Now what?

So I hit my one million goal mark, now what?! I gave away a Vial of Sands to my co-council that helped me immensely reach that mark with his Enchanting market skills. I plan on giving away another Vial of Sands to a lucky lottery winner in my guild. But what now?

I guess I will continue with my "daily" approach of checking my AH toons, scanning the AH, restocking to minimum levels, running all of my JC dailies, and alchemy CDs. Running the FL dailies on 3 toons that will benefit from the crafting recipies. But as I look forward, what's the next "big thing"?

I guess I see a few things
* Epic patterns from FL dailies and FL raids will become more widely available. I already have been able to snag 2 such recipes below my 5k mark that I've limited myself to. I will need to set up notifications for these recipes in TUJ. I will also want to keep a track of the prices of Living Ember, already several on one faction available around 10k. Which in my opinion is too high. You would need to be able to consistently sell the crafted item at or above 50k to break even. And with the items in the FL raids being at or above par to these I don't see that being a sustainable price point.

* Epic gems coming? It's sure to come, maybe no the next path, but soon after? Will my stockpiles of Pyrite payoff? Will they introduce a new ore? I will continue to stock up on these when they become cheap.

* I will continue to keep a close eye on prices of items such as Truegold, Volatiles, Ore, etc.

* I will keep a close eye out on future patch notes to see further opportunities

Let's see how long it takes for me to hit 2 million :-D

DING! One Million and counting

A few weeks later than I had originally projected, but over the weekend I was able to get my total wealth over the One Million Gold mark.

Here are the figures as of 7/11/11

Ez Does WoW GB	$250,000.00
Lijumon	$16,997.46
Consoritum GB	$250,000.00
Troom	$27,926.39
Syndicated GB	$200,000.00
Amelmara	$39,489.46
Ezraiel	$10,685.57
Ezknite	$10,075.60
Eznun	$10,086.99
Ezshammy	$10,299.12
Ezranger	$10,000.24
Ezwar	$10,030.84
Ezkitty	$10,000.53
Ezninja	$10,001.15
Ezlocke	$10,000.36
Ezmagi	$10,085.71
Alliance Total	$885,679.42
Creepy Nightmares GB	$50,000.00
Yakubank	$47,240.70
Leiarze	$41,571.54
Yakuranger	$999.46
Yakuzå	$1,000.00
Yakuior	$999.66
Yakutotem	$999.05
Yakuid	$999.89
Horde Total	$143,810.30
Grand Total	$1,029,489.72

A few screenshots of these numbers

Syndicated Guild Bank

Consortium Guild Bank

Creepy Nightmares Guild Bank

EzDoesWow Guild Bank

My "stockpile" will disappear when the patch drops today!

15	Resiliant Parchment
33	Ink of the Sea
1	Snowfall Ink
114	Inferno Ink
6	Silver charm Bracelet
6	Preserver Ogre Eye
6	Bleached Jawbone
642	Elementium Bars
8	Hardened Elementium Bars
30	Pyrium Bars
24	Jeweler's Setting
36	Ocean Sapphire
36	Amber Jewel
36	Inferno Ruby
1194	Heavy SL
55	Pristine Hide
504	Bolt of ES

364	Volatile Life
787	Volatile Water
351	Volatile Earth
933	Volatile Fire
154	Volatile Air

 This list you see above is what it will take me to a) get all the patterns readily available without strating the Firelands dailies b) craft at a minimum of 3 sets of gear

This list covers
1. Inscription : Learning and crafting 10 of the new glyph Glyph of Unleashed Lightning, and crafting 6 of each of the new pvp relics
2. BS : Learning and crafting 3 of the new Bloodthirsty Pyrium Set and Bloodthirsty Ornate Set
3. JC: crafting 4 of each of the six new ring and necks available
4. LW : Learning and crafting 10 of the new Leg Armor enchants, crafting 8 of the new scribes bag (4 for personal use), crafting 5 of the new mining bags, learning and crafting 3 of each of the four new pvp sets for leather and mail wearing classes, and 3 of the two new cloaks.
5) Tailoring: learning and crafting 3 sets of the two new pvp sets.


This set does not include any of the new epic patterns that would be reached once the vendors in firelands are available to you. Guess I will need to start sniping up cheap mats again.

 Now my new order of business is to figure out a good price point for each of these items based on both what I bought the mats at and what the mat prices will be after the patch hits.

Good luck all. Please share your findings!

4.2 in a week?

Seems like patch should hit next week.
 If you haven't started prepping, now is the time.

Take a look at the MMO list that was created for the new 4.2 craftables to get a good idea of what to start buying on the cheap

No real surprises, Volatile Fire and Water seems to be the main with earth and life close behind.

LW needs tons of Pristine hide. See my previous post on how to buy up cheaper scraps and leather to get those pristines at much lower costs.

BS need tons of Elementium bars and hardened, you will be in competition with the JCs that will probably try to buy them up for prospecting and hoping for future epic gems.

Alchemists start doing your Truegold CDs (if you for some reason stopped)

Inscriptionists get ready to do another Northrend Research to get the latest Shaman glyph (Glyph of Unleashed Lightning) seems to be a really nice one that I will be using on my elemental Shammy.

Tailors either start stockpiling Dreamcloth again for the new items.

Enchanters looks like you should start crafting a ton of glove and feet enchants. Since thats what the majority of the new craftables fall under.

Good luck, and get ready while you can!!

Dealer Rashaad : Exotic Creatures - Worth the trip

If you happen to be leveling out in Outland, make a trip to Stormspire in Netherstorm and visit  Dealer Rashaad

This guy has a great selection of pets, see list below. And since most people tend to be lazy. These are great pets to flip back out in the AH for a tidy profit. All the pets range in cost from 40s to 40g (pre-discounts) and can easily be sold from 10g to as much as 300g.
   
Blue Dragonhawk Hatchling
Brown Rabbit Crate
Cat Carrier (Siamese)
Cockroach
Crimson Snake
Mana Wyrmling
Parrot Cage (Senegal)
Red Moth Egg

while there also take a look at some of the other vendors and buy up some of the BOE recipies that also sell really well

Breanni : Finding homes for the lost pets of Dalaran

With the new pet achievements coming out, dont forget to visit Breanni in the Dalaran pet shop, he sell 3 pets Albino Snake, Obsidian Hatchling and Calico Cat . With proper discounts you can attain these pets for ~35g (50g if you have not discounts). These can then easily be flipped for upwards of 100g +. I've sold some as high as 500g.

The Undermine Journal : just amazing!

The Undermine Journal is just an amazing site. It is THE source for AH data and statistics. Every US Server (Alliance, Horde and Neutral) is available.

"The Undermine Journal reads most of a realm's Auction House data about once every hour. This fine and consistent granularity of data provides statistical information that was previously impossible or impractical to obtain.

Data is collected for every item on the auction house, except for randomly-enchanted weapons and armor.

The Undermine Journal covers US realms only."

Once you select a server, the main sections of the site are the Main Page, Hot Items, Top Sellers, Enhancements, Consumables, and Site.

Main Page: This page allows you to either search for specific items, see blizzard status updates, or read some of the major blogs in the world of gold making.

Hot Items:  track some of the trending items in the AH, still haven't quite figured out what actually makes this page other them really expensive items or ones where a ton of the same item was recently posted into the AH.

Top Sellers: This page tracks your "top" sellers. So far I've concluded this is where you can see the toons that have the most active current auctions. This is not necessarily a monetary glance, but more about volume.

Enhancements: This page allow you to look at the crafting professions including Tailoring, Leatherworking, Blacksmithing, Darkmoon, Jewelcrafting, Enchanting, and Inscription. The pages here track the current raw materials for each of these professions as well as the current rare and epic craftables. I will so into more about these pages in future posts.

Consumables: Takes a look at your other professions as well as raw materials. This is broken into Cooking, Alchemy, Engineering, Elementals, Herbalism, Mining, and Skinning.

Site: Here you will find a link to some site specific features such as XML API, WoW Addon, Contact information, and donation links.

You can and should subscribe to this site. Once you register you have the ability to create Market Notifications. I will cover more on this topic in a future blog.

The site does a wonderful job on tracking statistics such as available quantity, market price, chnages, mean, and standard deviation, cost to place in the AH, and price to sell to vendor. It also tracks recent sellers, recent sales, and current auctions.

When looking at sellers, it provides data such as auctions per hour, activity heat map, sold volume heat map, posts by class, sold items, and current items

A Different Kind of Shuffle

I used to do this with Borean Leather, but thought it might be something useful to take a look at with Savage Leather.

First off you need to be a Leather worker or have access to a Leather worker for the first few steps

5 Savage Leather Scraps = 1 Savage Leather

So currently on my server
One Savage Leather, worth 3g 6s 19c, is made by Leatherworking using the following components, which cost 2g 57s 90c:

Qty	Component	Each	Total
5	[Savage Leather Scraps]	51s 58c	2g 57s 90c

5 Savage Leather = 1 Heavy Savage Leather

One Heavy Savage Leather, worth 36g 0s, is made by Leatherworking using the following components, which cost 15g 30s 95c:

Qty	Component	Each	Total
5	[Savage Leather]	3g 6s 19c	15g 30s 95c

or 25 Savage Leather Scraps  = 1 Heavy Savage Leather

One Heavy Savage Leather, worth 36g 0s, is made by Leatherworking using the following components, which cost 12g 89s 50c:

Qty	Component	Each	Total
25	[Savage Leather Scraps]	51s 58c	12g 89s 50c

Seeing any profit yet?

Let's take it to the next step, which by the way does not require you to be a Leather Worker at all.

10 Heavy Savage Leather can be traded in for 1 Pristine Hide

One Pristine Hide, worth 323g 75s, is made by the Vendor spell Vendor using the following components, which cost 360g 0s 0c:

Qty	Component	Each	Total
10	[Heavy Savage Leather]	36g 0s	360g 0s

or 50 Savage Leather = 1 Pristine Hide
One Pristine Hide, worth 323g 75s, is made by the Vendor spell Vendor using the following components, which cost 153g 9s 50c:

Qty	Component	Each	Total
50	[Savage Leather]	3g 6s 19c	153g 9s 50c

or 250 Savage Leather Scraps = 1 Pristine Hide

One Pristine Hide, worth 323g 75s, is made by the Vendor spell Vendor using the following components, which cost 128g 95s 0c:

Qty	Component	Each	Total
250	[Savage Leather Scraps]	51s 58c	128g 95s

Pretty nice huh?

Of course you can take these hide back to your Leather Worker and make some nice Leg Enchants that are flying off the shelf.

One Dragonscale Leg Armor, worth 972g 0s, is made by Leatherworking using the following components, which cost 427g 43s 60c:

Qty	Component	Each	Total
20	[Blackened Dragonscale]	14g 92s 43c	298g 48s 60c
1	(Vendor)	323g 75s	323g 75s
10	[Heavy Savage Leather]	36g 0s	360g 0s
50	[Savage Leather]	3g 6s 19c	153g 9s 50c
250	[Savage Leather Scraps]	51s 58c	128g 95s

One Charscale Leg Armor, worth 833g 0s, is made by Leatherworking using the following components, which cost 324g 26s 20c:

Qty	Component	Each	Total
1	(Vendor)	323g 75s	323g 75s
10	[Heavy Savage Leather]	36g 0s	360g 0s
50	[Savage Leather]	3g 6s 19c	153g 9s 50c
250	[Savage Leather Scraps]	51s 58c	128g 95s
20	[Volatile Fire]	9g 76s 56c	195g 31s 20c

Engineering Cata Pet

Now with even more pet achievements, don't forget about the Engineering Pets. Especially , Personal World Destroyer.

On my server, one Personal World Destroyer, worth 1200g 0s, is made by Engineering using the following components, which cost 490g 45s 24c:

Qty	Component	Each	Total
8	[Electrified Ether]	51g 54s 12c	412g 32s 96c
8	[Handful of Obsidium Bolts]	4g 83s 86c	38g 70s 88c
10	[Obsidium Bar]	3g 94s 14c	39g 41s 40c

Even less if you craft the bolts and bars from ore, and the ether from Volatile Air.

My current cost is just under 200g. And I just sold one this week from 1200. Not bad for a profit margin.

The lost art of skinning?

This article is part gripe and part tip.

First of all, I am not much of a farmer even in RL or WoW. I would much rather set up watch lists in Undermine or snipe lists in Auctioneer. But lately there seems to be a huge shortage of LW materials such as Savage Leather and in particular Blackened Dragonscale.

One of my guildies suggested the Stonescale Drakes found in Deepholm. So off I went. I found one spot in particular (54, 85) in Deepholm that I can park my rogue at that is in the middle of 3 flights paths for the Stonescale Drakes. I literally can kill the first 3, and the next wave is coming at me. I stayed there for about 20 minutes while in queue for a daily heroic and I left with 10 stacks of scraps, 5 stacks of leather, 2 stacks of Blackened Dragonscale, and even 1 Pristine Hide.

Anyone else have good spots for certain mats?

What would you do if you hit the cap?

Today's article on Just My Two Copper asked an interesting question. What would you do if you reached the cap?

Some of you that have known me for a while know that I once tried to start a group venture. This venture was a grouping of like minded individuals that wanted to buy and sell items in the AH. We each would "work" a specific market. We would provide each other mats, and then on a weekly basis split out any profits equally. While the venture didn't really take off as much as I would have liked, I did get one or two folks interested. Two are dedicated Auctioneers and several others are dedicated "Farmers" who sell exclusively to us.

All that being said, my first purchase would be Vial of the Sands mounts for myself and my Auctioneers. :-)

What about you? What would you do if you hit cap?

TSM: I don't know what I did before thee

TSM (Trade Skill Master) is a suite of addons that just makes the whole process of scanning, crafting, posting and reposting just too too easy. I can't say enough about how great these addons are.

The official site can be found here.

Some really good tutorials can be found here:

http://www.justmytwocopper.org/2011/01/trade-skill-master-guide-part-1-of-3.html

http://tradingwithzoxy.blogspot.com/2011/01/tradeskillmaster-addon-guide.html

http://www.ele-mentalgold.com/2011/01/tradeskillmaster-glyph-crafting-part-1.html

I will post a step by step of how I personally use these addons once I get some free time.

I would love to hear from others that use this tool. Do you like it it or dislike it? What hidden features have you found and what else would you like to share?

You'll Feel Right as Rain

With all the bad weather around the country lately, this achievement made me laugh.

Basically the achievement is to feel 1000% better by eating Chocolate Cookies. This is accomplished by eating about 91 Chocolate Cookies. Eating the first one makes you feel 100% better. Each subsequent one adds another 10%.

 The actual recipe calls for  1 Simple Flour and 1 Cocoa Beans. The flour can be bought from pretty much any cooking vendor. The Cocoa bean is purchased from either Bario Matalli or Shazdar.

Don't forget to put on your Chef's Hat to speed up the cooking process. (But take it off and put back your normal helm when you go to raid...ahem..)

WoW Addons: How I love thee, let me count the gold!

Addons some people love them, some people hate them and avoid them like the plague. But when it comes to making money in WoW, they are an invaluable resource that just can't be ignored.

Obviously everyone has their list of "must have" addons. My list is pretty similar to most. (Note: * Denotes addons that I will go into detail in future posts.)

• Ackis Recipe List : The ultimate list of recipes and how to obtain them.
• Altoholic : Now where did I put that? Keep track of your alts, who has what item, how many, etc? You can even share your information with other Altoholic users.
• Analyst : Tracks all your golds comings and goings. How much did you make with auctions? Quests? How much did you spend on repairs?
• Auctioneer : * Love it or hate, it still provides lots of features not found in other suites of auctioning addons. 
• Auctionator :I use this for buying and selling items in any stack size with whatever prices. I really love the buying features that allow you to buy quickly from those annoying ppl that post 150 stacks of 1.
• BankStack :I love this addon cause it stacks odd lots of items both in your bag as well as your bank, or from one to another. I love organized bags.
• GatherMate2 & GatherMate2_Data & RecipeProfit for GatherMate :Similar to Gatherer but kept more up to date. Track nodes from mining, herbing, archaeology, fishing, gas clods, you name it.
• GnomeWorks Tradeskill Frame :A re-do of the trade skill window that tracks items both in bag and in banks or alts.
• MySales :Keep track of who buys your auctions. Can view by buyer or by item.
• Postal :Speedy opening of all you mail box items. Really helpful when you need to open 900 items quickly and efficiently.
• Routes :Create farming routes per node type per area. Rather than randomly flying to and fro.
• SellJunk :Quickly sell all those grey items that clutter up your bags when questing or farming
• TradeSkillMaster : * I LOVE LOVE LOVE this suite of addons. I can't say enough about how easy it is to scan, craft, post, and re-post quickly and efficiently. I don't know what I'd do without these addons.

What about you? Are there others that you use, and what do you love about them?

Start of my Blog plus 4.1 Patch day!

I'm excited! And no its not cause 4.1 is supposed to hit today (although that's pretty exciting on its own). I'm excited cause I finally decided to take this leap to begin a blog about my experiences with World of Warcraft and the wheeling and dealing of virtual toons that make up the biggest factor in the game for me. GOLD!

Now I know what you are thinking, so what? There are plenty of blogs already out there, and you are correct. In fact I follow most of them. But what I really like is the concept of virtual collaboration. There are hundreds of realms in WoW. There are thousands of characters (toons)! The ways to make money (gold) in this game is a factor of exponential proportions.

I don't know how often I will be able to write these blogs, but I do want to use this site to share things I've learned. Both personally in the game, through connections with friends and guildies in the game. And throughout the various venues of the these virtual blogging communities.

Let me begin this journey by first giving you a background on myself.
My real name is Jacob. I was born in the mid 70s which makes me older than the average WoW player. I have a wife (who does not play) and a son (who is too little to play). I have a full time job that requires me to travel from home (Monday-Thursday). Lots of alone time in the hotel means playing WoW to keep away the boredom. Since I am away from home most of the week, weekends are usually spent catching up on chores around the house and spending as much time with my little one as possible.

Now let me talk to you about my Wow "empire". My main toon and my first toon ever is a human paladin on the Velen server , Ezraiel. I began playing shortly after the release of Burning Crusades. At that time I really did not play much at all and it took me quite a few months to level my toon. I did absolutely nothing in terms of PvP, raiding, or auction houses other than occasionally paying for items I needed to complete quests. I was never a part of any guild either. One day I randomly met a mage that helped me finish a few higher level quests and he invited me to his guild, Honor Bound. Again didn't really do much with the guild other than chatting with them while doing quests.

It wasn't until the release of Wrath of the Lich King (WOTLK) that I even bothered to level any other toons. And even then it was to start a level 55 Death Knight, Ezknite. But once I started leveling again, I found I liked it. In fact, I started to create and level multiple toons, to the point that I actually started a secondary account, and multi-boxed multiple toons at once.

During this time, Ezraiel joined a raiding quild, Section XII that was just getting into Naxx and Ulduar and even some TOC. As my raiding experience grew, the appetite for it grew. I was able to join another guild Unity, just as they were starting some of the LK raids. I have been with Unity since and we are progressing through the current raid content.

During the Ulduar raids, I manged to get my first epic BS pattern. I not only managed to create the item for myself, I was able to figure out that if I could get the mats cheaper than what the item sold for, I could make a decent profit. Once I did this once, I was as they say "hooked".

Since I've always been pretty detailed orientated, I started to track my "work" with Excel. I created a pretty detailed spreadsheet. The first tab, which had all my "raw" materials along with the current price in the AH. The subsequent tabs, were built over time, but included the detail behind different epic patterns that I could create. How much the raw prices added up to and how much the items were selling for currently in the AH. The "difference" would hopefully be my "profit".  (This spreadsheet has since been revised, since most of my work can be done with some really nice addons)

I soon learned that even though Velen was a low population server, there still was a lot of competition in the AH. I soon scoured the web, and came across various "gold blogging" sites. In particular, and still my favorite to date is Marko's (Just My Two Copper). I learned a lot from the daily postings, as well as stalking the forums. With the knowledge gained there, I soon began to implement things I learned, and diversified into as many markets as possible.


Which leads back to my current "empire".

Name	Guild	Faction	Level	Class	Main Spec	Profession 1	Profession 2
Lijumon	EzDoesWow	Alliance	59	Death Knight	Banker	-	-
Troom	Consoritum	Alliance	4	Priest	Banker	-	-
Amelmara	Syndicated	Alliance	1	Paladin	Banker	-	-
Ezraiel	Unity	Alliance	85	Paladin	Heal	Blacksmith	Inscription
Ezknite	Unity	Alliance	85	Death Knight	Tank	Enchanting	JC
Eznun	Unity	Alliance	85	Priest	Heal	Alchemist (Potion Spec)	Herbalism
Ezshammy	Unity	Alliance	85	Shaman	Heal	JC	Miner
Ezranger	Unity	Alliance	85	Hunter	DPS	JC	Miner
Ezwar	Unity	Alliance	85	Warrior	Tank	Alchemist (Elixir Spec)	Miner
Ezkitty	Unity	Alliance	85	Druid	Tank	LW	Engineer
Ezninja	Unity	Alliance	85	Rogue	DPS	Engineer	Skinning
Ezlocke	Unity	Alliance	85	Warlock	DPS	Tailor	Skinning
Ezmagi	Unity	Alliance	85	Mage	DPS	Alchemist (Transmute Spec)	Herbalism
Yakuranger	Creepy Nightmares	Horde	21	Hunter	DPS	Herbalism	Miner
Yakubank	Creepy Nightmares	Horde	5	Shaman	Banker	-	-
Leiarze	Corpus Invictus	Horde	85	Paladin	Tank	JC	Miner
Yakuzå	Creepy Nightmares	Horde	47	Rogue	DPS	Herbalism	Skinning
Yakuior	Creepy Nightmares	Horde	10	Warrior	DPS	Herbalism	Miner
Yakutotem	Creepy Nightmares	Horde	3	Shaman	DPS	-	-
Yakuid	Creepy Nightmares	Horde	11	Druid	DPS	Herbalism	Miner

Sorry for the tiny print, but in essence I have eleven maxed toons with every profession covered at least once. I also have four Banker toons that have their own 6 tab guild banks  (3 on Alliance and 1 on Horde)

As of April 20th, 2011 I have amassed approximately 725,000 in gold across all of my toons and guild banks. My current goal is to hit 1 million by June 30th of 2011.

Most of my money was made during the later part of WOTLK with BS, Tailoring, LW creating the epic patterns from Ulduar, TOC, and LK raids.

I spend quite a bit of my money since Cataclysm (Cata) dropped. This has been mainly to level all of my previous level 80 toons to 85 and to not only max out their professions, but to also get them enough gear to be able to run heroics. 

I hope to cover my journey to a million. I also want to share ideas and get comments and feedback from others.

That's all for today, need to finish downloading the patch and get ready to try to make some money. Stay tuned. Please share this link with others, and please provide any feedback so that I can continue to improve.

thanks,
Ez