Ok, some of you who read my last post on here (Creatively Called "Of WoW and Gold") . This post was geared to help people who were struggling with WoW gold, I had accrued about 475 gold with over the weekend alone, and this also happened while I Was leveling, I wasn't focused on JUST making money. After that last post, I showed it to some guildies and it got me to thinking, how much money could I make in one day if I just sat down and tried my hardest? Well I did just that yesterday, I got in WoW and spent about 2 hours just working on making gold, nothing else, just gold. My results? I have 853g in my account, that means I made about 375 gold in 1 day. And I'm only level 53, not even close to level 70, I can't wait to hit 70 and start making the SERIOUS money. Not a bad haul at all if I do say so myself though. The question is: How? Well unfortunately I would be giving away my secret if I told you exactly what I did, so I'm going to tell you the guidelines I followed.
In this article (Or post, whatever this is) I will go over my number one tool, the Auction House. The Auction house is my best friend right now and probably will be for a long time. I take EVERYTHING I have and sell it on the auction house. Even if its only 20 Mageroyals, they'll sell for 3-4 gold. My secret is not to sell rare items for large sums of money, its to sell lots of smaller more common items for little money. If I sold two items, each worth 55 gold, I would make 110 gold. If I sell 20 items worth 6g a piece, it would make 120 gold. You can see where selling smaller items can come in very handy.
Ok so you're selling stuff on the AH now, and the question that probably popped into your mind first was: What do I charge for each item? Ok this is a good question and the answer is a bit complex. Good pricing is made up of some good calculations and research, predictions, risk, and psychology. Wow, that's a lot of things to consider when putting something on the AH, do I really have to consider all of those? Well no, but I would highly advise it,lets go over each of these items in depth and see what it means for your pricing, then this might make more sense.
Calculations and Research:
This part of pricing involves taking a look at all the similar items on the market, and then undercutting (Pricing your items lower than theirs) a TINY bit. The research: you've got 20 stacks of different items to sell, do you know How long its going to take to research each item and then try to average it out? It takes a while and is almost too time consuming to be worth it. So how can you save on time? Auctioneer. That's all you need to know, its like the corny Lawyer commercials, "One Call, that's All". But in this case, its actually worth it. You can get auctioneer off of, www.curse.com. This addon will save you so much time and make researching prices so easy and fast you'll forget how you lived without it. What does it do? Ok, fair question. Auctioneer is an addon that lets you walk up the AH, open up the Auction Interface and hit the "Scan" button. This will take a while maybe 5-10 minutes depending on your server's AH size, my server takes about 8 minuites. What did it just do, it just recorded EVERY price in the AH and will pop that up in a tool tip whenever you hover over an item. This is such a cool feature, it lets you know instantly if you'll be able to make some cash off it and how much you'll make. There you go, you've now researched EVERY SINGLE item in the auction house, calculated the average sell price, and compared that to any previous scans you've done and then compares all of those and averages those out! All of this was done while you probably left your computer alone and grabbed something eat or whatever it was you did. Amazing.
Predictions:
Here's a little more gray area than research, if you check the market auctioneer price and it says that the item you're selling is going for 10 g, you may know that you've sold that item a week earlier and it went for 13 g. So here is where you have to make a prediction, will the price go back up to 13g? Or if you put it up for 13g will it just fail miserably? Prediction man to the Rescue! If you guess right, you make an extra 3g in profit. If you guess wrong? You lose the deposit money on the AH item and the time it was on the AH and the possibility of it never selling on the AH for 13g. Like the real world, you probably don't want to have an item that keeps coming back into your inventory for more than two weeks, UNLESS its a really expensive item that most people can't afford. An example of this is "The 2 Ring". This may stay on the AH for a month or more. Does this mean you should just take it down because its lemon and won't sell? Naaahhh, but for the 1000+ g that it sells for, some people probably can't afford to buy it, but if someone does? Oh baby baby baby! You've just made some sweet cash! So keep the life of an item in mind.
Risk:
This is "The Big One". These are ventures that can net you some serious cash or make you so broke you can't afford repairs. The most common of these ventures is the scheme, "Buy-out the Competitors". What does this mean? Lets look at an example, say you're selling some leather on the AH for 10g each, some new guy comes up and offers his leather for 7g. Do you lower your prices to 7g also? Well you could, OR you could BUY all of his 7g items, then put them back on the market for 10g. WooHoo! You make 3g!! So why is this risky for you to do? Because if other people start putting out 7g items on the market (Or people who once sold for 10g lower their price to 7g), you probably can't buy ALL of them and then you're the overpriced moron who has way too expensive leather out there. Now you're stuck with tons of leather you can't sell unless you take a loss on all of it. Bad situation to be in. Risk is also found EVERYDAY in the GLOBAL: Trade Chat. You know those morons that spam: WTS [Kroll Blade]. WTS [Large Glimmering Shard], stuff like that. Well why don't you whisper him, and figure out what he's selling that item for. You have the advantage of auctioneer, you know EXACTLY how much certain items sell for, so if he's selling that rare item in the trade chat for 30% less than what that item could go for on the AH, they you can buy it, place in on the AH and make a 30% profit on it. Then again, the reason he could be selling it on the trade chat at 30% less is because he can't get it to sell in the AH for full price. You can see the risk factor here, but with a bit of prediction you can come out with some extra gold in your pockets. Just be smart and use common sense about some of the items that you buy.
Psychology:
Finally, the weirdest part of WoW, you might be asking yourself, "This is a freakin' Video Game you moron, why would you use psychologyin a in video game!!?" Simmer down there Skippy! The answer is on TV!! You know those dumb ads that say "Only 19.99!!!" Ok well the same principles apply to WoW, People tend to look at the first digit they see and work off of that. This means that if they seem the number 49 they see the 4 in the number and just kind of assume that its in the 40's. If you said 50, only 1 number away from 49, they see the 5 and now its a 50's number, a much larger number in their eyes. Thus 19g is only a little more than 11g, BUT 27g is a whole lot more than 19g. Its the same amount difference between the two, but they see that first digit and that number is what gives people the first impression of prices. If you've ever heard the song 3's and 7's by Queens of the Stone Age, they had it half right, your motto for the AH should be 7's and 9's. If someone is selling their item for 10g. Sell your item for 9g.99s. Why? Because what is one silver really? You can kill a monster and get double or more of that. So, you're still making ALMOST the same amount of money as him but attracting A LOT more attention and your price SEEMS LOTS lower than his even though it isn't. Make sense? Good, back to my Queens of the Stone Age advice for placing items up on the AH is that WHEN POSSIBLE (And this may not apply from some oddball priced items that sell for median numbers like 46,25,67, numbers that aren't close to a multiple of ten) try to price the bidding on a 7. This is like 27,37,47,57,17,87, etc. Then place the buy-out on a 9, 49,79,19,99,69, etc. This little tip has increased my profits anywhere from 30%-100%. Its a very very nifty thing to remember.
So there you go, some tips on pricing and selling things in the AH. You may ask, what do I sell? The answer is: Whatever is in demand, seriously, if a certain weapon is selling like wildfire, find the weapon and sell it, if Jewels are selling like tomorrow is Doomsday, sell Jewels, Again, take everything with caution and moderation. Playing the AH and selling things on it is not very hard, but if you don't use patience and common sense, you could end up losing more than you make. There's lots of gold to be made out there! Have fun gold making!
Showing posts with label How to Make Gold. Show all posts
Showing posts with label How to Make Gold. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Monday, July 28, 2008
Of WoW and Gold
You create a character on World of Warcraft, you level him up to level 10, find a main city, and then head over to AH, you see "Furious Falchion of the Monkey" for 3G. All of your funds at this point in the game. But you spare no expense and buy the sword. This happens some more as you level, until you hit level 30. Then you have to buy a mount, a mount that costs an average of 35 G, a bit more money than you've ever had. You scrape, save, and beg until you get that money. Then you see the price for the next mount. 500G for the training alone. Not cool. Ok, so you understand that you need the make some Gold, but how? I faced this issue as level 45. I had recovered from the level 30 mount and amassed about 45 Gold for myself. Quickly realized that I was, with my current spending rate and such, making about 1-3 G per level. In 15 levels, I would have 60 Gold, I would need about 550 Gold for the mount training and actual mount itself. I quickly set out with the goal to make some serious money. My first stop? The all-knowing Google.
Enchanting. Mining. Playing the AH. Dailies. Skinning. Don't play the AH. Save. Quests. Don't Enchant. Herbalism. Tailoring. Dailies. Alchemy. Farming. Don't use professions. Sell your soul. Buy gold online. I was besieged with all of these things on my first search page of Google. Ok, lets sift through the mess and pick out the real gems in this pile. First off, Dailies. This is the BEST average source of income, with an average GAURENTEE of over 100G a day, this is the number one money maker. Downside? You have to be level 70 to do this, not ideal for getting your level 60 mount. So I won't include these as a HUGE money maker, but if you're a level 70 NEVER UNDERESTIMATE these quests, they're quick (Under an hour and half to do the Vast majority of them, not including Daily Heroics), easy, and you get a TON of gold for them relative to other things.
Dailies seem to have a dark brother that earns the same amount of money, maybe even more. However, this side of gold making is a dark and dangerous, it will be death deifying, it will...oh screw it, its actually just really really really freaking boring. Farming. Farming Primal Manas, Fires, Earths, Lifes, Nethers, etc. These are some seriously good money. Downside? They're super freakin' boring to farm. Kill a monster, no Mote of type x. Kill another monster, no Mote of type x. Kill another monster, no Mote of type x. Kill another monster , HURAH! 1 mote of type x. Only 9 more motes to go to make a primal! Not a very fun thing, but hey, when a primal can go for 60-120g a pop? Not bad money, plus you got all the money that the monsters dropped, plus any other little goodies. Like dailies though, this is can only really be utilized at level 70. You could farm some lower level items at 30, 40,60, etc, but it won't be as good money for your time.
Lets take a look at the second bunch. Professions. Here are some interesting bunches, take Enchanting for example, if you can enchant Mongoose, +30 Stam, etc. You can make an average 75-150 G a chant (Maybe WAAAY more depending on your server) ...with someone else's materials, so all of that is profit. Pretty Amazing right? So what’s the catch? IT COSTS A TON TO LEVEL!! I have a level 70 Enchanter on my Horde Server, and it sucks. In order to get him to 375 it took me about 2K-4K Gold just to level him up there. So keep this mind, there are two types of professions, Gatherers and Makers. Makers (Enchanting, Tailoring, Alchemy, Black Smithing are some examples) take serious gold to level up, but once at high levels, they bring in Bookoo Bucks! Good stuff. Gatherers (Skinning, Herbalism, and Mining) take almost no money to level, but don't offer nearly as much gold when they're at a highlevel. Keep this in mind and then keep things in moderation and make a decision thats right for you.
I would recommend that if you really want to try and level a "Maker" skill before you hit level 70 and have some serious cash, you should choose the complimentary gather skill. So Leather Workers should have skinning, Alchemists should have herbalism, etc. This will save you some money on your way to the big leagues of your profession. This said, professions are A VERY good source of income, if you focus on your profession every five levels and keep it up to date, you'll start seeing the money roll in and you make stuff and put up on the Auction House.
Speaking of the Auction House, lets get onto THE major point. The Acution House is your primary source of income, doesn’t matter what you do, profession wise anyways, you will learn to love the auction house if you love money. First things first, there is an invaluable addon for WoW that no serious player, or even casual player really, should be without: Auctioneer. If you do not have this addon, stop reading this, open a new tab, go to www.curse.com and download the damn thing. It is without a doubt one of the Top 3 Addons EVER INVENTED for WoW. What does this do? It takes a mere 5 minutes or so (Depending on how big the AH is on your sever) and will scan and get the price of EVERYTHING on the AH and store it. Do this at least once a day and you'll get an idea of the prices of the market and can place items you have for a profit on the AH.
Some people swear by playing the AH, no its not a little mini-game that you didn't know about, well I guess it is, but it just isn't meant to be. The game of AH is: Buy low, Sell high. The same concept of good old Wall Street and stocks applies to WoW. Some people make some serious money off of this. One thing to note though, until you pick up some steam, get some good cash, get a feel for the market, and understand some basic economic principles, this isn't really a good idea, even less of a good idea if you lack common sense or don't have a clue about the economy or how to correctly predict demand on your server. Playing the AH will either make you rich or broke, so approach this idea with caution. If you see a Krol Blade selling for 50G by some moron, you can buy it, then turn around and sell it on the AH for 150-200 G depending on your server, maybe even 250 G. Thats a 50-200G profit, BOOM, instant cash, gotta love it. However, you may buy something, and it won't sell and you end up losing 50G. Not so good as the profit scenario. Overall, if you're going to do this, don't read this guide, there are some EXCELLENT guides I found on the net about this that go into far more detail that I will. I personally play the this mini-game VERY little. If I see a good deal, I'll take it, but don't bother with it otherwise.
If you're not playing the AH, never fear, the AH is still invaluable for you. You know those items whose names you see in white? These items are used for things, with Auctioneer installed, and few AH scans under your belt, you can hover over the item and see how much it was sold on the AH for the past week, last day, last month, etc. Then you can place it on the AH and make a nice tidy profit just because you killed a few monsters. Woohoo! Green items or Blue items that are Bind on Equip? Put 'em up for auction, you don't need plate as a Warlock, so sell that piece of plate for some gold, 10-150 times more than you'd get by selling it to a vendor! If you truly play WoW and enjoy getting gold, use the auction house to sell that stuff you don't need.
Ok, time for a taboo subject, Buying gold off the internet. You don't play often enough to ammass 500 gold, you don't even have 30g, repairs on your armor are taking their toll, what are you going to do? well you take up one of the bazillion ads on the internet to pay like $20 and get 1000 gold. Done and done. Well...not really. First off realize that buying WoW gold is against the rules of the game oh and btw Blizzard is nowhere near dumb, they probably have a team looking for this kind of stuff, a few more guys who are probably a bit smarter than than the guy in his mom's basement who's selling you that gold. I don't know this, but I think that half the ads are Blizzard ads trying to trap people who are trying to buy gold. Regardless, If you are caught, your account will be banned for cheating. Everything you just worked for? That Level 70 Warlock with full T6 that you spent over 6 months leveling and raiding with? Gone. Lets be honest, its not worth the risk of losing EVERYTHING, all the months worth of leveling and working hard, just for 1000g? Not worth it at all.
Ok, here it is, you've read down to the bottom, I saved the best tip for down here so the lazy people wouldn't get to it! Ok, if you manage to start making good money, it does you NO good if you don't save. I'm sorry for all you guys looking to spend a ton and still have a ton of money, you can't have it both ways, you will need to save your money if you want to have some serious cash. Plain and simple. This means, don't go the AH every level to see if there is some new armor you can buy. Seriously, you can live with the one you have for now, find a good quest that gives that piece of armor as a reward, go run some instances for gear. It works out much better if you learn to save your money.
So I did everything that I said above, plus one little thing that will be my secret (Sorry I gotta have an Ace up my sleeve guys), so what are my results? Well I am now a level 50, five levels above what I was, I should have 50G now, instead, I have 475g. With this said, I did spend some of that gold too, I spent about 75g on new bags and a new ring for myself, plus some bags for my alt. If you add those back into the equation over five levels, I made 550g, bingo if I didn't need those damn bags, I would have had enough money for my level 60 mount! AND I'm still 10 levels away!. That’s good money for only 5 levels. Oh and if you're wondering how long this is playtime wise, I went from 45-50 in about 20 hours, and that whole time WAS NOT spent just making money, I was leveling and questing (Which gave money, but minor detail, not 475g worth I assure you). So, making some good gold? Difficult? A bit. Does it take some practice? A bit. Can it be a bit tedious? A bit. Is it worth it? You bet.
Enchanting. Mining. Playing the AH. Dailies. Skinning. Don't play the AH. Save. Quests. Don't Enchant. Herbalism. Tailoring. Dailies. Alchemy. Farming. Don't use professions. Sell your soul. Buy gold online. I was besieged with all of these things on my first search page of Google. Ok, lets sift through the mess and pick out the real gems in this pile. First off, Dailies. This is the BEST average source of income, with an average GAURENTEE of over 100G a day, this is the number one money maker. Downside? You have to be level 70 to do this, not ideal for getting your level 60 mount. So I won't include these as a HUGE money maker, but if you're a level 70 NEVER UNDERESTIMATE these quests, they're quick (Under an hour and half to do the Vast majority of them, not including Daily Heroics), easy, and you get a TON of gold for them relative to other things.
Dailies seem to have a dark brother that earns the same amount of money, maybe even more. However, this side of gold making is a dark and dangerous, it will be death deifying, it will...oh screw it, its actually just really really really freaking boring. Farming. Farming Primal Manas, Fires, Earths, Lifes, Nethers, etc. These are some seriously good money. Downside? They're super freakin' boring to farm. Kill a monster, no Mote of type x. Kill another monster, no Mote of type x. Kill another monster, no Mote of type x. Kill another monster , HURAH! 1 mote of type x. Only 9 more motes to go to make a primal! Not a very fun thing, but hey, when a primal can go for 60-120g a pop? Not bad money, plus you got all the money that the monsters dropped, plus any other little goodies. Like dailies though, this is can only really be utilized at level 70. You could farm some lower level items at 30, 40,60, etc, but it won't be as good money for your time.
Lets take a look at the second bunch. Professions. Here are some interesting bunches, take Enchanting for example, if you can enchant Mongoose, +30 Stam, etc. You can make an average 75-150 G a chant (Maybe WAAAY more depending on your server) ...with someone else's materials, so all of that is profit. Pretty Amazing right? So what’s the catch? IT COSTS A TON TO LEVEL!! I have a level 70 Enchanter on my Horde Server, and it sucks. In order to get him to 375 it took me about 2K-4K Gold just to level him up there. So keep this mind, there are two types of professions, Gatherers and Makers. Makers (Enchanting, Tailoring, Alchemy, Black Smithing are some examples) take serious gold to level up, but once at high levels, they bring in Bookoo Bucks! Good stuff. Gatherers (Skinning, Herbalism, and Mining) take almost no money to level, but don't offer nearly as much gold when they're at a highlevel. Keep this in mind and then keep things in moderation and make a decision thats right for you.
I would recommend that if you really want to try and level a "Maker" skill before you hit level 70 and have some serious cash, you should choose the complimentary gather skill. So Leather Workers should have skinning, Alchemists should have herbalism, etc. This will save you some money on your way to the big leagues of your profession. This said, professions are A VERY good source of income, if you focus on your profession every five levels and keep it up to date, you'll start seeing the money roll in and you make stuff and put up on the Auction House.
Speaking of the Auction House, lets get onto THE major point. The Acution House is your primary source of income, doesn’t matter what you do, profession wise anyways, you will learn to love the auction house if you love money. First things first, there is an invaluable addon for WoW that no serious player, or even casual player really, should be without: Auctioneer. If you do not have this addon, stop reading this, open a new tab, go to www.curse.com and download the damn thing. It is without a doubt one of the Top 3 Addons EVER INVENTED for WoW. What does this do? It takes a mere 5 minutes or so (Depending on how big the AH is on your sever) and will scan and get the price of EVERYTHING on the AH and store it. Do this at least once a day and you'll get an idea of the prices of the market and can place items you have for a profit on the AH.
Some people swear by playing the AH, no its not a little mini-game that you didn't know about, well I guess it is, but it just isn't meant to be. The game of AH is: Buy low, Sell high. The same concept of good old Wall Street and stocks applies to WoW. Some people make some serious money off of this. One thing to note though, until you pick up some steam, get some good cash, get a feel for the market, and understand some basic economic principles, this isn't really a good idea, even less of a good idea if you lack common sense or don't have a clue about the economy or how to correctly predict demand on your server. Playing the AH will either make you rich or broke, so approach this idea with caution. If you see a Krol Blade selling for 50G by some moron, you can buy it, then turn around and sell it on the AH for 150-200 G depending on your server, maybe even 250 G. Thats a 50-200G profit, BOOM, instant cash, gotta love it. However, you may buy something, and it won't sell and you end up losing 50G. Not so good as the profit scenario. Overall, if you're going to do this, don't read this guide, there are some EXCELLENT guides I found on the net about this that go into far more detail that I will. I personally play the this mini-game VERY little. If I see a good deal, I'll take it, but don't bother with it otherwise.
If you're not playing the AH, never fear, the AH is still invaluable for you. You know those items whose names you see in white? These items are used for things, with Auctioneer installed, and few AH scans under your belt, you can hover over the item and see how much it was sold on the AH for the past week, last day, last month, etc. Then you can place it on the AH and make a nice tidy profit just because you killed a few monsters. Woohoo! Green items or Blue items that are Bind on Equip? Put 'em up for auction, you don't need plate as a Warlock, so sell that piece of plate for some gold, 10-150 times more than you'd get by selling it to a vendor! If you truly play WoW and enjoy getting gold, use the auction house to sell that stuff you don't need.
Ok, time for a taboo subject, Buying gold off the internet. You don't play often enough to ammass 500 gold, you don't even have 30g, repairs on your armor are taking their toll, what are you going to do? well you take up one of the bazillion ads on the internet to pay like $20 and get 1000 gold. Done and done. Well...not really. First off realize that buying WoW gold is against the rules of the game oh and btw Blizzard is nowhere near dumb, they probably have a team looking for this kind of stuff, a few more guys who are probably a bit smarter than than the guy in his mom's basement who's selling you that gold. I don't know this, but I think that half the ads are Blizzard ads trying to trap people who are trying to buy gold. Regardless, If you are caught, your account will be banned for cheating. Everything you just worked for? That Level 70 Warlock with full T6 that you spent over 6 months leveling and raiding with? Gone. Lets be honest, its not worth the risk of losing EVERYTHING, all the months worth of leveling and working hard, just for 1000g? Not worth it at all.
Ok, here it is, you've read down to the bottom, I saved the best tip for down here so the lazy people wouldn't get to it! Ok, if you manage to start making good money, it does you NO good if you don't save. I'm sorry for all you guys looking to spend a ton and still have a ton of money, you can't have it both ways, you will need to save your money if you want to have some serious cash. Plain and simple. This means, don't go the AH every level to see if there is some new armor you can buy. Seriously, you can live with the one you have for now, find a good quest that gives that piece of armor as a reward, go run some instances for gear. It works out much better if you learn to save your money.
So I did everything that I said above, plus one little thing that will be my secret (Sorry I gotta have an Ace up my sleeve guys), so what are my results? Well I am now a level 50, five levels above what I was, I should have 50G now, instead, I have 475g. With this said, I did spend some of that gold too, I spent about 75g on new bags and a new ring for myself, plus some bags for my alt. If you add those back into the equation over five levels, I made 550g, bingo if I didn't need those damn bags, I would have had enough money for my level 60 mount! AND I'm still 10 levels away!. That’s good money for only 5 levels. Oh and if you're wondering how long this is playtime wise, I went from 45-50 in about 20 hours, and that whole time WAS NOT spent just making money, I was leveling and questing (Which gave money, but minor detail, not 475g worth I assure you). So, making some good gold? Difficult? A bit. Does it take some practice? A bit. Can it be a bit tedious? A bit. Is it worth it? You bet.
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