Croda's Inscription Gold Guide - paid version, only $5

Some beautiful music to read the blog to . . . . . . (i first heard on PowerWord:Gold podcast)

Monday 27 May 2013

Differences of Eve Online to World of Warcraft.

Key difference is that you can enjoy the full game for free.  This is through the Plex system.  Players can buy Plex from the Eve Store and use it to buy a 31 days of gameplay or sell it in game for ISK (gold in Eve).  Hence, a player that is able to earn enough ISK can play for free by purchasing Plex in game to convert into 31 days gameplay.  This, therefore, allows us to play with several accounts – and each account can be logged in at the same time.

A second major difference is that EVE is PVP.  There is a large area that is reasonably safe called Hi-Sec (short for high security space) where the guards can take on anyone – they just may not be able to save you in time!  The good news is that with very little experience and reading around you can take measures to protect yourself from being ambushed in Hi-Sec.  In effect, Hi-Sec is PVE – except when it is not!

A third major difference is that everyone is on the one server.  Which probably explains why the economy blogging environment is not as developed as World of Warcraft.  No economy podcasts either.  As soon as a trading strategy is known it will be copied, so players tend to keep such knowledge to themselves.

A fourth major difference is that location means something.  An item posted for sale in one region will not be available to buy in other regions.  It needs to be transported.  This has allowed several trade hubs to be formed in Hi-Sec (much like the major cities in World of Warcraft).

The economy is almost entirely player based – starting from mining (farming for ore / herbs in World of Warcraft) through to manufacturing, inventing and trading.  All the ships are made by players – except for the starter ships.  All the ammunition, fittings, etc.  Players can build structures in space for manufacturing etc.  There are NPC sellers but they are the minority.  ISK comes into the game from PVE – missions, NPC bounties and mob killing.

Which then leads onto the other key difference – the economy in Eve is much deeper and complex.  Further more, with one server which is seeing a growing player base then items meant for newer players are still in demand.

Corporations are probably more important in Eve.  For those that like to play the economy there are Industrial corporations, Mining Corporations, Science Corporations though i have not yet found any Trading corporations.  Furthermore, all the large PVP corporations have their industrial arms to keep them supplied.

Nothing hits home for a new player than being in a mining group sitting in an asteroid field of many mining ships with the capital ships around you gathering the ore you mine.

Characters can learn any and all skills.  Skill training takes place offline (time based) and a character can learn a little of all skills or go more deeply into a few.

Much like World of Warcraft, the game is what you make of it though you may not be entirely able to avoid other players.

Feel free to follow my adventures in the economy of Eve on my new blog marketsforisk.

Thursday 23 May 2013

Moving on


Its been a while since i played World of Warcraft.  I enjoyed it immensely but decided to move on to a less time consuming game.
 
Its good to see World of Warcraft still goes strong.  There seems to have been a big turnover in the blogging world – some good new gold making blogs on the scene.
 
I have moved onto Eve Online and started blogging aboutmy character as it advances (still under 2 weeks old!) with the aim of playing the economy to make ISK (gold).
 
Should you wish, you can follow my progress on my new blog marketsforISK.
 
Should you wish to try out Eve Online then follow thislink (or the link to the right) to get a free 21 days trial – normally the trials are 14 days.  If you chose to upgrade you account then i will be rewarded with a Plex by the game.
 
In a following post i will detail the differences between Eve Online and World of Warcraft from an economy point of view.

Thursday 30 August 2012

Preparation for Mists of Pandaria - First night after the patch

for other ideas on the glyph market please follow the link to the free Croda's Inscription Gold Guide

I went straight to my trainer to learn all the recipes.  I crafted the new glyphs – but not the Monk glyphs.  Is anyone buying Monk glyphs?

Demand for glyphs rose and good sales were made.  But as i suspected the demandwas not abnormally high – certainly not another glyphmas.  I was still making good sales at 10pm at night.  On my server i was selling the new glyphs at 600g as fast as i could put them up until competitors came on and started posting at 100g.  They are now trading down at 30g to 75g and falling.

TradeskillMaster worked a charm – so hats off to Sapu the author.  Indeed, all my addons worked with the exception of Gearscore which i disabled.

in all, a good day at the Auction House.

Worth noting that Blackfallow Inks can still be converted at the ink trader for now – maybe it will be fixed in the near future.  But in any event it still means that Cataclysm herbs can be used for Inscription and i am buying the cheap herbs that the panic’d sellers put on the Auction House and converting them as i go.

 
as can be seen above, i am buying 20 Ink of the Sea using Blackfallow Ink.
 
 

Tuesday 28 August 2012

Preparation for Mists of Pandaria – the night before

for other ideas on the glyph market please follow the link to the free Croda's Inscription Gold Guide


I am as about as ready as i can be:

1.  All addons are updated and i will be doing another update run tomorrow during server downtime.

2.  All key addons have a back up addon – Auctioneer for TradeskillMaster; two mailing addons.

3.  Almost all Blackfallow inks are converted.  Those that remain are for use in specific crafting items.

4.  One of my alts is ready to receive the Monk glyphs that i craft - i.e. have enough bag space.

5.  All alts and mains are in a main city with a Trainer within reach


Meanwhile i have been picking up cheap Cataclysm herbs that people are dumping – of course milling and converting them immediately.

I have also been picking up cheap enchanting, tailoring, alchemist and jewelcrafting recipes that i don’t have which people are also dumping.


What will i be doing straight off the launch?  To be honest, i may be gathering herbs rather than wading into the glyph market (my Scribe is also herbalist).  I will see how it goes.

Sunday 26 August 2012

What do Auctioneers bring to the game?

for other ideas on the glyph market and other general tips see the free Croda's Inscription Gold Guide

I aim to post every two days one this blog. For the weekend post i plan to post on how the World of Warcraft economy relates to the real world or theoretical concepts for the World of Warcraft economy. Ironically, it is this subject matter which causes the most email traffic!

What do Auctioneers bring to the game?: In other words, to the (legal) gold makers, call them Auctioneers, benefit World of Warcraft or otherwise?

A fair question, i don’t suspect the developers foresaw the rise of this breed of player at the outset.  But i greatly suspect it is in their thinking now when they consider what to do with the professions in the game.

On my server there are 3 or 4 of us who “own” the glyph market.  i don’t see any other competitors on the list.  And the same is becoming true of the Enchanting market that i am entering.

Therefore, on my server there are at least two markets where under 10 players make the vast majority of the gold from the player base of over a 1000.

In a sense, the entire Blizzard coding for these markets is utilised by these 10 players.  Therefore, is this to the benefit of the game?


Pros

Every item that a player could conceivably need to move ahead in the game will be on the Auction House.  Therefore, the economy is not an impediment to a player advancing in World of Warcraft.

Almost every item will have competitors therefore bringing down prices.  Hence, as a rule, prices are not manipulated upwards.

Therefore, a server will never die because the economy dies first.  A server will die because the raiding / questing player base dies.


Cons

The vast majority of the player base is not able to fully participate in the Auction House.  Therefore, the whole concept of professions as a method of making gold is limited to the “professional” auctioneers.

Therefore, the developers time and effort has ended up being focused on a very small proportion of the player base.

The gold makers are prone to market manipulation from time to time.  Examples include posting arrows in batches of 1 instead of 200.  Buying up all the raw materials with the sole intent of cause prices to rise.


In conclusion

The gold makers bring considerable benefits to the player base in exchange for excluding that player base from most of the serious gold making abilities.  Whether that is a net benefit to the game?  On balance, yes – but it is close.

But i do suspect that as a result the developers focus more on other aspects of the game that affect the entire player base, and not the economy which benefits a very small part of the player base.

Friday 24 August 2012

Final countdown to Mists of Pandaria

for other ideas on the glyph market please follow the link to the free Croda's Inscription Gold Guide


So here we are, under a week to go.  This is my final check list:

1.    Almost all Blackfallow inks are converted to Ink of the Sea and Ethereal Inks.  I will keep a back of 100 for the off hands in case they sell.

2.    I have backup addons ready.  Auctioneer and Auctionator in case TradeskillMaster breaks.  And Postal and xxx incase the TradeskillMaster postal breaks.  And i have spent an hour familiarising myself with them.  Call it insurance.

3.    I have 8 of every glyph prepared and 4 weeks of ink ready.


From here i am just making sure my alts are ready to level – nothing more i can do for gold making.

I am a big believer that if demand is better than i expect then the end prices of glyphs will rise to maintain the profitability on what will be higher priced herbs.



Out of the ordinary things I will be doing on patch day:

I will reset my Auction House data – prices will be moving fast and I will want to set my prices with reference to the most recent data.  I do this once a quarter anyway to get rid of stale data.

For Auctioneer the command is: /auc cleardata ALL
For TradeSkillMaster the command is: /tsm adbreset



And of course I will be doing a complete scan of the Auction House daily. Every gold maker should.


Loading "out of date" addons: A new patch will mean that some addons are considered "out of date".  Hence, I will need to check that “load out of date addons” box again.


1. on the opening screen that lists your characters at the bottom left there is a button "AddOns" - click it

2. the AddOn List window will open - at the top of this window is a checkbox labels "Load out of date AddOns" - click it

3. Press "Okay" at the bottom of the window to accept and close.

 

Tuesday 21 August 2012

Returning Players = cheap recipes to buy

for other ideas on the glyph market please follow the link to the free Croda's Inscription Gold Guide

With many new and old players coming back ahead of Mists of Pandaria being released i am picking up lots of cheap recipes that i did not own for my enchanter and jewelcrafter from the Auction House - which have been dumped by these players as they power through content preparing their characters.

There is a very easy way to do this, only takes 20 seconds if you are at the Auction House.

Open the Auction House window:

· tick “Usable Items” on the top bar of the window

· click Recipes and then select the profession you are searching

· the press Search


A list of recipes that you don’t own will appear. (if a very long list appears then it is likely you have not ticked “Usable Items”

I always buy recipes that are priced under 100 gold - though these days i am taking any that look good price given this is a once in a while opportunity as these returning players are here.

the example below shows that my the Auction House has 5 recipes that my enchanter does not have though none are below my 100 gold price.


Friday 17 August 2012

Friday Shout Out - Call to Auction podcast

for other ideas on the glyph market and other general tips see the free Croda's Inscription Gold Guide

One of the Podcasts i listen to is Call to Auction – hosted by Euripides and Stede.

I enjoy and find all the gold making podcasts listed below informative, and in my mind must all be listened to.

In these other podcasts there will quite often be the comment along the lines of " . . . the theory for this process is out there but this is what we do . . . . ".

In Call to Auction, Euripides and Stede actually cover that theory in a manner which i can understand as well as bring out their gold making ideas.  For an indepth discussion on topics this is the leader of them all.

Of course, they also mentioned this blog in their last podcast at 43:55 in where i was seeking their views on the uplift of demand for glyphs come Mists of Pandaria.  In part, the background to this was that Euripides made perfect predictions in the pre-Catacysm patch and release.

As ever, there was a full discussion on their expectations for glyphs when Mists of Pandaria comes along for 20 minutes.  i will let you listen to it to gather their views.


Below are all the podcasts i listen to as well as the non-gold making podcasts related to World of Warcraft that i also listen to.

As ever, it is not only the ideas the hosts discuss but the thinking behind the ideas that is of benefit to us all. And they make for good listening. Indeed, i tend to need to be doing something mundane like gathering whiptail or milling / crafting if i am listening to them.

They are in alphabetical order split between the pure gold making podcasts and the podcasts what are about the World of Warcraft in general. For a complete list of Gold making Blogs and Podcasts see The PowerwordGold Blog Directory.

Pure gold making

Auction House Junkies - Hosted by Cold from Cold's Gold Factory, Wes from Capped by Cata and Mike

Call to Auction – hosted by Euripides and Stede

Powerword:Gold - Hosted by Fluxdada from Powerword:gold and a guest host.

The Mana Cooler - Hosted by George
Addicited to Azeroth – inactive as of October 2011

Mixture of gold making but mostly other World of Warcast

The Instance - Hosted by hosted by Scot Johnson, Dills and Turpster from Frogpants Studios, AIE Podcast and The Incredible Podcast of Amazing Awesomenessrespectively

Holy Shatt Podcast - Hosted by Jay and Mike from Stopcast.

Warcraft Lounge - Hosted by Chris and Ryan, going since November 2010, range of topics and debate.

For any other established gold bloggers out there who would like to give a “warts and all” review of my Inscription Gold Guide please contact me and i will send you your free copy for such a purpose.

Thursday 16 August 2012

TradeskillMaster Tutorial - Posting fast using the mouse wheel

for other ideas on the glyph market and other general tips see the free Croda's Inscription Gold Guide

instead of me pressing the Post or Cancel button a hundred times every time i post glyphs from a character i have it set up that if i spin the mouse wheel up or down whilst pressing CTRL (the mouse pointer does not need to be over the Post or Cancel button) then the Post or Cancel button is pressed multiple times.  Speeds it up massively.

in this post  i will show you how i link the Post and Cancel buttons to my mouse wheel to speed things up.

1. Open TradeskillMaster and press the "Auctioning Groups / Options" button as shown below to bring up the Auctioning screen


 
this will open up the Auctioning window as shown below.

at the bottom part of the screen, in the section "Macro Help" tick the "Up", "Down" and "CTRL" boxes, and leave the "ALT" and "SHIFT" blank.

then press the "Create Macro and Bind ScrollWheel (with selected options)" button

 
 
 
i always seem to have to do it a few times to get it to work.

Now, when you come to post your auctions using TradeskillMaster - once the glyphs have been queued to be posted, you need only hold down the CTRL key and spin the wheel!  and likewise for cancelling.
 
 
 


 



Tuesday 14 August 2012

TradeskillMaster Tutorial - How i set up my Glyph Auctions

for other ideas on the glyph market and other general tips see the free Croda's Inscription Gold Guide

TradeskillMaster is currently the most powerful tool an auctioneer can use to make gold in World of Warcraft today.  It has a steep learning curve but time spent initially is handsomely paid off.

In this post i will show you the step by step process that i used to set up TradeskillMaster for auctioning glyphs.  It need only be done once.  I can do it in 5 minutes though someone new to TradeskillMaster will take longer.

This is purely aimed at Scribes - for a fuller review of TradeskillMaster then you can watch some videos by nerffaids, or buy the Powerword:Gold Guide or visit part of the Consortium forums which deals specifically with TradeskillMaster 

My aim is to post a maximum of 2 single glyphs or each glyph at a minimum price of 40 gold, a fall back price of 600 gold and to undercut by 10 silver.

It is a three stage process:


1. Create the glyph category
2. Create the glyph category pricing / posting parameters
3. Populate the glyph category with all glyphs



Creating the Glyph Category

1. Open TradeskillMaster and press the "Auctioning Groups / Options" button as shown in the graphic below


 
 
 

This takes me to the Auction Group Screen.

2. Select the "Categories / Groups" on the left hand side to bring up the page with the three tabs at the top: Auction Defaults; Create Category / Group; and Quick Group Creation - as shown below.

 
 
 

3. Select the "Create Category / Group" tab which opens the Category / Group creation window as shown below.

4. In the field titled "Category name" i type the name of the Category i want to create, in this case "Glyphs" and then press "Okay"


 
 
 

and, as the graphic below shows, that creates a new Category called glyphs.

 
 
 

Now i need to provide some pricing and posting paraters to my newly created category.


Creating the glyph category pricing / posting parameters

Because i use the same pricing and posting parameters for all my gylphs i can create the pricing and posting parameters for the category and then have this applied to all the glyphs i put in this category.  (TradeskillMaster allows you to set Category paramaters and Group parameters, and you can dictate which ones dominate).

From the above graphic again, i select the newly created "Glyphs" category to bring up the Category window, and then select the "Category" override tab as shown below.

 
 
 

1. The top part is called General Settings - i leave the defaul values in and scroll passed it.

2. Under "Post Settings" i: set the "Post time" for 48 hours; set the "Post cap" to 2 (by rightclicking the input field, deleting whatever number is there, inputing 2 and then pressing enter); set the "Per Auction" to 1 (by rightclicking the input field, deleting whatever number is there, inputing 1 and then pressing enter).  The text above should change to "Auctions will be posted for 48 hours in stacks up to 1.  A Maximum of 2 auctions will be posted".

3. Under "General Price Settings (Undercut / Bid)" i set the "Undercut by" to 10s by rightclicking the input field, deleting whatever number is there, inputing 10s and then pressing "Okay" which pops up.

(dont use "S", use "s" for silver, similarly for gold use "g" not "G")

4. Under "Minimum Price Settings (Threshold)" i: set the "Price threshold" to 40g by rightclicking the input field, deleting whatever number is there, inputing 40g and then pressing "Okay" which pops up; and in the "Set threshold as a" i select "Fixed Gold Amount".

5. Under "Maximum Price Settings (Fallback)" i: set the "Fallback price" to 600g by rightclicking the input field, deleting whatever number is there, inputing 600g and then pressing "Okay" which pops up; and in the "Set threshold as a" i select "Fixed Gold Amount".

6. i leave the default parameters in for the final two sections: "Advanced Price Settings (Reset Method)" and "Reset Scan Settings".

and that is the pricing and parameters set for the new "glyphs" category.  all i need to do now is populate this Category with items - in this case glyphs.



Populating the glyph category with all glyphs


1. I press the Inscription Button on the left hand side, as shown in the graphic below.

 
 
 
 

This will bring up the crafting window.

2. I select the first class, which in this case is "Warrior".  That will bring up the Warrior glyph crafting window as shown in the graphic below.

3. I press "Enable All Crafts" to put a tick in all the glyph boxes

4. I then press "Create Auctioning Group"

 
 
 

this will bring up a new window to create the auctioning group - as shown in the graphic below.  What we want to do is create teh group and place it within our new "glyphs" category and so have the Category pricing and posting paratemers apply to this group.


in this new window:

1. In the "Category to put groups into:" select "glyphs" (or whatever you called the new category that was created earlier).

2. In the "How to add crafts to Auctioning" select "All in the Same Group"

3. Tick the box "only include Enabled Crafts"

4. Press the "Add Crafted Items from this Group to Auctioning Groups" button.

and now we have added all Warrior glyphs to our "glyphs" category.


 
 
 

back on the auctioning page we can check this by looking at our category list.  Expand "glyphs" and it will show "inscription - warrior" as shown in the graphic below.  Select "inscription - warrrior" and it will show all the warrior glyphs as also shown in the graphic below.

 
 

 

Repeat the above process for all classes and you will end up with what looks like the graphic below.  In my "glyphs" category i have all the classes added.  If selected one of these classes it would show me all the glyphs which have been added.

 
 

and that is it all done!


when i go to the Auction House with whatever glyphs i have on the character at the time and press "Post Auctions" it will post the glyphs at a maximum of 2 single glyphs or each glyph at a minimum price of 40 gold, a fall back price of 600 gold and undercut by 10 silver.