Specifics

Most of my posts, at least recently, have been about theory just general knowledge.  Being Christmas and all, let's focus on materialism...er...actual facts and figures.

What's been selling?

Gems are still going at an ok pace, but prices have been pretty depressing.  At least from a seller's perspective; from a buyer's perspective, times have never been better.  Gem prices are low.  How low? They barely command a premium (if at all) over uncut gem prices. 

Enchants are also still selling, but at nowhere near the profit they once were.  And enchanting mats have become incredibly cheap on my server as well.  So I still maintain a decent margin percentage wise, but gold wise, profits are way down.

Pets are profitable, as usual, but I farm them myself.  I recently sold a level 8 Rotten Little Helper (upgraded to Blue/Rare quality for 14,000g.  I also sold a Rotten Helper Box (which turns into a level 1 green quality pet) for the same price.  Prices are dropping quickly on them though, as more people get them themselves through the daily, and get extras.  My advice to you is to sell quickly if you have extras.

I also sold a [Cat Carrier (Black Tabby)] for 4500g.  This is on the very low end of what it should sell for, and really below.  However, even at that price level, I've had it for sale for months.  I got it out of an Idiot Box anyhow, so I was just glad to get a little of my money wasted back.  I could have gotten a piece of Horde PvP that vendored for 20g, so it's not all bad.

Transmog gear still sells about the same, slowly.  I'm not huge in that market, but I dabble a bit. Most of what I pick up is from random pieces people throw on the AH, so the investment is usually under 100g, and very often 10-20g.  But with sales of 400g on the low end, and 5000g+ on the high end, it's quite worthwhile.

"Uber MoP blues" (stuff like Matsuba's Breadmaker) can still be quite profitable as well.  But many of the ilevel 409+ plus items that can be equipped at 80-85 have tanked.  Especially the ilevel 450 gear.  Be cautious if you're still buying these items.  Don't just look at current prices, or even historical prices.  Look at the trend of what they're selling for.  The weapons that can be equipped at 80-84 are still quite hot, so I'd look at those as good investments, at least for the next few months.

Gem Specifics

Here are the prices of my gem sales over the past 24 hours (prices only, I sold multiples of most, if not all):

• Purified Imperial Amethyst: 85g
• Brilliant Primordial Ruby: 71g
• Smooth Sun's Radiance: 95g
• Misty Wild Jade: 70g
• Fractured Sun's Radiance: 75g
• Delicate Primordial Ruby: 88g
• Wicked Vermilion Onyx: 160g
• Lightning Wild Jade: 190g
• Energized Wild Jade: 90g

 For comparison, the prices of uncut (as of right now, minimum buyout):

• Sun's Radiance: 39g
• Imperial Amethyst: 58g
• Primordial Ruby: 61g
• Wild Jade: 74g
• Vermilion Onyx: 100g

So overall, still a profit to be made, especially transmuting Golden Lotus and green gems up to rare, then cutting.

Enchants Specifics

Here are the prices of my enchanting scroll sales over the past 24 hours (again, prices only)

• Enchant Gloves - Super Strength: 157g (120g profit)
• Enchant Gloves - Superior Mastery: 47g (20g profit)
• Enchant Chest - Glorious Stats: 138g (110g profit)
• Enchant Cloak - Superior Critical Strike: 123g (110g profit)
• Enchant Boots - Blurred Speed: 85g (29g profit)
• Enchant Boots - Greater Haste: 94g (80g profit)
• Enchant Boots - Pandaren's Step: 180g (130g profit)
• Enchant Shield - Greater Parry: 80g (24g profit)

And minimum buyout on enchanting mats:

• Spirit Dust: 1.2g
• Mysterious Essence: 10g
• Ethereal Shard: 16g
• Sha Crystal: 74g

Cheap Ethereal Shards are a great value.  They're easily converted to Essences, which almost always are more than 1/3 the price of a Shard on the AH.  And in a pinch, you can convert your Essences to Dust, if for some reason Dust spikes on your server and you've run out.

The End is Not Here

It's not really even near.  And that's true whether you're talking about the current expansion cycle, or the game as a whole.  Warlords is many months off (I'm optimistically hoping for late fall 2014).  With people continuing to play, gearing alts in LFR and Flex, and server mergers, there's plenty of opportunities.  Everything isn't going gangbusters anymore, but it's still a pretty good time to be a Goblin.

Starting Over

Today, we're returning to Auction House Addict's 20 Days of Gold Making. 

Day 7:  If you were starting over again (maybe on a new server perhaps), how would you start building some capital & what goal would you set yourself?

Starting over.  It's hard for me to fathom.  It'd be challenge for sure, but it'd probably be a lot of fun. 

Starting Out

First off, I'd take a look at the market on The Undermine Journal.  I'd look at What low level gathered mats are selling for the most (probably ore).  Then I'd roll a level one, head to the nearest AH, and start research further.  Sometimes it's easy to parse markets and data by directly looking at auctions.

If I was just playing the AH, and not planning on playing/leveling any toons, I'd roll a DK. After I ended up in Stormwind (or Orgrimmar), I'd head to the profession trainer for the gathering professions I'd selected (mining, and possible herbalism).  Then off I'd head to the lowbie zones to start gathering and leveling my professions.

If I was planning on leveling toons, I'd just start with the class of my choice, grab professions, and gather while leveling.

After spending whatever time I'd allotted to gather/level, I'd head back to the AH and list my mats.  Then I'd look at the AH and TUJ again, seeing what I can reinvest in to flip.  The next day rinse, repeat, and profit.

If I was just changing servers on the same account, I'd likely just cage some pets on the new server.  Barking in trade would work fairly well, then just listing on the AH when I logged for the day.

Setting Goals

Personally, I wouldn't set any goals right away.  I'd give it a week or two, see how things were going, then look at setting goals.  A likely goal would initially be 10,000g after 2 weeks, then reevaluating after the 2 weeks.

That's all folks

That's all for this week.  Lots of stuff going on in the real world for me this week and next, so posts have to be even more brief than usual.  Best of luck, and good selling!

Spending Money

Gold sitting in your bank is not doing you any good.  But Honus, you say, "I can do all kinds of things with my gold.  I can buy that mount I want!  I can buy that rare pet, or buy better armor for my alts!"  Well, go on and do that then.  I'll wait for you to get back.

Got that new ride?  Sweet.  The gold still sitting in your bank is doing nothing for you.

You can use gold for quite a few things.  Some of those things advance your character, either in power, prestige, or vanity.  Whatever you feel is worth spending gold on is fine.  You should do whatever makes you happy with your gold.  But if you're looking to make more gold, you're not going to do it by just sitting on your stockpile of gold.  It doesn't matter if you have 1,000g or 1,000,000g.

In the real world, if you put your money in a bank, you generally earn interest.  The interest rates on CDs and savings accounts are currently abysmally low (talking less than 1%).  But you still do earn money on them. No such thing exists for WoW.  Your gold in your bank doesn't earn interest.  It doesn't do much of anything, other than being there when you want to spend it.

Another concept that's important is inflation.  100g in Vanilla could buy a lot more compared to 100g in MoP.  It was also much harder to come by that 100g in Vanilla.  You'd have to go out and farm herbs or ore or cloth or even gold itself to get it.   In MoP, do 3 or 4 daily quests, and you're done.

All of this to say: You have to spend money to make money.  The more you have on the AH, or available to sell (immediately, or when the time is right), the more you're going to make.  Exactly how much of your gold you should have tied up in items to sell is hard to put an exact figure on.  If you're gold capped (or more), you may have a hard time having more than 20 or 30% of your wealth in items (maybe not, depends on your server).  If you have significantly less, you'll likely be able to have the majority of your wealth in items.

A few things to keep in mind:

1. Always have enough gold (or materials) around to fund whatever your main objectives outside gold making are.  If you're a raider, that means always having flasks, potions and possibly buff food.  Always have money for repairs.
2. Do your research before you buy anything.  The Undermine Journal is always a good resource, but there are many more.
3. Take risks.  The greater (educated) risk you take, the greater rewards you are likely to reap.
4. Don't spend more than you're willing to lose.  When you take risks (which you need to be doing), you're going to lose occasionally.  Maybe one day I'll tell the story about my massive Runecloth stockpile.  But I digress.
5. If you see an opportunity, take it.  Even if it's a stretch.  

In short, don't be afraid to spent a lot of gold. You'll earn it back, and you'll earn more than if you don't make bold purchases.  Fortune favors the bold.

Ethics and the Economy

Most of the time, ethics doesn't cross my mind when buying and selling on the auction house.  As far as WoW goes, I live by caveat emptor.  Let the buyer beware.  I'm not going to get into real life politics too much, suffice to say in the real world, a market ruled by caveat emptor alone is a really, really bad idea. 

In WoW, it's a much different story.  No one can come to personal or financial harm as a result of auction house transactions.  Well, mostly.

Before I continue, please keep in mind I'm only referring to the auction house, and to gold only transactions.  I would strongly advise you to NEVER get involved in any transaction that involves real money (TCG codes, Blizzard store pets/mounts, game time, etc).  Also, if you buy anything out of trade that seems too good to be true, it probably is.  So three rules:

1. Only pay gold for something that can be traded in the trade window, and even then, be careful.
2. Don't do anything against the ToS, or that involves real money in any way.
3. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.  Walk away.

Buying from the AH is almost always fine (from Blizzard's standpoint).   Outside the AH, you could run into issues.  Follow the above three rules, and you'll probably be fine.  With the disclaimers out of the way, let's get to the meat of the issue. 

If you buy a item, or number of items for a ridiculously low price, it's generally for one of 4 reasons:

1. It was a typo.  Unfortunate for them, but they'll learn the lesson, and probably not make that mistake again.  
2. They're clearing out their bank. They might prepping for quitting the game, getting out of buying and selling on a regular basis, or a myriad of other reasons.  They're purposely selling stuff really cheap.
3. It's a hacked account.  Someone's account was hacked by a third party, said third party is selling all their stuff, then probably selling that gold for real money.  They'll sell as much as they can, cheaply, because they want the gold off the account before Blizzard or the account holder figures out what's going on, and the account gets locked down.
4. It's materials from a gathering bot.

Obviously in case 2, there's no ethical issue.  In case 1, there might be an emotional or courteousy issue.  There's circumstances under which I could see myself returning the item (assuming they refund me whatever I paid for it).  Rare circumstances mind you, as I can be heartless, but I'm not completely so.

Cases 3 and 4 are tough to determine.  It's hard to know for sure if it really is a hacked account or from a bot.  It could be case 1 or 2.  It can be case 1 even if it's a lot of items; they may have typo'd in an auction mod and just didn't notice it.  The more familiar you are with the game and auction house, and the economy on your server in particular, you start to have a better feeling for when it's a hacked account or bot.  Still not ironclad, but odds are you have a pretty good idea.

This is where the issue of ethics comes up.  Hacked accounts are not good for the affected individuals, nor the community as a whole.  It's ultimately bad for the economy, and hurts people that are legitimately gathering by driving down prices. Bots are also bad for the economy (at least everyone besides the botter), for the same reason.

So let's say you're reasonably certain the items in question are botted or from a hacked account.  Do you buy them?  Why or why not? 

Your competitors will probably buy them.  The buyer might not even be buying for crafting mats or resale.  They may just be leveling a profession.  There will definitely be at least one person that won't even consider the ethics of the situation.  But will you?

It's hard to say if there's a right answer.  If it could be answered on a macro or community basis, I think the consensus would be that no one should buy them.  It would make bots useless (they couldn't sell the mats, at least in great quantity as they'd risk detection).  Hacked accounts would be somewhat less valuable (besides the gold, which is obviously liquid), which could lead to fewer compromised accounts.

Just some things to think about.  If you persist in the gold making business, odds are this situation will come up eventually.  Make the choice that you'll be comfortable with, even if it means less gold in your pocket.

Georgophobia

That's the fear of farmers.  Couldn't find a term for fear of farms/farming, so here we are.  A ham-handed attempt at being clever.  So, what's this all about?  Hint: It's not just about the Tillers!

Time is Money, Friend!

For many of us in the gold making business, we don't head out in the world to advance our ventures.  Often, we have alts camped at specific places, log on to them to craft, harvest and replant at our farm, do profession cooldowns, and buy and sell at the Auction House.  Were they living, breathing beings, they would be miserable.  Only doing a couple of set tasks every day, running back and forth to the same spots, joints aching from repetitive motion...But I digress.

There's a reason for this, and best best way to explain it is: "Time is money". The activities listed above generally provide the more gold per hour than farming (of any kind).  And gold per hour is really what you want to concern yourself with, because it takes into account both the gold you earn, and the time you spend to get it.

Time is a scarce resource.  Meaning, there's only so many hours in a day you can play WoW.  In theory, that limit is 24 hours a day.  But that's unrealistic, not to mention unhealthy.

Plants versus Metals

Let's compare 2 actual activities.

Activity A:  Tillers farm plot.  I plant harvest and plant herbs every day.  It takes roughly 5 minutes.  Harvesting yields about 5 Golden Lotus, plus 35 other herbs.  Golden Lotus is currently about 55g on my server, and the other herbs about 1g each.  That's a total of 310 gold.  A Bag of Enigma Seeds costs 27g (with the guild perk), has 10 charges.  2.7g per charge, 4 charges per day, is 10.8g.  So in about 5 minutes, I make ~300g, which is 3600g per hour.

Activity B: Ghost Iron Ore gathering.  Let's say you can gather 30 stacks of Ghost Iron Ore per hour.  30 stacks x 20 per stack x 3g each is 1800g, so that's 1800g per hour.

So Activity A nets you double the gold per hour that Activity B will.  But wait you say!  Activity A only earned me 300g, and Activity B would earn me 1800g!  But if you did both activities for the same amount of time, you'd get double the gold from A than you would from B.

In this particular example, you can't harvest and replant your Tiller's farm for an hour on a single toon.  You can only do it once, then wait until the next day.  But, if you had 12 toons with 12 farms, you could. However, that's unrealistic for most players.  Still, the point stands.  Tiller's farm harvesting is much more profitable per hour compared to Ghost Iron Ore gathering.

Ok, So What Now?

Let's take this to a practical level.  Every day, you'll need to spend time listing (and probably cancelling) auctions.  That's what is going to drive your gold making.  You'll want to use whatever methods you can to limit this time, but it's always going to be greater than zero.

Figure out how much time you have to spend on making gold.  Subtract the time you'll spend at the auction house.  You'll want to spend the amount of time you have left on the most profitable activity possible.  Right now (Patch 5.4.1), that is likely going to be Tiller's Farm on as many toons as possible, plus "other time".  Consider all the activities you can make gold doing, and figure out which makes you the most gold per hour.  That's the activity you should be doing during that other time.  It could be gathering ore, it could be searching the auction house for cheap deals.  It might even be reading blogs or looking at the Consortium. The best thing to do will vary by server, your professions, amount of time you have, and maybe even other factors.  What might be right for you, may not be right for some.

Sorry, but we just can't keep 'em on our shelves

Day 6 of 20 Days of Gold Making.

6. Which market has made you the most gold over the years?

This...is a tough one.  I think I'd have to go with Jewelcrafting, but Glyphs would certainly be second.

My main has been a Jewelcrafter since it became my main in Wrath, but I also made her a scribe at the start of Wrath as well (and have Realm First! Grand Master Scribe to prove it too!).

In order of total profit, I'd guess:
Jewelcrafting
Glyphs/Shoulder Enchants
Enchanting (tied)
Darkmoon Cards (tied)
Pets
Elementals (Stuff like Volatiles, Crystallized Fire, etc)
Crafted Gear
Overpowered MoP Blues (stuff like Bjam's Door Breaker)
Transmog Gear
Miscellaneous

Glyphs can be an extremely profitable profession, but takes a lot of time to maintain and create stock, even in the best conditions (little to no competition).  In the worst conditions (AH White Knights and/or lots of competition), it can drive you insane.  White Knights will not only uncut you, they'll undercut by large amounts, often below crafting cost.  Heavy competition will constantly undercut you, often by small amounts, but extremely frequently.  You'll fight to make precious few sales, and possibly question your sanity after cancelling and reposting 300 auctions 10 times in 1 hour.  Not saying I've done that or anything...

Jewelcrafting, by and large, is consistently profitable.  Obviously competition plays a factor here, but right after big (read Raid) patches, people are buying gems so fast that undercutting isn't an issue.  As a matter of fast, buyers sometimes drive prices up by buying all of a particular gem up, allowing the first seller to restock to effectively set a new price point.

Enchanting is steady as well.  Max level enchanting scrolls almost always sell above crafting cost.  And like gems, they've sold like wildfire since 5.4.

Time is money friend!

Oh, and the title?  It's a quote from O Brother Where Art Thou?

Combo Post - Bank Alts

Day 4/5 of 20 Days of Gold Making.

I don't think I have enough to say about these two individually to make a solid post.  So, combo post!

Day 4. Do you use a banker alt/guild? When did you start doing that & why?

I definitely use a bank alt.  It was created back in BC in order to have a central place to mail all my materials/stuff to sell.  As I got more "advanced", it was helpful to just have auction mods turned on for one bank toon, rather than all of my characters.

I created an alt guild for the character shortly after, and started using the guild bank immediately after it was implemented.  Guild banks were a huge boon to gold makers.  The ability to have all of your items accessible on one toon was a game changer.

Day 5. Do you keep the same banker alt or do you change them up occasionally? Why?

I've had the same bank alt since it was created; I don't change them.  It's probably more due to laziness than anything else.  I just don't want to take the time to set everything back up for them.  And on my server, I don't find a need to.  No one talks much about the big sellers, and we very rarely talk amongst ourselves. I don't think most people even look at the seller's name when buying.  I use Auctionator for buying, so the seller name isn't ever displayed.  (Note, I use TSM for nearly everything.  I just find Auctionator more effective for buying).

At one point, I used my enchanter/scribe as a second auction toon, simply for convenience, for glyphs and enchant scrolls.  At that time, both toons were in the consistently among the top sellers on The Undermine Journal.  However, I've since exited the glyph market (mostly), and now I just sell everything under my "main" bank alt.

Cheers!

We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Blog Post...

Another Milestone hit!  Double gold cap; 2 Million on one side of one server.  I knew it was coming eventually, but very happy to be here.

Around 6 months ago, I was sitting on about 1.5 million gold.  And then, a Mimiron's Head showed up on my server's BMAH.  While I contemplated gold capping it, I took the risk and didn't.  I ended up getting it for 525k, which honestly, seemed reasonable.  Back when Ulduar was current content, my guild was doing Alone in the Darkness (and we got server first on it).  We got probably 10 Mimiron's Head, and about the same amount of Invincible's Reins.  Unfortunately, not only did I not get either one, but several people in the guild got BOTH mounts.  Which honestly, was incredibly selfish of them.  But so it goes.  The next Mimiron's Head that showed up on our BMAH went for gold cap.  And I don't think another one has shown up since.

Anyhow, after I won Mimiron's head, I spent another 200,000 or so buying a bunch of vendor mounts to get over 200 mounts for the upcoming achievement.   I slowly starting building back up.  But then a Rocket Chicken showed up.  Boom, 150k gone.  A Hippogryph Hatchling showed up, goodbye 60k.  Oh look, a Dragon Kite, sayonara 50k.  So the spending spree knocked me down quite a bit, and I started working my way back up.

5.4 has been amazing for selling.  I can hardly gems and enchants stocked.  I blew through my stockpile of Golden Lotus and Ghost Iron like it was nothing.  Lotus is up to 60-70g now, primarily due to the gem market being so active.  Ghost Iron is slightly above normal, but the supply is pretty low.

I had leveled an extra engineer prior to 5.4, bringing me to 3.  Now granted, I wasn't counting on a huge profit from the mount and pets.  But I knew I wanted a mount and the 2 pets for myself.  I figured having another to sell a couple pets or mount would be a good idea.  I made a mount and learned it the first available day.  Then I made a couple pets.  Reason being, mounts aren't selling, and people are undercutting each other faster than a hooker's panties drop on payday.  But the (admittedly overpriced) pets aren't selling either.  At least there's little to no competition there.

Best of luck in your gold making adventures!

Once More, With Feeling

Day 3 of 20 Days of Gold Making.

This fast turning into 20 Months of Gold Making.  So much going on for me in real life, I rarely take the time to try to blog/write anything that isn't assigned/required.  But I digress.

Day 3: What were the first techniques/tricks/tips you used when starting out?

Early on in Vanilla, all my auctioning was done manually.  While mods existed, I wasn't aware of or even knew to look for AH mods.  I'm not exactly sure when I started using Auctioneer, but it had to be sometime in Burning Crusade.

There weren't any dailies in Vanilla, so that wasn't an option.  Flipping wasn't even on my radar.  So I either had to farm stuff to sell for gold, or get gold directly from mobs.  I chose the former.

For me, that mostly meant farming fire elementals in Un'Goro Crater.  As a matter of fact, that farming at least partially inspired the first WoW video I made.  Be warned, this video is 7 years old now.



I spent a lot of time farming Essence of Fire, Elemental Fire, and Heart of Fire.  While doing so, I made a few acquaintances.  Gold farmers.  You see, back in the day, gold farmers actually farmed gold and items.  Truth be told, I'm conflicted about that kind of farming.  If someone is willing to legitimately farm items, and someone else is willing to pay real money for them, the capitalist in me is ok with that.  However, I know it's against Blizz TOS and the condition in which gold farmers lived was abysmal.  But since gold farmers don't actually do this anymore (I guess they still farm raids maybe?), it's no longer much of a question.

While not focused on much by gold bloggers anymore, this still actually works pretty well.  Farming high demand items is quite profitable, even looking at the time it takes and opportunity cost.  It's probably worth your time to farm ore these days, though herbs not so much.  Herbs have tanked in 5.4, save Golden Lotus.

In past expansions, farming elemental items could be especially lucrative.  But in MoP, that died with Spirit of Harmony.  There's pluses and minuses to that change, that's probably a good topic for a separate post.

I hope you enjoyed this little trip down memory lane.  Sorry I don't have many early tips/tricks from when I first started.  Gold making wasn't on many people's radar back then.

Day 2

Time for Day 2 of 20 Days of Gold Making.

Day 2: If you set yourself a goal, what was your goal & at what point did you set it?

For most of my gold making career, I simply set the goal of "make as much as possible".  And honestly, that mostly worked for my needs from Vanilla through Cataclysm.  However, during that time, I didn't see gold making so much as a goal in to itself but rather as a means to an end.  When something came along I wanted, I wanted to have the funds to buy it.

That changed in early Mists.  I'm at a point where I can no longer raid as seriously (though I still enjoy the amount I'm able to do).  But while I can't raid as much, I do have a lot of time at the computer where I can multitask.  So I started doing more reading on strategies and markets.  I started spending more time on The Consortium and The Undermine Journal.  I looked at trends on my server, looked at where profits could be had.

Once I picked a couple markets that seemed to offer a good return on time invested.  One I started seeing a steady income stream, I set a goal to finally hit the gold cap.  I didn't set a time limit, but pushed myself to reach it as quickly as possible.

I hit it.  I felt truly satisfied, and rested on my laurels for a couple weeks.  And then I set a new goal of reaching 2 Million within the next 60 days.  While I'm not quite on track to hit it at this point, it's motivated me to keep up with posting and reposting.  And more importantly, be aggressive in buying resources, and the occasional flipping.  I'll probably take another look at goals once the summer hits, and I have a bit more free time.

If you're wondering about how to set your own goals, I think there are two options:  
1. Set a gold goal.  Set a number, set a date, and work towards it
2. Set an item goal.  Always wanted that mammoth, but could never afford it?  There's your goal.

Don't ever get discouraged that you don't have as much gold as someone else.  We all started out penniless. And not only that, there's always a bigger fish.  That is, someone else will always have more than you.  Decide where you want to be, and work towards that.  Don't worry about your friend or guildmate.

Tomorrow:  Day 3: What were the first techniques/tricks/tips you used when starting out?

- Honus 2/25/13

20 Days of Gold Making - Day 1

The Auction House Addict blog had a fantastic idea.  A set of 20 topics, meant to span 20 days:  20 Days of Gold Making.  While most bloggers are just finishing up, I've just now been inspired enough to start.

So.  Day 1 question: When did you start making gold & what triggered it?

Day 1 Answer: Around the middle of vanilla, and being an efficient farmer.

I started playing about a year after release, December 2005.  Early on, I was hooked.  I played most of the day, nearly every day.  My personal situation was such where this was feasible, and somewhat sustainable.  I raided, but not as seriously as I'd like.  The farming requirement for raiding was fairly high for some, but I found I had a knack for it.  I could easily farm far more than I could use, and quickly found I could make quite a bit on my extras.  

My earliest farming memories were in Un'Goro crater, at Fire Plume Ridge.  Despite being a Paladin (and raiding Vanilla Paladins were Holy Paladins; that's just the way it was), I was pretty effective at farming those fire elementals.  Occasionally, I'd get the odd Chinese farmer competing with me, and I'd have to quit, as they were far more effective than I (Hunter versus Holy Pally, who'd have thunk?).

Eventually though, I'd strike deals with them, buying their extra Heart of Flames and Elemental Fire.  They were more interested in the super valuable Essence of Fire; running off to sell or mail anything else wasn't efficient enough.  Travel time was a big deal back then.  No flying mounts.  Flight points didn't connect automatically.  If you wanted to fly from Tanaris to Felwood, you had to stop and talk to the Flight Master at every point in between.  No portable mailboxes.  No vendor mounts.  But I digress.

So I could transmute the Hearts into more Elemental Fires.  I picked up Un'Goro soil.  I mined.  I dropped blacksmithing for herbalism.  I picked flowers.  I sold everything, destroyed nothing.  Soon I had built myself up a nice little stash of gold, and picked up the niceties.  Epic mount.  The occasional BoE. Soon I wasn't ever worrying about repairs, and if something I wanted popped up on the AH, I always had the money for it.  I loaned mount money, and sometimes gave it out.

And then, Burning Crusade hit.  Things changed, and fast, and mostly for the better, at least from my perspective.  But that's a story for another time.

Tomorrow.  Or sometime.  Day 2: If you set yourself a goal, what was your goal & at what point did you set it?

Starting up again

This is about my 5th attempt at maintaining a gold making blog.  Mostly I update for a week or two, then get busy with other things and stop updating.  One of these days I'll have to make some goals regarding updating.

So, to restart myself, I'm going to use Auction House Addict's 20 Days of Gold Making Community Idea.  Maybe I'll get through Day 5.  Time will tell.