achivement profession leveling guide
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Making Gold Off Of The New Player Infux

January 7, 2012 Leave a Comment
babycomputer Making Gold Off Of The New Player Infux

I'm coming for you, Wes!

New Players – New Opportunities To Make Gold

Lately in World of Warcraft, we have been seeing the influx of new players that got WoW for Christmas.  These new players are entering the game and are a new source of income for those of us that are into making gold in WoW.  While many of these brand new players can’t afford much from the auction house yet, there are a few areas that you should pay special attention to.  It has been proven year after year that the influx of new players creates new opportunities to make gold in WoW.  Let’s take a look at a couple of historically accurate markets as well as a brand new market that these new players will help contribute to.

Netherweave Bags

The first major problem that any new player runs into is not having enough bag space.  Netherweave Bags have long been the standard for new players.  Even after breaking a million gold, I am still crafting and selling those dang Netherweave Bags.  Why?  They are one of the most consistent items in the game, since they are bought by both alts and new players.  With the wave of new players ntering WoW since Christmas, I have seen the sales of NW Bags pick up.  They are even selling for close to double what I would normally sell them for.  So don’t forget to keep your tailor making those Netherweave Bags.

Poorly Priced Items

With an influx of new players, comes an influx of poorly priced goods on the auction house.  New players don’t really have a good grasp on what items are really worth.  They just tend to try out the auction house first by selling the items they collect while questing.  Instead of selling them to the npc vendors, they may experiment with trying to sell the same items for more on the auction house in WoW.  Many times you will find items listed for far more than they are worth.  Bottle-neck crafting tems like Perfect Deviate Scales, Large Fangs, Spider Silk, Slimy Murloc Scales, and Heavy Hides are good examples of items that you can find for cheap.  So be sure to keep looking for good crafting materials that may be tossed up at too low of a price.  Then you can use those in crafting or simply to flip for a profit.

Transmogrification Gear To Flip

Transmogrification is an emerging market, still in its infancy on many servers.  Transmogrification, however, is a new market for making gold in WoW.  Like the poorly priced crafting materials mentioned above, you will see low level armor tossed up on the auction house for very cheap.  If you are able to find some of the gear that is part of a set then you can probably make easy gold flipping the items to a much more appropriate price.  I myself have been buying green (uncommon) robes that are unique looking or have a cool pattern on them.  I turn around and flip those sames robes to Moggers (short for Transmogrifiers) for 400-450 gold each.  Robes are a low entry cost market and a good area to get your feet wet with the emerging Mogging trend.  Originally I wasn’t too hyped on the whole Mogging market as a gold making strategy, but I was wrong.  The Mogfather (@DEAzeroth on twitter) has opened my eyes to the huge profit potential of playing within the gear markets for transmogrification.  And now is a great time to build your stock levels as new players are throwing stuff on the auction houses at incorrect prizes.

 

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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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Auction House Junkies & MFC Testimonial

October 28, 2011 1 Comment

Here is a response from a listener of the Auction House Junkies podcast where Wes of

CappedbyCata.com and I, Cold of ColdsGoldFactory.blogspot.com, teach you how to make

gold in WoW. Reading gold blogs is just one way to get your information on ways to

make gold in WoW. Don’t forget to check out the WoW gold making podcast options for

a different delivery method. Some players love the gold blogs, some listen only to

the podcasts, but a wise goblin will both listen to gold podcasts and real the gold

making blogs.  Read more about Barking MFCs and get tips for Barks.





An Auction House Junkies And Mysterious Fortune Card Barking Testimonial


Dear Cold,

I recently discovered your podcast "Auction House Junkies" and I have to 
say I love it so far. I'm trying to catch up with all the episodes I 
missed and am really impressed by the way you guys go through things. 
Usually when I see a gold making technique it is all about "What to do 
for getting money out of it", but you guys really go through the 
mechanics behind it, why an item sells and what it's used for, which 
actually helped me understand the market better and develop my own 
gold-making techniques, so for this, i am really grateful ! I really 
hope this podcast will see many more episodes coming !

Now as I am writing this email, I am still under a certain adrenaline rush.
I had decided to drop tailoring. I thought it wasn't a profession for 
me. And after hearing all you said about mysterious fortune cards, i 
decided i would give it a try. Inscription is a profession i hadn't 
looked enough into and that still seemed interesting to me.

It was a pain to level since it's really hard to find level-appropriate 
herbs. It took hours, and a lot of money, at some point I thought I was 
going to give up, until i finally reached the holy 450. I started 
leveling from there solely on Mysterious Fortune Cards.
I put them for sale on the auction house and waited for hours, and 
nothing had actually happened. The sales were really average, and I 
ended up with quite a lot of leftovers, I was a bit disappointed by the 
technique I must say.


Then I remembered you said "If you don't bark, people won't buy it", and 
I Decided to give it a shot. I'm not good with barking and annoying 
people on the trade chat, but I was kind of desperate since all my 
economies had gone into that market.


I sent a message on the trade chat, and I SWEAR in a matter of...what, 
seconds? About 10 seconds at most, my chat was flooded with "A buyer has 
been found for your auction of Mysterious Fortune Cards" and all my 
stock was gone in not even a minute !!


This happened about 15 minutes ago as i am writing this email and I'm 
still all excited and already waiting next to my mailbox to get the 
money and start buying more herbs to repeat the process.

That's all for my little story. All I want to add is a big THANK YOU. 
Thank you for your amazing tips, thank you for your awesome podcast, and 
thank you for keeping all the AH-addicts like me entertained !

Best regards !

-Reeve
Worgen Druid, EU Azjol-Nerub






				

				

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Tuesday Night Is WoW Upgrade Night

				
				

				June 27, 2011 Leave a Comment 
				


				

				
E7212315803 Tuesday Night Is WoW Upgrade Night


Tuesdays Are Great Days To Sell


As I previously mentioned in an earlier post here at Goldgrub’s Goblin Academy on The Market Cycles of Warcraft, Tuesday nights are upgrade nights.  Today we will dig a little deeper to help you newer auctioneers understand why it is a great night to profit on the auction house.  Then we will look at what items are the best movers on Tuesday nights.  If you could only log in and sell items on one day a week, I would choose Tuesday evenings.


What Happens On Tuesdays?


    

  • Raid Instances Reset
    • 

  • Weekly Raids Reset
    • 

  • Weekly Dungeons Reset
    • 

  • Weekly Guild Challenges Reset
    • 

  • Weekly Guild Rep Reset
    • 

  • PvP Arena Seasons Reset (not every week, just as the season expires)
    • 

  • PvP Arena Points Are Awarded
    • 

  • New WoW Patches Go Live (on patch weeks)
    • 

  • More Players Log In As Everything Is Resetting Fresh
    • 

  • Weekly Maintenance
    • 

  • Many Auctions Expire During The Tuesday Maintenance
    • 



Many of these factors contribute to the swing in sales on Tuesday nights.  Tuesday nights are upgrade nights because many more players are logging in and running dungeons and raids for new gear.  Arena points are awarded and allow the purchase of new PvP gear and weapons.  Many more players log in on Tuesday (since everything is resetting), which rivals the online population of the weekends.   With the overall increase in players logging in, there are more shoppers overall than most nights of the week.  And many players will be getting new gear upgrades, which leads them to the auction house to further maximize that gear with enchants, enhancements, gems, etc.


What To Sell On Tuesdays


There are 2 main areas to focus on for easy sales on Tuesday nights in World of Warcraft.  You should focus on selling gear upgrades for all of the new gear players receive that is not enchanted, has empty gem sockets, and no enhancements.  The other area to focus on is to supply items that raiders and other players will be buying prior to their Tuesday night adventuring.  This would include items like Flasks, Buff Foods, Potions, etc.  Other items can tend to sell better on Tuesdays, just because there are more players online and shopping in the auction house.  Items that sell better when there are more players online are companion pets and recipes (in my experience).


Craftables That Sell Well or Better On Tuesdays


    

  • Enchant Scrolls for Gear & Weapons
    • 

  • Gems
    • 

  • Belt Buckles
    • 

  • Weapon Chains
    • 

  • Shield Spikes
    • 

  • Buff Foods
    • 

  • Potions
    • 

  • Flasks
    • 

  • Adventurer’s Tomes
    • 

  • Mysterious Fortune Cards (more players online, means more buyers)
    • 

  • Companion Pets
    • 

  • Recipes, Schematics, Formulas, etc.
    • 



So get out there little goblins and get to raking in those gold coins on Tuesday evenings.  It’s a good idea to post your items for 48 hours on Tuesdays as there will be a spillover of increased sales as its near impossible to complete everything on Tuesday nights alone.

				

				

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Seven Major Factors in Determining the Size of Your Potential Customers and Competition on the World of Warcraft Auction House

				
				

				June 19, 2011 5 Comments 
				


				

				
clock 300x300 Seven Major Factors in Determining the Size of Your Potential Customers and Competition on the World of Warcraft Auction House
It's 5 O'Clock, do you know what time it is?


Success on he World of Warcraft Auction House, like many other things, has a lot to do with timing.


Just as the tides change relevant to the distance of the moon, the ebb and flow of potential buyers and competitors must be understood.


The seven major factors in determining the size of your potential customers and competition on the World of Warcraft Auction house are:


1. The School Year


From College to grade school, summer time and school holidays will always bring more people to the Auction House. Be prepared for more action – both competition and customers – when School is out.


2. The School and Business Day


Most servers see a population spike starting around 6pm. People getting home from work or school, logging into WoW, and checking out the AH Prices.


3. The Weekend


Everybody’s WoW’ing on the weekend. There are entire WoW Guilds made up of purely Weekend Warriors (in fact, I’m pretty sure that’s at least one of their Guild Names).


4. Holidays


Many people love to log on during holidays. Blizzard usually makes a big deal about it for at least a week, but the specific day of the holiday usually brings out the masses just a little more.


5. Major Patch Days


ZOMG! They nerfed this, buffed that, and now Hunters are even more OP! QQ QQ QQ! In all seriousness, keep an eye out for the suspected day of a major patch release, (and take the time to data mine the patch notes for deals!), as the number of online players dramatically increases right after a patch. (There’s also a bid technique used right before Blizzard takes the servers down for patches… the AH uses “real time”, not “game time” for the life of the auction… if you’re the high bidder  on an item that is expiring right at patch time, you’ve got at least 15 minutes (sometimes much more) with zero competition on that item!)


6. Game Expansions


For about a month leading up to, and then about a month after a game expansion, the Auction House is an unstable place. What once was worth a lot of gold has suddenly become worthless. What once was worthless is now suddenly worth a lot of gold. People tend to level new characters or choose new professions right around Game Expansions. A highly speculative time on the WoW AH, and definitely full of more people.


7. The Big Guilds Raid Schedule


Find out who the big World of Warcraft Guilds are on your server. Visit their websites, and check out their Raid Schedule. Most of them will be public information. Big Raids means more people logging in and needing to be “Raid Ready”.


So, to recap, the seven major factors in determining the size of your potential customers and competition on the World of Warcraft Auction house are:


1. The School Year

2. The Business Day

3. The Weekend

4. Holidays

5. Major Patch Days

6. Game Expansions

7. The Big Guilds Raid Schedule


Knowing when your customers and competition are going to be online is an important strategy to be successful on the World of Warcraft Auction House.


Got some additional time based tips? Let us know!


~Rewt


http://www.hearthcast.com

				

				

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