Cross Realm Zones Impact on Your Gold (Part 3)

So far we have covered what Cross Realm Zones is and how it works as well as the impact to lower level zones on different servers.  Let’s move on to part 3 of the Cross Realm Zones Impact on your gold.

High Population Zones

When I first learned about the technology that Blizzard announced was coming in MoP, I really only focused on the High Population Zones impact to gold making.  No one knows for sure how big of an impact it will make until we see it in action, but we can certainly take some stabs at it!

My initial thought that has persisted even as I learned more about how this will work, is that the zones for levels 8-90 will be the most affected by the “splitting” of the zone due to the high number of players trying to quest.  For those that remember the last couple of expansions, the starting zones for the new levels were insane.  Too many people trying to get what they need and in a hurry to get it done.  Mix in with this, the toons that simply want to farm nodes to make gold (prices are always highest at start of expansion) along with the professional farmers (bots) and you had a rough time getting any substantial supply.

What we do not know is at what point do they separate or split the zone, is it 100 people in the zone?  200?  500?  I would be willing to be the number is high which means there will still be some serious competition but at some point the supply will double in availability because the zone will split into 2 zones.  That means we should see more supply hitting the market faster.

My guess is that this will not really impact pricing in the initial 2 weeks because demand will outstrip supply no matter what due to the number of people trying to level crafting professions and get ready for raiding.  What we will see are prices will fall sooner than they did in Cataclysm or WOTLK.  This will be truer for those on low pop servers than the high pop servers because of the demand levels.

In any case, beware of flipping at high prices for very long as the price may fluctuate a lot during the first months of the expansion.

My Strategy

I see a huge potential right now in the lower level commodities, the ore, herbs and leather that are used for leveling from 1-525.  This stuff is cheap right now, insanely cheap in some cases, so buy it.  You filled up your Guild Bank and your bags?  Good, then go buy some more because the new technology combined with a new class/race is going to drive demand higher than people expect and not many people are stocking up on the low level supplies.  If they were buying it up then the AH would be seeing much higher prices.

Be patient on this strategy.  This is a midterm investment that I think can earn you back 500-1000% returns on your investment. 

I will post more about how to flip MoP commodities as we get closer to the release but for now, go develop a game plan for the lower level supplies and buy now before you miss the opportunity as I expect that once the prices start to climb in MoP, they will not drop as often or as much as we have seen in the past.

Cross Realm Zones Impact on Your Gold (Part 2)

What started this posting was a conversation with one of my guild mates who mentioned a frustrating experience for one of our guildies in a low level zone where she was trying to farm ore.  She was being beat to mining nodes and was seeing players everywhere she went in the zone and then realized these players were from a different realm.  A few days ago she was farming this same zone with no competition and only running into the occasional player.

That is when I had an “Aha” moment.  Cross Realm Zones has already impacted us, now the question is how and what to expect going forward.  Up until this moment, I was only thinking about how this change would impact leveling zones from levels 86-90 when MoP is released.  The reality is that there is now a major change throughout the entirety of the leveling experience which in turn will drive changes in the economies on each server. 

To better explain this I am going to give 2 different examples, lower populated zones versus higher populated zones.

Lower Populated Zone Impact

This is a rather interesting change because of the impact it will have on the supply in your Auction House.  This change will impact all lower level commodities like ore and herbs.  This really impacts the toons that want to level their professions more than anything else. 

Leveling requirements have changed so dramatically over the years that toons now level faster than ever and will sometimes skip entire zones because they out leveled the zone before getting to it.  If that toon was leveling a “farming” profession like mining, skinning or herbalism, they may go to that zone to level their skill and could so very quickly since no one was there.  Until now.

By implementing this new technology, the toon that had an entire zone to themselves to farm their nodes is now competing with many people who are from different realms.  Translate this to the impact on the Auction House and you will possibly have a lower supply, or at the very least, a slower supply into the Auction markets than previous.  What does this mean to prices?  Seems to me that when supply slows up but demand stays constant then prices go up and for someone like me this is going to be a great way to flip more goods at higher prices.

We may also see fewer people choosing farming professions because of the competition in the zones will make it slower to level the skills.  If this is the case it will only further suppress the supply side of the equation.

Larger realms will more than likely see prices slowly increase without much of an issue and will be absorbed into the game because there is a ton of gold floating around on higher population servers.  Small population servers may be hurt the most by this, as they may see higher spikes in prices that is not as easily absorbed.  Both markets will be prime space for people like me who make the majority of their gold flipping items for profit.

Cross Realm Zones Impact on Your Gold (Part 1)

I have been so focused on what will happen in MoP that I didn’t even notice the changes in our server economy until a guildy mentioned it to me last night.  You may not have noticed either, in fact, I was expecting the change to impact the economy upon the release of MoP that would effect MoP commodities and never thought about the how the change would be felt in all of the game.

The change?  Cross Realm Zones

Let me explain how this works before we discuss the impact to the economy.  Blizzard has initiated this new technology that allows servers to “merge” in zones that are under populated and "split" zones that are over populated.

Have you leveled a toon in the last year or two and felt like you were the only person in the entire zone?  You probably were!  One of the major differences in WoW since its launch is the number of players in a zone.  I can remember leveling my very first toon in Vanilla WoW and while running around questing in a zone I would pass by other players or run into a player working on the same quests.  It was very rare to be in a zone and not see some else for any length of time.  Fast forward to today, leveling a toon from 1-80 can be a lonely experience.  The only time I have seen another toon in a low level zone was because they were a level 85 farming commodities or working on their Loremaster Achievement.

Were you one of the folks that bought the WOTLK or CATA expansion and were leveling your toon at the moment it was released?  Then you can remember, as I do, the absolute craziness of how many toons were trying to complete the same quests you were trying to complete.  There were times that you had to “stand in line” to kill a particular NPC or get a mob kill that you needed.  It was very frustrating, especially the higher population servers.  If you have not experienced this, then think of it this way; Take all of the toons you see on any given day right now in Stormwind AND Orgimmar, double it and then put them all in the first leveling Zone!  Good luck!

Blizzard sees both of these scenarios as issues that impact the experience of the game player and has introduced Cross Realm Zones to even out these imbalances.  According to Blizzard’s site “When you’re in a zone that is set as a ‘cross-realm zone’ you’ll notice that in addition to the players you’d ordinarily see from your realm, you’ll also see (and be able to play with) players from other realms.  This will happen seamlessly, and players will be able to group and quest as they normally would with players from their own realm.”

I love this from a leveling standpoint, it gives us a much richer experience and allows us to meet other players even if they are from different realms and establish friendships, recruit guild members and group up instances and deliver a more social leveling experience.

OK, that is how it works.  So how does it impact your gold making?  Stay tuned for Part 2 to get my take on this!

Make Gold for Your Guild!

My main interest in playing WoW has always been raiding; farming the Auction House has always been a fun secondary diversion that helps my main interest of raiding.  Having a lot of gold when you raid is a huge advantage; you can buy gear when it firsts hits the Auction House, buy recipes for gear, buy all the materials you need, etc.  It just makes raiding that much more enjoyable and easy.

But what else can you do with these Auction House skills?  You can help your raid team or your Guild Bank.  In my case, I am also a GM for a medium sized guild of about 500 toons and over 100 unique accounts that loves to do casual raiding.  We have been around for over 3 years and have cleared all non heroic content and dabbled a little in heroic content from time to time.  Before the guild changes were introduced in Cataclysm, I would spend part of my Auction House time making gold for the Guild Bank.  I had a separate toon that handled all the gold for the guild, bought and sold items, cleaned the Guild Bank tabs of the clutter and was mostly focused on bringing in about 20k gold a month for the guild to use which then purchased herbs, fish or whatever materials were needed for flasks and feasts.

Once Cataclysm hit though, my duties were needed less because of the guild perks and the guild challenges that were introduced.  But that doesn’t mean we cannot give to our guilds and our raid teams for a worthwhile reason, after all, we still need to raid and progress.  So I look for deals that help the raid team.  Everything from buying materials, gems, recipes and even enchants to help the team above and beyond what the guild pays for already. 

I don’t just give my gold, but instead I leverage (with Officers consent) the Guild Bank to achieve our gold goals by using my knowledge and experience. 

As an example: A few days ago, I was able to purchase a Rare Spectral Tiger Mount for about 200k gold.  This is a good price, too good to pass up.  This is also where you need to make a tough decision, buy it for me to resell and make gold for me, or buy it with the Guild Bank and resell it for the Guild. 

I bought it for the guild, an easy decision based on my personal gold stockpile and the need to help my guild prepare for MoP.  Within 2 days I sold the mount for 325k, still a great deal for the buyer but a nice, fast return of gold for the Guild Bank.

Another way that you can create great amounts of gold for the Guild Bank is through crafting in the early stages on raid releases.  Even with very high costs for materials from raiding and the cost of a recipe, you can easily craft raiding gear and charge accordingly.  Why do this?  Because the gold generated buys more materials, crafts more goods and then you can sell some while retaining some items for the raid members who now get geared for free. 

Not everyone is in a position like I am, as a GM of a raiding guild, to be able to use the Guild Bank to build more wealth for the guild.  But there are still many ways to do it on your own.  Making gold is fun, but it is even more fun to be able to share it in a way that helps everyone meet their goals.  For me, that is a better feeling of accomplishment than simply giving away gold to people or buying things for people just because you have stockpiled so much gold.  It has a purpose; to help the raid team progress though content without costing them a ton of gold.

There is so much gold that can be made in the game, and it is a ton of fun to have it and spend it on things you want in the game that separate you from the common player.  But don’t forget about your guild, your raid team and others you spend time with in the game.  Figure out what and how you could help and then set that as a goal for yourself.  Trust me, it is more fun giving back than just stockpiling more gold.

Patch 5.04 Brings Glyphmas or Glyphcrash?

Like most of you, I was excited to log into WoW yesterday to experience the latest patch that prepares us for the Mists of Pandaria.  After about 5 minutes of looking around to see that all was well with my characters, I quickly dove into the glyph market expecting there to be some frenzy.  What I got instead was a rather lackluster result for all of the prep work that was done.

The Background: Patch 5.04 had major changes to the glyph system, by eliminating Prime Glyphs and then adding a bunch of new glyphs into the game.  Inscriptionists everywhere prepared for the patch by stocking up on inks at all levels to be ready for the mass infusion of sales.  It appeared on the Beta that the Blackfallow inks would not be tradable for lower level inks, so everyone traded and hunkered down for the storm.

The Reality: The patch hit, the glyphs changed and new ones were added.  Blackfallow ink is still tradable after all and the market is flooded with glyphs.  Sales were slow.  I am betting this was on most servers, so I would be curious to hear from others how it was on their servers.  I posted about 200 glyphs and sold maybe 12 for a total of about 2400 gold.  On a typical day this would be fine, but on patch day this is horrible.

Some of my feelings about this are probably stemming from the awesome patch 3.0 which was the pre patch to the expansion for WOTLK.  This patch introduced us to Inscriptionists and glyphs for the first time.  This is also known as “Glyphmas”.  I was posting glyphs, as were others, and they were selling so fast we could not keep up.  I made over 50k in sales that first day and nothing can really compare to that day since then.  So when we do have a day like yesterday it seems so mild in comparison that it feels likes a letdown or a market crash even though it wasn’t.

So why was it a letdown?  There were many people posting glyphs, more than ever on the server.  Normally there are about 3-4 regular posters of glyphs on the Auction House on my server, yesterday that number was over 20 and each one was undercutting the last one, cancelling their listings and reposting them etc.  I am sure that if you were willing to sit there and post, cancel and repost these glyphs for a few hours straight then you would probably have made some decent sales for the day.  But that is not my game, I love to spend a small amount of time to get big rewards and I had other stuff to do, like check out my talent specs, try out an instance to see how they affected game play etc.

Yesterday was not a bust however…Most people overlooked the secondary market.  This would be the herbs that people use to mill and get ink.  I made a killing here.  I spent most of my auction house time over the last month or two stockpiling herbs that were selling so cheap due to the large number of alts running around the server who were farming their herbs to level their profession.  Everyday these herbs were sitting at such low prices, many times I would pick up entire stacks of herbs for less than 10 gold.  Sales were slow on herbs for the last 2 months; evidently few of these alts were becoming alchemists or inscribers. 

How good was it?  I was selling those stacks of herbs that I bought at 10 gold, for 200 gold or more!  Sales were not crazy, but I had little to no competition and after spending all of 10 minutes posting some of my herb stocks I was able to clear a handsome profit of over 10k in one day and the sales are still coming.

Lesson of the day: Don’t follow the crowd!  While everyone else was focused on inks, I decided that I would focus on herbs and it is paying off.  There are many people unwilling to spend the 400-500 gold for a new glyph and are either an inscriptionist or know one in their guild and so they just make them and buy the herbs in the AH if they need them.  Based on what I saw in the AH, very few people were stockpiling herbs, they had milled them into inks.

The Recipe to Making Gold is in the Recipes!

There are tons of ways to make a lot of gold in WoW, regardless of which expansion or Tier of raiding is available.  There are so many that sometimes I even forget until I am standing at the mailbox and wondering what made me so much gold and then I see it, recipes!

I have seen many suggestions about buying recipes from vendors and then reselling, a legitimate way to make some gold but not what I like to do.  I prefer flipping recipes.  These are the ones that can net you big amounts from one sale and require very little effort.  I have several recipes that I search for each day and will buy out and then relist at much higher prices. 

These are niche recipes, rare or uncommon drops that people need to fill out their collection.  Some are used for their purpose, such as the recipe for enchanters, Formula: Enchant Weapon - Fiery Weapon.  People still use this enchant and so it has demand for those who want to use it as well as the collector.  Others, like the recipe for Leatherworkers, Pattern: Dusky Boots, are more for the collector wanting to complete their list of recipes but can sell for big gold!  Just ask Chame (guildy of mine on Bronzebeard) who bought this for 150 gold and then listed and sold it for 10k gold. 

So why don't more people do this?  Why do some people list them so cheap?  How come everyone else isn't writing about it in their blogs?

Because it requires patience.  Some of these may take several weeks to sell while others may move a little faster.  This is not a method to get gold rich overnight, but it is an awesome way to make thousands of gold over time.  In fact, I would venture to guess that I have made well over 200k from recipes over the last few years and that is probably understating it.

To get into this market you need to know your crafting professions and prices and be prepared to buy more of the same recipes if they should hit the AH before your sells.  Here are some of the recipes I go after in the enchanting profession:  (this is just a small sample)

These can go for 2-5k easy and more!

[Formula: Enchant Boots - Cat's Swiftness]
[Formula: Enchant Boots - Boar's Speed]
[Formula: Enchant Boots - Vitality]
[Formula: Enchant Boots - Greater Agility]

[Formula: Enchant Bracer - Restore Mana Prime]

[Formula: Enchant Chest - Greater Stats]
[Formula: Enchant Chest - Major Resilience]
 [Formula: Enchant Cloak - Major Resistance]

[Formula: Enchant Gloves - Herbalism] 
[Formula: Enchant Gloves - Advanced Mining]
[Formula: Enchant Gloves - Advanced Herbalism]
[Formula: Enchant Gloves - Riding Skill]

[Formula: Enchant Shield - Frost Resistance]
[Formula: Enchant Shield - Shield Block]
[Formula: Enchant Shield - Resistance]

[Formula: Enchant Weapon - Potency]
[Formula: Enchant Weapon - Battlemaster]
[Formula: Enchant Weapon - Spellsurge]

Happy recipe hunting!  Remember to put these and otehr recipes into your daily Auction House hunt so that you do not miss out on some sweet easy gold.  It is not uncommmon to find them for as little as a few hundred gold or less.

Stockpiling for MoP Part 2

One of the areas many people do not think about before an expansion, is what items will I need to level my professions?  This mistake could cost you thousands!

I highly recommend that you research your professions in MoP and figure out what recipes you currently have that could award you skill points (the ones in green, yellow or red) and stockpile those now!  By the time MoP hits those same mats will go up big time as others buy them for their professions to level.  Many folks will want to use the new recipes but supplies in the AH will be limited for the first few weeks.  This is BOTH a gold making opportunity and a Heads Up for you profession levelers!

Take some time and look at your current list of recipes that will award points, then figure out what the materials are and start collecting them now.  Get enough to level at least 10 points to 20 points for yourself.  If you have multiple professions as I do, then you will need even more stock!

On the other side of this equation will be the buyers!  There will be tons of people who did not stockpile enough or at all, and they will be buying mats like crazy for the first few weeks of the expansion.  Mats that went for 1 gold will now suddenly be 10 gold or more!  So when you are looking at your list for your toons, take the time and buy more to resell.

Example:  Hypnotic Dust.  This stiff was selling for as low as 10 silver each a week ago.  It is already climbing on my server to as much as 3-4 gold each!  I bet that it will hit as high as 15g each within the first few days of or weeks of MoP being released.  If you can still find it cheap, then buy it!  I have well over 500 stacks of this stuff!  I have even unloaded a few stacks now at the current prices to recoup my investment. 

There are tons of examples though; Savage Leather, Heavy Savage Leather, Embersilk Cloth, Bolts of Embersilk, Pyrite Ore, Pyrium Bars, Maelstrom Crystals, Heavenly Shards, Volatiles, Herbs etc.  These are still cheap, but they won't be for long. 

Watch for prices to start climbing each day we get closer.  The farmers will either stop farming or stop posting so supplies will dwindle as we get closer.  Others will not post because they want it for MoP, so your time is short for this massive potential of profits!

Before you ask, yes, I am taking my own advice.  I have been stockpiling for the last 2 months as prices bottomed out.  I have 18 Guild Bank Tabs that are full, 3 Auction House Toons that are maxed out on bags space and banks space that are full.  I also am bouncing mail between toons to keep inventory!