Monday, August 4, 2008

Off Topic - Blingo

I ran across a rather cool thing today during my travels on the internet. There is a search engine called Blingo that is run by our old buddies at Publishers Clearing House. Every time you do a search on Blingo, you have a chance to win a prize. Now, the prizes are not new Lamborghini's (much to my disappointment) but they do give away gift certificates to Amazon (is there ANYONE on the planet that they are not affiliated with ??) or cash or other stuff that most folks find useful. Since you use search engines every day to look things up, why not use one that gives away prizes ?

Anyway, I thought it was worth mentioning, since it's free to register. :)

Here's a link for you:

Blingo

Check it out !

Jade

Sunday, August 3, 2008

A Few Patterns that Sell Well

Sorry to be MIA for so long, but we had a tree to fall on our house and the contractors have been here working and painting and making a huge mess, so I have had very little time for what *I* want to do. :(

Today I have a couple shorties for you, before dinner. First, some recipes you can pick up in Shat City and sell on the AH to make a quick few gold. The first one is in the Lower City, behind the Aldor Bank, on the lowest tier of the birdmen treehouse. If you have to go on a ground mount, then you go up the bridge that takes you to the highest tier then go around and go down the stairs to get to the lowest tier. If you can fly, just fly up. It is the recipe for Primal Might Transmute and it costs 8 gold. Depending on your server, you can resell it for 12 to 30 gold in the AH.

The other one is the recipe (schematic) for Fused Wiring, available from a engineering supply vendor on the other side of the Lower City (behind the Scryer bank) by the tailor trainers, fruit vendor and reagents guy. You can also get this recipe from a goblin engineer supplier in Everlook, Winterspring. If you are having trouble finding it in his inventory, you can kill him, and when he respawns he will have it (and usually a few others at well) but you will lose some rep by doing this.

These are both limited supply (1) recipe, so if you don't see it, then keep checking back, it will respawn, but unfortunately, you can only buy one. I make it a point to pick up both, every time I am in that neighborhood on business.

There is one other pattern that always sells for quite a bit of gold, even tho it is a lower level, and that is the pattern for Nightscape Shoulders. This is available for the Alliance, in the Hinterlands in the bunker type building by the mailbox. In one of the side rooms, that is off the main lower level room, there is a leatherworking supplier that sells a limited quantity (1) of this shoulders pattern. I was not going to mention it, since I have never much luck getting it. I would say only 1 out of every 5 times I have looked for it, I have found it there. I am not sure if it just has a really long spawn rate, or what, but more times than not, it's not there.

The Horde can get this pattern in Camp Mojache, Feralas from the leatherworking supplier there, and the success rate is much better. The vendor is in the biggest tent.

This pattern is really is worth looking for if you have a leather worker, since the mats are cheap and easy to get. The shoulders sell in the AH for anywhere from 3 to 12 gold, and they always sell the first time, because the stats are agility and stam......a popular combo for many classes. The pattern itself sells for 10 to 49 gold in the AH.

Time for dinner, so that's all for today !

Cya,

Jade

Monday, July 28, 2008

Free Guide on Using Auctioneer

Just a short one today to give you this:

Guide to Using Auctioneer

You will need WinRAR in order to extract it and read it. This is a pretty comprehensive guide to using the addon Auctioneer....a must have if you plan to make gold using the Auction House. Download this and read it, it has great information.

Ciao,

Jade

Friday, July 25, 2008

Cooking Murlocs For Real ! I Found a WoW Cookbook !

In my travels on the internet, today I came across something truly original. Not another leveling guide, or "Make 1000 gold a day" gold making guide, I found a cookbook......that has real recipes in it for the food you make in WoW. It's called The Original and Totally Unofficial Tauren Chef Cookbook. (they also have a few other recipes from other games like Eve Online) Yep, you can now make all those delectable things you have used to level your cooking, on all your toons like Gooey Spider Cake, Roast Raptor and Murloc Fin Soup.

But what if I can't cook, you may be saying. Well, this cookbook delivers in clear, simple and easy terms, so even if you burn water, you should be able to make all your WoW Favorites. Image having a Warcraft themed party, inviting your WoW buddies and serving them a full three course dinner of:

  • Nightfin Soup
  • Beer Basted Boar Ribs
  • Sand Pear Pie
YUMMY ! You could even have appetizers such as:
  • Buzzard Bites
  • Crab Cakes
  • Goblin Deviled Clams
I am sure it would be a total hoot, and something that would be talked about for a long time afterwards

You can even join the Tauren Chef's Newsletter and get a Free Mini cookbook. I joined because I love to cook and I love WoW.....so what could be better ? It's going to be a long time before I run out of things to have for dinner, now. :)

Check out the site, it's a lot of fun to read, even if you don't like to cook: The Tauren Chef

Cheers,

Jade

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

How to make Gold and Enemies at the Same Time

I know I promised to finish the post on professions, and I will soon, but today I want to talk about something else. Something that REALLY bugs me.

If you have been playing WoW for any length of time, and do regular business in the AH, or sometimes if you even just subscribe to the Trade Channel, there is probably one person whose name keeps coming up. There is usually at least one on every server. You know who I mean.....the guy that buys up every epic and blue in the AH and then doubles or triples the price and puts them back in. Or the guy that buys every single primal of a particular type, on a regular basis, and then puts them back in the AH for double the price. These guys make gold, and lots of it......but only at the expense and misery of others. Is it worth it ? I don't think so, but then, I feel bad for ruining people's fun and profiting at the expense of others. Apparently these guys don't care who they hurt to get ahead.

I have found that these people usually end up making so much gold that they end up trying to sell it to gold companies, they eventually get caught and disappear. (Blizzard watches these people, closely, because so many people file complaints on them for destroying the economy)

Unfortunately that is not the case with one of these types on my server. Either he is extremely slick at not getting caught, or he does not sell his gold, because we have had to put up with his sorry butt for over a year now. I WANT TO STRANGLE HIM ! Because of him, Auctioneer's prices are totally unreliable on most blues and all epics. He has been overcharging for so long that he has "taught" Auctioneer that his ludicrous prices are the norm. I have preached to people over and over to stop buying his stuff completely, it is the only way to get rid of him, but they don't listen or don't care. He carefully guards the identity of the toon he plays for real so people don't KOS him. There really is nothing anyone can do about him and it's very frustrating.

This is a pet peeve of mine I could vent about for hours, but I will spare you :) The moral of the story is: DON'T make your gold at the expense of others. It is a lousy thing to do no matter how you look at it and it will make you the most disliked player on your server.

Laters,

Jade

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Professions - Which One Makes Money ?

Around level 20, on my first toon, I discovered the AH. I didn't think much of it at first, but I put a few things in to see what would happen. When I saw that gold sitting in my mailbox, that is all it took, I was hooked. I began investigate what sold and what didn't. This took a while, but after a month or two I got a good grasp of what I could make that would sell on a consistent daily basis. I continued my investigation of this as I leveled all my toons in different professions.

I had a Hunter that was herb/alchemy, a Warrior that was mining/blacksmith, Rogue that was skinning/leatherworking and a Druid that was skinner/tailor. (this was before Jewelcrafting) I tried selling items from all professions from level 5 to 30 and this is what I found.

Remember, these are generalizations, there are exceptions.

Herb/Alchemy - you will make more money selling the herbs than making potions to sell. The AH is flooded with low level potions from people trying to level their alchemy, so deliberately making pots to sell at this level is a bust.

Mining/Blacksmithing - You can make some money mining, but it is a lot of running around for very little gold, until you get to iron. From there you can make decent gold selling ore and bars, since so many professions use them. Blacksmithing is a total waste of time, from a money making standpoint, below level 30. (as is engineering)

Skinning/Leatherworking - You can always make money skinning at any level. Leather always sells. Leatherworking makes money, if you know what to sell. How you find this out is trial and error. Chest pieces and pants from level 10 up are usually good and armor kits are also a good money maker, if you make sure the AH is not flooded with them when you put them in.

Tailoring ~ This is where I hit the motherlode. The gold you can make with tailoring is obscene. From level 5 there are things you can make that sell. The higher the level, the more you can make. The key, of course, is in knowing what to sell.....but even at level 70, I make all levels of things to sell, from level 5 red linen robes, to level 70 Runic spellthread. It all sells.

Well, that's all for today. In my next post, we will revisit the money making potential of professions above level 30.

Ciao,

Jade

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Making Gold by Splitting Stacks

Today we are going to look at ways to make money by splitting stacks of items that you buy in the Auction House. There are many reasons why people don't want to buy full stacks of items. Sometimes they only need one or two of an item to make (or have made) something they want for their character. For example, take the Mooncloth robe, I just made for my Mage. I needed two golden pearls and I didn't have any, so I trotted off to the AH to pick them up. Much to my dismay, there was only a stack of 20 for 25 gold. Now it's not like I could not afford to buy the stack, but I didn't need 20, I only needed 2 ! And as any of you that have been playing WoW a long time know, the market for gold pearls is not what it used to be before they upped the drop rate. I remember shelling out (pun intended :p) 40 gold for two pearls to make a robe for my priest, back in the day.

Most any other time when this happens, I just buy the stack, take what I need and then put the rest back in the AH for the same price I paid for it. (A nice way to get your mats you need for free) but since selling gold pearls is pretty hard to do, I didn't want to be stuck with 18 of them. I ended up bumming them off a guildie, who was just as happy to get rid of them and make space in her bank. It was a good solution, but make sure you don't make a habit of hitting up your guildies for stuff, unless you are just as free in giving them stuff in return.

Other reasons why people don't want to buy a full stack may be that they don't have the money to buy the whole thing, or they are just too cheap to part with it. There are any number of reasons why full stacks don't always sell, but the why isn't that important. All you need to know is that you can benefit from the fact that they don't. If you buy full stacks, there is a good chance that you will be able to split them up and sell them for more than what you paid. For example, I picked up a stack of Super Healing Potions, in the AH today for 11g 25s. I immediately turned around and split them into 3 singles for 3.25 gold each and one stack of two for 6.5 gold. A neat 5 gold profit (less AH fees, of course) with no muss and no fuss.

Now I know you are asking: How do I know which items to try this with ? I am sorry I cannot give you a list, there are simply too many. I know which ones to pick because I have leveled most all professions, so I know what stuff is needed for them. I also am familiar with what mats make the more popular potions that are always needed (like health, mana, agility, defense) and what items are needed for quests (like ungoro soil and Hillman's cloaks) and stuff like that. However, there are some standbys that I think are almost always worth a look:

Leather - especially heavy, rugged and knothide
Cloth - especially wool, mageweave and runecloth (always wanted as it used for rep turn ins)
Shards - small and large brilliant and radiant shards, and large prismatic shards
Herbs - almost any herb will work
Metals - not the low level stuff, but thorium bars are needed for arcanite transmute, fel iron bars are needed for a quest and Eternium Ore is needed for enchanting, to name a few.
Potions - most any type of potion that sells (some don't) you can split up and resell.
Primals - everything in BC needs primals. 'Nuff said.
Gems - I usually stick to lower level ones.
Elementals & Essences - air, water, earth, fire, undeath......these are all used in professions and sell well in ones and twos.

I could go on and on, but one thing you need to remember is that each server is different. How popular some things are on a server that has tons of 70's may be very different than a newer server with very few high levels. Another important thing to remember is to make sure you look to see what the going price is for singles of what you plan to split. If you buy a stack of pots that you need to sell for 3 gold each to make profit, make sure that someone doesn't have 10 singles in there for 2 gold each.

Well, that's all for today, hope you all make some gold !

Jade