Infraction for Deathspiral: 2. All opinions should be stated as succinctly as possible.

• Snowy · 03/25/09, 3:14 PM

Post: The icy art of making gold
User: Deathspiral
Infraction: 2. All opinions should be stated as succinctly as possible.
Points: 1

Administrative Note:

Message to User:

I believe you missed the "succinctly" part here. Might I recommend you post this to your guild forums instead? Or a blog? We're not really that interested in a play by play of your whole endeavor, as successful as it may have been.

Your "summary" was actually the content in the post. Everything before then (and it was a lot!) was just pointless backstory that people aren't going to read or aren't even interested in.

Original Post:

This post can be considered something of an "icy art of making gold" success story. The reason for posting it is really to prove to some guild mates that the 5000g barrier for epic mounts is not difficult to overcome.

I recently found myself with 28g to my name and wanting to buy an epic flier. I haven't had much time to play recently and so I have very average gear and no gold reserves.

My goal was simple: to make 5000g starting essentially at zero, in a single week, while playing no more than 90 minutes a day. (And a maximum of 45 minutes at any one time due to work.) I more than exceeded this goal.

To take stock: as I said, I had 28g to my name. I also was level 80 and I had two professions at 450: enchanting and mining. I started on a wednesday morning.

Wednesday:

I downloaded auctioneer and did a scan of AH (I do scans in downtime - they don't count as time played). I then carefully went through my bank and bags and either vendored or disenchanted every single item that I didn't need. I didn't have much. I also found a blue boe worth about 50g.

I listed all my shards and gems on the AH at 1c lower than the cheapest price on there in order to get some starting capital. Vendoring junk took me to 60g.

While I waited to sell these items, I took the time to finish up the giant sons of hodir questline to get access to the daily quests. I wanted to work on something that I actually needed. I took care to either DE or vendor all quest rewards. During this time, I saw a lot of "a buyer has been found for your auction" messages. I also took care to mine everything I could while I quested and to shard any drops that I got (two crappy greens) from mobs.

I finished the remaining few quests in 45 mins, netting about 120g. Total: 180g.

I hearthed, listed the new shards/dusts that I had bought for 1c less than current BO using auctioneers post feature and vendored all of the gray junk items. Then logged off. TOTAL: 208g

Later in the day, I did a second scan, then checked my mailbox for sales. Total: 485g.
I did the three sons of hodir dailies and a few ebon blade dailies, netting 115g plus some vendorable crap. Total: 617g.

Thursday:

Scan, check sales in mailbox. TOTAL: 759g.
I then filtered all 76 to 80 items and sorted by buyout. I bought 12 greens that were under 10g for DE purposes (I calculated, using enchantrix, that after AH cut, I could make about 5.5g per item). I also advertised in trade that I would pay 10g for all greens 76+ and had people COD them to me.

I bought and relisted some cheap ore. I also remembered to make titansteel, buying the mats as cheaply as possible from the AH (10x crystallized fire was cheaper than the eternal that day) and I listed it on the AH.

I advertised enchanting, with an offer of me coming to them (shaman, so I can hearth to dalaran every few minutes). Made 80g in tips.

I did some sons of hodir and ebon blade dailies. Vendored and disenchanted the stuff I picked up. Also mined when I saw something. Hearthed and listed (I am a shaman, I hearth a lot). TOTAL: roughly 1100g.

Friday:

Scan, check sales. (TOTAL:1440g) I also started placing bids on every green under 10g, even if the buyout was a lot higher. My titansteel sold immediately.

I found a guy selling 19 abyss crystals for 15% less than AH per crystal. AH price was 92g, he was selling them at 78g. I offered to buy all 19 for 1200g and he accepted. (Actually, I offered him "1150g to maybe 1200g" and he took it). I immediately listed all of them for 1c less than the lowest AH price in single units.

I did ebon hold and sons of hodir dailies. Reflected on how much faster they would be with epic mount.

Advertised enchanting, made 50g in tips. Picked up some of the green "bid" items that had come my way and DE'd them and listed shards/dusts.

Saturday:

Scan, check mail. 11 abyss crustals have sold. I see a guy offering to sell a bunch of titanium bars at 50% of what auctioneer says they are worth. I check AH and sure enough, the market is much lower than it was on the weekend. I take a risk and buy his bars, then buy every last one out of the AH (perhaps 45 more) and relist them all at 105% of what auctioneer says is the normal market price.

I start to see "a buyer has been found" messages almost immediately.

Dailies, mine, advertise enchanting, made and sell titansteel, search for cheap greens for DE.

Sunday:

Scan, check mail. My abyss crystals all sold for market price of around 92g, less AH cut, equaling 87.4g. I bought them for 63.16, netting a profit of 24.24g per crystal, or 460g total.

My titanium bars sold about half. The other half looks like it isn't going to sell since people have pushed the market down and many more sellers have come in. I pull them down and relist them for about 15% more than I bought them for (about 65% of market price). I made a nice profit on the half that sold while I had cornered the market, and I am happy to break even on the rest.

Dailies. Titansteel. Advertise enchanting. DE cheap greens and list the dusts.

I have come to realise that I made a lot more money in town than I do outside doing quests for 13g for 10 minutes work. (I am resto, it takes forever to kill things).

I branch out a bit, and realise that the leatherworking +reslillience epic leg enchant is selling for 350g, but the mats are only about 180g. I buy the mats for two and pay someone 15g to craft them for me. I list mine for about 10g less than the other two on the AH. Typically I undercut by only 1c, but I really wanted to move these since it was a new market and it could collapse at any time becuase of the clear disparity between mat price and crafted item.

I advertise for people to COD me greens 76+ for 10g again.

Monday:

Scan, check mail, titanium all sold, so did the leg enchants. Dailies. Titansteel. Cheap greens disenchanting and relisting. Vendor junk from dailies. I find a guy who has listed two stacks of 5 titansteel bars at 68% of market. I buy both and relist all 10, plus my own one, as singles at 1c below market rate.

I find a guy selling 13 Abyss crystals, again for a reasonable amount below market. I make a lowball offer using the "between X and Y" language so he thinks that my offer is at the upper bound of what I will do. He accepts, and I relist them as single at market rate -1c again.

I find a guy selling 11 righteous orbs (crusader enchant) for 130g. I talk him down to 110g after checking auctioneer (it says they are worth 39g each!) I look at the AH and there are only two in there (I checked before I bought, obviously) - one at 10g and 1 at 42. I buy the one at 10 and list half at 25g since I am unsure about this market.

If everything I have listed sells, I will have 4450g.

Tuesday:

Scan, check mail. Almost everything sold, including all of the orbs. I have 4380g. I also won a lot of cheap greens from bidding, and a huge stack of crap that I picked up from bidding on things that people had, for some reason, listed at 1s or so bid and a big buyout. It's mostly junk low-level greens which I DE, although I list some of the better low level stuff (armor of the fang etc.).

I make my titansteel and resell it for a quick 45g profit. I do dailies and realise that I have a bunch of sons of hodir rep turnins that can push me over the top if I AH them. I do so, and advertise enchanting/ look for good deals. I have almost 4700g now and about 800g in outstanding auctions where I am the lowest BO price.

Wednesday:

Made it!.

Stangely, I am now not sure if I want to buy my mount right now. Making gold is fun, and the ability to offer someone bulk deals of 1400g or so for big stacks of items is a major way that I made it. Then again, with a faster mount, I could do more dailies, but as I mentioned before, I don't have a lot of time to do them, and I make most of my money from the AH and finding good deals/ tips from enchants in town.

I also worry about making a bad deal in the future and losing a lot of my money. This wouldn't bother me much if I had the mount already. I'll make up my mind tonight.

Summary:

Do dailies that can be completed quickly, especially if you need the rep.
Vendor everything and have big bags.
Remember to mine/herb/skin/
Use your professions. Advertise them regularly too.
Buy cheap stuff and DE it.
Always use your cooldowns if they make money.
Look for cheap bids as well as buyouts. SO many people list at a 1s bid...
Know the market well enough, and be willing to haggle, when people want to move large stacks of items. Know exactly how much you are willing to spend and talk them into it. Feel free to make a lowball offer, but couch it in terms of a range to make it look like you are thinking about it rather than rudely offering them an extremely low number. Not sure why people are more receptive to this.
Don't forget the AH cut and chance of not selling. Take this into account before doing any deals.
Cornering a market can work, if you are really careful and able to snipe people that relist below you. Be sure to only corner small markets unless you have absurd amounts of cash. Also, be happy to just dump the rest at what you paid for it, or even a small loss - all that matters is the TOTAL gain from an action, not the unit sales. (If the market is 10g and you buyout everyone at around 6 and list for 15g, then even if you have to dump your last quantites at a little below 6, you'll make a nice profit).