Oh you know, 90 degree heat, 9th month of pregnancy -- they don't go well together.erilar wrote:What was bad about yesterday, Ken?
Tue 5/30 WoW?
I'm actually not gathering mats or crafting. I'm simply playing the AH like the stock market, buying low and selling high. I figure you'd need 20 or 30 gold of seed money, and then you could start growing it pretty quickly.EvilGenius wrote:That would certainly be appreciated, since I'm broke again.
I have a bunch of mats sitting in my bank. I've got to start using the AH. And I'm going to start farming more mats; silk, mageweave, runecloth, enchant mats, etc.
I started with 140g seed money (from selling some blue drop) a few months ago, and I'm up over 700g by now. Really, I only typically do buying & selling once or twice per week, so you can see how fast you could grow your cash if you applied youself.
"This enemy you cannot kill. You can only drive it back damaged into the depths, and teach your children to watch the waves for its return." - Quellcrist Falconer
Just tell Sue that when you've got a bun in the oven, you need to bake it well! (Yes, I know - she'd smile and then stab you in the eye. A joke for the dads, not the moms-to-be...)NukeHavoc wrote: Oh you know, 90 degree heat, 9th month of pregnancy -- they don't go well together.
"This enemy you cannot kill. You can only drive it back damaged into the depths, and teach your children to watch the waves for its return." - Quellcrist Falconer
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Lars Porsenna
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I tried doing that with another game (basically a resource-builder game based on Battletech) by selling weapons. It never worked out, and I never made any money... :/erilar wrote:I'm actually not gathering mats or crafting. I'm simply playing the AH like the stock market, buying low and selling high. I figure you'd need 20 or 30 gold of seed money, and then you could start growing it pretty quickly.
Damon.
Okay, I write up this huge blog entry, but Blogger is all crapped out this afternoon (grumble grumble)... I'll post it here, and you guys can let me know if anything's too clunky for the public. (You know, all those people that don't read my blog?)
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Making Money in World of Warcraft
As a busy gaming parent, the acquisition of prestigious, expensive items such as Epic mounts in World of Warcraft seems like an unattainable goal. If you're like me, you might get to raid Molten Core or Zul'Gurub a few times per week (if you're lucky), but raiding has never made anyone much cash, has it...
Seeing as a raid here and there is pretty much the only WoW playing time I get, the normal (but time-intensive) money-making methods such as running the 5- and 10-man endgame instances, soloing Scarlet Monastery, or farming for crafting raw materials, are just not an option.
So, how else can an enterprising Night Elf make a quick gold piece? No, I'm not referring to dancing nude for tips on top of the mailbox outside the Ironforge bank! Instead, I have discovered that the Auction House is the answer to my gold flow problems. Just like playing the stock market, it is possible to make a considerable sum of money on the AH by the time-honored approach of buying low and selling high.
Normally, one does not give away their most precious money-making schemes for fear of losing their edge to bandwagon-jumpers. Seeing as how 90% of WoW players play on servers other than mine, perhaps I won't lose out too badly by being a nice guy.
Before you run off in a lather to log on to your favorite toon, be warned. An unprepared AH prospector will walk away with only moths in his pockets if he is not careful. Read on, Sir Warbucks.
I use several tools to help me quickly identify good deals and verify that they should be a "safe" purchase. The first is a fairly hefty WoW addon called Auctioneer. This handy tool performs scans of the Auction House, cataloging price info about each item. One merely has to mouse over a particular item, whether in one's inventory or in the AH itself, and an enhanced tooltip appears describing such useful data as the average price that the item goes for on the AH, how many times it's been scanned by Auctioneer, and how much an NPC vendor would buy the item for.
Each time you scan, another snapshot of the AH prices is processed by Auctioneer's statistical algorithms, and the more accurate Auctioneer's prices become. Auctioneer can certainly be fooled by instances of outrageously-priced items, but in general, it is fairly good at identifying good deals.
But, you say, I don't want to spend all day pouring over every item on the AH looking for a good buy. Fear not, faithful financier. Auctioneer includes a Search Auctions function that does most of the work for you. This search function is even implemented as an added tab within the AH screen itself - how convenient! Simply specify whether you're looking for sweet deals on auctions soon to expire, or juicy low buyout prices. By changing several filter options, one can literally say, "hey Auctioneer - find me all Blue or rarer items with buyouts that should, upon resale, net me 10 gold or more per transaction". Viola, this great addon spits out a sortable list.
Now, as I'd mentioned earlier, Auctioneer can be temporarily fooled by crazy-high prices. Example: let's assume an overzealous seller places several extra-high 50g buyouts on a Nightraven crossbow, and that you had scanned a few times during that period. The following day, when a more reasonable seller puts a Nightraven up for the typical 25g price, Auctioneer might consider that "normal" buyout price for the crossbow a sweet deal. In reality though, if you jumped on that 25g buyout, you'd be lucky to sell it for that and break even.
So how do we make sure that Auctioneer isn't feeding us bad tips? I use two simple cross-checks:
My primary cross-check is a web site called Allakhazam. Using this site's search tool, one can peruse long-term pricing of one's target item. Allakhazam's excellent item price database shows all kinds of great AH statistics - median, average, and most common prices, and even a histogram. The only downfall to Allakhazam is that the data has been gathered across all servers and server types. Still, I have found it to be largely accurate, which isn't suprising considering that the sample size is typically very large. Allakhazam's data is typically based on thousands of sales of the target item, over a period anywhere from around a month to as short as only a few days!
OK, so Allakhazam says that my target item (say, our Nightraven crossbow) sells for a median price of 25 gold. How do I double-check that my server follows suit? Simple - my second price cross-check is to consult the AH itself. Once you find a potential deal, switch to the AH Scan tab (the built-in Blizzard AH scan that you've always used when looking for items). Check to see if any other instances of your item are for sale. This method will catch several potential problems:
First, if there are lots of other auctions for the same item, and several foolish sellers are unloading their swag for less-than-typical prices, you'd have a hard time selling your item.
Finally, it is possible that your server's market is simply a bit different than the "average" market predicted by Allakhazam's data. Perhaps one guild has been running UBRS non-stop and the AH is saturated with drops from that dungeon. Supply and demand will drive local prices down temporarily, etc.
The only other reality check that you need will be common sense. For example, this morning, I found a piece of mail armor that seemed to be a great potential buy. Upon second glance however, I noticed that the stats were basically Int and Spirit. No hunter is going to be very interested in that piece - it's actually a shaman item, hence the extra-low price. I never would have sold it for the attractive Allakhazam median price, which also takes into account Horde-side pricing.
Good luck, and strike gold!
---------------------------------------------------
Making Money in World of Warcraft
As a busy gaming parent, the acquisition of prestigious, expensive items such as Epic mounts in World of Warcraft seems like an unattainable goal. If you're like me, you might get to raid Molten Core or Zul'Gurub a few times per week (if you're lucky), but raiding has never made anyone much cash, has it...
Seeing as a raid here and there is pretty much the only WoW playing time I get, the normal (but time-intensive) money-making methods such as running the 5- and 10-man endgame instances, soloing Scarlet Monastery, or farming for crafting raw materials, are just not an option.
So, how else can an enterprising Night Elf make a quick gold piece? No, I'm not referring to dancing nude for tips on top of the mailbox outside the Ironforge bank! Instead, I have discovered that the Auction House is the answer to my gold flow problems. Just like playing the stock market, it is possible to make a considerable sum of money on the AH by the time-honored approach of buying low and selling high.
Normally, one does not give away their most precious money-making schemes for fear of losing their edge to bandwagon-jumpers. Seeing as how 90% of WoW players play on servers other than mine, perhaps I won't lose out too badly by being a nice guy.
Before you run off in a lather to log on to your favorite toon, be warned. An unprepared AH prospector will walk away with only moths in his pockets if he is not careful. Read on, Sir Warbucks.
I use several tools to help me quickly identify good deals and verify that they should be a "safe" purchase. The first is a fairly hefty WoW addon called Auctioneer. This handy tool performs scans of the Auction House, cataloging price info about each item. One merely has to mouse over a particular item, whether in one's inventory or in the AH itself, and an enhanced tooltip appears describing such useful data as the average price that the item goes for on the AH, how many times it's been scanned by Auctioneer, and how much an NPC vendor would buy the item for.
Each time you scan, another snapshot of the AH prices is processed by Auctioneer's statistical algorithms, and the more accurate Auctioneer's prices become. Auctioneer can certainly be fooled by instances of outrageously-priced items, but in general, it is fairly good at identifying good deals.
But, you say, I don't want to spend all day pouring over every item on the AH looking for a good buy. Fear not, faithful financier. Auctioneer includes a Search Auctions function that does most of the work for you. This search function is even implemented as an added tab within the AH screen itself - how convenient! Simply specify whether you're looking for sweet deals on auctions soon to expire, or juicy low buyout prices. By changing several filter options, one can literally say, "hey Auctioneer - find me all Blue or rarer items with buyouts that should, upon resale, net me 10 gold or more per transaction". Viola, this great addon spits out a sortable list.
Now, as I'd mentioned earlier, Auctioneer can be temporarily fooled by crazy-high prices. Example: let's assume an overzealous seller places several extra-high 50g buyouts on a Nightraven crossbow, and that you had scanned a few times during that period. The following day, when a more reasonable seller puts a Nightraven up for the typical 25g price, Auctioneer might consider that "normal" buyout price for the crossbow a sweet deal. In reality though, if you jumped on that 25g buyout, you'd be lucky to sell it for that and break even.
So how do we make sure that Auctioneer isn't feeding us bad tips? I use two simple cross-checks:
My primary cross-check is a web site called Allakhazam. Using this site's search tool, one can peruse long-term pricing of one's target item. Allakhazam's excellent item price database shows all kinds of great AH statistics - median, average, and most common prices, and even a histogram. The only downfall to Allakhazam is that the data has been gathered across all servers and server types. Still, I have found it to be largely accurate, which isn't suprising considering that the sample size is typically very large. Allakhazam's data is typically based on thousands of sales of the target item, over a period anywhere from around a month to as short as only a few days!
OK, so Allakhazam says that my target item (say, our Nightraven crossbow) sells for a median price of 25 gold. How do I double-check that my server follows suit? Simple - my second price cross-check is to consult the AH itself. Once you find a potential deal, switch to the AH Scan tab (the built-in Blizzard AH scan that you've always used when looking for items). Check to see if any other instances of your item are for sale. This method will catch several potential problems:
First, if there are lots of other auctions for the same item, and several foolish sellers are unloading their swag for less-than-typical prices, you'd have a hard time selling your item.
Finally, it is possible that your server's market is simply a bit different than the "average" market predicted by Allakhazam's data. Perhaps one guild has been running UBRS non-stop and the AH is saturated with drops from that dungeon. Supply and demand will drive local prices down temporarily, etc.
The only other reality check that you need will be common sense. For example, this morning, I found a piece of mail armor that seemed to be a great potential buy. Upon second glance however, I noticed that the stats were basically Int and Spirit. No hunter is going to be very interested in that piece - it's actually a shaman item, hence the extra-low price. I never would have sold it for the attractive Allakhazam median price, which also takes into account Horde-side pricing.
Good luck, and strike gold!
"This enemy you cannot kill. You can only drive it back damaged into the depths, and teach your children to watch the waves for its return." - Quellcrist Falconer
That's the other upside of Auctioneer. Instead of selling your mundane loot to a vendor, if it's a White or better item, just drop it into the auction tab in the AH screen, and Auctioneer spits out (and automatically enters) a suggested price to sell your item(s) for. (You can overwrite the suggested price if you like before accepting.)
The suggested price is based on Auctioneer's median historical price for that item. (It will take a few scans until Auctioneer becomes accurate.) Then, it takes 5% off so the item sells quickly. I sell all my Greens and leather and such this way, and I rarely fail to sell something the first time around. Keeps the AH fiddling to a minimum, while still making a good profit.
Ken, I'd suggest making up a new char, running them to IF or SW, and parking them by a mailbox. Then, when Zil gets some sellable loot, he simply mails it to your new "bank" character. Your bank will just live between the mailbox and the AH, and mail all the profits back to Zil.
The suggested price is based on Auctioneer's median historical price for that item. (It will take a few scans until Auctioneer becomes accurate.) Then, it takes 5% off so the item sells quickly. I sell all my Greens and leather and such this way, and I rarely fail to sell something the first time around. Keeps the AH fiddling to a minimum, while still making a good profit.
Ken, I'd suggest making up a new char, running them to IF or SW, and parking them by a mailbox. Then, when Zil gets some sellable loot, he simply mails it to your new "bank" character. Your bank will just live between the mailbox and the AH, and mail all the profits back to Zil.
"This enemy you cannot kill. You can only drive it back damaged into the depths, and teach your children to watch the waves for its return." - Quellcrist Falconer
How devious.erilar wrote:Ken, I'd suggest making up a new char, running them to IF or SW, and parking them by a mailbox. Then, when Zil gets some sellable loot, he simply mails it to your new "bank" character. Your bank will just live between the mailbox and the AH, and mail all the profits back to Zil.
"Oh, I'm so sorry. Forgive me. I'll try and be a tad more quiet as I desperately struggle to break free -- and save all creation!" -- Doctor Strange