JMTC Carnival: What's your 'Cataclysm Gold Strategy?'

This post is written in part to participate in the Blogging Carnival hosted this month once again by Marcko over at JMTC. I would like to express my appreciation for once again opening his doors to the Gold Blogging community.

It's all about the game plan. There are a lot of facets to the question about my particular Gold Making Strategy for Cataclysm. Cataclysm is a vast expansion. To be able to sum up my entire Strategy in one post just isn't possible. In this post, I'm going to go over my first weeks plan then I'll be going over some major aspects which can be applied to any perspective gold maker.

Week 1:
My number one priority for launch is Realm first 525 fishing. I have the patients, it's just all about the speed. The opportunity cost of spending my first 4 hours in the game fishing I would estimate at about 40,000g. A quality farmer with quality planning and preparation should be able to draw in 10k an hour during these first few hours. Sure this depends on your server and if the wealth is there, but 40,000g pales in comparison to the total amount of gold to be made during the first week.

Once realm first has been awarded for fishing, I will move on to farming. This will be in place for the entire first week. Now, here is a part where some folks may disagree with me. I'm only farming one skill. Mining. Why? Well, mostly because I'm not dropping Jewel Crafting to pick up herbalism on my main toon. However, there are a few other reasons that play a role here. Focused Intensity. Knowing my farming route and being able to execute quickly while not dying is key to success. It will be much more productive for me to focus solely on mining rather then doing a mediocre job combining both mining and herbalism. Moreover, I feel that mining fuels a much higher profession hierarchy then herbalism. This will, in-turn, make mining more profitable for me during the first week.

After the first week is over my game time will go back to normal. From this point on farming will still probably remain the most active part of game time for me. As prices decline, I will once again get back into the auction house. I'll wait to find out which items are trending and fight my way back into the markets in which I feel comfortable.

For the rest of the expansion, I will be playing the markets with these three ideas in mind. Any auctioneer from novice to tycoon can put these ideas into practice and be successful with them.

Safe Diversification
This is the way I engage with the Auction House on a daily basis. One of the things you hear a lot of people say in the Gold Blogging community is that diversification is the number one key to success. This is true in most aspects, however I like to be a little more cautious. I practice safe diversification. Basically what I'm doing is diversifying, but not over extending myself. I don't go into a new market on a whim. If I don't know enough to be profitable, I don't open myself up to get burnt by a more in-tune player. I focus on markets that work. This allows me to be more profitable.

Liquidity
This is something that some people are very uneasy with at this point in the game. You see many people stockpiling. Investing nearly all of their gold in things that may or may not rise in prices. Don't get me wrong, you should be stockpiling. I know I am. But only to a certain degree. People are stockpiling for one reason. It's not profit either. It's to battle inflation. Inflation is going to happen. A large majority of players have stashed away more gold then ever over the last year of WoTLK. Players will be willing to spend more gold then ever in Cataclysm. The prices in commodities will rise. People are stockpiling to make sure their gold keeps up with the inflation rate. It's a good strategy, but this expansion offers so many changes I'm a little uneasy in dumping it all into goods. I'm still trying to keep a large majority of my capital in liquid form. Why? It allows me to be more flexible.

Flexibility
While I preach safe diversification, I still have to be able to ride the waves of change. An auctioneer who can adapt and be ready for new challenges when they present themselves is a successful auctioneer. An auctioneer who doesn't like change and fails to embrace it is a stagnant auctioneer. If you're unable to be flexible with your investment strategies because all of your assets are tied up in goods you will surely miss profitable opportunities. Always be cautious with new investments, but there is no reward without risk. Remaining flexible in the ways you can make your gold work for you is paramount to being successful.

That's what I'm doing. My first week is planned out. I'll be off work, playing like crazy, and consuming caffeine like they are never going to make it again. Sure it's completely unhealthy, but this one week binge will net me a huge reward. From that point on it's all about staying light on my feet and ready to ride the new waves to success. No one knows what Cataclysm holds, but going in with a game plan will make everything easier.

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I made 1,000g and I didn't even mean to.

Morning! Guess who has the day off? This guy! So, I figure a little something new before I hop back in game.

I don't how you guys manage your Gold, but I like to keep everything on one toon. I use my Auctioneer alt and keep everything there. The meaning of this is two fold.

One:
I can't make any impulse purchases. I have to log off whatever character I'm playing, log on my Auctioneer, and mail out the gold. This keeps me from picking up random things on the Auction house or dropping way too much money on say a GDKP run. Whatever the reason, I've always liked to have it stored in one place so I can make it harder for myself to spend it. The number one secret to wealth is not spending.

Two:
It keeps a clean slate on all my other toons. All my other toons have 50-100 or so Gold for repairs, but that's about it. What this really allows me to do is gauge my income for average everyday tasks. Leveling, questing, running dungeons, etc.

Why do I mention this? Well, because I looked down to gauge my progress and was a little shocked to see 1078g just sitting there looking back at me. I know it's not a lot, but it's more that can go on the ever growing pile.

What was I doing? Playing the game.

Sometimes a lot of us, myself included; get so caught up in making gold that we forget to sit back and play the game. Especially with the recent lull in content. However, with the shattering happening I've gotten back in to doing more with my time in game then just hanging out at the Auction House and smelling the taurens.

In case you haven't heard, new Rep Tabards have been added. Well the mount collector in me has kicked in once again. So I'm grinding like crazy in heroic dungeons to obtain Exalted with the Bligewater Cartel to get the new Goblin Mounts.

Anyway, here is the point. In the time span of grinding out Friendly to almost Exalted (about 13k to go) I've made 1000g, 1200 Justice Points, and 200 Honor Points. It's a pretty good reward for something I was going to do either way.

Here is my tip:
If you need gold now more then later, when you're in a heroic Greed Everything! Don't D/E anything. There are many greens, blues, and of course your epic items that will vendor from anywhere between 8g and 30g. With people dumping their enchanting items and me having a full bank tab full of the old mats it makes more sense for me to cash in on high end items to vendor for liquid currency.

You may be surprised how much you make if you simply change one old habit!

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To Sell Or Keep?

Came in town to visit family for the Holidays. When we were out and about I saw a comic book shop. Went in, spent $20 bucks on some TCG booster packs and came away with the above.

What do I do?


Sell Them:On eBay of course. Looks like I could make a cool $200. It is the holidays, so the money helps.

Keep Em:If I did that, I would either learn the mount myself, or sell it on my realm for a major profit.

What would you do?

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Happy Thanksgiving! New Computer for me!

Sorry for the lack of recent updates, but I just haven't had a lot to talk about. Either that, or other bloggers beating me to the punch. The past week I haven't done too much other the wait on the new machine. That, work, and play Black Ops. But who isn't?

Anyway, I did take the opportunity to cash in all my Inks Of The Sea on my inscription toon before4.0.3 dropped. I hope you did too. I'm going to sit on these for awhile and wait for prices to rise. I also made a fancy macro and bought up a ton of Argent Tournament pets for 450g each. Talk about investing. Oh, and I finished off my ZG rep, sadly no tiger. Oh well, I've made my peace with it.

So what am I doing now? Well, 4.0.3 has dropped and FedEx brought me my new PC =D. I've got it hooked up and rolling, and so far I'm very happy. My plans for Thanksgiving are now to eat and get exalted with the Bligewater Cartel!

I hope everyone has a Great Thanksgiving and gets to spend sometime with their loved ones.

Oh, and also, I may have a Black Friday surprise for you guys tomorrow. It's a big maybe at this point, but be sure to check back!

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Pro Tip: Argent Tournament Pets

I'm not a pet collector. I'm a mount collector. I've never liked the pets that much. Mostly because I can't ever remember to summon one and have it follow me around. With that said, I'm still pretty proud of the Mr. Pinchy I fished up. But I digress.

Whether I'm a fan of Pet collecting or not, I am a fan of Gold Making. On my server, prices for these pets have already sky-rocketed. Two weeks ago almost all of these pets could be had for about 800g each. Now, I'm lucky to find any of them for under 1500g on either side or the neutral auction house.

You've got two options:

Invest
I look at this segment of the market as a low-risk - medium-reward market. If you buy in now at a 1500g price point, you're not risking very much. You can almost guarantee the price of these pets will not be going down, and demand will rise as even fewer people then now are doing argent tournament dailies. (If anyone is doing them now?) I would expect for these to perhaps double, maybe even triple in price depending on inflation mid-way through Cataclysm. Stashing one of each of these away in the bank isn't going to set you back if you have the available capital to spend.

Champion Seals:
Unless you're like me, and still need a few of the Tournament Mounts then cash in your Champion Seals and see if you can pick one or two up with no gold investment. It may even be worth it to do these dailies again if you don't have anything else to do.

One more final point before I go. And sometimes this is very hard for me to do. But do remember, your gold doesn't make it's self sitting in your bags. While it may be a lot of fun to look at, it's not going to grow unless you put it back into the market.

Take this opportunity and make sure you're well stockpiled.

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Gaming Rig for Gold Making

So I wanted to check in with you guys. Last night I took the much needed plunge before the release of Cataclysm. I ordered a new Gaming Rig. My $400 investment I made 2 years ago is finally on it's last legs. Don't get me wrong. It was top notch in TBC, and did a great job in Wrath. However, when 4.0 dropped, my system just couldn't hang anymore. Rather then invest in new parts, I found it cheaper to buy a new machine out right and keep this intact to work in a pinch.

Here are the Specs:
CPU : Intel Core i3-540 3.06Ghz 4MB Cache Dual-Core
Motherboards : GIGABYTE GA-H55M-UD2H (Intel H55 HDMI, 2xPCI-E, 6xSATA2, 4xDDR3)
Memory : 4GB (2GBx2) PC3 10666 DDR3 1333Mhz
Hard Drive : 500GB 7200RPM 16MB Cache Serial ATA300
CD / DVD / CDRW 1 : 22X LG SATA Dual Layer DVD /-RW/CDRW
Video Card : 1GB ATI Radeon HD5570 GDDR3 PCI-E DVI/HDMI
Operating System : Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit
Case : Apevia Black X-Dreamer 3 (4 5.25, 5 3.5) 3 Fans, Front Audio/USB/eSATA
Power Supply : 550watt Stock Supply
*Will be dropping in another 1TB HD and 4 more Gigs of Ram when it arrives that I already have.

"Cool Wes, you bought a new computer. But this isn't a blog about the crap you just bought. What does it have to do with Gold Making!?"

Well, with Cataclysm stepping things up a notch a quality gaming rig will help you in the long run. With whatever you plan on doing in the game. However, the most important thing for me is to be able to gather at full speed.

I've taken a week off of work for the release of Cataclysm, and want to make the very most of those first two or three days of gathering for those going after server firsts. There is so much gold to be made during these first days. Gold that will never be able to be made again. I wanted to do what was necessary to capitalize on this. A new gaming rig fit right into the equation.

So on the Cataclysm check list, where do you stand for your gold making adventures? Have you taken the hardcore approach like me and dropped a bunch of cash and your vacation time to cash in on the gold to be made? Or are you planning to take a more relaxing approach to Cataclysm and just try and make gold as you go?

Let me know what you've done. Also, if you have any computer experience, let me know how this set up will do if you don't mind. I would really like to be able to get 60-75 FPS on max settings.

Keep on keeping on!

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Pro Tip: Find a niche, and supply it.

Have you ever decided to sit down and knock out a new goal? Usually when you make that decision you want to find the fastest way to meet your goal. A good example that happened to me recently is leveling reputation. As I posted in my Bucket List post, I still need the mount from Cenarion Expedition. Upon doing some research, I found out their is a repeatable turn in that would take me all the way to exalted. Naturally I said to myself "I'll just head to the AH, buy what I need and be on my way."

However, I was not so fortunate. It turns out that on my server, their are 0 Coilfang Armaments on the Auction House. I needed about 400 of these to finish up my rep. If there were 400 posted, I would have bought them. Pretty much regardless of the price.

So I head over to Steam Vaults to grind out the rest of my rep. To my surprise, I'm receiving about 15 - 20 Armaments a clear. I still haven't finished off my rep, but I decided to try out posting a few of these just to see what happened.

At first I started posting 5. I posted them for 100g. Just to see what would happen. Anything less I figured probably wasn't worth my time and I would keep them for myself. The next morning I came to my mail box and found them sold. Really?

So I posted again. This time, I posted 10 at 250. When I got home from work they had sold. I had 50 more, so I posted up five more stacks at 250 each and went to bed. Next morning, three stacks had sold and two were still sitting there. Upon checking things out, I found that all but the first stack of five had sold to the same person. My guess, is like me, they were finishing their rep but were much closer. The next day I sold nothing.

So what happened? I just happened to be posting something that one person was looking for. I had supplied all I had, and they were willing to buy at a hefty price just to finish what they needed. Why do I say that? I figured he would have kept buying them had he not finished his reputation.

So, I know what you're thinking. "What was the point of this exercise? It looks like you just got lucky." Well, you're right. I probably did. I'm not telling you to go farm Coilfang armaments. What I am telling you however, is that for the next 15 days people have a lot of down time. Those people who are playing are looking to squeeze anything they can out of their game time. So check your bank. See if there are any reputations turn ins that people might be looking to buy right now.

My point is, if there is an item that no one is supplying, become the supplier. In the short term, with the amount of cash people have stored up, it could net you a large reward.

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What's on your WoTLK Bucket List?

I guess I'll start by elaborating a little more on what I ended up doing in regards to Mim's Head. I opted against the purchase of the mount. There are a couple reasons. It wasn't as cut and dry as I thought it was going to be. You see the guild offering was on my server, but they are on the alliance side. I thought I could keep all of my gold liquid. However, after studying the faction transfer FAQ, it appears I could only transfer over 20k liquid. With my server being small, I knew I couldn't buy up items and then liquidate them on the other side in the necessary time frame.

Moreover, I have two accounts so I could have used the neutral auction house. However, I couldn't afford to take the 15% neutral AH lose and I was a little weary of transferring that much gold. I didn't want my account to get flagged and have any kind of negative impact toward my hard work. So when it's all said and done, I probably will not end up with Mim's Head. Oh well, would have been nice :)

Anyway, now that I probably will not end up with that mount, I have re-motivated myself to a final month of dedication toward WoW. As Cold said, it's very easy to get bored. So this got me thinking. What do I want to finish off before the end of WoTLK?

My Bucket List:
Finish Leveling my Raf'd Warlock to at least 70.
Finish Cenerion Rep to get the Mount
Grab one or two more Argent Tournament mounts
Get the ZG Tiger (Yea right)
Get ZG Rep to Exalted
Buy 450 Blacksmithing

That's just a list off the top of my head. I'm sure I'll end up doing a few more things as well, but these are really important to me. So, let me know about your Bucket List. Do you think you can get it all done in time?

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We never talk about it but....Can I spend it now?

Well, I might not be gold capped. But I think the past few months have taught me a lot of about the economy. I also have more Gold now then I have ever had in my WoW career. I have invested in my professions. Have all of my professions on all of my eligible toons maxed out. I also am well stock piled for Cataclysm.

Moreover, I have an entire week off of work for Cataclysm's Release to take full advantage of the gathering opportunities that are once in a life time for Gold Making.

With all that being said, here is my question:

Can I spend it now?

Now, I wont' be spending it all. I'll be keeping about 10k liquid. However, a guild on my realm is offering Mim's Head runs. It's going to cost me about 125k to purchase the mount.

Pros:
I'm a mount collector, and it's a pretty rare mount.
The drop rate will be drastically reduced come Cata.
I'll never be able to obtain this mount again.

Cons:
That's a lot of gold!


What would you do?

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Pro Tip: The time to buy or sell a profession is now!

There are a couple things that are common knowledge in the Gold Blogging community. One of the most important is the fact that a diversity of professions allow you to make the most gold at the fastest rate. Being able to jump in and out of markets as you desire not only allows you endless earning potential but an incredible amount of financial freedom to go along with it.

If one market isn't selling, you don't have to stay there. You have the luxury to invest in other markets. If you are limited to one or two professions, then you have pigeon holed yourself into a lower income. Now, this isn't to say someone with two professions can't make an insane amount of gold. However, it's easier when you have a diversity of professions at your disposal.

With only one month left to until Cataclysm, things are going to begin to change. You will start to see a larger influx of players returning to the market. People will start spending less and less on high end materials and eventually markets will become flooded with folks looking to unload all of their stock before the launch of Cataclysm.

That said, there has never been a better time to buy or sell a profession. What do I mean?

Buy a Profession:
I mean just that, buy all of your skill ups now. Your expensive 375-450 skill ups will never be as cheap as they are in today's market. Once Cataclysm hits and people start to get out of Northrend content, everything from that market is going to rise. Thus leave those people who didn't finish their leveling in the dust.

If you only have one or two professions and have alts they are either half way through, or have no professions at all now is the time to take advantage of these low prices. Giving yourself the ability to jump in the new hot markets of Cataclysm with be paramount in your gold making success in the next expansion.

Remember the Saronite Shuffle? Need and Enchanter and JC for that. How about Cobalt helms? Needed a blacksmith for that too. If you don't have the professions available to you in Cataclysm you won't be able to ride those combination to the top.

Sell a Profession:
Now is the best time to take advantage of the people I mentioned above. It may only cost 2000-3000g to buy up a certain profession. However, people such as myself are actively looking to buy profession leveling kits to save ourselves the hassle of tracking down the materials. If I can pay an extra 1-2k gold to have a guild bank handed to my alt with everything in it to level Blacksmithing from 1-450 then I will. It's a convenience issue. A lot of folks are willing to pay that extra cost. So if you have a stockpile of mats, a great way to make a little more money off of them would be to put together a leveling kit that can be beneficial to other players.

Oh, and Update:
131,223 Liquid :)

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