Complete Control: My Biggest Mistake

Another month means another Blogging Carnival hosted by JMTC!

This months question: "What Mistakes Have You Learned From While Playing the AH?"

Control is my biggest mistake.

What do I mean? Cornering a market. Raising prices and driving out other competitors. At one point in time, this was a common practice. A single auctioneer could corner a market, buy out everyone elses materials, supply a very low amount of those materials back into the economy at over inflated prices. A lot of people got very rich off of that method. However, this isn't Vanilla anymore.

There are so many players in the game now that completely controlling a market is next impossible. Especially if you're looking to make any kind of real profit. Buying up all of a certain good and raising the price usually reduces the amount of demand for the item, and increases the amount of people who are willing to go farm them/find other methods to obtain them. (This doesn't apply to unique one time situations, like Glyphmas.)

The biggest problem with artificially raising a price, without a rise in demand is it's nearly impossible to choke off the supply.

Here is a recent example for me. Last week Greater Cosmic Essence was at a low 9g each on my server. They historically sell for much closer to 20g. I bought out everything and re-listed a portion. While some of my stuff sold, the majority was still on the AH, over priced and the price was back down to 9g again. To keep my price high, I would then have to buy out all of those under my new 20g price.

I lose. Because if I really want to make this price the new standard I have to be willing to buy out anyone who posts at 18 or 19g. In the end, I lost money. Not only did I lose gold, but I now have a guild bank tab full of these things. Sure, I can save them until Cata, but that wasn't my intention. I wanted success now, not later.

Why can't I maintain control?
It's all about supply. If I want to keep my price high and keep people from posting up the same stuff just under my price and forcing me to buy it then I have to choke off the supply.

With an item like Greater Cosmic Essence this can be a very large investment.
Am I going to buy all of the Saronite Ore?
Am I going to buy all of the craftable gems?
Am I going to buy all of the Frostweave cloth?
Am I going to buy all of the Cobalt Bars and Ore?

The list goes on.

The point here is that without being willing to buy out all of these markets too, I'm not going to be able to maintain complete profitable control of the Greater Cosmic Essence market.

Hindsight is always 20/20. Had I sat down and thought about all of these things before buying into a new market and trying to control it, I probably would have never made that decision. At the end of the day, that's the best thing you can do as an auctioneer. Take calculated risk. If you've looked at every possible outcome and still see it as a profitable investment, then jump in.

However, if you haven't researched and calculated the risk don't just jump in and hope you can tread water. No one is going to throw you a life preserver. You'll be bait for the other Auction House sharks.

Read more »

One Farming Spot to Rule Them All: Scholomance

In this series I will be reviewing numerous farming spots in the wonderful World Of Warcraft. I posted a call for submissions about the best places to farm in WoW, and once and for all I'm looking to find out what's the best bang for your buck. So sit back and relax. I'll take care of lining your pockets with gold.

The Rules:
Everything gets a value.

All looted items get vendor value. This includes Greens, Blues etc. This is just to make things easy for calculations. The obvious choice for those items would be to DE them or sell them on the AH, but we're farming for specific items, and I want to focus on those items. However, it is important to give a value to items that you obtain but aren't necessarily looking for.

Items such as Cloth will be given proper AH value.

Main items will be assigned a value based on an AH average. All Market research will take place via The Undermine Journal.
I'll assign a value based on that particular item on Active realms. This will give an overall value for the item. Realms may differ, but this should lead to a pretty consistent control for pricing and calculation purposes.

Farm Time: A total of two hours for each spot will be given.

May the best spot win!

This farming spot was a fan e-mail. I wasn't very inclined to jump on it to begin with but with the recent rise in the demand for Pristine Black Diamond as I posted about earlier, it's a great farming spot.

"I am suggesting Scholomance as a good farming spot, runecloth, bone fragments, dark runes and lots of BOE greens and easily soloable by any class above 75 with a competent player. I spent most of my time there just farming Argent Dawn but after awhile it shows good returns. Oh I forgot the two enchant recipes that drop here. I find it easier to do than Stratholme as it is more straightforward.
Darryl"

I spent a good bit of time farming Scholomance. It is a very straight forward instance, and you shouldn't get into a lot of trouble if you're paying attention. Can pull whole rooms at once with ease and clear in about 30 minutes. The longest part is picking up the loot!

The most frustrating thing about Scholomance is doing the required chain to get the key. Took me about an hour because of travel time to obtain it. Most of you may already have this, but if you're a new player or have a new main character, you may very well not.

So what are we looking for? Well, like Darryl said...everything! There are a lot of great things that drop here that can be disenchanted and sold. However, what I went in for were two main things. Pristine Black Diamond and Runecloth

Here are my results
Loot gold and vendored items: 280g
Bone Fragments and Crypt Fiend Parts: 100g(conservative. Yet to sell)
Runecloth: 27 stacks 270g
1x Pristine Black Diamond: 700g

This gives a grand total of 675g an hour. It's not the best in the world, but its pretty good. The real draw here I feel though is the Pristine Black Diamonds. This could go much higher before the release of Cataclysm. People are scrambling to get these for Insane in the Membrane.

Is it the best? No. Is it a good place to go if you need mid level enchanting mats, Runecloth, and a chance at putting some extra money in your pocket? Absolutely.

Read more »

Pro Tip: An "Insane" price for Pristine Black Diamond

As most of you are probably aware, lots of change is coming very soon with patch 4.0.3. Lots of things are getting shaken up. One of the more interesting things is that some of the reputations are going to be changed. This change could very easily make achieving the Feat of Strength Insane in the Membrane impossible.

The aspect that is currently dangling over the ledge is raising Shen'dralar reputation. It requires some Dire Maul runs and some Libram collection. Very tedious stuff. However, it also requires the reagent Pristine Black Diamond. The likes of which are very rare. Combine that with the overwhelming demand of scared achievement seekers and you've got a sky-rocketing price.

This demand is artificial. As soon as the rep can no longer be obtained the item will once again go back to being a normal priced good. This means the time to capitalize is now. You have two options.

Farming:
I personally think this is the very best option if you want to take advantage. The best place to farm for these would be Scholomance, Dire Maul, or Stratholme. Some people say that Scholo is the overall favorite simply because it packs more mobs. Thus lending it self to a better drop rate. So dust off a toon you haven't played, give it its new talent points and go do some farming. With diamonds going anywhere from 500-1000g on my server its well worth your time.

Flipping:
Some of you may chose this option, but it's a little more risky. You can buy them all out on the AH (Listed pretty high) and raise the price even more. However, it's a high risk high reward investment. You run the risk of making things so astronomically high achievement seekers give up. (They need 84 of these things) or they keep buying, but you can't push them fast enough. Even worse, you don't have many people buying and someone comes out of the wood work with some that have set in a guild bank since vanilla. High Risk at the very least.

Whatever you decide to do, there is a good bit of money that can be made here. Don't pass up on this opportunity.

Read more »

One Farming Spot to Rule them All: Razzashi Hatchling

In this series I will be reviewing numerous farming spots in the wonderful World Of Warcraft. I posted a call for submissions about the best places to farm in WoW, and once and for all I'm looking to find out what's the best bang for your buck. So sit back and relax. I'll take care of lining your pockets with gold. Have a good spot in mind? Let me know. CappedByCata@Gmail.com or on Twitter at CappedByCata

The Rules:
Everything gets a value.

All looted items get vendor value. This includes Greens, Blues etc. This is just to make things easy for calculations. The obvious choice for those items would be to DE them or sell them on the AH, but we're farming for specific items, and I want to focus on those items. However, it is important to give a value to items that you obtain but aren't necessarily looking for.

Items such as Cloth will be given proper AH value.

Main items will be assigned a value based on an AH average. All Market research will take place via The Undermine Journal.
I'll assign a value based on that particular item on Active realms. This will give an overall value for the item. Realms may differ, but this should lead to a pretty consistent control for pricing and calculation purposes.

Farm Time: A total of two hours for each spot will be given.

May the best spot win!

This one has been a hot topic for awhile. Many blogs have reported on it, and I wanted to get in there and test it out for myself. For those who are unfamiliar, the Razzashi Hatchling drops off Raptors in ZG. The Pet is going away in Cataclysm. This makes the pet potentially invaluable.

However, we need to assign a value. Using the Undermine Journal, and researching a few different realms bring up a rough value of anywhere from 5000g - 10,000g. So for this situation I'll assign a 7,500g value. (This will go up if you wanted to hang on to the pet until well into Cataclysm.

Two hour farming commence!

(For this situation I had to do things a little bit different. I didn't do two hours straight. Because you have to wait for the Raptors to re-spawn. I did 4 thirty minute sessions. )

The Results:
8 Stacks of Runecloth: 96g
Greens, Blues, and Vendor Trash: 48g
Bijous(27): 405g (15 Ea)
Razzashi Hatchling: 0g
Coins: No value. I cannot sell them on my server. They just don't sell, so I used them for rep.

Total: 549g
Hourly Total: 274.5g

This is pretty much what I expected. The Pet is a rare drop. I didn't think I would get it in the two hour time frame that I had allotted. I'm ok with that. Otherwise, the farming spot is decent, but it's not the best by any means. This is something that should be done only if you're after the rep. That makes the pet a great reward, and you don't feel like you've wasted your time.

You could probably make more then 275g an hour questing or just farming basic things like ores or herbs. This isn't a winner, but with a little luck and a blessing from the RNG gods, you could cash in on a major win fall.

Look for more farming spot reviews soon!

Read more »

A few things that are working for me. Try them out!

As I sit here, in preparation for UFC 121, I was thinking it was time to share a little bit of what I'm doing with you guys. First off, another little snip-it about me. Since things have changed in the AH world, I'm not as rigid with what I'm selling anymore. At one point, I had my markets, I did X, Y, and Z and then I got my profits.

However, since things have changed and by change I mean the overall demand isn't as alive as it once was on my server, I've changed my game plan up a little bit. Instead of doing X, Y, and Z I'm doing G, R and Y to come up with the same profits.

Did that make any sense? If not here is what I mean. I'm selling everything. I'm selling different things all the time. I'm selling whats profitable. No longer am I sticking to my most known markets anymore. I'm now searching the AH on a daily basis. Searching for items that are selling for more then the material cost. These are two I've stumbled on as of late.

Here are two examples:

Enchant Scroll: Black Magic
6 Abyss Crystal - 150g
6 Greater Cosmic Essence - 120g
6 Dream Shard - 12g
Total: 282g

Selling Price: 425g
Profit: 143g sans fees and vellum.

That's a very nice profit for my time. I don't sell very many a week, but I can sell four to five on a Tuesday night. It's worth the time to add these to your crafting lists if your server has a similar pricing.


For the second example, will stay with the enchanting scrolls.

Enchant Scroll: Exceptional (I think?) Resilience
2 Greater Cosmic Essence: 30g
2 Dream Shard: 4g

Selling Price: 85g
Profit: 51g sans fees and vellum

PvP has exploded. Lots and lots of people are doing it. Since the addition of new talents and the revamping of the honor system, people are diving right back into PvP. This is a great cheap way to add a little bit of resilience to your character or a new alt you've just created. These fly off the shelves because they are cheap enchant to throw on a piece of PvP gear. Another great investment opportunity.

Read more »

Pro Tip: Want a free 1,000 Gold? Check your alts!

I didn't think of it until yesterday. But then it dawned on me. I wonder if I got any free money from the Great Blizzard Rescission stimulus of patch 4.0. Now, let's not get confused here. I'm not talking about the 50 gold they sent me for currency. No no, I'm talking about Honor Points.

With the change in Honor Points, I was able to cash in all of my stored Honor on my alts. Some of these alts I hadn't even logged on to in a year. But the honor was still there. Ready for me to trade in for Epic Gems.

Across all my Alts, I had about 3000 Honor. I believe the exchange rate is 165 Honor Per Epic Gem, (Can't be sure as the game is down and I'm too lazy to google.)

I cashed all of that honor in for Cardinal Rubies last night and cut them. I expect this will net me at least 2000g.

So what are you waiting for? When the servers come up today, dust off that old alt, check it's honor points, and cash in! Gems are still in high demand low supply, so make your money while you still can! There is never a better night to post then Tuesday ;)

Happy Hallow's End!

Read more »

Down time before Cataclysm? I've got the cure.

But first! A personal update about me! So work has been crazy hectic. I enjoy it, but it doesn't leave me a lot of free time. Especially with doing all the necessary research of writing. With new comers to the blogging game like Acadia's Gold and Alto's Gold"ish" Advice, it's hard to beat these young guns to the punch! Infact, I had a very nice write up about Razzashi Hatchling, but TGC beat me to that as well!

Is any of this a bad thing? Hell no! It's awesome. So much quality content is being produced, it makes me super excited when I come home. So much that I end up spending my playing and writing time reading!

Back on topic! Today at work, I had a brilliant idea. I've spent a lot of my downtime in WoW doing pretty much nothing. Looking at the same AH stuff over and over again. Doing my crafting, posting my auctions, and then logging off. Now more then ever, since I've finished all my Recruit a Friend toons I was working on, I've got some free time.

I want to bring in some extra income. I figure the best way to raise my income is to do more. Auctions take a certain amount of time to sale. I can't change that variable, but I can do more with my time to produce more gold. The answer?

Farming.

I know what you're thinking . "I hate farming." I know, I do too. However, there is something a little different about WoW pre-and post 4.0. It feels like a new game. A new game where I almost need to relearn my class. What better way to relearn my class then taking on old content solo and putting my skills to the test? I can't think of anything that sounds better!

So how does this apply to you? Well readers (And other bloggers!) I want your very best farming spots. I'm going to put them to the test. I want to find out what some of the very best ways to farm for income are in the time between now and Cataclysm.

My goal is to run a series. Featuring two or three farming spots a week. For each spot I will play that spot for a certain time (To be determined, all spots will be played for the same duration), assign whatever I'm farming for a gold value based on Auction House prices and figure out which is the best bang for your buck.

So what do you have blog world? Bloggers, I'm looking at you. I want your best spot and I want to test it out. Send me an e-mail or post a comment. Same with you readers. Send me an e-mail or post a comment. I will be sure to credit anyone, reader or blogger, with the spot and will give a link back to your site and add you to the blog roll if you currently have a blog.

For readers, it's a win win. You get to find out first hand from me which is the best bang for your buck when it comes to farming. Saving you the hassle of determining and moving you right into the money. For bloggers, this a great opportunity to network and get your content seen by more audiences. Feel free to participate.

So, I'll be looking for spots and posting my findings very soon. I hope you are as excited as I am!

Want to participate?
E-Mail me at: CappedByCata@Gmail.com
Tweet me at: CappedByCata

More soon!
Wes

Read more »

4.0: Train Wreck

Talk about screwing the pooch, aye guys?

If you followed my last post, you know I didn't prepare for 4.0. Infact, I really didn't want to buy anything for 4.0 as I knew I was going to have to invest again, and didn't feel that the demand would be there. Man was I wrong.

The Winners:
Glyphs. I don't deal in the Glyph market, but from what I understand from reading twitter and other bloggers, 4.0 went swimmingly for Scribes and they are all resting their heads on their beds full of money this evening.

The Losers:
The same can not be said for me. The lowly Alchemist + Jewelcrafter. The person who stock piled enough mats for Cardinals Rubies to last well into the weekend. The guy who got so greedy that he bought up all the eternals and frozen orbs he could get his grubby hands on. The guy that was so naive, he kept buying Orbs and Eternals thinking this "must be a bug!"

The demand was there. It was so there. People were buying out all of the gems they could. To bad I couldn't supply any. It seems that Blizzard will not be getting rid of the cool down for Epic Gem transmutes in 4.0.1. Infact, they've actually lengthened the cool down from 20 hours to 24 hours.

What does this mean? Other then preventing me from cashing in on my get rich quick scheme, it has left me with a stack of mats that I need to move. A stack of mats that are not nearly as useful as they could have been. If I was the only one in this boat, then I wouldn't be worried. However, it's not just me. It's all of the passengers on the Titanic, the crew members, and their pets. And everyone is ready to jump overboard.

How does this correlate? It means a flood. A big flood. Especially for anyone who tied up all of their liquid capital into this "anticipated" change. Luckily for me, I can absorb this lose, and get rid of my stock over a period of time. However, I'm going to take a lose. Many of the eteranls and orbs I bought were over priced as my goal was to starve the market and own it. It would have worked had everything falling into place. However, I wasn't so fortunate.

So that's it, boys and girls. It looks like our trust in the online community was a little too blind. This will make me think twice before the next patch, that's for sure.

Now, don't get me wrong. This patch is a winner, it's providing great content. Over all I'm happy, but I was banking on making some real gold here. So I'm not mad, but I am a little bitter.

Read more »

No time to prepare? Buy it all!

So, I spent a super busy weekend away this weekend. I even got a Saturday off from work! Talk about rare! I took it upon myself to leave town for the weekend and go home and see some family. Was a great time, but it left me a little light as far as the amount of preparation I had for 4.0. I had bought a few things, but not as much as I needed. Not enough to make some big bucks tomorrow. But alas, this has changed.

I bought everything!

Ok, I didn't buy everything. But I bought out two entire markets. I bought out all of the Eternal Fire market. Listed anywhere from 12-20g ea. I bought all of the Frozen Orb Market. Listed anywhere from 15-22g ea. I have a small server, so I have them all. At least all of those that were posted.

Why did I do this? Demand.

Tomorrow will be a crazy day for the demand of gems. I'm banking on others like me who didn't prepare well enough. Those who probably have the Scarlet Rubies sitting in the bank, but not the eternals to go with them? Yea, I suspect their are a lot of those people. They'll need Eternal Fires. But how will they get them? From me, at a hefty mark up.

I will be at work until 8:30PM tomorrow, so I won't get to participate in the Epic Undercutting battle that will surely ensue in the gem market. So I'm just going to have all of my Eternals and Orbs listed at a hefty mark up and hope I make out like a bandit.

So here it is, all of you with a late start of preparing. This is my tip. Buy out a market that you know will be hot tomorrow. Relist everything at a higher margin and reap the benefits. I would like to think this a medium risk, high reward opportunity. You should at least give it a shot!

Read more »

Urgent Pro Tip: Primordial Saronite, get out while you can.

Alright guys, I really wanted to get home quicker today but I didn't, so sorry if this is a bit late. There was work to be a done and a fair to attend. I'll be honest, I'm the last person that is going to pass up fair style corn dogs. But I digress.

Anyhow, this is pretty important. If you follow a lot of the gold blogs in the gold making community or gold making podcasts, or just listen to Marcko from JMTC speak for more than about 7 minutes you'll have heard that it's a great idea to stockpile a couple stacks of Primordial Saronites and save them for a rainy day in Cataclysm.

The premise here is that with the guild achievements system guilds would be going back to old content to collect legendaries. To obtain Shadowmourne you need 25+ Primordial Saronites. That's a lot of Frost Emblems to go back and farm. If the game had stayed the same, this is a fantastic idea. One I was more then ready to buy into as soon as Primordials hit my desired price.

However, with a recent post today Justice Points and Valor Points have
extinguished this gold making fire before it could ever be lite.



Conversion Rates:
Lich King Heroic dungeon boss -- 16 Justice Points
Lich King daily normal dungeon -- 12 Justice Points
Lich King daily Heroic dungeon -- 23 Justice Points
Lich King raid boss -- 23 Justice Points

Cataclysm Heroic dungeon boss -- 75 Justice Points
Cataclysm daily normal dungeon -- 75 Justice Points
Cataclysm daily Heroic dungeon -- 75 Valor Points
Cataclysm 10-player raid boss -- 75 Valor Points
Cataclysm 25-player raid boss -- 105 Valor Points

Primordial Saronites will fall into the Category of Justice Points. This means people will be able to farm normal and heroic Cataclysm dungeons (or LK dungeons post 4.0) and be able to buy Primordial Saronites. This will make Primordial Saronites easier to obtain in the future then they are now. This will cause an over supply in 4.0 and have an even further diminished value in Cataclysm.


The truth of the matter is that this may be your last week to get any kind of respectable value from your Primordial Saronites. As soon as 4.0 rolls out, kiss your Primordial flipping profits good bye.

Was fun while it lasted.

Read more »

Update: 66k and Rolling!

Well, I'm moving right along. I'm currently up to the 66k mark. This is thanks to flipping things such as Muradin's Favor which I wrote about a few days ago. I probably could have held on to it for a little longer and gotten more out of it but I made a solid 12k on my investment. That's not bad at all. Infact, it's my best flip ever.

Moreover, I'm still using Jewelcrafting and vendoring green quality jewelery with every chance I get. This is a consistent money maker as long as the gems are available. This has became pretty much my main source of income.

On top of that, I'm still messing around with Netherweave bags when they are profitable. Some people are having undercut wars for them, but I'm not getting involved. These will be worth a lot more when Cataclysm is release.

Oh, and speaking of Cataclysm. That beta is a trip. I really haven't done much with it besides run around Orgimmar. I don't care to, to be honest. My whole reason for getting into the Beta was to be able to find the fishing trainer. Looks like he is still in Orgimmar and will train me for 525. I want to give it a good effort at getting the 525 fishing realm first. That's something that will be over in mere hours upon release, and shouldn't negatively effect my gold making plans.


So yea, that's it for now. Just wanted to give a run down with a quick update. I'm trying to stay focused and motivated on my goals, just need to find some new ways to make things exciting. What are you guys doing to continue you bringing in the cash?

Read more »

Carnival Day: Thank you, Readers.

I couldn't come up with a great topic to entertain you folks with on top of the articles I wrote for the carnivals. (And combined with the Beta invitation I received for Cataclysm today. It has slowed my internet to a crawl.) However, I did want to send a message to everyone.

Today hundreds (Dare I say thousands?) of you will read this page. I thank you for taking your time to listen to my thoughts, suggestions, and experiences in this game we all share together. I wish you all the very best today and I'm very humbled that you have taken the time to visit.

I will spend today working away at my job, but for those of you who have the day off, take time and cherish it. Do what makes you happy, live life to the fullest and never compromise yourself.

Again, thank you very much for visiting and I will be posting more content soon.


All the Best,
Wes

Read more »