srsbusiness

Markco’s Blogging Carnival is coming back to town, and he’s thrown down a challenge. Turn 1000g into 2000g. Armed with 1000g, a fresh alt and a self imposed time limit of one week I set off to do just that.

This one is for Frostvein…

From Humble Beginnings
What came first, the alts or the gold? The alts. Like many people, when Recruit A Friend was announced I went a little crazy. I realized I could level an alt from 1-60 in the time I normally spent in Alterac Valley during a weekend. And so I did, several times over. Until I had an army – each class at 60. No gear, and no professions. Of course, I wasn’t overly concerned – Wrath was on it’s way and I had other things to keep me busy. I’d grab a few pieces of gear off the AH once in a while and send my fresh characters off to get some questing in. That worked, but after paying for spells, mounts, and assorted goodies for my main there wasn’t much left over.

When Wrath of the Lich King was released I didn’t even think about my poor neglected RAF alts much, or even my old mains (I played a Warlock in Vanilla and a Rogue in BC). But a funny thing happened, I had never had many problems keeping “enough” gold to get me by, but I wondered about doing more than just “getting by”. And so I was bitten by the bug, to make more gold was my aim. It became a consuming passion that I’ve indulged since then. But where to start?

Well, the obvious thing was to make sure I had some professions levelled up so I could get some use out of these long forgotten alts, but that takes gold and/or time. I’m married, I go to school, and I still raid. So, as many Goblins before me I found a niche market to exploit that allowed me to make reliable amounts of gold with minimal investment, and I could do it while sitting on the couch watching a movie with the wife…

Netherweave Bags
It’s not new, but it’s effective. You’ve probably noticed other goblins as well as myself mention the turn and burn Netherweave Bag market in the past. But today I would like to give the bags their due, because they’ve been there through thick and thin. When I started out these bags were the cornerstone by which I began my empire. And when I encountered resistance in a tough market (Glyphs come to mind) it was the Netherweave Bag that propped me up during the AH PVP that ensued. Even now with Cataclysm on the horizon, Netherweave Bags are still making money and I’m still making the damned things.

First thing’s first, you need 20 Netherweave Cloth and 1 Rune Thread to make a single bag. Rune Threads cost 12s 50c each, and (at least on Bloodscalp US) Netherweave sells for 3g per stack of 20. The finished bags sell for 10-20g each. You don’t have to be a mathematician to realize you’re making 6-14g per bag of profit off of these. And they sell at all times of the day, just get the materials, find a Tailor (or use your own) and post away.

Using the data from this scan alone gives us the following:

The Routine
Typically I check the AH for a few different items in the morning before work, NW Cloth (and bags) are always on the list. I buyout all cloth under a certain amount, grab the cloth and click the Create All button to que up a load of NW Bolts. While that’s going I can go take a shower, make some breakfast whatever. I’ll pop my head in a few minutes later and set my alt to start crafting bags. Later still I check in and list some bags on the AH, I usually do a few at a time and check back periodically when I tend my other auctions. As you can see, crafting in this way has a very minimal impact on your daily life while also supplying you with some staples to sell on the Auction House.

Conclusion
After one week (7 days) I had 1248g 76s 13c banked from selling these, more than doubling my money. Of course, this seems like small potatoes when you look at the amount of gold a Goblin typically brings in. I myself am generally bringing in 20-25K per week (even this close to an expansion). But that gold’s made not on Mechano Hogs or other big ticket items, it’s lots of “little” sales like the bags. 1000 from bags, then another from some other item, 2 from another. Before you know it you’re making as much gold as me. Just remember to keep investing into your empire, build it up and try to keep spending lower than your income and you’ve got it made.

Thanks for reading…

Mastodon’s music is like potato chips, I just can’t stop putting it in my head. An oddity as a metal band to be sure, certainly a contemporary of Tool with their progressive approach to the genre. But the vocal stylings are of particular interest to me, with various members singing various parts at different times – creating a sound that is unique and immediately recognizable. This track is from the album Leviathan (2004) an epic concept album that pays homage to Herman Mellville’s Moby Dick. How could I not like a band this weird? Mastodon is never far off in my rotation of songs to tank to.

GUILD.news
Face on Fire is still recruiting. Attendance has been wanting but we managed to pick up a Boomkin Naturemage.

Updated Info:
We’re 10/12 H ICC 25 Man, working on Professor Putricide and Lich King hard modes next with other hard modes on farm. We also have Glory of the Icecrown Raider (10 Player), and what’s left after that? More loot farming and working on the 25 ICC meta. It’s possible we might start farming some old stuff though before long, just for completion sake and to keep people awake.

Currently Recruiting:
» Death Knight – Frost (Icy Talons a must)
» Druid – Restoration
» Priest – Discipline (Holy offspec a plus)
» Shaman – Enhancement

* We are also accepting applications from select DPS and Heals, so if your class isn’t listed you’re still welcome to apply.

Register on the forums at http://faceonfire.org/ for more details and to apply.

The Bloodscalp Report
+ HORDE
AS mentioned last week, I’ve been stockpiling for Cataclysm, squirreling away what useful goodies I can lay hands on cheaply. Most notably Ink of the Sea, I’m of course constantly on the lookout for the odd deal. I hit the jackpot this weekend with some cheap Titanium Ore, still selling the left over dust actually. All told I banked over 20K for the week which is a perfect pick me up after only pulling in 15 last week. At this rate I should easily be gold capped again by October, even allowing for further market degradation. As for the Alliance side of things…

+ ALLIANCE
I’m really trying to come to grips with the Alliance side, part of me wants to charge in full steam ahead and prove there’s money to be made on the quiet side of Bloodscalp, but honestly it just feels more and more frustrating. There just aren’t people buying on that side, because there just aren’t any people. I’m seriously considering washing my hands of the Alliance for good and all, and simply focusing my alts on the Horde. As time wears on, it’s becoming more of a possibility. This time next week, I’ll likely have rendered my verdict (and taken action). So, we’ll see.

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

“Recently I made a post detailing some ideas to kick-start your guild’s finances, and after some feedback from various parties it became clear that the previous post just wasn’t enough. And so I’m back again, with even more ways to keep your guild’s Warchest going.”

Bank by Example
I got a lot of feedback on the original post, Larísa for instance had questions and as she put it “I think you have a nice beginning in this post but you could develop it a bit further“. And I agree. I think the easiest place to pick back up would be by using my own guild Face on Fire as an example. The guild is a 25 man progression guild, and we use the EPGP loot system.

We have 6 Guild Bank tabs, four are dedicated to general guild use – people can freely put items in and take items out. The last two tabs are only accessible by officers. With our system we allow up to 500g worth of donations per week, per raider in exchange for an equal amount of EP (DKP for those unfamiliar with EPGP). We raid twice per week Tues and Thurs, Friday morning when all EP and GP changes have been finalized for the week we start taking Donations for the coming week. Donations are not accepted during raid time, and must be given to an officer to receive credit.

Does it work? Well, Face on Fire’s Guild Bank hovers somewhere around 100K gold. Raiders are given 300g worth of repairs per day from the guild bank. All raiders have access to Flasks (at 5g each) from the guild bank. Fish Feasts are provided for each attempt. Enchanting materials and gems are provided upon request.

Why is this important? Well, this addresses one question that people tend to have about the guild bank how do you stimulate activity in the guild bank? You get members involved in a way that’s beneficial to both the members and the guild bank itself by giving them a meaningful return for the gold and/or items they put in. Essentially, this is what I covered in the previous post. But I wanted to give you a little more detail from the example given by my own guild. Now, for more guild bank goodness…

The Rules
This is not Nam, there are rules… Wait, wrong post. Anyhow, the Warchest is important – it fuels your raids, when things are running properly your raiders should not have to worry about anything but kicking ass and getting loot. The Warchest facilitates this by providing the enchants, gems, repairs, etc that the raid needs to keep moving. To do this, you have to establish early a clear, concise set of rules for your raiders and officers to go by. An example:

» Enchants and Gems will be provided by the guild bank for all items dropped during the course of a raid at the Raider’s request. Contact your Role Officer to request materials.

This rule outlines very clearly what raiders can expect, they get an item they can request materials from their role officer (we have one for tanks, melee dps, ranged, and heals). Each of the rules you make concerning the warchest needs to be like this – clear and concise.

Security
Given the example above, it’s obvious that the 2 last tabs in our guild bank are where the goods are – Flasks, Epic Gems, etc. It’s all there, that said it needs to be protected. The first layer of protection, as we’ve covered, is that only officers have access to those two tabs. But even officers get hacked, and when they do you can and will get hit hard. All of your officers should have an Authenticator. No excuses, get one.

If you have a Droid or iPhone you can get the free Authenticator app -OR- you can get the (in my opinion best option) Authenticator. They’re about $7 and give you that extra layer of security. Of course, there’s other things you can do too. I’ve written articles on securing your account here in the past, and you can find plenty of similar info with Google. In the end, it’s up to you to ensure your account is secure, but here’s a few quickies

If you’re an officer with access to all of the goodies, please PLEASE keep the following in mind:
» Don’t share your account with anyone, that person no matter how much you love them CAN get pissed at you and make you look like an asshole to your friends.
» Create an eMail address SOLELY for your wow account, check it as often as you like. But do NOT use this account for ANYTHING other than your wow account.
» Don’t click links in emails regarding World of Warcraft, if you need to check your account for a beta invite type battle.net into your browser and hit enter.
» If you believe you’ve been hacked make sure to contact someone from the guild (guild leader preferably) and let them know what’s going on so they can take steps to keep your errant avatar from draining the coffers.

Banking on the End of the World
Now that you have some ideas to get you started the big question is – what do you do in Cataclysm? Identify your talent pool, now’s a perfect time to figure out who you have available in the expansion. Who’s going to be doing what professions?

Your first target will be raw materials, these will be hard to come by initially. But as your members skill up, you’ll find them dumping materials in the bank regularly: Cloth, Dust, Gems, Herbs, Leather, and Ores.

Now you can work on your finished products, making Belt Buckles, Armor Kits, etc. It’s still a little early to tell you exactly what you’ll need, but at this point I think most people reading this should be able to form a rudimentary list early on. Additionally, communicate – your officers and members are there for a reason. My advice, start the dialog now – open communication now. And be sure to ask questions, I cannot stress that enough. What do you need, who’s going to need it, and who can provide it? These are going to be some of the most important questions you’ll have. Good luck!

I’ve been a raider for years in varying capacities, I’ve learned a lot in that time, and have decided to share a bit of my experience with my readers. Today we start with the most obvious of segways for someone known as both a Goblin and a Raider, managing the guild bank.

Understanding the War Chest
War doesn’t change, it just gets more expensive. Any seasoned campaigner can tell you that having the funds to back up the effort can sometimes make all the difference. It’s the same with a raiding guild, there’s a variety of things a guild bank can provide that make raiding life a little easier: flasks, feasts, enchants, gems, glyphs, repairs, etc. The problem is managing it and keeping the guild bank healthy. And when you work at it this way it ceases to simply be a guild bank, it becomes truly a war chest.

Merriam Webster defines a War Chest as “a fund accumulated to finance a war : a fund earmarked for a specific purpose, action, or campaign” and that’s precisely what a guild bank should function as for a serious raiding guild. All too often guilds use the bank as a repository for their cast off junk, this is wrong.

Pro Tip: If you know it’s junk and that you don’t want it. Odds are no one else will want it either.

What Do You Want in Your War Chest?
This is something you may want to discuss with officers, but a general list would include the following:

Epic Gems (All Varieties)
Enchanting Materials (All current varieties of Dust, Essences, Shards, and Crystals)
Specialty Gems (For Metas)
Armor Kits
Spellthreads
Belt Buckles
Flasks
Fish Feasts
Potions (Haste, Mana, Health)
Runescrolls + Drums (For those occasions where you just don’t have the buff any other way)
Gold – Repairs will be deducted automatically from this amount.

Quantity of these items will vary by guild, different guilds have different needs: some guilds are large enough to run multiple raids during a lockout, others (like mine) are tight knit groups with a core and a bench of raiders. These two guilds have very different needs and resources to draw from.

Building Up a War Chest
First you may want to familiarize yourself with some of the finer points (and costs) of a guild bank: [wowwiki], it costs 9350g to purchase a full set of 6 guild tabs. This is a healthy investment for the average raider, but as a group effort is actually easy to accomplish. Raising funds is the tricky part…

Method 1. The obvious way of raising funds is selling BOEs and excess materials from raids. This works, and successful guilds will do this constantly. Some guilds will even make rules stating that all gathered materials (enchanting mats, leather, ore) during a raid go directly to the guild bank. Some guilds even go as far as dedicating time to “farming” older content for materials to keep their banks full of materials and boes to keep the bank flush with cash (selling ULD Drake Runs for example). The difficulty here is that it’s a communal effort, you have to convince 9-24 other people that it’s in their logical best interest to do this, sometimes that can be a hard sale.

Another way is by making your loot system work for you…

Method 2. Many serious raiding guilds use DKP or similar points based systems to distribute loot. My guild uses EPGP for example, which is a derivative of DKP. When we made the move to this system we did a lot of research ahead of time, along with the new loot system we also instituted a donation based system. Raiders can donate up to 500g worth of items for an equivalent amount of EP (Effort Points, or DKP to the rest of you). We accept specific items as well, a Primordial Saronite for example counts as a 500g donation, epic gems are 100g each – so five epic gems will take care of a raiders donations for the week. Participation in this program is of course NOT compulsory, but many people donate every week because it gives them a “slight” edge when loot they want drops.

If everyone donates, then of course it becomes a completely level playing field and comes down to attendance (and in the case of EPGP, what gear they’ve already won) but in this case the guild still wins… Because when everyone donates that’s a lot of gold. Donations can go directly to stocking the bank with materials as well as funding repairs.

Method 3. Still another method which has recently grown in prominence is the GDKP method, it occurs to me that a guild “could” arrange to use GDKP to distribute loot with a portion of the pot going directly to the guild bank. Much like the Method 2, this has every opportunity to greatly increase the guild’s funds. However, it requires a great deal of trust as well (this should go without saying). But it definitely has it’s possibilities.

Of course, there’s no real easy answer. Often you’ll want to use a combination of methods, and experimentation can of course lead to completely new options you never thought of before. For example you may do a full GDKP run with the guild, with the pot going directly to the guild bank for example. This could your guild with all of the money it needs (for a very long time) then reverting to normal loot rules afterward. Similarly you may (especially as a more casual guild) offer guild events like raffling off tickets for rare items like the Mechano Hog, where people buy tickets for 100g each. Winner gets the Hog, guild bank gets the gold.

The point is – think outside the box, and don’t take the guild bank for granted. Think of it as a War Chest, there to ease the burden of raiding and you’ll find a happier, more productive raiding force.

The Gorillaz are back, and as usual it’s hard to keep from shaking your ass when they’re on. There’s actually a lot of cool stuff available with this new release, look them up on Hulu and you can find some great vids.

GUILD.news
Face on Fire is still recruiting. H Sindragosa went down last week and we got H PP to 5% (should have him this week). Also I would like to take a moment to welcome our newest member of the guild Vager. Yes, we finally found a hunter that is both competent and has a good attitude! Unpossible you say? I thought so too…

Updated Info:
We’re 10/12 H ICC 25 Man, working on Professor Putricide and Lich King hard modes next with other hard modes on farm. We also have Glory of the Icecrown Raider (10 Player), and what’s left after that? I guess more loot farming and working on the 25 ICC meta. It’s possible we might start farming some old stuff though before long, just for completion sake and to keep people awake.

Currently Recruiting:
» Death Knight – Frost (Icy Talons a must)
» Druid – Balance
» Priest – Discipline (Holy offspec a plus)
» Shaman – Enhancement

* We are also accepting applications from select DPS and Heals, so if your class isn’t listed you’re still welcome to apply.

Register on the forums at http://faceonfire.org/ for more details and to apply.

The Bloodscalp Report
+ HORDE
I’m really in stockpile mode right now, I only pulled 15K this week. But I probably matched that investing in materials. Some were things like cheap Frozen Orbs and similar items that I use everyday. Others were things I’m stockpiling for Cataclysm. Also, it’s time I added some more bank space. Right now I have my main bank, and a bank for storing herbs and another for ores and bars. I’m thinking now I should invest in a couple more banks for specific purposes. Either way, I think I’m just about set to transmute my way to Cataclysm. Enchanting materials are still (as always) an issue, can never get enough Eternal Earth or Abyss Crystals to satisfy me.

The Glyph market is definitely eating it right now, however I do have plenty of Inks squirreled away for a rainy day. So, it’s just a matter of keeping current stock listed in the AH and keeping out as much competition as possible till Cata gets here. When the flood gates open, I’ll be ready.

+ ALLIANCE
No News, currently on hold.

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