The Great Glyph Experiment Part Five

Well today's the day - had an hour to kill before work and pushed my Scribe to 65. She's now stood next to the Inscription Trainer in Dalaran poised to get to 450. There she will stay until I arrive home tonight.

Currenty my stocks of Ink of the Sea sit at around 2000, not too great an investment but reasonable enough. I have around 50 Books of Glyph Mastery at hand (although I do need to transfer some over the neutral AH) and I am itching to get started.

Its funny that the inscription guide came out on the day I hit 65 - mind you I knew it was never going to be completely straight forward. I have enough gold to keep myself afloat - more than most who'll enter the market - so let the games begin.

The other funny thing I got my first decent minor glyph yesterday - Command. 30g+ on my server - I guess Elune must be smiling on me.

So here goes nothing...

Let the games begin

Well, two posts have just been released on MMO:

http://www.mmo-champion.com/news-2/auction-house-guide-inscription/

http://www.mmo-champion.com/news-2/auction-house-guide-vanish-bugs-comics/

So the AH is about to change and challenges laid down left and right.

My view? Not overly concerned - for every 100 people that dive into the advice given, 99 will leave due to boredom/losing money/stupidity.

Ultimately the advice is solid - although it mostly focuses on WotLK products - which is fine by me as I've never bothered to compete much in that market.

As they say - a little knowledge is a dangerous thing - let the games begin!

How do I spend my gold...

I admit that I do not subscribe to the Gevlon philosophy that spending gold on 'bling' isn't the goblin way. For many players the 'bling' factor is what gives them joy in WoW - in the same way that opening my mailbox to discover 2000g in sold auctions gives me pleasure. If we were all the same it would make WoW a very dull place and more importantly would make making gold a lot harder.

There are three players of WoW in my house - My partner, our son and myself. We all have different philosophies when it comes WoW - in some ways these compliment each other, but in other ways they are so diametrically opposed it can cause friction.

My partner's 'bling' comes from her being an achievement junkie - which results in her having over 60 mounts (still rising), more than 75 companions (still rising) etc. I honestly think the fact she has an Etched Ring of the Kirin Tor was purchased for the achievement first and the fact its a damn fine ring second.

However she loots every mob, sells everything that is sellable, run's her dailies and is self-sufficient in terms of day to day raiding/repair costs.

Our son is your typical teenager. He wants everything and he wants it now. He doesnt have a profession to 450 and bemoans the fact I've so much gold. He isn't willing to grind or farm and often is short of gold for raiding. He does silly things like sell crusader orbs for 700g gold purely because he has no patience to sell on the AH for 1000g.

As for me - I'm addicted to gold - my 'bling' is looking at my bank balance and smiling inside. However saying that, I made sure I completed Brewfest, have a red drake purchased from the Wyrmrest Accord and carry juggling torches with me at all times.

When it comes to spending my wealth on the three of us - my philosophy varies depending on who is getting to gold.

I give my son chunks of gold (usually 500g at a time) on a semi regular basis. You might want to consider it WoW 'Pocket Money'. Generally it's gone within a few hours, whilst his gear remains ungemmed and unenchanted. It frustrates me that he does this - but its just a reflection of real life and it won't change until he gets into his 20s.

I give my partner chunks of gold (usually 10k at a time) on a semi regular basis (although less frequently that the 500g gifts to my son) - for when she wants to make her next big purchase. Next on the list is the chopper - and even though that'll cost me 14k it will make her happy and thus it makes me happy.

I spend my money on my business. I rarely spend it on much else - I confessed I have a drake but I still ride around on the horse I got at level 40. My only weakness is Hanted Mementos which I have on every toon.

I have never reached gold cap although my statistics would suggest my income over the past 8 months would have easily allowed me to reach it. In fact if I scaped together ever gold coin from every resource I would be lucky to be able to have more than 50,000g with around another 30k in stock. But to be honest I don't know what I'd do if I reach cap - would that be the end of it for me? Would I have conquered the part of Wow that gives me the biggest pleasure?

So although I'm entering the glyph market to reach gold cap I'm still unsure whether I'll ever actually allow myself to make it. Perhaps I'll get to 200k and have a spend - because sometimes its nice to have a few goals left to chase - keeps you sharp.

WoW events and the impact it has on making money

The WoW economy is a funny thing. Hard as you might like to think that you have a good handle on the market - sometimes there are just things that don't make sense. There are the impacts caused by (1) scheduled WoW events, the effects caused by (2) unscheduled events and then there are just the (3) random events that just defy analysis. I'll give examples of each.

1. Patch 3.2.2 - we all knew it was coming and many sites professed ways of making gold hand over fist. Alas the majority of them didn't quite work out that way - we still can't shatter abyss crystals so we'll have to wait and see how that pans out in 3.3.

Another change in 3.2.2 was that Crusader Orbs because purchasable with Emblems of Triumph - and already the price in these has followed a similar pattern to Runed Orbs following 3.2. I would suggest they will level out around the 800-1000g mark - and I personally wont be bothering with this market.

At around the same time as 3.2.2 came brewfest - and the first decent BoE weapon we've seen in a while. The prices have crashed on these - down to 800g on my server already - and I intend to stockpile a few over the next week or so to release back to the market over the coming months. I suspect a similar BoE item will be available during the Halloween world event as well so I dont intent to invest to deeply - but I do think there is gold to be made there.

Another effect 0f Brewfest is that everyones wandering off to slap Coren around in BRDs. The result is that the price of greater eternal essences crashed this week. Down to 3g at one stage (my server usually drifts between 7-10g) - its very amusing really - I'm stocking up big time to release back to the market over the next few weeks.

2. The Instance Server Crash - I believe a great number of WoW servers we affected by the instance server crash - but anyways on my server no one could do any raids or heroics for about 7 hours. The AH today is rather strange - it appears that a lot of leveling of alts occured resulting in (a) a lot of lower level enchanting mats being purchased (yeh for me) and (b) a lot of farming was done resulting in trade goods such as herbs being dumped on the AH at low prices (yeh for me again).

It seems that those who werent leveling alts did dailies - as it appears my server is quite flush with gold at the moment - and players love to spend gold when they have it.

3. Although there is an explanation of the price crash of Greater Eternal Essences - sometimes I cannot work out why the prices of some trade goods vary to widely sometimes with a few days. Enchanting mats are one such commodity - arcane dust is quite possibly the most volatile - 2g5os one day, 75s the next. Financially, it never worries me - I generally stockpile and realease back to my customers when things firm up - but it bugs me all the same as I hate not knowing why? People will suggest its a weekend/weeknight thing - but it isnt I've checked.

Then of course there are the mugs - which I'll never understand. Today is a great example - I picked up a Nobles Deck on the Horde AH for 1500g. Three hours later I picked up 2,3(x2),5,6 and 7 of Nobles on the Alliance AH for 100g a pop. The spare three sold for 400g within about an hour meaning I've picked up one whole and five-eighths of another Nobles Deck for 1700g.

Oh well - without the mugs I would be as comfortable as I am.

What a difference a week makes...

... and already its friday. Been lax on the blogging. Just havent had time to post and had little to say anyways. But hey here's a post so whatcha complaining about?

What a difference a day makes...

....twenty four little hours!

The distractions continue

To be honest I am not enjoying WoW at the moment. The fallout of my leaving of my previous guild have continued to play out - persona non gratis you might say. Its rather sad really.

Unfortunately I'm not the kind of person who can live by the adage that its "just a game". The thing with online games of any kind is that you have interaction with other people. If it was "just a game" I'd be off hacking and slashing through Sacred 2 or something similar.

But I'm not. I'm playing WoW and therefore the social interactions are part of that experience.

The history of my previous guild is dull and uninteresting to those who aren't involved. My partner and I join on after the invitation of a online friend of my partners. At that time the guild was struggling with Naxx 10.

Within days of our joining the same friend (guilds top DPS) left with the GM (top tank) and the guilds top healer. Turmoil reign. A few weeks later a number of the other top DPSers also went off to find something new.

My partner and I decided we would stay and helped develop the guild website, actively recruited and eventually became officers. For 5 months we had cleared Naxx 25 and were progressing into Ulduar 10.

Suddenly the former GM and the healer that left with him, returned. Ever since there had an uncurrent of discontent - snide comments, complaints about raid times etc. Alas the new GM was also away with real life issues.

My partner and I always prided ourselves that there were people that met the ethos of what our guild was all about. Alas slowly a few people were let in who didnt quite fit - language got a little more fragrant, direct attacks on other members became more frequent.

The events of last week finally caused me to take action - so I booted a recent recruit for abusing a long time member. Alas the booted member was a friend of the recently returned healer and suddenly lines were drawn in the sand.

It seems that history is stronger than loyalty. As a founding member of the guild, the recently returned healer seemed to hold more power than me as an officer. Undermined I gquit.

However since then things have got messy. As I said - persona non gratis. Of those people I thought were friends from the guild - just one has stayed in touch. Lesson learnt there me thinks.

I've since joined another guild - and although they seem OK - there isnt the 'family' atmosphere I grew used to from my previous guild. They raid - but it's obvious I am still an outsider.

Of course it was the same when I first joined by previous guild but when you are used to something you notice when it isnt there.

So now I just feel sick - pit of the stomach kinda thing - nagging away. I want the GM to come and say 'Oops we were wrong" but that would only happen when it does all turn to crap - which I fear will still happen - and by then I'll have moved on.

So now I sit and I play and I am not happy. I want to disappear - but also I don't (I want to be contactable to receive the "We were wrong" message).

I want to leave the new guild - just not happy there - but I went there to join a friend and took someone with me so now I feel some messed up sense of loyalty to them. But then what?

I want to level my inscriber (she's at 58 now and just hit outlands so will be 65 soon) - but there are always pressures to be on my main to do heroics/raid.

New name? Switch sides? Change servers? Do nothing? All have pros and cons:

New Name - you get to hide but peoples friends lists update so it becomes obvious that you are still you very quickly.

Switch Sides - then you lose all ways to communicate with those people who do appear to be decent human beings that you've got to know.

Change Servers - as above but what's worse I also wouldnt know my AH market.

Do nothing - might be the way forward - ride out the storm - accept the worlds full of idiots who cant see when people are manipulating them because they just feed off the ego stroking.

Yep - I am confused - my ego is bruised, my feelings are hurt - and I am not enjoying WoW right now.

Guild Distractions

I gquit last night.

I was an officer in a medium sized social raiding guild - the guild hasnt done that much - cleared Naxx 25, 6 bosses down in Ulduar 10 - but slowly but surely we were progressing.

My partner was also an officer in the same guild but left a few weeks ago because of a changing set of attitudes in the mass ranks. There was a murmuring of descent being vocalised and the Guild Leader has been away dealing with real life issues. The Officers were split on how to proceed and my partner decided it was time for her to move on.

My exiting came about following some abuse of one member (a teenager) by another - I booted the abuser from the guild but this decision was reversed without discussion with me.

Feeling my position as officer was compromised I gquit.

I am quite happy with my decision although I am still annoyed with the direction the guild has gone. What was once a safe environment for guild members to bring children into has become one where it is deemed acceptable to swear and abuse kids.

This saddens me. Especially as the kid that was abuse also gquit because of the reinstatement.

The Great Glyph Experiment Part Four

I kinda like shutdown night - no raids - just time to potter and do the WoW housework.

Not that we got shutdown last night - but still, nothing in the calendar means we get time for other distractions.

I therefore took the opportunity to do some more research into inscription. As mentioned yestderday, there is an ink called Ink of the Sea. Its become rather obvious to me that this ink is the lynchpin in the whole glyphing profession.

Ink of the Sea can be traded at a vendor on a 1 to 1 basis for any other ink. There are eight inks to choose from. There is one other ink that costs 10 IotSea - and that one (Snowfall Ink) is used in the high end cards and the shoulder enchants)

Anyway - of the eight other inks - the majority cost more than 2g to produce, whilst IotSea has a production cost of a little over 2g. Therefore its cheaper to make IotSea than buy the herbs to make all the others. Simple busienss practice says focus on IotSea. So I am!

IotSea is made from Azure Pigment - which in turn comes from the majority of Northrend Herbs. So on top of the five low level herbs mentioned in the previous post, I'm now buying up everything 40s or less of the Northrend Herbs.

Its rather fun - I would much rather come in under the radar - spamming trade isnt my thing - I prefer entering a market from left field so the competitiors dont see it coming.

Talking of competitors - I've also checked the AH for who currently appears to be in the glyph market - and the answer appears to be no one. Well, no one much. I already have more glyphs on the AH (albeit crappy ones) that any other competitor. I'll continue to review this over the week but it appears my server is ripe for the picking which makes me happy

The Great Glyph Experiment Part Three

GLYPHING 101

1. To make money glyphing, you need to make glyphs and sell them for more than it costs you to make them plus 5% (AH fee)
   
2. To make a specific glyph you need a specific ink and a specific type of parchment
3. Parchment can be purchased anytime from vendors
4. Specific inks are made from specific pigments
5. Specific pigments are made from specific herbs
   
6. Herbs are therefore the source of all glyphs and are sourced two ways, either you pick them or someone else picks them and you buy them (either directly or indirectly via the AH)

OK this is basic stuff (and contains errors left in purposely because I havent started trading Ink of the Sea - which can be traded for any other ink) but I'm doing this for me right now - no one else is reading this so what do you care?

There is some variation in milling herbs for pigment but for the inks that you write glyphs with you generally get the following:

5x herbX --> 2 or 3x pigment Y
2x Pigment Y --> 1x Ink Z
1x Ink Z + Parchment --> Glyph Of Choice

There will always be a gamble when milling herbs sometimes they give you one pigment, sometimes 4, but thats life and over bulk its irelevant - its the same game you play with DEing.

One of the difficulties is that every step of the process creates goods which can be sold on the AH

But:

1. Inks can only be used to make inscription products
2. Pigments can only be used to make inks
3. Herbs can be used in a range of professions (but mostly inscription and alchemy)

So the market only has one pressure point - herbs. Alchemists compete with inscribers - herbalists win.

Where I am currently struggling is when LSW tells me that the glyph will cost 4g50s to make its works this out because it says how much does (Ink Z + Parchment) cost?

What I havent figured out yet is how to get LWS to tell me which is cheaper:

1. Buy herbs, mill for pigment, create ink,make glyph, sell
2. Buy pigment, create ink,make glyph, sell
3. Buy ink,make glyph, sell

So back to pen and paper for me - some rounded figures and an hours scribbling. I punched a few numbers and reached a few conclusions. Until the hunter gets to level 65 and can max out her inscribing I am going to focus on the low level end of the market - there's profit there and prices are cheaper. If I mess it up the hit wont be so bad

Therefore I am moving forward the experiment thus...

I am only making glyphs that are made with Midnight Ink. Midnight ink is made from Dusky Pigment and dusky pigment is milled from five low level herbs: mageroyal, stranglekelp, briarthorn, bruiseweed and swiftthistle.

According to LSW the glyph should cost me 2g to make. Ignoring the price of the parchment (which is 15 copper and therefore not overly important) - this gives us the following:

1. Glyph must cost 2g to make
2. Glyph is made from one Midnight Ink therefore: Buy all Midnight Ink that costs 2g or less on AH
3. Midnight Ink is made from two Dusty Pigments, therefore: Buy all Dusky Pigment that costs 1g or less on the AH
4. Assuming that a full stack of a herb gives 10 dusky pigment*, therefore a full stack gives 5 inks therefore: buy all stacks of herbs that cost 10g or less on AH
   

* Not actually true two give an average of 3 pigments per 5 herb, other three give an average of 2.5

I will collect until the weekend - the snatch function on Auctioneer has be set up to do the above and slowly supplies are building. I'm also recruiting herbalists in trade to go do some work for me - and I have a couple already. I realise these lackies will come and go as they level up *shrugs* but there will always be more coming through.

To be honest these prices are pretty close to market values - except for the herbs - only one of the five herbs has a market value of 50s a pop the other 4 are all higher - some more than double - but thats OK - the experiment will not be huge, 500-1000 glyphs I reckon

But we'll see. I'll just mill until the weekend and by then the glyphs I have for sale will have passed through the AH at least three times - and I can review everything before taking the next step.

Investment so far (including mistakes) - approx 400-600g
Sales so far - approx 500g

The Great Glyph Experiment Part Two

Over the past weekend I install LilSparky's Workshop for the first time - nice little addon - bit glitchy and a little underdocumented for the general user - but a hour or so and pretty soon you work out most things.

Anyway I made a ton of glyphs - which was annoying - hunter was only lvl 48 at the time and was already maxed. Everything was sent to my innocent guild banker who listed with a decent undercut. I was happy - not a complete experiment but definately a whole foot in the water. 300 glyphs posted... so now there was nothing to do buy wait

However during that hour I made the most obvious mistake ever - and rather than the price to make the glyph showing correctly, I had set up wrong. I should have known better - like I was going to get 35-40x return on my glyphs. /facepalm

I realised my mistake the next day when I went into my enchanting for something random and LSW was giving me duff data - data which I know implicitly that was wrong.

After tweaking again I realised that I I'd made a ton of glyphs that LSW suggests I'll take a huge hit on - and a lot of glyphs I should have made remain purely as ink and parchment.

Not the most auspicious start of my glyphing career - but as long as you learn from your mistakes then it doesnt matter - espcially when you have the funds to bankroll yourself through such cock ups.

Right taking the bull by the horns I quickly pushed hunter to 50 - and instantly pushed inscription to 375. Alas still not good enough for Books of Mastery Glyphery - but one step closer.

During the levelling to 375 I created a lot of useless glyphs - always making those the LSW suggested were the most profitable but not ones I'd been making in the future.

With now 500+ glyphs - I've split across two bank toons:

1. Anonymous bank toon 1 (ABT1) - gots all the glyphs that LSW suggests will sell for 250%+ of the ink price (approx 150 glyphs)
   
2. Anonymous bank toon 2 (ABT2) - got everything else. (approx 350 glyphs)

Its been 4 days and to be honest I am still confused - ABT1 is selling but slowly. ABT2 is also selling - possibly equally as slowly but due to high stock probably not.

ABT1 is batch posting to keep 5 of each glyph on at all times - ABH2 is listing everything all the time.

I'm gonna continue this until I hit level 65 - because my observations would tell me that glyphs that sell well can either be under or over the 250% threshold - so you have to ask yourself - do you sell based on profit or turnover?

The Great Glyph Experiment Part One

So as I said before - I've decided to spend some gold investing whether Gevlon's theory that Glyphs are the Holy Grail of earning gold is true.

I'm not quite ready yet - my hunter is still 12 levels from 65 - the point at which I can take my inscription to 450 and evidently thats when the real fun begins.

However the theory is simple enough - using Auctioneer and LilSparky's Workshop addons you find the glyphs you are able to scribe that sell for more than they cost to make - and you sell them.

However where the interesting part is Gevlon's theory of undercutting - not competing with a 1c undercut - but undercutting hard and deep. This will eventually drive the competitors out the market and leave you with the lion's share.

Its not a theory I've applied much before - enchating mats have no requirement for huge undercuts - zero fees mean there is no requirement to - plus it doesnt matter - they sell even if you come in a little over the bottom price. Purchases are made based on market value and sales are made on market value - so you cant lose.

However I have applied the deep undercut in other markets - JCing being one - cut gems is a fickle market and with chunky posting fees you need to ensure your gems sell. There honestly isnt much worse than the seeing a gem in your mailbox coming back unsold - thats good gold going to waste.

So I am leveling my hunter as quickly as I can - she's an inscriber/engineer - curious mix - but selected purely because I dont have either to a decent level.

However all is not lost - I've been pretty good with ensuring that I do my research each day - so I have a lot of glyphs that appear to make a decent profit. However its not quite as straight forward as that.

It was a late one and I'm tired

We ran Black Temple last night - and it finished late. I hate 2am finishes especially when you have work the next day. Oh well...caffeine and a smoke will solve that - it always does.

I got myself a hordie

It started out as a wee experiment one night. Could I make money on both sides of the great WoW divide on the same server - which I knew I could but just how much

I created an undead rogue leveled him to level 10 - and I took him to The Undercity.

I'll admit that this was the first time I'd looked at the horde AH. Its a rather different beast to the Alliance one - 17K listings compared to 30K was the most obvious difference - but the second biggest difference were the prices.

Anyways, off runs hordie to a neutral AH, and 100g is traded over at a cost of 15g.

85g is spent as follows:
enchanting bags x1
16 slot bags x2
Leveling enchanting to 150

Obviously leveling the enchanting was done in conjunction with disenchanting items purchased from the AH - well I had to do something during the time I was getting a decent database built up didnt I? But the time he hit 150 (couple of days) - funds were around 60g

Next I leveled hordie to level 20 - and immediately took enchanting to 225. He's now settled into the run between the auctioneer and the mail box where he'll likely stay forever.

As I mentioned there are differences on the Horde side - many of which work to my advantage.

Firstly the enchanting mats are always higher - and somewhat more stable. Prices don't have the huge swings we regularly get Alliance side - and a predictive market is always easier to manage - especially if you are only visiting once a day.

High end gear is generally cheaper than on the Alliance - as are a lot of recipes (Ulduar LWing, Tailoring, BSing) and until 3.2 was released runed orbs were about 40% cheaper.

Its a new market and its fun to learn something new - and if asked I would tell people never to assume anything is going to be the same or even similar between two markets. Because it never is - and the fun's in learning the eddies of the great river of the free market.

Passing money over the neutral AH is always a pain. You have two options:

1. Pass a loaf of bread across for 1000g - and you look like a gold seller and get stung with a 15% AH fee. 1000g in, 850g out - no thank you very much.
2. Sell a high end item for 1g - well you have those 5 seconds of panic whilst your partner quickly searches and buys the item but thats part of the thrill - plus the AH get diddly and that works for me. I havent lost one yet - but if I do you have to take it on the chin and move on.

Currently little hordie is having great fun dominating the Relic of Ulduar market - weekend sellers sell for approx 50s in stacks of 200. /facepalm

Anyways he's a happy little hordie - I'm rather fond of him to be honest and he's happily earning 5k a week. He's my offshore high interest account I guess you'd say.

Competition - every cloud has a silver lining

About 3 months ago I noticed a drop in the number of purchases I was making for DEing. This was obviously a concern - I've invested time into ensuring I am the main player in the market and I dont like someone trying to tread on my toes.

I've always left the WotLK enchating mats alone - we have three players on my server that buy all lvl 74+ items for 10g50s COD - and I've always been a great believe that I dont compete in a already occupied market. I stick to my pre-WotLK mats and everyones happy. GG may well tell me I'm soft for not taking over the entire market - but to be honest one of the three is a loon and I honestly dont want to bang heads with nutters.

So suddenly there's a new player in town - and he's not only competing in the WotLK field he's also down in the area I patrol. Profits fell - I was clearing 2-3K a week rather than 5k.

I tracked the new guy down - and opened a dialogue - usual story - needed epic flying. It happens - they come and they go.

Except this time this one was getting the addiction too. Hmmmm... not good. He also works from home - allowing him to scan more often than me and it a fairly regular thing for me to scan and purchase one or two items for DEing.

He is beginning to lose interest - they all do. He's scanning twice a day now - rather than 6-8 times. I give him another month and he'll be gone. However I am grateful to him if only for one reason - he gave me the kick up the bum I needed.

I admit I was getting complacent - scan the AH, purchase, DE, relist. I was bored of it. I never got bored of the gold coming in but the routine of getting the gold was becoming repetive. And suddenly the gold wasnt coming in and the routine was the same.

So you reach a cross roads - continue what you are doing for diminishing returns or find new ways to make gold. I chose the latter. So since our friend first appeared I have branched out into
enchating scrolls of rare enchants, increased resale sales as well as increasing the amount of prospecting for profit I'm doing. I've stopped slacking with my JCing dailies etc.

I now make as much money as I always did and with the DE market slowly coming back to me I'm making more money than ever.

However the drive for money is now making me develop further strategies - with the glyph market being my next target

How I made my money - a history (Part Two)

It became very obvious very quickly that DEing is a very profitable past time. People need mats to enchant things - they cant be purchased from a vendor - they can only be obtained from disenchanting greens, blues and purples.

With a market where demand always exceeds supply - its the perfect way to make money.

I quickly leveled my enchating to level 225. I'd realised that getting the skill up was the key - more things you can DE the more mats you have to sell.

However I was more than 10 levels from level 35 - which was the next point I could increase my enchanting.

I pushed through these levels (its a hard time in a priests career) and got to 35. I was enchanting level 300 within an hour (I'd been saving mats for a week).

Over the next few weeks I was making gold hand over fist - I broke 5000g and everyone was happy. The hunter was pushing towards level 60 by this stage and it was nice to be able to give my partner money for flying.

I sat at level 35 for months - but the itch in the back of my head of wanting to get my DEing to 375 (and increase profit further) was always there. I eventually made the push to 50 which allowed me to DE practically everything in the game before retiring the priest to a life in the AH. And there he sat until about 6 months ago when we split the account and bought a second PC.

DEing is my main source of income but I have also dabbled in the resale market - mostly in trade goods. I've been stung a few times - and know the market a lot better now than I care to admit. I make the occasional speculative purchase - but nothing major. Most of the time I just buy low and sell high. I read a lot and know whats coming up - small eggs at christmas, titanium ore at 3.2 etc

Over the last 6 months I've started branching out into other areas due to competition - enchant scrolls, prospecting for profit - but DEing is the main fallback position and always will be.

How I made my money - a history (Part One)

I started playing WoW in April 2008 - during Burning Crusade. I quested and I leveled. Then my partner started to player a hunter - and my character took a back seat and the hunter became the main focus of our leveling.

During the start of the hunter's life - when a random act of kindness from a stranger who gave the hunter one gold - there was a realisation (an epiphany even) that gold was power. One gold coin to a level 8 character is more money than you can ever dream of - especially when you have no source of income.

Sometime later, an epic axe dropped for my partner. Being of no use to the hunter nor my priest - we went off to the auction house where it sold within 24 hours for 500g. The hunter was about level 40 at the time - and once again it became obvious that gold was power. We sent 100g to each of the main toons and saved the rest.

That's when the priest changed. He was around level 30 and was leveling his professions. At the time he was an enchanter and a tailor - and the grind to level skills was slow due to low finances.

Professions are a funny thing on WoW - you get to a specific level (in this case 20) and you can gain the next level in a profession:

Apprentice (1-75) - Min Level 5
Journeyman (76-150) - Min Level 10
Expert (151-225) - Min Level 20
Artisan (226-300) - Min Level 35
Master (301-375) - Min Level 50
Grand Master (376-450) - Min Level 60/65*

*60 for enchanting and blacksmithing, 65 for the others

So there I was wanting to get my enchanting to lvl 225 - but it became very obvious that the items I was getting questing were no longer producing the materials I needed to level. I was needing items that were from 10-15 levels above me to be able to continue.

Previously I'd bought up lots of green items from the AH - everything cheap - everything less than 50s. I DEd the lot and got a small amount of mats I could use - and a lot I couldnt. It was very hit and miss.

Some reading led me to an addon called Auctioneer - which evidently had a module that allowed me to buy enchanting mats for less than the price of the mats themselves. It would tell me exactly which items to buy to give me the mats I required.

In the moment the addon was installed - a love affair started - although I didnt realise it at the time.

I'd been a bit of an AH addict in another online game called Fallensword - but this had been done with pen and paper - and suddenly I had a addon that did everything for me. It was more than a tool for finding enchating mats - it was the holy grail.

After the first scan (and they tell you to scan for at least a week before trusting the data) - I spent 30g (of my 100g) on items for DEing and a few speculative purchases. I turned my 30g into 50g. At that point my addiction began....

I am a greedy goblin and I am proud

In early September 2009, I discovered the blog of Gevlon, the original Greedy Goblin- and although I may not agree with every word that comes forth from his fingertips - I found myself nodding a great deal and had more than a few chuckles at many of his posts.

So much as I hate admitting it - Gevlon is the inspiration for this blog - as this blog will be focusing on my WoW life - and the time I spend in and around Aseroth - a sizable chunk of which is spent near or in the AH.

I've played WoW for about 18 months - originally I shared an account with my partner and her son and 6 months ago we split the accounts so that I play off one account and they share the other.

I am a priest in game - an enchanter and jewelery crafter by profession. Utilising these professions, in addition to the addon auctioneer - I have earnt gold enough to keep the whole family happy.

Currently scattered across various toons - I have around 30K in gold. I earn approximately 10k a week at a rate of around 1000g/hour - not to Gevlon standards but more than enough to meet the needs of a teenage boy and his achievement driven mother.

I own 2 guilds - with a total of 8 guild bank tabs. I am a member of a third. I own two land mount and three flying mounts.

My partner runs a guild - had 57 mounts, more than 75 vanilty pets, owns the majority of leatherworking recipes in the game and loves buying pretty things which have little use. All this makes her happy - which in turn makes me happy.

This weekend I have just started the Gevlon school of a making money using inscription - alas my inscriber only at skill 375 and wont hit 65 for about a week - but its going to be fun to tracking this new gold making scheme. Obviously I don't intend to stop my other gold making activities until I know that I can make more doing less - so for a while there will be two parallel businesses running which will eat into my gaming time - but thats fine I'm over raiding at the moment

I blog therefore I am?

I guess it was always going to happen one day - I am surprised it took me so long to be honest.

I am of course, talking about blogging - which I admit that I never really understood the attraction - but here I am.

Why now then? Actually because I found a blog of someone else to read - and then another was linked so I read that too and then another and then another. Ego kicks in - "I want a blog that gets linked to someone elses", "I want someone to read my opinion and comment on what I say", "I want, I want, I want!!!"

So here I am, tweaking with names and posts and images and all the other bloggy stuff that you do when you set up one of these things.

Yet no one reads this - so I am talking to myself right now.