srsbusiness

We All Go a Little Crazy Sometimes
At approximately 2 AM I completed the Insane in the Membrane meta, it’s been a long process. Mostly because I’ve been very casual about completing it. Since hitting the cap I’ve focused on getting it done, finding the Librams (Libram of Focus, Libram of Protection, Libram of Rapidity) and the Blood of Heroes for Rapidity especially to be a bottle neck. But I finally got it done. Which makes me the first and only Death Knight on Bloodscalp with the title “the Insane”. Thanks for all the support guys.

Controlling Spending
Since I hit the cap I’ve really relaxed my sales, mostly my incoming gold has been coming from glyphs and my daily gem assembly line. So despite my recent spending I’m still 10K over the cap, my approach to spending is similar to my approach with gambling. I never gamble anymore than I’m willing to lose, I don’t hit the ATM in search of more cash to recover my hot streak. And so my buying in wow is limited to only the gold I’m willing to lose.

Since I’m capped on Khaas now, I’ve been storing my excess in my Guild Bank. Any gold I have in this gbank is fair game, as a result I’ve been spending it nearly as fast as I can get it. Mostly I’ve been buying Librams (Libram of Focus, Libram of Protection, Libram of Rapidity) for the Insane in the Membrane meta, I’m getting close:

» Focus: 21
» Protection: 8
» Rapidity: 17
» Total: 46 Need 6 more…

I’m buying the things at about 250 each, though I have found some great deals here and there. I’ll be glad to have this one done, I’m in the process of farming turn in mats for these Librams now. Slow but steady, the Blood of Heroes for Rapidity are proving to be as difficult to find as Libram of Protection on the AH.

Planning for the Future
With Cataclysm on the horizon I’m thinking more and more about my future gold making enterprise, the alt army is working well and I firmly believe it will continue to be profitable in the future. That said, I’ve started working on the second account. Currently I’m up to 2 80s, a 61, and a 60 with more to follow. The plan of course is to level Alchemy on all of these characters, as well as a few other redundant profession coverage. With 10 profession slots empty, here are my thoughts:

1. Enchanting – Although my main is an enchanter, it would be nice to have a character to disenchant massive amounts of items with guild bank access for Saronite Shuffle type functions, rather than mailing things back and forth.
2. Engineering – Simply because it’s nice to have a Goblin and Gnomish engineer for those rare times when something useful is available to either (Bullets and Arrows in ICC).
3. Inscriptions – I’m seriously considering doing a scribe on my second account, the reason being I can keep him logged on my laptop while raiding or whatever and keep flipping glyphs aggressively, and restock as necessary.
4. Herbalism – Farmer dedicated to herbs, sometimes farming is unfortunately necessary.
5. Mining – Farmer dedicated to ores, sometimes farming is unfortunately necessary.
6. Skinning – Farmer dedicated to leather, sometimes farming is unfortunately necessary.
7-10. Tailoring – I’m thinking the new cloth cooldowns could be quite profitable and I definitely want to be ready for any new bags/patterns.

All told, this is going to be a lengthy project that will take up a lot of the time between now and Cataclysm, but with the Bucket List near completion I definitely have plenty of time to spare…

The Bloodscalp Report
I’m a little “out of the loop” at the moment, but sales are continuing. The only thing I can really say is that prices appear to be continuing their downward trend across various markets. My guess is that the new content in the Ruby Sanctum will have a mild effect on prices (at best) and we’ll continue to see drops in market prices as the summer starts. The big factor here is going to be massive amounts of kids who normally would be in school all day now farming for materials and trying to make a little gold on the AH. This is going to drive prices lower, add in the end of the expansion crunch and you have a recipe for really bottom rung prices. The good news is, it makes levelling professions on alternate characters much easier. So now is the time to start looking at those alts and getting them ready for the end of the world.

That’s all for this week, thanks for reading…

I am thinking of making the weekend update a regular here, so I hope you guys enjoy.

Before we get started, some RL news:
First, Ronnie James Dio died Sunday (the 16th) of Stomach Cancer. Why you should care about this aging rocker? Well, Dio was responsible for the very metal tradition of “throwing horns”, yeah that guy. If you’ve ever done it, you might take a second of silence to give the guy his due. Aside from this however, Dio was an influential vocalist who’s worked with his own projects as well as the likes of Black Sabbath. But you probably know him better from a song that Killswitch Engage recently remade:

In other news, I got sick. It’s allergy season and that’s always rough for me (at least when I’m here in the South). Anyhow, I got a bad case of upper respiratory infection which caused me no end of misery, in fact the coughing and vomiting got so bad that apparently I broke a rib. The doctor has me at home resting with an arm load of meds. What I’ve learned from this: Steroids shots itch like a bastard for days.

In other news…

GUILD.news
Face on Fire is working on hard modes in ICC 25, we’ve gotten Marrowgar, Gunship, and Rotface down with more coming (I’m sure) next week. As Kauzmo wrote recently though, the end of expansion slump is unfortunately very real. I see it as a testament to the awesome that is Face on Fire that we’re still managing to knock out everything up to LK (including a few hards) in one night of raiding, it’s the second night that proves to be the problem however, Thursday for example we 23 manned Sindragosa… and not for the challenge, but because that’s all we had to work with.

And so it comes to this dear friends, Face on Fire is recruiting. Specifically we’re looking for a Shadow Priest and a Hunter (all are welcome to apply however), available to raid Tuesday AND Thursday, from 6-10 server time. Transfers are of course welcome, applicants (especially transfers) should be prepared for a Vent interview. Of course, if you have any questions you can contact me directly (either here or in game), you can also check out our website Face on Fire for more details and to apply.

Inspirado
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I’m proud of the guild and I’m sure we’ll continue our campaign of ass kicking well into Cataclysm. That said, I felt it was time to give our guild’s website a face lift. With some inspiration from Gravity over at Pwnwear, I decided to begin work this week on a new phpBB3 based website for the guild. The reasons for moving from Guildlaunch to a dedicated site are plentiful, for one there’s been some issues in the recent past with GL having prolonged service outages (hardware issues on their end, etc). However, I don’t want it to sound like I’m bashing these guys, because I’m not. Their service is actually pretty decent, we’ve only had problems a handful of times in the two years we’ve been using them.

In all honesty, if someone were to ask me about making their own guild site/forums I would recommend guild launch, it’s pretty reliable and easy to use/setup. However, when it comes right down to it, it’s not very flexible. It’s like the old Mac VS PC debate, one being infinitely customizable, the other not so much. With my own forum, I’m in complete control of the functionality and graphics, it means a little more work. But in the end I think it’s worth it. Anyhow, here’s a sneak peak at the new forums.

KHAAS.news
I actually got some new gear! Crazy I know, but it happened. Last week was our first shot at some hard modes thanks to our newly transferred paladin Nevick. Nev comes to us thanks to his brother and fellow tank Threedrakez, 3D has proven himself to be a great player and cool guy to have around. So when he mentioned his brother wanted to transfer it was a definite thumbs up. When he mentioned his brother could also unlock hard modes thumbs up gave way to high fives. Anyhow, with our “ringer” in place we burned through Marrowgar and Gunship last week, then Marrowgar, Gunship, and Rotface this week.

The end result of these two weeks was that I got new shoulders: Boneguard Commander’s Pauldrons and Sindragosa’s Flawless Fang, which resulted in another item on my Bucket List getting crossed out… I’m now at 50,000 Hitpoints unbuffed. Also, my luck with the Shadowfrost Shards has continued, I’m now over halfway there with 28 Shards total.

The Bucket List
I created the Bucket List as a way to track my progress and give myself something to do while waiting for the End of the World, however recently I found myself in an odd situation… the list almost completely crossed out. The few things that are left are just a matter of time, hell I’m almost done with Insane in the Membrane even, so now I have to find some new challenges. It might just be time for me to get my hands dirty with some PVP, definitely my next target for the bucket list is going to be the meta achievement Master of Isle of Conquest, because I really want the Tabard of Conquest. I’m sure I’ll find some other challenges to keep me busy. But, I thought I would take a moment to see if any of you have any ideas let me know, are you working on your own bucket lists?

A Bit of Goblin Before I Go
A reader contacted me in game recently suggesting an Ask a Goblin type feature on the site. Now, I think Markco has this covered pretty well on his blog Just My 2 Copper, but I’m not adverse to answering questions. And since I’ve now actually hit the cap feel a bit more like a credible source for answering questions readers may have. So with that said, if you do have any questions about making gold feel free to ask. And if there is enough of a response, then I will definitely make it a regular feature here on the site. And thank you Jasters for the suggestion.

Anyhow, that’s it for me. Time to get back to farming Shen’drelar rep items.

The Remote Auction House
In the continuing quest for more money, Acti-Blizzard has unveiled their latest “service” the Remote Auction House. This was announced some time ago, I’ve since been curiously anxious to find out more details as I’m sure most fellow Goblins have. What does it do? Well, the Remote AH is simply a service allowing players to access the AH via web browser. There’s even an app for the iPod already to allow you to post away while on the bus, in a meeting, or on a date… (I’m kidding, but I’m not)

Of course, this type of service does come with nearly as many limitations as it does bonus features. And it’s notable that the service is subscription based ($2.99 USD per month). So what do you get for the extra money?

Free Features
» Browse the Auction House
» Get real-time notifications when your auctions sell or expire
» Get real-time notifications when you win auctions or when you are outbid
» View your characters’ current gold
» View the status of your auctions and search for similar auctions
» View the items you can sell in your bags, bank, and mailbox
» View the status of auctions you are bidding on
» View the items you’ve sold in the Auction House
» View your expired auctions
» View the status of auctions you created
» View your successful auctions

Subscription Features
» Bid on auctions
» Buy out auctions
» Create auctions from items in your bags, bank, and mailbox
» Collect gold from successful auctions
» Collect gold from unsuccessful bids
» Collect all outstanding gold with a single click
» Cancel your auctions
» Relist items for sale from your expired auctions

Advantages and Limitations
The most obvious advantage is that you’re able to play with the AH at times you wouldn’t normally be able to, unfortunately there’s probably a reason why you shouldn’t be checking the AH… you know, because you’re stopped at a green light. But the more subtle advantage is that you’re able to get some items posted and collect gold without alerting competition to your presence (assuming they don’t have the service themselves). The best thing I can see using this for is sniping items on the AH I’m after, like those damned Librams for the Insane title, being able to check for them on my lunch break… that kinda thing.

Unfortunately, the limitations of the service outweigh the possible benefits (to me). For starters, you can’t craft anything through this service, and AddOns don’t function through it either. So, do you really want to use your phone to manually list hundreds of glyphs? Of course, there are already people writing scripts and apps to mimic certain functionality from various popular AH AddOns. The concern here is, how long will it take before some new AH Ninja Bots arrive? It concerns me largely because AH Botting from a phone seems to be hard to police by it’s very nature. Of course, there is another set of limitations that make this less of an issue, while simultaneously making the service itself less attractive…

First, as stated earlier without logging in to WoW itself, you’re incredibly limited on what you can sell. Sure, you could stock up some alts and sell from them here and there, but then you run into the biggest speed bump for this service… Limited Daily Transactions:

Is there a limit to the number of transactions (purchases and sales) I can make?
Yes. In order to help prevent abuse of this service, there will be a system in place to limit the total number of Auction House transactions (including bids, buyouts, and creating auctions) that a single World of Warcraft account can perform through World of Warcraft Remote each day. For the purposes of the beta test, the limit is set to 25 transactions per day per World of Warcraft account. When the Remote Auction House beta test ends and the live World of Warcraft Remote service launches, we plan to increase the limit to 200 transactions per day (with a World of Warcraft Remote subscription), though this limit is subject to change. Our goal with this system is to ensure that most players who are using the service will not reach the limit, and we will be continuously monitoring how the service is used and making adjustments to the system as needed.

Conclusion
The sky isn’t falling, this isn’t going to destroy the in game economy. Largely because the service just isn’t that useful. What would it take for me to pay for this service? If the service kept a database of items prices similar to the sadly defunct WOW Online AH site it would be worth it to me. Blizz could make a great interactive stock market style site to track trends on the AH. The current functionality of the service however is simply a curiosity that I don’t fully understand. With the limitations I don’t see it being that useful on a day to day basis, but who knows. I mean people did pay $25 for a pony…

At approximately 6pm Saturday night I hit the gold cap.
I started the week a little bit behind but quickly picked up the pace. As I said before, the gloves came off and a slew of items were posted, ranging from enchanting scrolls, rods, glyphs, flasks, potions, gems, food, buff items (drums and runescrolls), armor kits, crafted epics, etc. As a result I spent more time working the market than usual, but even so I feel it was still pretty casual.

But Why?
A friend asked me this a few nights ago, and it’s a pretty common question. The easy answer really is that it’s something to do that I enjoy, but that’s not a very satisfactory answer. Another reason is that it’s the end of the expansion and things have slowed down. Building a warchest is a fine way to relieve the boredom. At the end of BC it was leveling alts, now it’s gold and I’m a lot more likely to use the gold when Cataclysm goes live. But there are other reasons both practical and impractical…

Have you ever seen patch notes and thought, “Oh man, I need that item NAOW!” Gold has a tendency to facilitate that need. You don’t have to borrow gold to enchant/gem your gear anymore, hell if you lose a roll on something you really want you still have the option of throwing money at the problem. In the end, having large amounts of gold means it’s one thing you don’t have to worry about, you know you have enough and will for some time.

But all of that really doesn’t matter as much as the fact I, like most Goblins, am simply compelled. The urge to horde gold is akin to the old expression that the man climbs the mountain because the mountain is there. It’s not rational, it’s a compulsion. The best way to put it though, is it’s a little like going for Achievement Points, only unlike achievement points, I can actually spend the gold…

How?
Well, first it needs to be said: I don’t bot, so get that idea out of your head right now. I’m pretty confident that I make more gold than I would if I botted, and my account is much safer by adhering to the rules. Second, if you’ve read the blog for any amount of time you probably have some idea of what I do on a daily basis to generate large sums of gold. The scorched earth directive is alive and well, and continues to work.

For starters, I use what I’ve referred to in the past as the Zamboni method. Simply put, I buyout large swathes of materials from the AH, even if I don’t intend to use those materials right away. This limits competition to farming materials themselves or having their own farmers to deal with. As a result, the competition has to sell their wares at a higher price to break even and I can undercut their cheapest sales while still making a profit, so they either lose money to compete or (more likely) wait till I run out of stock to sell their higher priced goods. And with the proper leverage on these raw materials, I can begin crafting and selling finished goods. That’s where the Master List comes in.

The Master List
This list is simply a list of all of the items I craft and list on the auction house daily. Now, not everything will sell in a day, so I don’t have to make absolutely everything on the list daily. But I maintain these numbers at the beginning of the day, and if I find that something has sold out before the day is over, I replenish my stock. Maintaining the list requires a large supply of raw materials, hence the massive buying mentioned earlier. This is also why I maintain a six tab guild bank for all of my crafters, it allows me to quickly grab materials from storage with any of my crafters at any time. So, without further ado: here’s the list.

THE LIST
Inscriptions
Glyphs (5 of Each)
20x Runescroll of Fortitude
40x Armor Vellum III
20x Weapon Vellum III
2x Faces of Doom
2x Iron-bound Tome

Blacksmithing
2 Eternium Rod
2 Adamantite Rod
2 Fel Iron *Thanks for the correction Krust*
2 Titanium Rod
20x Eternal Belt Buckle

Enchanting
4x Scroll of Enchant Chest – Powerful Stats
4x Scroll of Enchant Chest – Super Stats
4x Scroll of Enchant Chest – Major Health
4x Scroll of Enchant Boots – Icewalker
4x Scroll of Enchant Boots – Greater Fortitude
4x Scroll of Enchant Gloves – Exceptional Spellpower
4x Scroll of Enchant Cloak – Major Agility
4x Scroll of Enchant Cloak – Greater Speed
4x Scroll of Enchant Shield – Major Stamina
2x Scroll of Enchant 2H Weapon – Greater Savagery
2x Scroll of Enchant Weapon – Greater Potency
2x Scroll of Enchant Weapon – Mighty Spellpower
2x Scroll of Enchant Weapon – Exceptional Spellpower
2x Scroll of Enchant Weapon – Berserking
2x Scroll of Enchant Weapon – Mongoose
2x Scroll of Enchant Weapon – Fiery Weapon

Leatherworking
3x Earthen Leg Armor
3x Icescale Leg Armor
2x Frosthide Leg Armor
5x Drums of the Forgotten Kings
5x Drums of the Wild

Alchemy
100x Flask of the Frost Wyrm
100x Flask of Endless Rage
20x Elixir of Lightning Speed
20x Potion of Wild Magic

The Bloodscalp Report
With tailoring I make Netherweave Bag and Frostweave Bag depending on availability/cost of materials. But the big one of course is gems, here it’s not really some magical secret. It’s about quantity more than anything else. With an army of alts transmuting epic gems everyday, then sending the raw gems to Khaas to be cut… it makes for a high yield, low risk market. And this has been the number one earner for me, producing profits when other markets fall apart at the seams. As Cataclysm approaches, I’ve decided to continue my efforts in this vein, and expand upon them. Yes dear friends, the market is fluctuating on Bloodscalp. And right now it’s in turmoil. I suspect now that I have hit the cap and will be taking a more casual approach things will start to get back to normal. This does not however mean that I’m stepping out of the market, simply that my presence will be less pronounced… and a bit more random. I would like to take a moment to thank everyone who made it possible, fellow bloggers and goblins, I thank you:
Zamboni, Tella, Markco, Cozmo, Saate, the folks at Warcraft Econ, and the man who started it all (for me at least) Gevlon. And thanks to the farmers, you guys made things a lot easier. I could have done it without you but it would’ve taken longer and it would’ve been a lot more difficult. And finally, what salesman would be complete without his customers? So to you I say, thanks for your business. I couldn’t have done it without you.

Last and most certainly not least, I would like to thank my wife, Brandy. I could thank her for any number of reasons: her support and being my personal cheerleader during the various ups and downs while playing the market, even being my proofreader when I make these posts. But mostly for loving a huge nerd. Sincerely, thank you.

That’s all for this week, join me next week as I continue my quest for more money. Thanks for reading…