srsbusiness

When I was a kid I loved comics, I was particularly fond of Mad Magazine and Spy VS Spy. The spies have been waging their “silent” war since 1961, and though creator (and Cuban national) Antonio Prohias passed away some years ago; the strip remains. It is with this in mind, that I decided to write about the Cloak & Dagger world of AH Espionage.

De cape et D’épée
The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word espionage much as you might assume, as being the practice of spying. Espionage in and relating to wow’s auction house can be a fairly complex issue. At it’s root, what we’re doing is trying to gather data to extrapolate for business purposes.

+ Example
You are making some Eternal Belt Buckles on your Blacksmith, and you notice the following in trade chat:
[2. Trade] [Soandso]: WTB Adder’s Tongue, Deadnettle, Tiger Lily and other herbs in BULK.

In this example, we can infer that this player is likely a scribe looking to get materials. Why is this important? People who post messages like this tend to be the very same people who are going to be undercutting every glyph you’ve posted in the next hour. You add him to friends along with a note saying, “Possible Scribe” and move on. When relisting glyphs you notice his name come up as being one of your undercutters, so now you know he’s competition.

How does this help? Now that you know he’s a competitor you can actually keep an eye on him, when he logs on you know he’s going to be posting glyphs. When he logs off, you can relist glyphs and undercut him. This of course, is a simple strategy that I’m sure many who read this have already thought of, so I won’t belabor the facts on this one.

Counter Espionage
Now that you understand the basic psychological aspect of this primitive method, it’s time you understood the other edge of the blade. Alts are handy, and for someone trying to make large sums of gold, it’s almost a necessity. One thing we notice when looking at the Spy VS Spy strip is that often times one spy wins by presenting false information to the other guy.

Take for example, my current set of characters. I have each and every character on my main account listed on this blog to the right. This does not mean however that these are my AH alts. Though I do post with them, I may make a new character (or characters) from time to time on my second account to post without fear of someone undercutting me seconds later. I know for instance that when I log on Miraru he’s on atleast one person’s list… they watch, and when Mir goes AFK or logs off, they start cancelling their glyphs. They then undercut me… Meanwhile, I’m getting my glyphs out of the guildbank on my second account on a new character and while I wait for people on my list to AFK, log off…

It’s all about feint and counter feint. Getting a list of possible competition together is actually pretty easy, watch trade chat, watch QA3 when you relist auctions. See who’s undercutting you, see who’s spamming trade saying they are “Looking for work, will undercut AH guaranteed!” Obviously, this is much more effective with multiple accounts, but it’s definitely doable with one.

Assets and How to Develop Them
CIA Field Operatives and other covert agents are often depicted in films and novels as having assets, that is people who they use for specific purposes. Sometimes it’s for information, other times it’s to provide a convincing cover, etc. The point is, assets are people who are being used for something… Enter the farmer.

Developing assets in WoW is simpler than it is in real life, when spying on Trade chat you may see someone looking to offload large quantities of materials, when you do talk to them. Even if you’re currently doing well on that particular material, it never hurts to get a good deal. Most of the time, you can squeeze a good discount out of people if you’re buying their entire stock of a material. Often times I find these people offering to sell me more later.

Case in point, a couple of weeks ago I found someone selling copious amounts of herbs in trade, I asked her “How much for everything you’ve got?” There was a moment of silence before she said, “You really want to buy all of it?” to which I replied, “Of course, I always need herbs. Figure it up and we’ll deal.” It turned out to be a much better deal than I anticipated, after some small talk I learned a bit more about her playing habits and have since then received regular shipments of 1-2 stacks of Frost Lotus multiple stacks of assorted other herbs and usually 1+ stacks of Eternal Lifes… for under 2K. Lesser herbs are of course immediately sent to my Scribe for processing as Inks, and others to one of my Alchemists to be made into Flasks.

Developing these types of assets is crucial to maximizing your success. Maybe it’s part of my Italian heritage, but I’ve always felt that it’s important to “give em a little extra” on occasion, keep these guys happy because they’re the backbone of your empire. If you don’t, someone else will…

Also critical to your success when dealing with assets is the ability to communicate effectively with them, this can be a problem in the case of the proverbial Chinese Gold Farmer… Never fear however, if you find yourself in such a situation Sarainy of AH-Whoring has a very useful write up for talking to farmers: Chinese Farmer Phrase Book.

The Bloodscalp Report
Stock is still selling well despite prices slowly trending down. I’ve been spending a bit, getting materials stockpiles built up as well as getting tabs for the new SRS Business guild bank. I also loaned my buddy Sharpobject a few K for Primordials, so grats him on getting our third Shadow’s Edge. I’ve also been working on a little side project: my druid Caerroil who is now Restoration spec and gearing quickly (more on that later). Despite the spending, I’ve still managed to bank 20K for the week.