Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Easy Guide to Auction House in WoW

TSM is a brilliant addon that I once covered back when it first was released. But now it is far better, and here today I have an email from a reader name Jeff who reveals most of the basics required to get started with TSM.

"Auctioneer is kinda a thing in the past now marcko. The cool thing about wow is blizzard now releases the auction house data and theres a site you can go to and look at average prices and whatnot

http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/tradeskill-master
that link shows you the addon, you can read about it.

there is also a desk top application you can get too at the main site
http://tradeskillmaster.com/

this is the cool thing. http://www.wowuction.com is a website that shows actual auction house sales on all servers, you can take a look at your server directly and see whats selling and whats not, it also lets you know what mats you can buy off the auction house and what you can make with them and make a profit.

Now this is the even cooler thing, you can link your desktop application with the site to your wow folder, and it will automatically search the website, and put the info into your auction house info so you will never need to scan the auction house again.
TSM also helps with professions, like itll disenchant gear, herbs, ore and so forth.
Now also another thing about wowuction.com is someone made a excel datasheet of the old saronite shuffle you use to do, but this time with the new Pandaria ore. the link is
http://stormspire.net/tools-programs-spreadsheets/8970-stede-companys-mop-shuffling-spreadsheet.html

But its not just ore too.
Also, remember back in WoTLK you would do dungeons for justice points, well in MoP you still do dungeons, but you get points for doing dailies. in MoP its called Valor, and to spend Valor you still have to raise your rep with factions. there are no Valor items sold on anyone, you need to get rep. im looking for an addon that can help track that but I cant find one, just a heads up if you find one, your readers could benefit."

Thanks Jeff, you've helped me out tremendously, and maybe even some people reading who didn't know about all this. I'll have to do some research and get caught up! (been doing a lot of that lately!)

Friday, April 26, 2013

Driving the Economy #4: Stuck in Traffic

Stuck in traffic on the auction house? Hosed by under cutters? This should help...


Monday, April 22, 2013

Upgrading Addons

I'm currently looking into TradeSkillMaster (TSM), which is something I covered a long time ago in a previous blog, but now it has grown much more powerful since then. I hope to have a comprehensive guide to the tool as I learn to implement it at the moment.

This is really tough writing for the blog while trying to level Markco up, but I will do my best!

Almost finished the first level and I even started to level his Blacksmithing as well. I like the way they have streamlined character abilities and reduced the number of buttons, but I definitely miss some of the sick Prot Warrior PvP combinations you can no longer do. Who knows if I will stick to that method of play, but it will be fun trying to make it work again. I just hope I don't need to PvE... ugh bad memories.

What did you like about the Pandaren expansions? Did you play Pokemon a lot? Haven't tried it yet personally... is it worth it?

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Auctioneer Helping Everyone But You






I swear that certain parts of auctioneer seem to be designed to help everyone but you! When posting an auction, many times the buy out price will undercut your competition correctly, but the bid price will be close to 0. What that does is create an opportunity for a loss! I would love if Auctioneer set your bid price to 15% higher than whatever you originally paid for the item (if possible), or else they just made your bid price equal to your buyout (in that case only, as you would be taking a loss already).

Be vigilant when posting auctions, and always check the information Auctioneer provides to you!

Friday, April 19, 2013

Know It Alls

Human beings, by their very nature, cannot know everything. In fact, we can't even grasp the concept of everything or nothing. These extremes are impossible to truly comprehend, and unfortunately that's just our biology getting in the way. If you think you "Know It All" about making gold in WoW or any other game for that matter, think again. The more time you put into learning the more you will find that you didn't know.

Even after a decade of blogging, exploring, probing for new ideas, seeking new communities, etc, I find a new tip or two almost every single day.

Keep your eyes open and do not get into a habbit of doing the same auction house methods over and over again. Yes, you should have some kind of routine, but be sure to include time where you just explore for new ideas.

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Driving Economy #3: Patch Notes and Masses

Where do the masses get their information about the economy? Usually the same sites sending them patch notes! Take advantage of this fact and drive on the right side of the economic highway.


Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Too Easy to Make Gold?

I'm finding it incredibly easy to make gold in WoW, even if it's just using auctioneer's basic tricks to get the job done. I haven't yet gotten to the point where I can flip the truly expensive stuff, but I am making a consistent amount of money playing 5 minutes per day! I've been sick with the flu, or whatever this is, yet I've still managed to pull in decent amounts of money. Here's a quick screenshot summing up the past three visits to the auction house I've had while ill, as well as some items I'm currently selling that I picked up on bids:



Not too bad, but not exponential either. I blame that on my time limitation at the moment, as I am basically just hitting auctioneer scan, walking away, coming back and bidding on a few dozen things before logging off. Enchanting is really freaking easy money, even on a level 8 character, and the bids I've won have gotten me items worth upwards of 1000% the invested value.

Current gold count only looking into liquid money at the moment:


That doesn't include gold stuck in the auction house on bids or actual auctions. I'll have some more to talk about as I discover new markets to play! Glyphs are freaking dead by the way, they don't sell at all on my main's server where I have a max level glypher. Any other markets you've found are complete duds so I don't waste my time on them?

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Guaranteed Easy Gold in WoW

Every game I play and teach people about, I try to discover or create methods that will work every single time. These aren't usually the best methods, but they work so consistently that it helps to build confidence from a skeptical student. Once their confidence has peaked, then they are usually willing to stomach potential losses from more risky (and rewarding) strategies. In this video, I discuss one surefire way to make gold in Diablo 3, Guild Wars 2, and WoW. I also explain why players need to utilize these strategies, even if they think they already know what they are doing. Enjoy!

Monday, April 15, 2013

Communicate and Disenchant


I made another 24 gold just from what I could afford to disenchant Friday of last week. I only had 11 gold to invest, and I turned it into 24 gold while asleep the night prior. Sorry, I have been sticking to the one post per day format so a lot of my posts regarding my adventures on Arthas are lagging behind real time events. Which is probably a good thing, because someone could easily sabotage my poor little orc auctioneer if they knew my strategies as I was using them.

Level 15 items have some great disenchant rates, and you can start disenchanting them from level 1 of enchanting, making them a great gold maker for my solo auctioneer who's still only level 8. Barely old enough to fend off the boars outside Orgrimmar!

So like I was saying, disenchanting is great, and it works throughout the game at various levels. You just have to put a little time into researching different markets and you'll be making a killing in no time.


But there's another trick you can do, besides buying tons of belts like I did in the screenshot above. You can do this:


On the left side of the screen you see me buying out all the belts that Hexness posted on the auction house for 3 gold each. I then messaged him or her and asked that they send me some more goodies to disenchant. The results of the items I purchased will hopefully net me around 90 gold. Not bad for a 24 gold investment. I have to see how quickly greater versus lesser essences sell, because that might be an opportunity for buying up greaters and breaking them up or buying lessers and combining them for a profit.

On a side note, selling dusts should be done in one of two ways:

1 for X gold
20 for 20X gold - discount

That's generally how they are sold. So if X = 4 gold, then I will sell 1 for 4 gold or 20 for 70 gold. There's a lot of theory behind that to explain the direct thought process of a buyer, but I'll get to that another time.

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Tricking Auctioneers

This is a fun little trick for messing with people who use auctioneer. Always a good time, just don't count on it as consistent income 24/7!

Driving the Economy Episode #2: Foolish Auctioneers

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Disenchanting for Gold

I took the money I've made so far and invested it into armor/weapons below level 10 that I could disenchant for a profit. Remember, I'm not leveling this toon, but having a base disenchanting skill enables me to still make money from the profession. Pretty good money actually. I purchased 5 items for around 10 gold and disenchanted them into 9 dusts. I sold those dusts for around 50% market value at 20 gold total, which will double my investment before ah fees.

Why do I undercut so heavily? Because I want to sell to both normal buyers as well as bidders and snipers. A LOT of my enchanting auctions are being bid on, so I try to use the 12 hour option to appeal to those players as quickly as possible. See my Diablo 3 video explaining this strategy for both wow and D3.

Hopefully I'm not moving too slow for your tastes on this new toon. Regarding my old characters now living on a dead server, I was able to make good money buying Thorium Ore and prospecting it into Azerothian Diamonds and assorted gems. Still looking for ways to make gold as I try to level Markco to 90. It's amazing how little time I have working on three blogs at once, finishing up therapy for my back/elbow, and still working a full time job. But I'm having a lot of fun, and I am actually going to be jumping on a few podcasts in the coming week or so. Those will be fun as well.

Hope you're enjoying my presence in the wow community once more, my apologies for taking so long to get back into it! You all definitely played a role in your way getting me back!

Friday, April 12, 2013

Ruining Gold Strategies

What's Driving the Economy? Episode 1: Ruining Gold Strategies

Thought I'd try something new, a podcast on the road of sorts. This episode of "What's Driving the Economy" deals with me and how I like to ruin gold strategies for everyone else. Let me know what you think of this and whether I should keep this mini-podcast going.


Thursday, April 11, 2013

10 Gold The Next Day

I think this screenshot says it all...

So I'm up to 10 gold as of writing this (made 4-ish gold during the first session after taking my 30 silver from leveling and investing it into flipping vendor items). I'm very excited to turn this into a lot more!

For today's tip, Copper rods are easy gold. I sold two of them for a gold and a half each, while my competition was trying to sell them for like 25 gold.

Please remember that this is an exercise in fun, not a race or a show of gold making force. It's a good way for me to slowly ease my way back into the auction house, on a server that's not freaking dead.

Several commenters said they were going to try what I'm doing here, so please share your stories and how it's going for you!

I think that I will try my luck at Transmogging low level items next, but we'll see what comes up from running auctioneer for deals first.

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Life on Arthas and the New WoW Economy

I was pretty dumb yesterday and wrote that my new banking toon lived on the Kel'thuzad server. No, that's where my old bank alt used to live last time I tried "making as much gold as possible on a new server." Sorry about that, I'm actually on Arthas if you've tried to reach my character, Markcolol, already. (I like messages and mail!)

Let's look at my sales so far as the first ones just came back to me today!

First, we have Strange Dust from the Enchanting Trainer. Thank you Mr. Bloodelf for your cheap dusts!


Those dusts cost me 21 silver to purchase (3 for 7 silver-ish each). On the auction house they were listed as 1-1.75 gold each. Why did I undercut so heavily? Because I'm freaking making 54 silver on a 21 silver investment! What's the point in undercutting by one copper and potentially wasting even more of my very precious initial money (just 30 silver total from questing and vendoring!) when it doesn't sell right away. Btw, I was seriously not ready for the 1 silver minimum deposit per item. After I bought and relisted 5 auctions I was out of money!

EDIT: I went back and did the enchanting trick again before logging out. It will potentially net me another gold or two.

Time for some linen cloth, fresh off the backs of Alliance scoundrels in Durotar:


While this wasn't acquired directly from the auction house, it was a nice boost to my income. Now that I actually have more than a gold to play with, I can place a bunch of bids and hopefully come up with a much bigger profit tomorrow. I will continue to purchase items super cheap and sell them for normal or even lower prices.

I call that bid low, sell normal, and perhaps I'll write something up on that in the near future, for those of you who don't really know me quite yet. By the end of the night I flipped a handful of items, but its' going to be tough until I have around 10-20 gold. Probably will by tomorrow if all these new auctions sell.

Another lesson learned from a single day of trading: 12 hours is the way to go for all my auctions. Especially since a lot of other auctioneer users will see my low prices and put bids down when the deals are about to close. Like this guy:


Not bad, when that finishes I'll have close to 10 gold from my starting like 30 silver.

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Low Level Starter Cash

As I mentioned yesterday, it was time to start over on a new server with nothing except a trusty axe at my side. I am now Markcolol on Kel'thuzad, and here is my first scan of the auction house!


My addons are probably a few too many, but I'm working with auctioneer, auctionator, skillet, little sparky's workshop, kevtool, quick auctions 3, postal, and bankstack. Those come with a slew of backup addons as well, but they all kind of work quietly in the background.

Anyone who is new to addons, especially auctioneer addons, here's a tip when you're doing your scans:

They take a long time, so put your game in windowed mode and leave it open behind whatever you're working on. When you mouse over your game icon on the toolbar you should be able to see an image that is moving. If you minimize the game and do the same, the game will freeze and auctioneer will not continue scanning!

Before starting auctioneer up and all the addon goodness, I went back to basics in order to get some starter cash.

  • Level to 10
  • Boar Meat from Boars Outside Orgrimmar
  • Skin Boars
  • Bought Dust, Copper Rod, and Wood from Vendors to Flip
  • Started Fishing
  • Sold Scorpion Stingers, Linen Cloth, and Boar Meat from Initially Leveling
  • Learned Enchanting (So I can disenchant on the auction house)

We'll see how much starter cash I end up with after my first play session. I'm hoping for some quick money and I'm undercutting the competition pretty heavily.

On my main server, which is quite dead, I have every profession near maxed but nothing to do with them because there are so few buyers. I used to tell people that their server wasn't really dead when they complained, but now that I'm on such a place I feel bad!

Bear with me as I get caught up on what has happened to WoW these past few years. I'll have some strategies focused on flipping and addons until I get more acquainted with the new systems. I should be able to figure out a few methods even if I don't necessarily have any buyers on my own server. OH, and WTH BLIZZARD, I have to type "/cast enchanting" and "/cast disenchanting" because my profession tab doesn't open up with a button. Maybe it's my addons. Anyways I made them macros so that I don't have to actually type that each time.

If I REALLY need cash fast, and I am feeling super pathetic, I can create a death knight and go run low level dungeons for cloth. Wool especially. Ahhhh memories...

Here's a screenshot of some nice fellow who started randomly one shoting monsters for me. Helped with getting the gold a little faster!


Thanks Fluxed!

Monday, April 8, 2013

Bring Out Your Dead Server

Long ago, but not so long that I can't remember, there were epic battles in Stormwind city, with alliance priests mind controlling me in order to keep me alive against dozens of players. Stacked in pvp gear with massive amounts of resilience, I'd slaughter them long enough for my two friends (Jhaman and Thunderer) to come to the rescue. I distinctly remember calling both of them on the phone and telling them to log in so they could come help me in Stormwind. Those, were the days.

Gladiators decimating Stormwind while guards helplessly pecked away at us.

Going into Battelgrounds and dominating every flag cap, every capture, and taking on whole teams with just the three of us in order to win games.

But my friends have long quit wow, and my server has gone dark. Looking at the auction house, there are 18 netherweave bags. There is one person selling glyphs. I did an auctioneer getall scan in about 15 seconds. Dead is the only accurate description for my once thriving server. I would be surprised if there was one guild still fully functioning.

So what do I do with my two million gold? What about my huge inventory of glyphs, ore, leather, cloth, etc? Or how about the entire army of alts with 500+ level professions but nobody to sell to!? I could transfer I guess, but that's such a waste of money.

What a shame too, since all those alts, gold, and inventory of items could do some serious damage on another, more popular server. I mean I'm all for a challenge, but I literally could RUN this server's auction house and the profit would trickle in due to the low number of players.

I came up with something else, something I've actually done in the past.

I'm going to start a new character on a random server, with no support, and get to X gold. I'll record my auction house sessions, track my progress here, and hopefully teach a few people how to improve their game.

What do you think? If you like my plan, what race/class should I be as a banker? Which server should I play on that isn't dead? Also, how much gold should I shoot for in how many days?

Good Luck and Have Fun!

Markco

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Let's Change Your Game

Hello there, my name is Markco and I spend most of my gaming time experimenting with online economies. When I'm not participating in this hobby, I'm creating blogs, videos, walkthroughs, etc on making gold in various games.

A long time ago I was an avid World of Warcraft player who put a year of actual game time into the franchise. I've decided to return, but this time around I'm not about getting Gladiator again, pushing PvE, or anything like that. No, this time it's all about you and making you as much gold, as quickly, as possible.

Expect big things from this site, including full walk-throughs on how to make gold through the clever use of addons and professions. Speaking of which, I just finished downloading all of my addons I will need as well as the latest drivers for my graphics card.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a lot of leveling to do so that my professions are up to par with the latest warcraft expansion.

Here are my two other major gaming blogs:

Guild Wars 2 Trading Post
Diablo 3