At its most basic, wealth is generated in World of Warcraft in one of three basic ways: selling things you acquire to vendors and/or other players, selling services to other players, or as rewards for accomplishing in game tasks. None of these should ever be dismissed out of hand and better ways to do each will be the topics of many columns to come.
Now, as far as getting started goes, you have a few very basic options.
If you're starting out with some wealth already, you're in a good position. This initial influx can come from one of several different sources: a patron may give you a little seed capital as a gift or a loan, you can acquire gold in exchange for real world money either directly from gold sellers (I advise against it, personally. It's against the Terms of Service and if you ever get busted, you pretty much forfeit your account.) or by purchasing a non-bound item from the Blizzard Store and selling it in-game for gold. At present, the only available item is the "Guardian Cub", but expect there to be more in the future. It's hard for a company to look "free money" in the face and say, "You know. We have enough of that. Let's never do this again." It's why Michael Bey movies keep getting made, despite the fact they are all CGI garbage.
But let's say you're starting fresh on a new server, not a friend to your name, with just a level 1 character and no inclination of "taking shortcuts", legitimate or otherwise. Acquiring that first gold coin may seem daunting, let alone getting a million of them.
Note that your server itself will play a huge factor in how you make your money. I don't necessarily mean PvP vs. PvE ones, but things that can be both easy to judge (is it a lower or higher population server? What time zone does it live in?) and more difficult (What faction 'dominates' the server or is it equal?). Roleplaying servers will have a much higher demand for pets, cosmetic armor, and other frill items.
I highly recommend that you create and level a second character other than your 'main' character a bit first. It will exist to farm you raw materials for either selling or for use on your main. Good choices for a farming character are druids, as harvesting in flight form can't be beaten; hunters, so that when a resource node is guarded, aggro can be pulled away by your pet while you harvest it; or warlocks, for the same reason as hunters.
Throughout the newbie tutorial, starter experience, or whatever you wish to call it, you will have opportunities to pick professions. Do this now and pick two gathering professions. Herbalism, mining, and skinning are all incredibly profitable and it is much more productive to start raising them immediately rather than having to waste time later revisiting lowbie zones searching for Peacebloom.
Hoard your harvests and any cloth that is found until you get to your first major city and sell it all on the auction house for just barely under the lowest competitor with 12 hour listings.
Go to bed, knowing in the morning you'll likely have your first gold coin or two.
Tomorrow: De-mystifying the Auction House.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Setting Reasonable Goals
Goals. Everybody has 'em (except a certain local sports franchise). They may be short-term goals or long-term goals, but you should plainly think of why you're going to be investing the time and energy. It may be to afford an expensive mount...or a barn full of them. It may be to gear up alts, blow in taverns of ill-repute (Goldshire in Moon Guard, I'm looking at you), or just as a personal means of 'keeping score' on your way to the gold cap.
Having goals allows you to keep your eyes on the prize. When you know what you're working for, you're more likely to stay focused on achieving it. Most people will prioritize their activities based on meeting their goals, so ensure any goals you set are practical given your play schedule and other commitments...and just because they are stated, they aren't carved in stone. You may find your initial target to be too easy or too hard to reach in the time frame you want. Don't be afraid to adjust it accordingly. Remember the point of the game is to have fun and if you treating golding like a second job, well... there are times the ends just don't justify the means.
In a hypothetical situation, I'm going to plan on earning 30k to spend on a new purple toy for my priest. (Now that I read that last bit back, it sounds a bit rude, so just... don't think of it like that.) If my Scheme of the Moment(tm) nets about 2k an hour profit, so I know that I can devote a few hours here and there and achieve my slightly less undergeared alt in a couple of weeks without driving myself nuts.
As a side note, when you have a tangible reward that you're working toward (insomuch has pixels have tangibility), it makes it a LOT easier when you click that "buy-it-now" button on the Auction House.
Now, should you wipe yourself back to a zero balance when you make that purchase? Not at all! It doesn't take money to make money in WoW, but it helps a LOT. Your goals should include leaving yourself some cushion after big-ticket purchases. A number of market strategies require a bit of liquid lucre to effectuate properly, so leave yourself with options after the fall.
Having goals allows you to keep your eyes on the prize. When you know what you're working for, you're more likely to stay focused on achieving it. Most people will prioritize their activities based on meeting their goals, so ensure any goals you set are practical given your play schedule and other commitments...and just because they are stated, they aren't carved in stone. You may find your initial target to be too easy or too hard to reach in the time frame you want. Don't be afraid to adjust it accordingly. Remember the point of the game is to have fun and if you treating golding like a second job, well... there are times the ends just don't justify the means.
In a hypothetical situation, I'm going to plan on earning 30k to spend on a new purple toy for my priest. (Now that I read that last bit back, it sounds a bit rude, so just... don't think of it like that.) If my Scheme of the Moment(tm) nets about 2k an hour profit, so I know that I can devote a few hours here and there and achieve my slightly less undergeared alt in a couple of weeks without driving myself nuts.
As a side note, when you have a tangible reward that you're working toward (insomuch has pixels have tangibility), it makes it a LOT easier when you click that "buy-it-now" button on the Auction House.
Now, should you wipe yourself back to a zero balance when you make that purchase? Not at all! It doesn't take money to make money in WoW, but it helps a LOT. Your goals should include leaving yourself some cushion after big-ticket purchases. A number of market strategies require a bit of liquid lucre to effectuate properly, so leave yourself with options after the fall.
Reinventing Oneself
Ok....I let my three loyal readers down and didn't keep the blog up for the past well, almost a year. Time to fix that. I'm getting back into writing and keeping the blog up to date is, if nothing else, a way to guilt myself into keeping at it.
I suppose it's best to get reacquainted with things.
Hi, I'm Strev on Whisperwind. I'm horrible at pvp (often hilariously so), passable in the "blowing things to Kingdom Come" department, and very, very good at making gold.
I never had the intention of starting this out as a blog dedicated to helping peoplesteal my customers earn virtual moolah, but in the past months I've acquired (and mostly blown) somewhere in the vicinity of 1M gold. Guildmates and friends have asked me for advice and while there are plenty of wonderful (and better) free sites to get information to help you along (and I direct people to those as well), I'd like to take a more personal hand in guiding people from poverty to providence.
Nothing depresses me more then when I hear a guildie say they barely have the money to afford repairs. There are vast amounts of wealth out there for the taking! But while they may have spent hours watching videos of how to down raid bosses, they've never invested the time to learn how to make gold.
Over the course of the next few weeks, I'll cover both the basics and more advanced techniques. I'll give you tips, tricks, things that worked for me, things that blew up horribly in my face (and why!), everything I've learned and even things I know I do wrong (but why they are wrong and why I continue to do them).
For those of you who care about the continuing (mis-)adventures of Strev and the Alt Brigade, don't despair... I'll throw in updates here and there. It just won't be the main focus of the blog for now.
I suppose it's best to get reacquainted with things.
Hi, I'm Strev on Whisperwind. I'm horrible at pvp (often hilariously so), passable in the "blowing things to Kingdom Come" department, and very, very good at making gold.
I never had the intention of starting this out as a blog dedicated to helping people
Nothing depresses me more then when I hear a guildie say they barely have the money to afford repairs. There are vast amounts of wealth out there for the taking! But while they may have spent hours watching videos of how to down raid bosses, they've never invested the time to learn how to make gold.
Over the course of the next few weeks, I'll cover both the basics and more advanced techniques. I'll give you tips, tricks, things that worked for me, things that blew up horribly in my face (and why!), everything I've learned and even things I know I do wrong (but why they are wrong and why I continue to do them).
For those of you who care about the continuing (mis-)adventures of Strev and the Alt Brigade, don't despair... I'll throw in updates here and there. It just won't be the main focus of the blog for now.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Adventures in Jewelcrafting
Looking for something new to do, I went ahead and bit the bullet and picked up Jewelcrafting on Anyth. I figured that it (in theory) can eventually be a money maker and it complements her mining nicely. That being said, I did what every other person does and headed over to wow-professions to see what I'd need to buy to level it up. In seconds I was disagreeing with their 'fast strategy' and started buying up rough stones at a fraction of the price of copper to kick start those first few points.
I wondered gamely: how much was this going to cost? I figured I'd keep track and let the grinding (and prospecting) begin! Please note that I'm the type of person that buys every available recipe, despite the fact I may never use 90% of them. Is my method the best? Hell, no. This is simply what I did at the time and cost of materials at the moment greatly influenced my decisions. The moral of the story is don't follow wow-professions blindly. Check what your options are.
1-50: Rough statues a plenty and a little copper wire and tigerseye rings. 10g, including the cost of training, all recipes, and the grinding and jeweler's kit.
Running total: 10g
51-80: Coarse stones could be found on the AH for well under a silver per, making them a lot more attractive than metals and gems. At about 6 silver per attempt at a skill point, I ran this until the stones turned green at 80.
Running total: 30g
81-110: Here I got a little bit of a break as silver was running cheap for the moment. 32 silver bars only set me back 3 gold. The next 28 cost 15, but will still the better alternative.
Running total: 48g
At this point I unloaded a ton of rings on the AH for cheap and vendored the rest. Simply put, at this stage it isn't worth the effort to mail all of the crap the Strev to disenchant and relist on the AH.
Here the price started taking an upswing. The next level of stone is much pricier. I got a great deal on the AH paying around a gold a stone (about a fifth of the going rate)...and then I realized the next skill up takes eight stones each. Yikes. Ring of Twilight Shadows costing 2 shadowgems (50s per on average) and 2 bronze bars (20s per) looked a LOT better. I relisted the stones for a profit and stocked up accordingly.
111-130: Ring of Twilight Shadows x 20. 28g to manufacture
Running total: 76g
131-153: Amulet of the Moon. A couple more bronzes (still cheap) and a couple of lesser moonstones per. Buying 32g worth of moonstones gave me 52 to play with and another 10g worth of bronze left me with more than enough to play with. The recipe turned yellow at 140, but I burned the rest of the mats I had.
Running total: 116g
At this point I'm up to Mithril crafting. Ore was much cheaper than bars and since Anyth can smelt, it was a bit of a no-brainer. It worked out to 9 gold per 40 bars and I had a lot of smelting to do. I picked up a bit more than the recommended 90 ore, intending to flip the rest for a quick profit.
154-185: Mithril Filigree
Running total: 136g
186-189: Solid Stone statues...Solid stone was so cheap, 3 gold was all it took for 90 stones and nine tries for this green recipe. I'd try more, but the AH is mysteriously now out. :)
Running total: 139g
190-210: Engraved Truesilver Rings. 25 gold bought me 22 Truesteel bars and when combined with the filigrees I had just made, I now had a stockpile of rings to unload on the AH.
Running total: 164g
I sold some of the massive overstock to pay the 5g for the expert skill, then it was time for difficult choices. Cheap recipes were yellow, but anything guaranteeing points were gonna cost a bit more than I'd been paying. I was proud that I'd kept everything under 200g so far. Now it was time to start biting the bullet.
211-222: Citrine Ring of Rapid Healing. 24g for 12 stones, plus I used up 5g worth of the mithril I was planning on reselling.
Running total: 198g
(As an amusing side note, at this point Timmy walked right past me and I bought his white kitten. This was promptly listed for 185g. We'll see if it sells.)
223-225: Aquamarine Pendant of the Warrior. 8g worth of Aquamarines into the hopper and we're finally out of Mithril and into Thorium.
Running total: 206g
226-254: Thorium Setting. Once again the ore is cheaper than the bars, but at 80s per, my costs are rapidly escalating. 48g for 60 ore. Sigh.
Running total: 254g
255-268: Ruby Pendant of Fire. 42g for 20 star rubies. At least I'm finally getting to the point where I can sell or DE the trash for a little of my coin back.
Running total: 296g
269-270: Simple Opal Ring. My first major snag. Only two gems on the market.
Running total: 300g
271-281: More Simple Opal Rings. Ok...that simply wasn't going to work. The 'prospecting' button called to me and I figured I'd take my chances. I picked up 50 thorium ore for 42g and tried my luck. 6 more opals and a few choice gems. I immediately held back the urge to buy another 2k ore and contented myself with another 50 ore for 48g (I get hooked and the price goes up!) Five more opals amongst the others.
Running total: 390g
282-287: Sapphire Pendant of Winter Night. Picked up all of the Essences of Undeath on the AH for 5g a pop and everything else was 'free', as I'd already counted in in the running total.
Running total: 420g
288-291: Diamond Focus Ring.
292-295: Emerald Lion Ring.
These were 'free' to make using leftover mats.
Running total: Still 420g
296-301: Glowing Thorium Bands & More Emerald Lion Rings. ...and another 100g on Thorium Ore. I'm now to the point where I can cut gems for sockets!
Running total: 520g
302-316: Prismatic Black Diamond. It's so nice getting skill-ups for under a gold again.
Running total: 535g
317-325: Random Gem cuts! Once more into the prospecting gambling den. 210g dropped on Fel Iron...which became 27 random gems. I have no idea if this is good. There were a lot left over. Hmm.
Given there's nothing practical on the AH to get over this particular hump, we'll stop here for now and try again in a day or two.
745g in and counting!
I wondered gamely: how much was this going to cost? I figured I'd keep track and let the grinding (and prospecting) begin! Please note that I'm the type of person that buys every available recipe, despite the fact I may never use 90% of them. Is my method the best? Hell, no. This is simply what I did at the time and cost of materials at the moment greatly influenced my decisions. The moral of the story is don't follow wow-professions blindly. Check what your options are.
1-50: Rough statues a plenty and a little copper wire and tigerseye rings. 10g, including the cost of training, all recipes, and the grinding and jeweler's kit.
Running total: 10g
51-80: Coarse stones could be found on the AH for well under a silver per, making them a lot more attractive than metals and gems. At about 6 silver per attempt at a skill point, I ran this until the stones turned green at 80.
Running total: 30g
81-110: Here I got a little bit of a break as silver was running cheap for the moment. 32 silver bars only set me back 3 gold. The next 28 cost 15, but will still the better alternative.
Running total: 48g
At this point I unloaded a ton of rings on the AH for cheap and vendored the rest. Simply put, at this stage it isn't worth the effort to mail all of the crap the Strev to disenchant and relist on the AH.
Here the price started taking an upswing. The next level of stone is much pricier. I got a great deal on the AH paying around a gold a stone (about a fifth of the going rate)...and then I realized the next skill up takes eight stones each. Yikes. Ring of Twilight Shadows costing 2 shadowgems (50s per on average) and 2 bronze bars (20s per) looked a LOT better. I relisted the stones for a profit and stocked up accordingly.
111-130: Ring of Twilight Shadows x 20. 28g to manufacture
Running total: 76g
131-153: Amulet of the Moon. A couple more bronzes (still cheap) and a couple of lesser moonstones per. Buying 32g worth of moonstones gave me 52 to play with and another 10g worth of bronze left me with more than enough to play with. The recipe turned yellow at 140, but I burned the rest of the mats I had.
Running total: 116g
At this point I'm up to Mithril crafting. Ore was much cheaper than bars and since Anyth can smelt, it was a bit of a no-brainer. It worked out to 9 gold per 40 bars and I had a lot of smelting to do. I picked up a bit more than the recommended 90 ore, intending to flip the rest for a quick profit.
154-185: Mithril Filigree
Running total: 136g
186-189: Solid Stone statues...Solid stone was so cheap, 3 gold was all it took for 90 stones and nine tries for this green recipe. I'd try more, but the AH is mysteriously now out. :)
Running total: 139g
190-210: Engraved Truesilver Rings. 25 gold bought me 22 Truesteel bars and when combined with the filigrees I had just made, I now had a stockpile of rings to unload on the AH.
Running total: 164g
I sold some of the massive overstock to pay the 5g for the expert skill, then it was time for difficult choices. Cheap recipes were yellow, but anything guaranteeing points were gonna cost a bit more than I'd been paying. I was proud that I'd kept everything under 200g so far. Now it was time to start biting the bullet.
211-222: Citrine Ring of Rapid Healing. 24g for 12 stones, plus I used up 5g worth of the mithril I was planning on reselling.
Running total: 198g
(As an amusing side note, at this point Timmy walked right past me and I bought his white kitten. This was promptly listed for 185g. We'll see if it sells.)
223-225: Aquamarine Pendant of the Warrior. 8g worth of Aquamarines into the hopper and we're finally out of Mithril and into Thorium.
Running total: 206g
226-254: Thorium Setting. Once again the ore is cheaper than the bars, but at 80s per, my costs are rapidly escalating. 48g for 60 ore. Sigh.
Running total: 254g
255-268: Ruby Pendant of Fire. 42g for 20 star rubies. At least I'm finally getting to the point where I can sell or DE the trash for a little of my coin back.
Running total: 296g
269-270: Simple Opal Ring. My first major snag. Only two gems on the market.
Running total: 300g
271-281: More Simple Opal Rings. Ok...that simply wasn't going to work. The 'prospecting' button called to me and I figured I'd take my chances. I picked up 50 thorium ore for 42g and tried my luck. 6 more opals and a few choice gems. I immediately held back the urge to buy another 2k ore and contented myself with another 50 ore for 48g (I get hooked and the price goes up!) Five more opals amongst the others.
Running total: 390g
282-287: Sapphire Pendant of Winter Night. Picked up all of the Essences of Undeath on the AH for 5g a pop and everything else was 'free', as I'd already counted in in the running total.
Running total: 420g
288-291: Diamond Focus Ring.
292-295: Emerald Lion Ring.
These were 'free' to make using leftover mats.
Running total: Still 420g
296-301: Glowing Thorium Bands & More Emerald Lion Rings. ...and another 100g on Thorium Ore. I'm now to the point where I can cut gems for sockets!
Running total: 520g
302-316: Prismatic Black Diamond. It's so nice getting skill-ups for under a gold again.
Running total: 535g
317-325: Random Gem cuts! Once more into the prospecting gambling den. 210g dropped on Fel Iron...which became 27 random gems. I have no idea if this is good. There were a lot left over. Hmm.
Given there's nothing practical on the AH to get over this particular hump, we'll stop here for now and try again in a day or two.
745g in and counting!
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