Tag: WoW

When I talk about my adventures into making gold in World of Warcraft, it’s only too easy for me to highlight the good sale days, or days when I managed to catch a fantastic item priced for cheap that I flip for a large profit. If I only talked about those sorts of days, that would be pretty misleading.

This week, as an example, I’ve barely made 50k total. Compared to the previous week where I easily pulled in 600k, this one has been a bit of a downer. That’s OK though, patience is key. You just keep hoping and waiting it out and maybe expand your markets and try a few new things and see if you can get those numbers rising again.

One of the biggest mistakes I made happened early on when I was first learning how TSM worked and how to make gold on my specific server. I had a pretty hefty pet collection, almost 700 pets, including four TCG (trading card game) pets. I had very little liquid (remember, money in gold form on hand) to invest in anything, and I had no idea how sales worked or what I was doing. In order to make some liquid so I could begin my empire I decided I would sell off my own pets.

This was a HUGE mistake. Not only because I sold them all for well below their value, but because I LOVE pet battles! I leveled them up, completed quests, hunted for ones I didn’t own, and invested money over time into my collection that I absolutely loved. Now, a few months later, I regret it deeply. ESPECIALLY selling off my TCG pets. I’ve been trying to recoup my losses by making smarter decisions and buying pets I don’t currently own when they are 50% lower than market value, but since I play on a low population server, pets are always quite pricey. If you want to buy pets, the best places are high population servers because there is more competition and in MOST cases the pets will be cheaper. Pets are account bound, so it doesn’t matter WHERE you buy them from, you can use them on y0ur server.

My collection isn’t nearly as impressive as it used to be, and I still debate with myself every day if I want to drop the 300-400k (each pet) gold to pick up the TCG pets that I so foolishly sold. I have been slowly working the collection back up and giving some much needed love to my pet battles, but it is a slow painful process.

At least I learned something.

Do NOT sell off your personal belongings (this goes for transmog, pets, crafting materials, recipes, whatever) just to boost your gold count. You need to take some enjoyment in playing the game, too, however you find it.

In Battle for Azeroth it was announced that there would be a mount (pictured above in that fancy bar graph) that cost 5 million gold. Currently 4 million if you faction first. I am not sure if I actually want to purchase it (it has a mobile auction house, which is awesome if you use the AH a lot and don’t want to get phased) because my servers have been pretty low population and I don’t really need a mobile auction house – not to mention 5 million (or even 4 million) gold is a LOT of cash.

Still, I do enjoy challenges. I enjoy working towards goals. I decided to set my goal to 4 million earned by the start of BfA, and so far I’m actually on track (I had a few fantastic sale days). Lately I haven’t been making that much, and I expect that as we get closer to the expansion and I get closer to my due date that the amount of coin I pull in will drop quite significantly.

I do have over 1 million gold and I’m pretty close to hitting 2 million. It’s the most gold I’ve ever had in WoW, but it didn’t happen instantly. I’ve been learning how TradeSkillMaster works since December, learning my market and figuring out what sells and what doesn’t. It has been a trial in patience, and honestly it has been a really good trial. I still make bad purchases from time to time but I feel like I have a fairly good understanding on what is going to sell and what I’ll be sitting on for quite some time.

If I don’t get the mount I imagine I’ll just try to keep my liquid gold (the actual amount of gold I have on hand) over 1 million, just because. It’s a pretty number to see.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Every so often I’ll have a really weird conversation with someone, and yesterday was the day.

I got the tells above, and then the person said that their lag was too bad and so they’d have to write their proposal out to me and send it to my character in the mail. I said alright and said that I hoped their lag cleared up soon, that was the extent of our conversation.

They never did mail me, so I have absolutely no idea what they were going to propose….

Very weird.

This morning I had one of my largest sales yet, and it’s one I’m glad I went for. I found a Teebu’s longsword for sale on the auction house for 70,000 gold. Thanks to Tradeskillmaster I knew that this typically sells for a LOT more – so I made the decision to buy it and flip it. Normally I pass sales that are this expensive, 70k isn’t exactly a lot of money, but I’m still new to the markets and learning my server.

I’m very glad I picked it up, since it sold for 250,000 gold over night – of course now the person who purchased it is attempting to sell it for 500,000 gold, but I’m still really happy with my turnover and my profit. I expected to hang onto it for months, transmog does not move fast – but I was pleasantly surprised. Doing all the calculations I’ve made almost a million gold this month alone – minus the 240k I spent on a token and working my crafts up. Will I be able to keep it up? Probably not, and that’s OK. I’m not making gold because I HAVE to in order to support my account, I’m just doing it for fun and because it gives me goals to work towards. I really enjoy having goals and seeing what I can earn. A meta game, if you will.

Still, it was sure nice to wake up to that gold in the mailbox. I wouldn’t complain at all if it happened a few more times, teehee.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

I’ve said a few times that my time in-game is pretty limited, and nothing has really changed there. I often sit in game at the auction house waiting for sales to snipe, only glancing at the screen every so often or when something triggers my sniper. This allows me to play with my son, clean the house, and do chores and whatever else needs to get done while still having a potential of making some coin. What it doesn’t do is automate anything for you or allow you to gain money AFK, so that’s not what this post is about.

Sniper is a feature of tradeskillmaster.  It scans items as they are placed for sale, and allows you to see if they are under the market value. Having this information is only half of the equation though you still need to know the market of your server and understand how it can be manipulated. You also need to know what sells and what won’t sell. For example vendor sold items are often placed for auction well below what they seem to be ‘worth’ – that worth is an inflated price from people playing the market though, hoping to catch snipers unaware.

With Legion ramping down and most of us eagerly awaiting for the pre-show to BfA, I haven’t been sniping as much gear as I normally would. People are liquidating their stock hoping to sell before it becomes worthless (aside from appearance items). This is a great time to buy things like craft supplies.

There are some unique instances where sniper has really paid off for me – it doesn’t happen ALL the time, especially on a low population server, but if you’re lucky you can walk away with some amazing deals. Someone who forgets a zero, someone who doesn’t know the worth of an item (especially if none others are for sale), someone who just wants to sell fast and they want to sell fast now. Take the screenshot above as an example. The flame shield currently drops in game, and even shares an appearance with another item – a player put it for sale for 500g and less than 4h later, I re-sold it for 43,000 gold. Not a bad little profit.

Again, sales like that don’t always come along. I (these days) run two accounts, my main one that I use for playing, and my husbands I leave up so I can snipe. There are good days and there are bad, but it’s all a little extra income on top of my main money makers, and pretty hands-free, which I appreciate. Sometimes I strike it ‘big’ (not big compared to real goblins, but big for me) and other days are a bust. It’s all about waiting, and patience. So. Much. Patience.

There is also a short list of items I’m always in the market for if they drop below 50% market value in order to resell. Medallion of the legion, elixir of rapid mind, most craft materials, a handful of pets and mounts. They don’t come up in my sniper searches too frequently, but when they do I’m almost always guaranteed a simple sale, which is nice.

I did some calculations yesterday, and so far for the month of May I’ve earned almost 500,000 gold, and I’ve spent 240,000 gold (I did pick up a token earlier in the month to help pay for a character transfer). That’s not too bad. It’s not a great month but again we’re in a weird lull where it’s a sellers market (liquidating for BfA) and I expect that things will turn around once the expansion gets nearer.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!