Speeding up the emptying of mailboxes

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

Every gold maker in World of Warcraft will spend time at the mail box.  Indeed, players covering a mailbox with their mount and so making it hard to access the mailbox is almost considered an act of war!

Therefore, anything that can be done to speed up the unloading of mails is welcome.  To that end, there are two things that can be done:

Firstly, the mailbox will allow you to unload the first 50 mails.  To speed up this process press the “config” button on your mailbox page (assuming you have an addon such as Mail Opener)

When the Configuration window opens up - select the "Open All" as shown in the image above

And then set the opening interval times to the above - this is the fastest time to open 50 mails, assuming latency allows this.

Secondly, when you have more than 50 items to empty from the mailbox you need to wait a full minute before the mailbox loads the next 50 items to allow unloading to continue.

To skip this part you can put “/reload” in the chat box to reload your UI.  If you computer is fast enough then this only takes a few seconds (for me about 8) – which is a great saving on the 30 seconds i normally have to wait.

Something that every serious gold maker needs to be aware of.

Weekend Post: A new glyphmas – perhaps not?

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


The launch of Mists of Pandaria will give us Scribes a nice boost to income – but perhaps not the boost that we say back with Cataclysm.

In October 2010, upon release of the pre-Catacylsm patch and then again on release of Cataclysm Scribes everywhere made so much gold.

There is much talk of a new “glyphmas” upon the patch and release of MoP.

It is worth looking at what caused the “glyphmas” of 2010 and hence allowing us to compare to today.  I suspect we will see that there are few, if any, similarities.

When Patch 4.0.1 arrived in mid October 2010 glyphs went from an average 15 gold on my server to over 150 gold and held at over 100 gold for a year.  In my mind, there were five main reasons for this:


1. Announcement of the change of glyphs in the summer of 2010 led to a reduction of Scribes participating in the market: over the summer Blizzard announced that the glyph system was to be changed. At that time, glyphs were destroyed when they were swapped out – hence characters had to buy a new glyph every time they swapped one out. When the change was announced to the current system many forecast the death of glyphs. Hence, there were very few new competitors and existing competitors started to leave the market. The view was that glyph prices would collapse. Hence, when the patch arrived the number of scribes was low and indeed the scribes left had reduced their stock of glyphs.

That will not be the case this time – the number of Scribes participating in the market has, if anything, increased.



2. Demand went through the roof and the supply was not there: When the new glyph system arrived characters went to the AH to buy up a complete set of glyphs on the first day. What glyphs were on the AH ran out very quickly. Indeed, i could not post quick enough and hence the selling prices rose rapidly.

We are likely to see an increase in demand from returning players + pandas + Monks.  However, existing characters will only have a demand for new glyphs.  So a slight similarity here.



3. Players returned to the game: on Patch 4.0.1 and generally though the Cataclysm launches old players returned and so added to the demand for the glyphs. Indeed, there were various surges of demand as new patches came and old players came back into the game.

This will be the case this time too.



4. Inks from 1 to 3 per glyph in October 2010: the cost of crafting tripled but more importantly the demand for herbs rose firstly due to the tripling of materials required per glyph and secondly due to the strong rise in demand. Hence, herbs started to run low and their prices rose forcing the prices of glyphs higher still.

This will not be the case this time – the number of inks required to craft a glyph remains at 3.  Herbs may run low initially though.



5. Warden in summer of 2010: in the summer of 2010 Blizzard launched a program to catch and ban bots. It was very successful and overnight many bots left the game. However, their herbs remained on the AH and in their guild banks (i assume the AH posters were on different accounts to the bots though i guess Blizzard can now detect that?). Hence, whilst the bots were gone, the herbs were still hitting the AH at very cheap prices. The timing of those cheap herbs running out varied by server. On my server, it happened just at the time of Patch 4.0.1. Hence, the ongoing availability of herbs went through the floor which was a third factor pushing up the price of herbs and restricting supply to scribes trying to meet demand. Indeed, for myself, i was often in danger of being unable to meet demand on several occasions due to lack of herbs to mill.

On my server at least, there are no bots and hence there will not be an effect  from them disappearing this time.



In summary – demand will rise driven by returning players / pandas / monks but at a lower rate than was the case at Cataclysm.  There will be the usual effect on supply as the herb farmers start to farm the Mists of Pandaria herbs – but that will soon stabilise.

Friday shout out - critical goblin

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

Critical Goblin has a blog - a rather good one.  And it also deals in glyphs, and in depth.  Critical shares his processes and strategies on his blog with plenty of analysis.  His blog is well written and an easy read.  It has many valuable tips.  I am not ashamed to say I have picked up a fair few ideas from it.

Indeed, it is well worth having a read - notably his (I believe it is a he?) strategies on glyph walls, his 11 day glyph war with a competitor.

Critical has also written a review on my Croda'sInscription Gold Guide - the paid version.  I will let you read his review - but I like it.

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.

Reference Data - Scribes knowing their herbs

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

How many cataclysm herbs does it take to make a glyph?  How does this vary by cataclysm herb?  What herbs do you need for what Ink?

All key reference points of data the scribe should have their finger tips to minimise costs and determine acceptable sales prices to generate their acceptable levels of profits.

To that end I have a page on this blog that will show these handy bits of data: reference data.

See the page for the answer to the above questions!



on the page today:


Herbs to Glyph Converions - Cataclysm Herbs

(using 2 ashen pigment per Blackfallow ink and 3 Blackfallow ink per glyph, to 1 decimal place)

1 Whiptail creates 0.6 Ashen Pigments therefore it takes 10.0 Whiptail per glyph

1 Twilight Jasmine creates 0.6 Ashen Pigments therefore it takes 10.0 Twilight Jasmine per glyph

1 Cinderbloom creates 0.4 Ashen Pigments therefore it takes 15.0 Cinderbloom per glyph

1 Stormvine creates 0.4 Ashen Pigments therefore it takes 15.0 Stormvine per glyph

Below is a table that shows the Inks with their related pigments and the herbs they are milled from.

Ivory Ink /Alabaster (rare – none): Bloodthistle, Peacebloom, Silverleaf, Earthroot

Midnight Ink / Dusky (rare – Hunter’s Ink / Verdant): Briarthorn, Swiftthistle, Bruiseweed, Stranglekelp, Mageroyal

Lion’s Ink / Golden (rare – Dawnstar Ink / Burnt): Wild Steelbloom, Grave Moss, Kingsblood, Liferoot

Jadefire Ink / Emerald (rare – Royal Ink / Indigo): Fadeleaf, Goldthorn, Khadgar's Whisker, Wintersbite

Celestial Ink / Violet (rare – Fiery Ink / Ruby): Firebloom, Purple Lotus, Arthas' Tears, Sungrass, Blindweed, Ghost Mushroom, Gromsblood

Shimmering Ink / Silvery(rare – Ink of the Sky / Sapphire): Golden Sansam, Dreamfoil, Mountain Silversage, Plaguebloom, Icecap

Ethereal Ink / Nether(rare – Darkflame Ink / Ebon): Felweed, Ancient Lichen, Dreaming Glory, Mana Thistle, Netherbloom, Nightmare Vine, Ragveil, Terocone

Ink of the Sea / Azure (rare – Snowfall Ink / Icy): Goldclover, Tiger Lily, Adder's Tongue, Fire Leaf, Icethorn, Lichbloom

Blackfallow Ink / Ashen (rare – Inferno Ink / Burning Embers): Azshara's Veil, Cinderbloom, Heartblossom, Stormvine, Twilight Jasmine, Whiptail

Damaged necklace

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

I am seeing more of these on sale at low prices.  Doubtless picked up by players unsuspecting of their value and put on the Auction House.

These allow a Jewelcrafter, after a simple repair, to claim one Dalaran Jewelcrafter’s Token which goes towards buying Wraith of the Lich King Jewelcrafting recipes off the vendor.

There are two other ways to collect these tokens: one is to do a daily quest which is the norm - takes 5 minutes assuming you start of Dalaran (big ask); the other is to trade in 10 titanium dust which is hideously expensive.

On my server, Jewelcrafters are willing to pay up to 500 gold for these Damaged Necklace’s – so picking them up for less than 100 gold to flip is a sure fire winner.

They should be on everyones Snatch Lists.

Week End Post - No concept of banking system

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!

In the World of Warcraft there is no concept of a Banking System that is similar to the real world (no bad thing i hear some say!).  I.e. there no institution out there that allows savers to earn a rate of interest on their savings and for borrowers to borrow money from at a cost of an interest rate.

We all have surplus gold sitting in our banks earning no return.

In the real world surplus cash can be invested in US Government Treasuries and earn an annual return of 1.4% at almost negligible risk (i know, that may not be the case forever!).

This return of 1.4% can therefore be assumed to be the return one makes with no risk.  Hence, any projects one would want to invest in need to earn a return more than this 1.4% to compensate for the risk taken.

In the World of Warcraft that is not the case.  There are no Azeroth Treasuries etc.  There is therefore no risk free rate of return.

Therefore, surplus gold just sits in bank accounts earning no return.

Furthermore . . . . there is no one on trade chat asking for an interest bearing loan.  There is no one on trade chat asking to invest in their venture for a promised return.  Indeed, there is no system to facilitate such a mechanism of investing.

Hence there is no need for an institution to be set up to allow those with surplus gold to lend to those who need the gold to invest in projects thereby giving a return to the investors.  Hence, no need for a bank.

In turn, this leads to no concept of a bond market or equity market.
. . . . . and hence why our surplus gold earns no return.

Probably a good thing - but boy would that be fun to the very very small proportion of the player base that plays the auction house and enjoys the WoW economy.

Though, with a bit of thought it could be extended to allow guilds to become richer.

Looking forward to inter server lending rate!

Friday Shout Out – Hunter Mastery

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

Hunter Mastery: admitedly this is not the catchiest title for a blog that deals in gold making – but it does, and rather well.  Also covers matters pertaining to being a good hunter, hence the name.

As well as the many posts to date it has a couple of podcasts up already – split into two parts – Hunters and Gold Making.  And focushot has featured Jim Younkin's Livestreams recently and his own youtube channel



A Review of Croda's Inscription Gold Guide

In a recent post the author of Hunter Mastery, Focushot, has written a review on my gold guide (the paid version costing a mere $5).

A fair review i think, covers the ground well and comes up with his opinion on the guide.  Well worth a read for yourself for a honest third party view.

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.

Surplus Inferno Inks – what to do with them

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

Now that times are slower ahead of the new content i am finding that my inventory of Inferno Ink is building up fast – they are proc’d from my milling of Cataclysm Inks.

Much like Snowfall ink i will doubtless get through them slowly at a profit in Mists of Pandaria – but despite that my inventory is still too high for my liking.

There are 3 things i do to turn them into gold: sell them; sell the crafted items; and disenchant them.


Firstly, i can try and sell them as Inferno inks.

On my realm Inferno Inks are selling on the Auction House for about 13gold to 28gold.  Sales are slow.


Secondly, i can use them as crafting materials.

Inferno Ink is used in the crafting of 17 items – all only from Scribes, and most of which are offhands or relics.  These are selling slowly but surely and at very high profit margins.  However, despite this my inventory of inferno inks continues to build.


The third route is a derivation of the shuffle – i am watching this carefully.

One of the items i can craft is an Etched Horn.  It requires 4 Inferno Inks and and 1 Scavenged Dragon Horn.  The Scavenged Dragon Horn can be bought from Cassandra Downs in the Twilight Highlands (for the Alliance) [the Horde vendor is Una Kobuna] in the Twilight Downs for just over 17gold.  Hence, the cost of crafting an Etched Horn is 69gold to 129gold.

They disenchant into 1 to 4 small heavenly shards – on my realm they are selling for 30gold, though the heavenly shards sell for 72gold suggesting that the true price of a small heavenly shard is 24gold (3 small heavenly shards for 1 heavenly shard)

Assuming an average of 2.5 small heavenly shards per disenchant then the disenchanting process is worth 60gold.

The Etched Horn gives the best disenchanting value per input of Inferno Ink.

I suspect in the coming weeks the price of Inferno Inks will fall sharply as Scribes dump their inventory on the Auction House whilst the price of Heavenly Shards will most likely hold.  Therefore, once the price if Inferno Inks falls below 11gold i will switch from selling my Infernos Inks to crafting Etched Horns and disenchanting them with my enchanter.

I suspect i wont sell the shards but use them in my Enchanting market – which is my number two gold earner.

Furthermore, if i determine that the price of Heavenly Shards will hold its value in Mists of Pandaria then i may even become a buyer of Inferno Inks at the low values.

The Flipping Market – watch the cross realm prices!

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

i have had loads of emails on the Flipping Market following my prior post with some asking what the common traps are.

Below is one of those common traps:

A recent scan using the Undermine Journal showed a potential great deal to buy a “Pattern: Heavy Scorpid Belt” for 20.65gold when the mean price is 4772gold and one standard deviation is 1061gold.  Hence, the current price is strongly below the mean less 2 standard deviations.

Indeed, a look at its recent posting history suggests that it is not often on the market and one has been on for 5000gold recently.

So far so good.  But the next steps of my research shows a problem and emphasises why these steps are important.

On other realms the Pattern sells for a mere 85gold!

Therefore, it appears that we are seeing an inflated price here, caused by someone posting the Pattern for a very high price over a few days.

It is unlikely that my realm will have seen the prices jump to these new levels whilst the other realms have not followed.  Hence, the mean price stated of 4772gold is unlikely to be a true and fair reflection of the price i would achieve and indeed a price of the mean price less one standard deviation is still very unlikely to be achived.

Hence, i did not buy this Pattern.

Weekend Post – No Concept of the Cost of Storage

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.  However, i find that my weekend posts generally get less attention (i suspect most people read posts during the week and therefore land on my homepage and read the post i did at the weekend at the same time).  Therefore, 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!

In the World of Warcraft there is no cost in tying up your gold in raw materials.  Neither a direct cost nor an opportunity cost (potential profits lost by using the gold elsewhere).

We do not have to rent storage space and gold used to buy raw materials could not otherwise be earning a risk free return elsewhere given there is no concept of the risk free rate in World of Warcraft.  I.e. we do not need to make the choice of buy Herbs or invest the gold in Azeroth Treasuries that make 2% pa and you are guaranteed your gold back.

Other than buying the bank tabs, guild tabs and bags there is no ongoing cost of storage (i.e. rental costs) and the raw materials are not perishable (i.e. our Herbs do not wither and die over time if not used).

The absence of this cost from the market is what, in part, what allows World of Warcraft gold makers to operate strategies that are not so easily adopted in real life.


For example:

A gold maker can attempt to control supply by buying up all raw materials.  As long as they have the gold and storage space then their risk is that they can't make a profit on the raw materials they have controlled.

They benefit by preventing other crafters from competing due to lack of raw materials.

They also benefit by forcing up the price of the raw materials and therefore forcing up the price of the crafted products as other crafters raise prices to restore profit margins.

In the real world such an action would require considerable storage cost and the money tied up could be usefully earning a return elsewhere.

In the game, we all sit with surplus gold hence our inventory is not preventing us making profits elsewhere.  I am not having to make that decision of “invest at no risk for a small return vs invest at some risk for a greater return”.  My choice is “use some surplus funds to make an investment for risk vs leave the remaining surplus funds earning no return for no risk”.  Hence, buying up all the raw materials is a strategy seriously considered.


And the view of Blizzard on such an action?

To me, it is not clear what Blizzard’s view on this is.  I suspect they don’t really care given there is no obvious abuse of the market going on to the detriment of the player base that plays World of Warcraft for the questing / dungeons / raiding.

Furthermore, i can’t readily think of what Blizzard could do that would not have consequences elsewhere.  It is arguable that gold makers do keep the market alive with a consistent stream of raw materials and crafted items – though whether the prices are higher or lower than would otherwise be the case is debatable.

Friday Shout Out - FriendsShare

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

Jim Younkin of Powerword:Gold on his great Livestreams about 1:26:00 in mentions this blog when he was looking for an addon called FriendsShare Resurrecton.

I use this addon as part of my glyph market process to keep an eye on my competitors - so, worth a recap on what it does.

FriendsShare Resurrection is an Addon that lets you keep the same friends list across your characters on a server.

If you add or remove a friend then that friend will be added or removed on your other characters the next time you log onto them.

Hence, it makes sure all your characters automatically have the same friends which is very useful, indeed required, if you want to determine if your competitors are online and gives you an idea where they are and what they do whilst they are online.

When some of your friends/competitors leave WoW you will get the notice “player not found” and in which case you enter /friendsshare rebuild only once and your list is rebuilt on all your characters when you log onto them.

Jim Younkin's livestreams can be found on YouTube or embedded on Powerword:Gold

Scribe scrolls – i am selling more of these

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

Just recently i have started selling a lot more of the Scribe scrolls – notably Scroll of Agility IX and Scroll of Intellect IX.

Unlike many other items a scribe can produce, these scrolls can be substituted by other items – either a spell or a flask, for example.

These scrolls give the users an increase in the relevant ability by 100 for 30 minutes and counts as a battle elixir or gives some other stat increase and counts as a guardian elixir.

Hence, an increase in sales of these Scribe’s scrolls would indicate that there is demand and that the substitutes are not available or only available at a higher price.

I suspect during these slow times ahead of the Mists of Pandaria there are players levelling their toons at a time when the flask equivalents are not available.

These Scrolls of level IX all cost 1 blackfallow ink and 2 resilient parchment to craft 5 at a time.  Given herbs are now selling for 2 gold each (40 gold a stack) that equates to each five scrolls costing c7 gold (each stack of herbs produces c6 inks) and therefore each scroll costing 1.4 gold.

I sell them with a threshold of 10 gold each and a maximum price of 15 gold each making a hefty profit.

I set the threshold price at 10 gold so that if someone else starts posting lower i don’t start a price war and take the price all the way down to 1 gold – which is perfectly possible given these scrolls have competition from other items such as flasks.

I post 10 single scrolls at a time and they all sell at once.

At the moment i am the only seller and therefore i am selling each scroll for 15 gold.

The Flipping Market

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

The Flipping Market can develop into a business of its own.

It gives lumpy income but develop this broadly enough and the lumpiness starts to blend and provide a nice steady high level of earnings.

For me this is becoming one of my major income streams and is starting to challenge Enchanting as my number two earner.

Flipping, quite simply, is buying items off the Auction House and reposting them at a higher price.

My strategy here is to look for items that are priced way below the fair price, buy them and then repost at a good level below the fair price.

Therefore i am targeting 2 markets - those that want to use the item and those that want to flip again.

I am aim to buy for 5 gold and sell for 500 gold, or buy for 2000 gold and sell for 6000 gold, or buy for 4000 gold and sell for 10000 gold.  Not buy for 30 and sell for 100 or buy for 500 and sell for 800.  I want a few big winners not many small gains with this strategy.

The reason is that I will occasionally make a mistake and so will use up storage space for a while before I either make that sale or cut my losses and post at a very low price.

I don't have to buy every time i check the Auction House.  Indeed i don't even buy every day.



What is my method?

I use the Undermine Journal to scan for items that are priced substantially below their mean price.

Step 1:

I look at the Undermine Journal Deals Page – it scans the Auction House every 70 minutes.  It lists items under various categories showing the item, number available, lowest price on the Auction House, Mean Price and Standard Deviation.

What i am looking for are items that have a high mean price and are posted more than 2 standard deviations below the mean price.  These are the items that are likely posted on the Auction House too low and can be flipped.

Graphically, the Undermine Journal shows this with the gray horizontal like representing the mean price plus or minus two standard deviations with the black blob representing the current quoted price within this range.

Step 2:

When i find an item that looks interesting (=high mean price and current price more than two standard deviations below the mean price) then i investigate further my clicking on the item.

This opens a new Undermine Journal page that shows me the recent history and additional data on the item across other realms.

What i am checking for here is to make sure the item has not recently spiked in price (i.e. the price has not been manipulated higher to give a false high mean price) and that the mean price is also high in other realms (so further proof of the item’s value).

Step 3:

I also click on the item on this second Undermine Journal page to take a look at the WoWhead page.

What i am looking for here are to firstly make sure the item cannot be bought from a vendor and secondly to read the comments made to determine if this is a rare drop and not made out of date by a more recent item.

Step 4:

If i am satisfied by the prior steps then i buy the item and repost it at the stated mean less 1 standard deviation.  I post the item for 48 hours using Auctionator.

in this example the item sold within 24 hours:

So far, as a rule of thumb, the higher the mean price the quicker it sells. 

Setting up a Guild Bank

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

If you are entering a crafting market or markets in a serious fashion then storage space is a key resource.  The ability to store raw materials as you buy them at low prices on the Auction House is an absolute requirement.  The Bank and its bag slots are unlikely to prove sufficient and shuffling materials between alts will prove cumbersome.  To resolve this, owning a guild and being the sole member will give you an additional 588 storage slots.

In the Guild, each tab has 98 item slots and tabs are purchased much like bag slots in Banks.  The first tab costs 100 gold, the next 250 gold, then 500 gold and so on.  To buy all 6 tabs you would spend 9350 gold.

Technically, you can get 8 guild tabs but your guild needs to reach at least level 5 and, lets face it, a guild of one person used for crafting is not going to advance.

Setting up a Guild Bank.

The good news is that setting up a guild bank is very easy, quick and has a low cost (easily under 100 gold).

1) Talk to the Guild Master NPC in a major city to purchase the Charter for 10 silver (see below for the names and locations – but asking a City Guard will give you the location).
2) You need three other players to agree to be members of your guild to get it up and running. So, go to the starter area and ask players to sign the Charter in exchange for 10 gold.  All starter players, and even new alts, will be willing to do this.  Don’t be deceiving, explain that you only need their signatures and that they will be kicked from the guild when it is started.  So whisper the question first, if the answer is yes then present the charter to be signed.
3) Once you have the three signatures get back to the Guild Master NPC to register the guild and start it up
4) Kick the signatory players and there you have your Guild.

Be aware that the players that signed your Charter can delete their character or sign another Charter and so remove their signatures from your Charter.  So don’t hang around once you have your four signatures. Also, be aware that it is one signature per player – so a player’s alt cannot sign the charter.

The whole process should take less than half an hour.


The Downsides to having a Guild Bank.

1) That character can not belong to another guild –so say goodbye to raiding for that character.

2) It is hard to pass a guild bank to another alt –you will need a trusted friend online to allow you to pass the guild bank to them and then log on the alt to receive the guild bank.

Names and locations of the Guild Masters:
·         Guild master Lysheana at the Craftsmen's Terrace in Darnassus
·         Guild master Jondor Steelbrow at The Commons in Ironforge
·         Guild master Aldwin Laughin at the Trade District in Stormwind
·         Guild master Funaam at Trader's Tier in the Exodar
·         Guild master Andrew Matthews at Dalaran Visitor Center in Dalaran
·         Guild master Urtrun Clanbringer at the Valley of Strength in Orgrimmar
·         Guild master Krumn in Lower Rise in Thunder Bluff
·         Guild master Christopher Drakul at The Trade Quarter in Undercity
·         Guild master Tandrine at the Walk of the Elders in Silvermoon

The Holiday Battlers are back!

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

The Holiday Battlers are back on my server, and they are in a hurry.

These are the intrepid players that come back to World of Warcraft during the (school) holidays.  Their aim is to level up and gear up - and to that end they need the gold.  And their time is limited - they need to do this fast.  No doubt they can see Mists of Pandaria on the horizon and want to be prepared for that as well.

They run and dungeons, do the raids and hit the quests.  From all that exhausting efforts they have items to sell.

They know about the Auction House but they don't know the true value of what they post - especially rare drops where pricing data is limited.  They want to make a quick sell.

To that end, i am scanning the Auction House for good deals more often using the Undermine Journal quick deals page and my Snatch Lists.

I plan to write a post in my Flipping Business in the near future which is expanding fast - no doubt helped by these Holiday Battlers during this time.

Real Life Value of in game Gold

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

We now have a method to track this – via the “Guardian cub”

For 10 euros (or £8) any player can buy the Guardian Cub and then sell them to other players via the Auction House.

On my server there are about 2 to 3 on the Auction House at any one time and they are currently going for 4000 gold and move between 4000 gold and 5000 gold.  Hence, on my server each euro is worth 400 to 500 gold.

Within the EU, they typically sell for about 12000 on the Alliance side indicating that each euro is worth 1200 gold.

Those that buy the pet for euros to post on the Auction House are legitimately buying gold with the risk that the amount of gold is uncertain when the 10 euros are paid.

I don’t participate in this market but i do keep an eye on this price.  For me, it indicates the general health of the server and therefore the economy.

Guardian Cubs used to sell at 6500 gold and now have slipped back to 4000 to 5000gold.  Given the volumes on sale it is unlikely that natural demand is satisfied.  It is more likely that the server is merely becoming less active over time relative to other EU servers.

There is not much i can do about that unless i am offered a free transfer (with all my gold – and that is key) to another server – in which case i would need to do some fast and indepth research into the Inscription market on that server.

 

Selling more of Rituals of the New Moon

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

This is another item i am selling more of recently.

A scribe can produce a random book called Rituals of the New Moon with 5 Ink of Sea + 3 Eternal Shadow + 10 Resilient Parchment.  On my server that costs about 120gold (it used to be 85gold but costs are rising as the supply of Eternal Shadows falls).  The book created is either red, white, black or grey.

The acquirer of the book is able to transform into a giant wolf for 2 minutes.  The colour of the wolf is determined by which book they buy: red; white; black; or grey.  When transformed the user is pacified and silenced though they are able to, still do things like using or creating items.

The Rituals of the New Moon can only be crafted by a Scribe.  It does not drop from a mob nor can it be bought from a vendor. Scribes therefore are the sole supplier.

Furthermore, few Scribes bother to post these - making the supply very low.

Clearly, it is an item that serves no purpose other than aesthetics and yet there is demand.  There is very little competition on my server reflecting the low demand – though i now sell one a day.

I used to differentiate between the books given grey is the most common but now i just sell them all for 500 gold.

Required return per hour spent

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

There is no concept in World of Warcraft for how to measure what level of profit you should make to cover the risk you are taking.  For the record, in the real world it is about 2% (10 year US Treasury yields).

However, in World of Warcraft i am able to determine what level of profit you should make for each hour of time spent.

i do this with reference to gathering herbs.  Though it is not without its flaws.

I can gather 20 stacks of whiptail in an hour.  I can sell those at present for 40 gold a stack (2 gold a herb) over a 24 hour posting on the auction house.  Therefore, for each hour of gathering i can earn 800 gold.

Therefore, i determine that my gold making activities must make more than 800 gold per hour else i am better off gathering.

Following this through a bit more.  At present, the supply of herbs is low, hence i believe i could gather for 2 hours a day and therefore sell 40 stacks of whiptail each day at 40 gold a stack for 7 days (i.e. 2 hours gathering every day).

That gives me 11200 gold per week.

Therefore, i determine that if i spend 2 hours a day on gold making activities then i must make over 11200 gold per week – else i should revert to gathering.

Though markets are slow, my Inscription profession is earning me over 11200 gold per week at present before i add in the profits from Enchanting and flipping.