Monday, January 31, 2011

The Tale of a Gorilla Hunter

I was on a mission. 

I was well beyond the level requirement of 40 that was required to obtain my first mount.  I was level 46 when I finally raised up enough money to buy my first mount ever.  I had already bought my mount and was saving enough gold for the riding skill itself.  I had wandered the flattend landside for far too long on my own feet.  I was a rogue and count often use my sprint ability to cover a few seconds of extra space, but nothing was like being able to get my first ground mount.  Finally I would be able to move faster around doing these quests.  The Barrens was spread so far and covering everything on foot was miserable.  And poor Manrik's wife.

I was on a mission.

I had to collect more items to sell for raising enough gold to purchase that riding skill.  I had my mind set on farming some Jungle Thunderer's in Stranglethorn Vale.  These apes dropped a grey item that vendored for 6 silver and 8 copper, which seemed like a lot to me at the time.  I was a rogue leatherworking skinner.  The Jungle Thunderers could be skinned into Heavy Leather, Thick  Leather, and Heavy Hides.  I would farm these apes until my bags were full of Coarse Gorilla Hairs, Large Fangs, Chipped Gorilla Teeth, and Gorilla Fangs.  I would vendor everything except for the Large Fangs because I vaguely remember looking for those when I was working on my Leatherworking Profession. 

And My Mission Changed

Then I recalled it was for those cool blue bracers.  I looked at the recipe and saw I already held most of the materials.  These Apes had been supplying me with Large Fangs, Heavy Leather, and Heavy Hides.  Farming some leathers for previously skilling up the leatherworking profession had left me with extra leathers. 

I then found a stack of Small Lustrous Pearls in my bank.  A few stacks of Raptor Hides from another zone of farming were also already stored in the bank because, "One day I might use these."  Combining it all together, I was able to craft a few pairs of Barbaric Bracers

And it all changed there...

Barbaric Bracers then became the very first profession item I ever crafted and sold on the Auction House. I still sell them to this day at great profits, but I do none of the farming. The auction house feeds me what I need.
What was your defining moment when the lightbulb came on?

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Making Gold With Limited Playtime

Wow Gold Making Carnival

This month's topic for the Wow Gold Blogging Carnival over at Just My Two Copper has Mageshadow asking the question, "How would you make gold with limited playtime?"

Limited Playtime

Many players are not able to sit in front of their computer all day and camp the auction house, constantly scan for steals and deals, or craft using their professions.  Some markets are very dependent on having a large amount of playtime to dedicate.  There are auction house markets that require constant babysitting and listing and re-listing.  If you have a limited amount of playtime, then you must strike up a balance between what time you use to actually play the game and what time you use to craft, flip, and make gold.  This balance can be hard to obtain, but is much easier when focusing on certain markets.

The Don't Even Think About It Markets

Some markets are heavily dependent on constant listing and re-listing just to make any sort of profit.  If you have a limited amount of playtime you should probably steer clear of these markets.  If you can't constantly babysit your goods and re-list them when they are undercut, then you will probably be undercut into oblivion and not sell many items on the auction house at all.  Avoid these markets.  Many are heavily dependent on having time to prospect, mill, craft, and or bark.

Post It And Forget It Markets

Other markets are much less attention required and can usually be done in a much quicker time.  Many of these markets can have their items crafted while afk, which is great.  You can start a batch of crafting as you are quitting for the night and let your character afk out while crafting.  When you log in the next day, you will have bags full of crafted items ready to post onto the auction house.
Don't Forget!

The 2nd Round of Cold's Gold Blogging Carnivals will coming soon.  Get your entries in, if you would like to participate.  If you are a reader, return back the 11th of every month for the Gold Blogging Carnivals hosted here.

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Book of Glyph Mastery Price Spike

Book of Glyph Mastery

Lack of Suppy

Book of Glyph Mastery is a world drop from Wrath of the Lich King in World of Warcraft.  These can drop off any creatures in the Northrend continent or within the Northrend dungeons.  Since the majority of the population on most servers has moved onto the new Cataclysm content, not as many Northrend creatures are being killed.  Therefore less Books of Glyph Mastery are being found.  This lack of incoming books, coupled with players alraedy unloading a lot of their stockpiles have created a spike in prices of these books.

Rise In Prices

At the end of Wrath of the Lich King, the Book of Glyph Mastery was selling for a lowly 25g and now I am selling them for 225g each.  There will always be new scribes entering the glyph game and many of these Books of Glyph Mastery are required in order to get many of the good selling glyphs.  So if you see them underpriced, be sure to snatch them up and repost for much higher. 

Friday, January 28, 2011

Transmute Truegold - It Only Takes One To Start

Transmute Truegold

Transmuting Truegold is only avialable to an Alchemist at 525 (max) skill level Alchemy.  This is a very popular transmutation cooldown to sell once per day to other players looking to have the transmutation performed so they can acquire enough Truegold for their crafting requirements of other profession recipes.

Transmutation Specialization Alchemist

If you have chosen the Alchemy specialization of transmutation, then you have a chance of producing extra Truegold when you perform the transmutation.  Are you doing your transmutation in front of the customer buying your cooldown?  What happens if there is a transmute proc that produces extra Truegold?  Who do they belong to, you or the paying customer?  Well there is a simple way around that whole can of worms.

Do all of your transmuting in private, if you are a transmutation specced Alchemist.

I touched on this same topic last year in my post about selling cooldowns for Titansteel and Epic Gems.  You can avoid the arguement of who the extra procs belong to altogether by just trading the single finished product to the customer.  When someone buys your cooldown do this.
  1. Open Trade.
  2. Wait for him to post the materials he is trading for the transmute.
  3. Post the final product (precrafted) into the trade window also.
  4. Than ask him to go ahead and post the cooldown crafting fee as well.
  5. Complete trade alone with tip and materials all in 1 action.
  6. Thank your customer.
  7. Wait until he is gone and go do your daily transmute in private.
Benefits of Transmuting In Private

No one ever can stake claim to your extra procs as theirs since they were "buying your cooldown" thus have paid for the chance at getting the proc.  This process only takes a single precrafted finished product to get started. 

The other benefit is that if you have multiple ones premade, then you can sell multiple finished products to the same person.  Often times these players or crafters need more than 1 of the items transmuted.  If you can just give the 1 Truegold, they will continue to search in trade chat for another alchemist to make them another one, etc. until they get all of the ones they are needing.  Having extras can get you multiple crafting transmute fees in a single day, which helps cover those days that you didn't even find a buyer, and also helps assure that you have the materials for a transmute every day, without coming out of pocket.  So the more procs you get in private the more times you can make this transaction to the same or multiple players. 

Another benefit is that if you are keeping your finished products in a guild bank shared by your characters, any of your characters can perform the trade without having to log over to your alchemist.  They can just grab the Truegold out of the guild bank, make the trade and either mail the materials to the alchemist or just toss them back into the community guild bank.

Hope I helped open your eyes to the hassle free more profitable way to do your transmutation specialist transmuting.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Auction House Junkies Episode 2 Is Out

Auction House Junkies Podcast

Cold's Gold Factory and Capped by Cata present to you

Auction House Junkies - Episode 2

Already?  Yup!  We are trying to feed your addiction as quickly as possible.

So head on over to the Auction House Junkies Homepage and enjoy Episode 2. 

Listen to the full show to learn how you can win the World of Warcraft Programming Add-Ons Guide.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Pyrite Ore, Epic Gems, and Volatile Life: Reader Submission

Reader Submission - Huntrix of Akama

Hello mate, I've been reading your guide every day now for the past month or two, But I've had a question I believe you haven't answered on any of your posts yet.


My names huntrix, im from realm Akama horde, im sitting on 180kish in gold, and i probably have another 50-100k in liquid mats I think, I have alot of abyss crystals, saronite ore, and Argent tournament pets. I have about 100 metas saved up for the patch, and I plan on buying the new meta pattern, by camping the AH and buying it for whatever price it is and start mass cutting metas for a good price.

Any way my question is: Do you think it is worth it to invest into the Pyrite Ore due to one of the next patches that Pyrite Ore will be able to be prospected into EPIC gems? And at what price would you recommend buying the pyrite ore, and how many stacks would you invest in?

Also my other question is what do you think about Volatile Lifes, i've been reading that tons of people are buying these up for pretty cheap to sell them later? I haven't really read alot about the volatile lifes so my knowledge on this is lacking

Any way thanks again I hope you answer back my question!
huntrix

*************************

Thanks for the reader submission, Huntrix.

Volatile Life - If you are finding these cheap I would definately pick up some to flip at a higher price.  These Volatile Lifes are required to create Darkmoon Cards and Decks so you can buy them throught the month to sell during the week of the Darkmoon Faire.  This was the case for Primal Lifes and Eternal Lifes as well.  The 1 week during the faire you will see a spike in demand, thus higher sales volumes and prices.

Also Patch 4.0.6 includes 3 new alchemist stones and all of them require 50 Volatile Life to craft, so now alchemists can choose a stone other than +stamina and go for a major stat like +str, +int, or +agi.

Pyrite Ore - Once it is patched in that prospecting Pyrite Ore creates epic gems the price will inflate overnight and will result in an overall higher value of the stacks of ores.  This is not being added in Patch 4.0.6 yet.  Just like Titanium prices went up when the epics started to be able to come from those ores.  You then have 2 options. 

You can buy reasonably prices Pyrite Ore and then flip it later, or you can buy it now while its cheaper and then prospect it later once the epic gems are patched in.  Either way could earn you a nice return on investment, especially if you have saved up jewelcrafting tokens to get the new epic cuts as they are released.  Not sure what a good price would be to buy at, but buying at 75% or less of current value should be a fail safe method.
Thanks Again Huntrix!

If you have a question you would like addressed feel free to email it to me, or email it over at the Auction Hosue Junkies homepage, if you would it to be addressed on the podcast.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Twilight Highlands Inscription Vendor

One of my new favorite vendors is in Twilight Highlands.  Una Kobuna (Horde) and Casandra Downs (Alliance) are accessed in Twilight Highlands only after completing the quest chain to unlock their factions.  These vendors are only available to those players level 84 and above that have completed the quests leading up to them.  These vendors sell some great items for flipping onto the auction house to sell to level 74-83 scribes that can't access these items on their own.

The materials are required in to create the relics and jewelry required to maximize the Inscription skill without waiting on a single point a day from Forged Documents

These vendors sell these Inscription items that can be sold for nice profits on the auction house.
The relics and jewelry requiring these items can be sold for a profit, but only whent he market isn't flooded, so only craft one at a time.   

Monday, January 24, 2011

Greater Eternal Essense And Illusion Dust Shortage

Greater Eternal Essense (GEE) and Illusion Dust

Attention Folks:  There Is A Shortage of Greater Eternal Essenses and Illusion Dust

The supplies of both Greater Eternal Essense and Illusion Dust have been depleted by a lot of the enchanters.  Why?  The combination of all of the new characters using twink enchants for BoA items, the return of twinks,  and new enchanters leveling their profession have created a shortage.  The enchanting profession leveling process requires a lot of both of the Eternal Essenses as well as Illusion Dust.  They both are required in many of the popular twink and BoA enchants and Greater Eternal Essenses are required in 2 of the Enchanting Rods that all leveling enchanters must craft.

Enchanted Thorium Blades

One of the most profitable tricks to getting Greater Eternal Essenses and Illusion Dust dates back to the Vanilla days of World of Warcraft.  Blacksmiths can create Enchanted Thorium Blades, which then can be disenchanted into their enchanting materials.  Each blade has a good chance to disenchant into 1-2 GEEs, 1-2 Illusion Dust less often, and rarely 1 Large Brilliant Shard.

Enchanted Thorium Blades require 2 Enchanted Thorium Bars, 6 Thorium Bars, and 1 Rugged Leather.  Enchanted Thorium Bars require just 1 Thorium Bar and 3 Dream Dust, which is in a major overflow of supply and can be bought for dirt cheap on the auction house currently.  So check the prices on your server to see how profitable this strategy is.  It is even easier to do nowadays as miners can craft their own enchanted thorium. 

I have been selling my Greater Eternal Essenses for 35-45g and Illusion Dust at 12-16g each.  These prices are too good to leave out of my daily routine.  Another profitable venture could be selling Enchanted Thorium as 1 Thorium Bar plus 3 Dream Dust could be just as profitable as crafting and selling Arcanite Bars

Other Options
  • Disenchant level 51-60 weapons that drop in Azeroth and not Outlands.
  • UBRS is now the better place to farm these as Stratholme and Scholomance have had their difficulty level lowered.
  • Crafted and disenchant items from this Filtered List From Wowhead.
  • Buy cheap Lesser Eternal Essenses and convert to Greaters.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Kaja'Cola From The Goblin Starting Zone

Kaja'Cola

Kaja'Cola is a nifty little item that is picked up from all over the goblin starting zone and is also rewarded from completing goblin quests.  Kaja'Cola is part novelty item and part buff.  Drinking it gives 2 effects.  You get a small buff that grants +2 Intelligence for 10 minutes and when you drink it your character will yell out a random "idea" for everyone to hear.

These are not bound to the character that loots them, so they can be mailed off and sold on the auction house.  Players will buy them as a fun novelty item.  The gold isn't going to make you rich, but if you gather some of these while doing the goblin zone, mail them off for a little profit from the auction house.  These could be a good way to get you started on the auction house, if you are trying to build some seed money to get your new auction business running.

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Engineering Cogwheel Exchange

Zim Bamzabble
Cataclysm Engineering Item Exchange


Zim Bamzabble is the Engineering item vendor at Dragonmaw Port in the Twilight Highlands.  Frank Natale is the Alliance version and is located within Highbank. All the high end profession vendors in Twilight Highlands are only accessable after completing the quest line that requires a level 84 character to begin.  This limits the number of players that can access these vendors significantly.  Most of the items acquired are Bind-on-Pickup, but not the engineering items that Zim and Frank trade.  So you can sell these engineering cogwheel gems on the auction house.  


Cogwheel Gems


All of the new item level 359 Engineering only epic helmets, Bio-Optic Killshades, have a slot for a meta-gem and 2 slots for engineer only cogwheels.  These cogwheels can only be obtained after leveling to level 84, completing the quests required to unlock the npcs in Twilight Highlands, then trading the appropriate items to the vendors.


The Bio-Optic Killshades however, can be worn at level 81 and the pattern can be learned at 525 Engineering skill level.  This pattern is taught by any of the various Engineering trainers.  So you could have the pattern at max skill taught to you and be ready to wear it at level 81.  You have to be level 84 to access the cogwheel vendor yourself.  See the dilemna?  This gives players who have unlocked the Twilight Highlands vendors an opportunity to sell the cogwheels to lower level players who cannot access the vendors themselves.


Engineering Vendor Cogwheel Exchange


List of Cogwheel Gems and Costs:
Fractured Cogwheel- 208 Mastery Rating - Goblin Barbecue
Precise Cogwheel - 208 Expertise Rating - Lure Master Tackle Box
Quick Cogwheel - 208 Haste Rating - 4 x Handful of Obsidium Bolts
Rigid Cogwheel - 208 Hit Rating - Elementium Toolbox
Smooth Cogwheel - 208 Critical Strike Rating - 4 x Handful of Obsidium Bolts
Sparkling Cogwheel - 208 Spirit - Authentic Jr. Engineer Goggles
Subtle Cogwheel - 208 Dodge Rating - 4 x Handful of Obsidium Bolts
Flashing Cogwheel - 208 Parry Rating - Volatile Seaforium Blastpack


Some of the items are rather cheap to craft and others can be found on the auction house.  The best thing about this strategy is that you don't need to be an engineer to access the engineering vendor.  So look on the auction house for these items to trade in to the vendors for a profit.  


Props to Justmytwocopper for touching on this information first.  Although in their original post on the New Engineering Market, Mageshadow just recommends the 3 cogwheels that take the Handful of Obsidian Bolts.  After further delving into this, I realized that none of the items are very expensive to craft for trading to the vendors.  Some can even be found rather cheap on the auction house, since many lower level engineers will dump some of these cheap as they used them to skill up their engineering profession.

Friday, January 21, 2011

The Auctioneer Hot Spot In New Orgrimmar

New Orgrimmar Tauren Area
New Orgrimmar

You aren't still basing your auctioneering operations in the near front gate of Orgrimmar are you?  The front gate commerce area in the new Orgrimmar era is one of the least efficient areas to use as your base of operations since Cataclysm.  It is really bad compared to my new favorite area.

Why The Orgrimmar Front Gate Auction House Sucks

Everything is too far apart.  This wastes valuable time running to the auction house from the anvil, the forge, the bank, trade merchants selling your dyes, thread, parchaments, etc.  The one good thing is that there is a mailbox at the foot of the steps leading up to the auction house.  That's all though.

The Most Efficient Auctioneer Area

The most efficient area to set up shop and organize your business is the Tauren area within the Valley of Wisdom.  The screenshot above shows all of the basics you need as a merchant to cut down on wasted time while crafting, buying, selling, mailing, and listing on the auction house.  Let's look at what the Tauren area has to offer.
  • Forge and Anvil next to each other, along with a repairing vendor.
  • Mailbox.
  • Bank and Guild Vault next to each other.
  • Bonfire for cooking.
  • Trade vendor selling commonly used items, like Runethread.
  • Auctioneer.
The best part is this is almost everything you could ask for and all within a few paces from each other.  This has quickly become my new favorite spot to post and craft as everything is so close together.

The Goblin area isn't as good because the mailbox is too far away from the auction house.  Same goes for the troll area.  The mailbox is on the ground level and the auctioneer and bank are higher up.  No guild bank (or at least none easily found) is also a huge penalty for both of these areas. 

One nice benefit of the troll area is that the auctioneer and the bank can both be accessed without having to move, but if you need to add mailbox and / or guild bank interaction into your routine, then you are better off over in the sweet Tauren hot spot.

The Orgrimmar back blacksmithing area is just as bad as the front.  Everything is too far apart.

Submitted into The Best of The Month Blogging Carnival over at Not So Secret Society.

You aren't running back and forth from the bank to the auction house in the front of Ogrimmar are you?

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Epic 5k Fortune Card: Why The Physical Copy Is Better Than The Script Macro

Epic Mysterious Fortune Cards

I have been heavily into selling mysterious fortune cards via barking in the trade chat channel.  These mysterious fortune cards continue to be a hot seller.  On Tuesday night, I was lucky enough to log in to barely any competition on the auction house.  A whopping 13 Mysterious Fortune Cards were all that were posted.  Of course I bought all of those 16g cards out and relisted them along with my own for 36g each with price breaks for 10 and 20 packs.  After my usual round of barking macros, they started to sell like crazy.  How crazy?  35k in 5 hours crazy.

Give Them A Reason To Buy Yours

One of my tried and true strategies is to give the buyers a reason to buy your Mysterious Fortune Cards over your competitor's fortune cards.  One strategy is to list in multiple size packs with a slight discount.  10 packs and 20 packs work best in my experience.  Another strategy that has been ingenious in driving buyers to my Mysterious Fortune Cards relies on one of my barking macros.
"Mysterious Fortune Cards in stock on the Auction House now!  Your chance at winning the 5k Jackpot.  If you win the (Insert Epic 5k Fortune Card Here) from one of MY CARDS, I will buy it back for 5.5 k gold - That's a 10% PRIME BONUS!" --Primerib
This barking macro has 2 purposes. 
  • Even though I have no way to tell that the winner came from a card of mine, people tend to skip right over the under cutters and buy my cards because of the extra incentive. 
  • This 5.5k epic fortune card is a great item to actual own yourself as a barking scribe.  Barking that you will it back gives you first dips at any card out there.
Let's look at why you should get one. 

Epic 5k Fortune Card - Why You Want A Physical Copy

Many players are skeptical about just how rare these cards actually are.  They think the odds are very low that anyone will win.  Having one of these cards to show to players improves their perception about the chances of themselves getting a winner.  This leads to more sales.  Linking in trade chat from a macro works to drive more sales, but physically showing someone that there has been a winner drives a lot more sales than linking alone.

The crazy thing is that I actually own 2 now.  Bought them both back on the same night.  I cannot prove it, but I have a hunch that there was a hotfix this last Tuesday that improved the odds.  I had 2 winners from purchasers boths on Tuesday night.  One reported buying 10 cards and the other had bought 60 cards.  I purchased both of these as promised. 

Another benefit is that I can thwart trade trolls by showing these cards to players in the trade window.  They usually run right from me and into the auction house and convert to more sales.

I also use them on alts of mine procaliming that I just won and thank my scribe in trade chat for selling me a winning fortune card.  Trolls shout out in disbelief, I show a few more players and they confirm it in trade as well.  More sales roll in.

Funny thing is a can actualy charge an "observation fee" of 5-10g just to have a peek at the rare card.  Made some gold already by just letting people see it or betting that I do in fact have one in my possession.

And lastly, having one makes linking a lot easier.  Using the macros and scripts has worked some nights and other nights the scripts seem to be broken.  Some times they owrk and other times they appear to work, but are actually unlinkable or only link the non-hyper linked versions of the card text only, which is worthless.  Having a physical copy in your possession completely eliminates that issue. 

I am a big proponant of using the AnnounceIt Add-on to make all your barking much easier.  The biggest drawback is that you cannot code the script into the macro for the 5k epic fortune card.  You must have a physical copy as it relies on a drag and drop interface to register the hyperlinks.  Now that I have one, I can use a 1 click macro and never have to link the scripted card version into a new bark.  It makes barking a one click masterpiece without any problems at all. 

So I highly recommend picking up at least one of these Epic 5k Mysterious Fortune Card Jackpot Winners to both help increase your sales and make your barking career much easier.

Get caught up on a ton of resources for Mysterious Fortune Cards.  This is also the post featured in the Auction House Junkies podcast, Episode #1.

Check out Cold's Mysterious Fortune Card Mastery Guide

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Obsidium Ores & The Big Three Professions Shuffle

Obsidium Ore Selling Idiots
Obsidium Ore - Farming The Auction House

Obsidium Ore was listed at very low prices on the Auction House.  Who would sell Obsidium Ore at such a low price?  Probably ignorant and uninformed farmers or players too lazy to put these to good use.  These Obsidium Ores were selling from 29 - 35g for full stacks, when I logged in early in the morning to hunt for deals.  My Mammoth Mining Bags are now overflowing as I bought 8k gold worth of Obsidium Ore at this price.  Wes, I beg to differ.  The dumbest Warcraft players are on my server!  Time to shuffle all these ores for major profits.

The Big Three Professions

The Big Three is the excellent gold making profession combination of Jewel Crafting, Alchemy, and Enchanting.  It was an added bonus if you had an Alchemist / Enchanter and could take advantage of disenchanting the Bind-On-Pickup Epic Alchemist trinkets for Maelstrom Crystals.  As of yesterday's hotfix, these are no longer able to be disenchanted.  The Big Three has been very profitable through out Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, and now into Cataclysm.  Jewelcrafting was introduced in the Burning Crusade expansion, so The Big Three did not exist during Vanilla World of Warcraft.  If you are stuck and looking to expand your gold making oppurtunities, be sure to have The Big Three Professions covered.
  • Jewelcrafting - Is used primarily for prospecting ores into uncommon and rare gems.  Also is used for crafting jewelry and weapons (like Carnilian Spikes) to be disenchanted.  Also is used for cutting gems and jewelry to vendor for a profit or sell on the Auction Houses of Azeroth.
  • Alchemy - Is used to transmute gems and meta-gems, truegold and living elements. 
  • Enchanting - Is used to disenchant jewelry and other items to create Enchanting materials like Dusts, Essences, and Shards.  Also used to create Enchanting scrolls to sell on the Auction House.
I also recommend that you take a look at the Venture, LLC Blog.  Stede has a nice post about making gold from Selling Cataclysm Jewelry.

Shuffling Your Ores
  1. Buy ores from the Auction House or gather from farming.
  2. Have the Jewelcrafter prospect the ores for gems.
  3. Cut the rare gems and post on the Auction House.
  4. Sell uncommon gems raw, cut and vendor, or craft jewelry & weapons for disenchating.
  5. Send all jewelry and weapons to Enchanter.
  6. Send some gems to Alchemist to Transmute rare gems and metagems.
  7. Send those transmuted gems back and cut them to sell on the Auction House.
  8. Have Enchanter disenchant all items and sell some Enchanting materials raw on the Auction House.
  9. Create Enchanting scrolls to sell on the Auction House.
This processing of ores is profitable with most of the ores, but especially the newest forms of ores.  If you don't have The Big Three covered with your professions, then I highly suggest you start working towards having all three professions.  Jewelcrafting, Alchemy, and Enchanting are an excellent first set of professions to be working towards.

Are you covering The Big Three in your World of Warcraft gold making process?

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

The Auction House Junkies Gold Making Podcast

Auction House Junkies - A Gold Making Podcast

As you may have caught wind, Wes of Capped by Cata and I, Cold of Cold's Gold Factory, have been hard at work on a super secret project.  This secret project has been leaked by Hagor da Goblin, an employee within Cold's Gold Factory.  Hagor has been a highly popular little defector, but he will be punished accordingly.

Wes and I proudly present to you today the premiere edition of our Auction House Junkies podcast.  This podcast will focus on auction house tips, gold making, and listener submissions and questions.  We ask that you help us spread the word about this podcast as we have high expectations for ourselves and plan to provide helpful and practical content for expanding your gold making knowledge.  We are both Auction House Junkies and we will also feed your addiction one episode at a time.

So head on over to the new website and listen to episode one.  Feedback will be highly appreciated.

Auction House Junkies Podcast Homepage

Official Auction House Junkies Lens on Squidoo

What should the punishment be for Hagor da Goblin?  Should we give Hagor his own segment in upcoming shows?

Monday, January 17, 2011

Free Blackened Dragonscales and Savage Leather Scraps

Twilight Dragonkin in Mount Hyjal
Free Savage Leather, Scraps, and Blackened Dragonscales

Sethria's Roost in the Cataclysm zone Mount Hyjal is an excellent spot to find already dead Twilight Dragonkin.  When leveling a character witht the skinning profession, I liked to periodically check this area of the zone.  Remember how profitable the old Yeti cavern was east of Everlook when you would arrive and find a non skinner killing the yetis for the quests there?  Well this area in southern area of the Cataclysm zone Mount Hyjal is another one of those great finds.  The quest chains are in the middle of the leveling process of this zone and are often completed by many players, both Horde and Alliance.  Most players will complete this part of the zones quests because they are still not level 82 when they begin the quests.  Some players will head off to Deepholm as soon as they hit level 82.

I love checking this area for free dead mobs for many reasons.
  • The Twilight Dragonkin are heavily concentrated in these small areas.
  • Questing traffic from players is very high, which increases the chances of dead mobs waiting to be skinned.
  • During high traffic times of the day, you may have more corpses than you can skin before decaying.
  • The respawn rates are very rapid.
  • These Twilight Dragonkin drop Savage Leather, Savage Leather Scraps, Blackened Dragonscales, and Strange Bloated Stomachs when skinned.
The types of Twilight Dragonkin that can be found at Sethria's Roost in Mount Hyjal are:
Strange Bloated Stomachs

Strange Bloated Stomachs are a rare drop from skinning any Cataclysm creatures.  These Strange Bloated Stomachs can be opened and will contain 1-2 of the various Cataclysm volatile elements: 
  • Volatile Earth
  • Volatile Air
  • Volatile Life
  • Volatile Fire
  • Volatile Water
In addition, any Skinner / Engineer carrying an Electrostatic Condenser can get an additional 1-2 Volatile Air contained within the Strange Bloated Stomachs.

What other sweet spots are there for free skinning oppurtunities in Cataclysm?

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Cataclysm Gas Clouds and Electrostatic Condenser

Where are the Gas Clouds in Cataclysm?

There are none!  The Zappthrottle Mote Extractor that is used by Engineers to gather motes in Outland and crystalized elements fron Northrend gas clouds is useless within the World of Warcraft Cataclysm zones.  Why?  There are no gas clouds in Cataclysm zones.  Maybe they will be added later or maybe not.

Electrostatic Condenser

New to Cataclysm Engineers is the Electrostatic Condenser.  This gadget allows engineers that also have a gathering profession to occasionally collect extra Volatile Air from Cataclysm mineral veins, skinnable corpses, and herbalism plantlife.  This new gadget is worthless to any engineer that has another crafting profession as it only benefits gathering professions.  Luckily, my main is an Engineer / Miner.  I would not recommend changing professions just to benefit from the procs of the Electrostatic Condensor.  Think of it more as an added bonus for gathering Engineers.  If you are a Engineer / Miner, Engineer / Skinner, or Engineer / Herbalist be sure to either buy one, have one crafted, or craft it yourself before anything else.  This will allow you to instantly reap the benefits of occasional extra Volatile Airs.

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Mammoth Mining Bags - Reader Submission

Cold,

I've lurked on your site for a while and I've noticed that you're always very active in the gold blog community. You have my thanks.

I play on a pretty low population faction on my server so I may be in a unique situation but I doubt it. I'm currently killing the Mammoth Mining Bag market. The reasons are obvious, farming ore is a big business in Cat and players want to store as much it as they can on their farming runs. I'm discovering that I've got very little competition on this market and my bags are selling for around 400g. Even on my low pop faction they are selling very quickly. It takes 48 borean leather to make one (8 heavy borean). The leather is slowly rising in price because it's just in shorter supply but it's a perfect candidate for your snatch list because the current margin on the MMB is huge.

So why is the MMB so limited on the AH? The answer is, that it's a lot less common for a new Leatherworker. The reason it's less common is because you need to be honored with Sons of Hordir. That in itself isn't a super difficult task but you do have to complete the 23 part quest chain at http://www.wowhead.com/quest=12843 (see comments there for details) . The subtle reason this isn't more common is that because of the experience increase in wotlk, you don't really hit this content while leveling. That entire area is a ghost town in Storm Peaks, you're just leveling too fast. You go straight to the ice crown area and the bigger payoff quests there. Besides, the quest chain for Sons of Hordir is kind of a pain. If you remember, part of it includes flying your butt alllllll the way up that extremely high mountain peak to talk to the giant Thorim several times. You have to put in the hard time to get this recipe and in Cataclysm this bag is still the largest mining bag. They released new bags for everything else it seems, but not mining.

I also think a lot of LW switched professions in Cat (that wanted to make money).
Thanks,
Plink

**************
 
Thanks for the sumbission Plink.  I have been selling a few of these myself.  They were really a great common commodity to craft and sell early into Cataclysm when there were tons of miners.  Great that you are still seeing sales as I am too.  I touched on this slightly in a previous Relics of Hodir discussion.
 
You too can email in a reader submission for posting consideration.  Feel free to submit one or contact me with any questions you may have.

Friday, January 14, 2011

Hagor da Goblin Leaks Secret Information

Hagor da Goblin
Hello fellow goblins and tall ones.

You nots know me.  Me Hagor.  Me sneaks and listens and hears secret information.  Hagor share with you all now.  Please listen to Hagor.  Hagor will show you great many things.  Hagor will show you wonderful things.  Me go now 'for boss sees me in office and nots work.  Me help boss makes gold.

-Hagor da Goblin

Listen to Hagor's Leaked Information Here

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Cold's Gold Blogging Carnivals: February 11th Topic

These blogging carnivals are excellent resources for our readers to get some excellent nuggets of knowledge all in one place. They are also excellent tools for bloggers to get recognized and start to drive traffic from our sites to yours. I highly recommend participating in these blogging carnivals as your submission's will tend to be some of the most visited content on your site. Be sure to read about the benefits of blogging carnivals, if you are undecided about participating in Cold's Gold Blogging Carnival.


What Is a Blogging Carnival?

A blogging carnival is a compilation of blog posts all created around one specific topic, which is chosen by the host site. Entries into the carnival are submitted to the host. The host then organizes the posts into one big post with links back to the original articles on the participating author's sites.

Rules for Cold's Gold Factory Blogging Carnivals

Create the entire post on your own site.

Send me an email with a link to your post. SSmith0911 (at) live (dot) com

Submissions must be in by the 10th of each month.

All carnivals will go live on Cold's Gold Factory on the 11th of each month.

All World of Warcraft bloggers are invited to participate. You don't have to author a gold blog, but you need to follow the set topic.

Each post written for the carnival should begin with a link with the anchor text "Cold's Gold Blogging Carnival" and link to http://coldsgoldfactory.blogspot.com/p/colds-gold-blogging-carnivals.html

Learn more about the importance of proper anchor text here. Linking to the above page with the proper anchor text in each carnival entry will help to drive traffic to the gold blogging carnival and in turn drive more traffic to your entries.

February 11th Topic:  What 3 Pieces Of Advise Would You Give A Little Goblin? (3 Top Tips For New Auctioneers?)

Be sure to check out the first carnival if you missed it.  Favorite Farming Spots in Cataclysm

Have you tipped your bloggers today?

Thanks for all the wonderful farming entries for January!  Hope to have you all and more for February.

-Cold

*****************

Shhhhhh!  It's secret to everbody!  Me works at Cold factory.  Boss works on secret project.  Me listen outside boss room.  Me leaks project info when boss no hear.  You keeps watch.  Shhh.  Boss coming!  We speaks soon.

- Hagor da goblin

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Mr. Pinchy and His Magical Crawdad Box

Magical Crawdad
El's Professions Contest Giveaway

El over at El's Professions (El's Extreme Anglin') is giving away a fishing card WoW TCG Loot Code.  Follow the link to read the rules.  I have decided to turn my entry into a full post to help El promote this contest.  The question she asks is:
What one catch are you most proud of, and why?  The catch must be gained by fishing in Azeroth (or Outland). It does not have to be rare – the catch can be special for personal reasons.
Mr. Pinchy - Contest Answer

My favorite catch is by far Mr. Pinchy!  Magical Crawdad is absolutely my most favorite vanity pet within World of Warcraft.  This little crustacean is as cool as cool can be!  He looks so good I just want to rip his little head off and suck all the juice out! 

My Luck With Rare Mounts And Pets

Why am I most proud of this cute little red guy?  Well, he's super rare for one.  I have heard horror stories of players fishing for him for over a year with no luck.  Well, for some reason I have been ridiculously lucky when it comes to acquiring rare vanity pets and rare dropped mounts.  You may remember last year when I got both the Swift Razzashi Raptor and the Swift Zulian Tiger from the same run.  Or you may recall me discussing how I got my Headless Horseman's Mount (back when it was uber-rare before the dungeon auto queues) as the 2nd time it dropped in the same instance group!  Or the X-53 Touring Rocket I got from buying in trade chat that turned out to be one of the very few legit transactions that wasn't a scam. 

Mr. Pinchy My Luckiest Catch

Well I truely believe that Mr. Pinchy started off this entire mount and pet lucky streak.  Many players had a hell of time fishing for Mr. Pinchy from the pools in Terrokar Forest.  Once you fish him up you aren't even guaranteed the pet.  He will grant you 3 wishes and getting the pet is the rarest of the options he will grant.  Well, truth be told, I got Mr. Pinchy out of my 3rd or 4th pool that I attempted granting me the  Mr. Pinchy's Magical Crawdad Box Achievement and with my first wish he granted me Mr. Pinchy the vanity pet!  So Mr. Pinchy this one is for you!  You have truly been magical to me!  Thanks for all the great luck you have brought to me over the years.  Mr. Pinchy's luck also helped me to fish up Old Crafty within my first 20 casts in Ogrimmar.  Mr. Pinchy, I love you.

Mr. Pinchy - How To Get Yours

Mr. Pinchy the magical crawdad can only be fished up from pools of Highland Mixed Schools in Terrokar Forest, Outlands.  These pools are in lakes atop high plateaus and require a flying mount to even reach.  The chance to catch him is very rare and once caught he will grant you 3 wishes.  These wishes have a 2 day cooldown and once all 3 are used he is gone.  If you didn't get the pet, you will have to fish him up from another pool and hope one of the new wishes will grant you the pet.  Mr. Pinchy's wishes can grant you:
Make sure to stop by El's site and enter for your chance at the Fishing Chair loot code.

Mr. Pinchy
What is your favorite vanity pet?

Rare Recipes: Flipping Vs Learning

Rare Recipes : Learn It or Sell It?

So you just found a poorly priced rare profession recipe on the auction house.  Maybe you were out questing or farming and were lucky enough to have a valuable profession recipe drop off of a creature you killed.  Or maybe you got lucky with the contents of a sealed scroll case.  Regardless of how that rare recipe was obtained, what should you do with it? Should you learn it or should you sell it?

My Own Philosophy
I have every profession covered with my factory of alts.  I also am a recipe collector, so the answer is easy for me.  I learn the first copy I obtain and I sell the rest of the profession recipes I accumulate.  Removing the aspect of being a collector, how can you determine whether you should sell the recipe or learn it?

Placing Value On Rare Recipes
The real question when placing value on a rare profession recipe is will I make more profit from flipping the recipe or from mass crafting the item it teaches?  In order to determine whether the items are worth crafting we need to analyze various factors.

What are the materials required to craft the item and what is the value of those materials?
Many times an item can be ruled out as not worth being learned due to the insane material requirements needed for crafting.  Here is a good example of a pattern with expensive material requirements - Plans: Hammer Of Righteous MightKhorium Bar (16), Felsteel Bar (12), Primal Might (6), Primal Nether (2). Remember if the value of the crafted item is less than the sum of the materials you are better off selling the raw materials.  Not all rare patterns are worth learning because they are not all profitable investments.

How much will the rare pattern sell for?
Sometimes a pattern may be so rare that you may not have enough demand for the crafted product to sell enough of that product over time to meet the quick and easy profit of just selling the recipe.

Is there a demand for the crafted item and how much will the item sell for?
Lack of demand for the item trumps everything.  An item can be very cost efficient to craft, but if it isn't going to sell there is no point in learning the recipe and crafting the items.  The one exception is, if the item is cheap enough to craft and be utilized in a way other than selling, like via disenchanting.  Maybe it is one of the most cost efficient recipes to learn for disenchanting to create a certain high demand dust, essence, or shard.  So be sure to consider all options for the item.

A Case Study
An excellent example of a very rare pattern that is highly worth learning is for Rich Purple Silk Shirts.  The materials are stupidly cheap and the return on investment is amazing.  The rich purple silk shirt requires Bolt of Silk Cloth (4), Purple Dye, Silken Thread.   These rare craftable shirts sell easily for 15-25 gold each!  It doesn't take many sales to pass up the profit level you would obtain from simply selling the recipe.  Best thing is the demand of these shirts is constant as there are always new characters and new players entering the game. 

I have found similar success selling the Whitesoul Helm as it is a great niche market item.

Can anyone list any other rare patterns that have been worth learning and crafting instead of selling the pattern outright?

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Cold's Gold Blogging Carnival #1 Favorite Cataclysm Farming Spots


Cold's Gold Blogging Carnival


Welcome to the premiere edition of Cold's Gold Blogging Carnival.  These carnivals will continue to take place the 11th day of every month and will be hosted here at Cold's Gold Factory. All World of Warcraft bloggers are welcome to participate and feedback both here and on the original authors' sites is strongly encouraged.  So show some support and please leave some feedback in the comments section.  These bloggers put a lot of time and hard work into these blogging carnival posts so please leave them some comments.


If you would like to be included in the next month's carnival, please review the guidelines for Cold's Gold Blogging Carnivals and submit your link via email (ssmith0911 at live dot com) before the 10th of the month.  Read up on the benefits of participating in blogging carnivals at my other blog designed to help new bloggers, Blogging Vitals.  Articles are listed in the order they are received.  Thank you to all the bloggers participating in this months carnival!  And without further ado, I present to you this month's participants answering the question:


What Is One Of Your Favorite Farming Spots In Cataclysm?


Wes of Capped By Cata
Fishing For Volatile Fires in Hyjal and the Sulfuron Spire
"My favorite spot in all of Cataclysm is located in Hyjal and the Sulfuron Spire. (Map above) This spot was originally reported over at Just My Two Copper "Fishing for Volatile Fire" However, I feel this spot is so incredibly good I wanted to give it a full write up."


Kreaton of Not So Secret Society
Go Dive Gathering In Vashj'ir
"Yesterday I was questing with my gathering alt in Vashj'ir. And suddently I started seeing more and more herbs and mining nodes, spawning too fast for me to gather them. Sadly they're in the middle of a lot of mobs, but this actually also help keeping other characters from gathering them.  Here there is the location, "The Clutch" in the Kelp'thar Forest."


Wow For Dummies
Farming in Vashj'ir
"I am sure that there are a lot of great farming spots in Cataclysm. Matter of fact now that I can fly around Eastern kingdom every farming spot is extraordinary because it is easier to access. However I came across this nice farming spot in cataclysm."
Zoxy of Trading With Zoxy
Multiple Things To Farm In Tol Barad
"This post is about  my favourite farming spots in Cataclysm in Tol Barad , the previous post Blizzard Decided to Nerf .The Previous spot still works but only with a a Potion of treasure finding"

Hyrm of WowStability
Farming Heartblossom and Troggs In Between
"If you didn’t look well enough at the big picture at the top of this post, let me put it in text format – HEARTBLOSSOM IS EVERYWHERE IN DEEPHOLM. For those who are not aware of how these herb icons appeared in the map, see my post on Gathermate. The hundreds of icons that appear in Deepholm map makes it my favorite farming spot for herbs."


Markco and Mageshadow of Just My Two Copper
Best Cataclysm Whiptail Farming Spot
"I farm some specific herbs, especially since Deepholm and Twilight Highlands have been nerfed. I have resorted to farming Whiptail, and Azsahara's Veil. Both currently go for 3-400g per stack, and they're both extremely easy and plentyful to farm."

Mining For Gold In Molten Core
"I simply love Molten Core, this place is and has been one of the best places to make gold, from ingots to enchanting patterns, and even level 60 BOE gear, this place is a gold mine, you simply need a pick axe and you'll be mining your own gold!"


Smudger of Warcraft Corner
Farming Volatile Fire
"Currently I have only one thing that is worth farming and that is Volatile Fire. Most professions require this and theres only a few places to farm it."


Moravec of Follow The Gold Road
Farming The Auction House
"In terms of farming, what we are looking at is the potential income lost from farming materials as opposed to buying them from other farmers.  This also has a time aspect – the time spent farming could be spent processing more of the materials from alternative supplies or engaging in other markets."


Dizzy of I Has Stuffs
Dungeon Farming For Frostweave Bag Mats
"So not to throw everyone a complete curve ball but my favorite spot to farm atm will have you going back to Wrath content.  On my server the cost to make a Frostweave Bag has finally caught back up with the new price."


Shamaenei of Ele-Mental Gold
Relaxing Farming in the Abyssal Depths
"For me the Abyssal Depths are coming closest to relaxation for several reasons, it's underwater making it relaxing and there are only a few and sometimes even no player at all in this area. Looking at documentaries about the deep seas always does the job of relaxation for me(but all the water also make you go to the toilet!) and the design team really nailed the whole experience on this one. The deep seas of the Abyssal Depths really feel vast."


Wukam of Bank of Wukam
Farming Savage Leather
"Normally, I'm not a huge fan of farming. It certainly has it's uses and it's advantages, but I generally find it repetitive and tedious, and just not for me. But there is one type of farming I tend to enjoy, and that's leather farming. Why? Because you get to kill stuff. Who doesn't enjoy slaughtering hundreds of helpless little creatures and then adding insult to injury by tearing the skin off their backs?"


Stede of Venture, LLT
Pilfering Epics
"I've mentioned that my main is a Rogue (alliance-side; sorry hordies, that's all I know), and one of the oft-forgotten abilities of Rogues is Pick Pocket."


Nicegrl of Nicegrl
Deepholm and Twilight Highlands Mining Routes
"I found some great places for you guys to mine if you need some to your jewelcrafting or blacksmithing maybe? (If you are from my realm (Azuremyst EU) look away now so you don’t steal my mining spots! :D )"


Xeroaze of The Tipped Copper
Farming The Trade Chat Channel
"My favorite farming spot (Trade Chat) can only be accessed through being in a major city and you MUST have a keyboard.  Over time you adapt to the environment and learn the skill"


Mageshadow of The Gnomish Coin
Farming For Azshara's Veil in Tol Borad
"By now most of you know that having a gathering profession is crucial when a new expansion comes out, and I've recently found a spot that is excellent for farming Aszhara's veil, a rare herb that is only found under water, and is not found in many places."

Brouk of Confessions of A Half Ass Gold Maker
Farming The Tol'Vir Instance
"I, like many others out there, hate farming. I only find farming fun, when I am accomplishing something else in the process. Enter Tol'vir. This instance is a blast. Every day, my guild and I run Lost City on Heroic. Our reasoning, it takes 45 minutes or less."

Monday, January 10, 2011

BoA Guild Cloak Profits: Are You Ready?

BoA Guild Cloaks Incoming

Guilds will soon be able to purchase the BoA cloaks and helms.  The guild achievement system will be rewarding guilds that have reached the guild level 10 with the ability to purchase Bind-On-Account Cloaks from the guild vendor.  As with any BoA item, players will be looking for some of the best enchants to place on these items for their twinks and alternate Warcraft characters.  So once guilds start to hit the required guild level 10, expect sales of BoA and Twink enchants for cloaks to increase.  Sales will continue to improve as even more guilds obtain enough guild experience to hit level 10.

BoA Guild Cloaks

There are going to be 3 BoA cloak options available to players.  If you are building a twink and want to compare the stat values at specific levels (for comparing to similar blues) be sure to check out the BoA Item Scaler.  The 3 Cloak options are:
BoA & Twink Cloak Enchants

The Best Options For Selling


[Enchant Cloak - Superior Defense] +70 Armor

[Enchant Cloak - Greater Nature Resistance] +15 Nature Resistance

[Enchant Cloak - Greater Resistance] +5 Resistance All

[Enchant Cloak - Stealth] +8 Agi and +8 Dodge (AQ Drop, or Exhalted Cenarion Expedition)*
 
[Enchant Cloak - Subtlety] Decrease All Threat by 2% (AQ Drop, or Exhalted Honor Hold / Thrallmar)
 
[Enchant Cloak - Dodge] +12 Dodge (The AQ drop version has no level restriction)

*Mageshadow of The Gnomish Coin broke the news on the Buff to the Stealth Enchant a while ago.  Check out his original post.

PRO TIP:  Grab up Coilfang Armaments and Fel Lotus as the value of both will be increasing as guilds hit guild level 10.