Last week I hit that magic number - one million gold. Am I excited? A little, but not very. There is a start to the journey but there is no finish line. The current gold cap is just a built-in limit for one character, so you can accumulate 10 mil on one realm and up to 50 mil on one WoW account plus some more in guild banks. I can't imagine anyone would ever want so much gold, even 1 million is an insane amount. And here I am, staring at the screen, at that number in the Auditor add-on window.
My Road To
Was it my goal to get 1 million? Yes. Why? Because it is often mentioned as a goal of other gold bloggers, though not every one of them is going in that direction.
Now it is difficult to remember how and when I started making gold in WoW. I told my story in the very first post. You can see that my journey began already in Cataclysm. I missed all the gold making opportunities of the beginning of the expansion, such as "glyphmas". My way was steady, without big spikes in sales and income, and that is the way I prefer.
If you look through all the posts in the blog, you will see a few weekly reports with pretty big numbers of sales and profit and a few small gold making tips. There is not much there, I agree (the only post I am proud of is the one about flipping single Darkmoon cards). A logical question to ask is: where all that numbers come from?
What professions do I use?
Jewelcrafting, enchanting, inscription, tailoring, alchemy. I also have herbalism and mining, but I don't farm, only pick something on my way.
What gold making methods do I use?
All that are available to me with the given set of professions. They are described very well in all the major gold blogs. Here is the list:
- Jewelcrafting: cut rare gems and metagems, obsidium shuffle, elementium shuffle, high level jewelry, WotLK rare and epic gems
- Enchanting: disenchanting for materials, 10-15 enchants that are the most profitable, enchanting pets
- Inscription: all glyphs on one side and some on the other (my second scribe is still doing research to discover more), relics, Dust of disappearance, inks
- Tailoring: cloth pvp gear, bags, low level vanity gear
- Alchemy: Truegold, rare gems transmute, Primal might, Arcanite bar, some potions
- flipping and cross-faction trade: single Darkmoon cards, pets, cloth pvp gear, relics
- Cooking: Cata buff food
I guess you did not see anything new in my list as these are all well-known methods. You can find many more gold tips, tricks and strategies. The most important thing I understood was that you can not cover each and every profitable market on your server. Any gold making method takes time and time is limited.
How long did it take to reach the gold cap?
Milestones:
beginning of April - 400k
beginning of May - 500k (after spending 170k on mounts)
beginning of June - 1 mil (after spending 60k on a mount)
It is nice to know that I can make 500k a month. Weekly reports are very useful for getting a big-picture view of all your gold-making activities and organizing them more efficiently.
Why I had so much time to devote to gold making?
The answer is very simple - my guild is small and is not raiding. Often there are not enough guildies online to run a heroic. I was looking for something to do alone.
What do I do in game besides making gold?
I do not raid. I rarely run dungeons. The last time I pvped was when Blizzard was giving 1800 honor points for a win in Tol Barad. Is there anything left? Yes, there is. Achievements. I mean those other kinds of achievements, like reputations, quests, professions and general. The most valuable to me is Mountain o'Mounts (got it on May, 27th), not to mention that I bought three TGC mounts that cost me 200k total and delayed my reaching the gold cap by two weeks. A valuable achievement, indeed.
My Road From
How did I reward myself for reaching 1 mil gold mark?
Probably, you will laugh at me. I bought 310% flying for my main. I can spend huge amounts of gold on rare mounts or stockpiling materials, but tend to delay the purchase of those things that I can buy in game at any time.
Where am I going to do now, when the goal is reached?
I have not decided yet. This week I continued my daily routine and made more gold. I am doing it "on autopilot", but I plan to change the way I spend time in game. Here is the list of options that I am considering:
- to post auctions less frequently (once a day or every other day)
- to drop some markets completely
- to make a list of 50/100 best-selling items across all the professions and sell only those
What do I plan to do with the time that will be freed?
Anything that I don't do now: heroics, battlegrounds, twinking, dual boxing and, of course, all kinds of experiments in gold making.
Have a nice day!
P.S. My post looks much like a Warcraft Econ interview, but I did not do it on purpose. I am still thinking if I should submit my interview there.
If you look through all the posts in the blog, you will see a few weekly reports with pretty big numbers of sales and profit and a few small gold making tips. There is not much there, I agree (the only post I am proud of is the one about flipping single Darkmoon cards). A logical question to ask is: where all that numbers come from?
What professions do I use?
Jewelcrafting, enchanting, inscription, tailoring, alchemy. I also have herbalism and mining, but I don't farm, only pick something on my way.
What gold making methods do I use?
All that are available to me with the given set of professions. They are described very well in all the major gold blogs. Here is the list:
- Jewelcrafting: cut rare gems and metagems, obsidium shuffle, elementium shuffle, high level jewelry, WotLK rare and epic gems
- Enchanting: disenchanting for materials, 10-15 enchants that are the most profitable, enchanting pets
- Inscription: all glyphs on one side and some on the other (my second scribe is still doing research to discover more), relics, Dust of disappearance, inks
- Tailoring: cloth pvp gear, bags, low level vanity gear
- Alchemy: Truegold, rare gems transmute, Primal might, Arcanite bar, some potions
- flipping and cross-faction trade: single Darkmoon cards, pets, cloth pvp gear, relics
- Cooking: Cata buff food
I guess you did not see anything new in my list as these are all well-known methods. You can find many more gold tips, tricks and strategies. The most important thing I understood was that you can not cover each and every profitable market on your server. Any gold making method takes time and time is limited.
How long did it take to reach the gold cap?
Milestones:
beginning of April - 400k
beginning of May - 500k (after spending 170k on mounts)
beginning of June - 1 mil (after spending 60k on a mount)
It is nice to know that I can make 500k a month. Weekly reports are very useful for getting a big-picture view of all your gold-making activities and organizing them more efficiently.
Why I had so much time to devote to gold making?
The answer is very simple - my guild is small and is not raiding. Often there are not enough guildies online to run a heroic. I was looking for something to do alone.
What do I do in game besides making gold?
I do not raid. I rarely run dungeons. The last time I pvped was when Blizzard was giving 1800 honor points for a win in Tol Barad. Is there anything left? Yes, there is. Achievements. I mean those other kinds of achievements, like reputations, quests, professions and general. The most valuable to me is Mountain o'Mounts (got it on May, 27th), not to mention that I bought three TGC mounts that cost me 200k total and delayed my reaching the gold cap by two weeks. A valuable achievement, indeed.
My Road From
How did I reward myself for reaching 1 mil gold mark?
Probably, you will laugh at me. I bought 310% flying for my main. I can spend huge amounts of gold on rare mounts or stockpiling materials, but tend to delay the purchase of those things that I can buy in game at any time.
Where am I going to do now, when the goal is reached?
I have not decided yet. This week I continued my daily routine and made more gold. I am doing it "on autopilot", but I plan to change the way I spend time in game. Here is the list of options that I am considering:
- to post auctions less frequently (once a day or every other day)
- to drop some markets completely
- to make a list of 50/100 best-selling items across all the professions and sell only those
What do I plan to do with the time that will be freed?
Anything that I don't do now: heroics, battlegrounds, twinking, dual boxing and, of course, all kinds of experiments in gold making.
Have a nice day!
P.S. My post looks much like a Warcraft Econ interview, but I did not do it on purpose. I am still thinking if I should submit my interview there.
yes you should submit if only to stick a badge on your achievement! There is no ingame achieve for gold stuffs so take a listing on warcraft econ as your reward at least :) Might make it seem a litttle less anti-climatic & also a two-finger salute to those nay-sayers around you :D
ReplyDeleteCongrats on the big 1M! That takes a lot of dedication and anything you decide to so with your time now is a fine reward! Your penny pouch is indeed epic.
ReplyDeleteThat will be up to you to decide. At the moment we have only 13 gold cap interviews, so we think it is still an amazing achievement.
ReplyDeleteCongratz! I'd consider changing guild, if there are things you wanna do in-game which can't be done cause of lack of players/motivation. Staying in a guild is fine if it brings you the maximum joy that you can get, but if not it's better to move on and never look back.
ReplyDeleteI like the way you outlined this post!
Congrats on the 1 million marker, Look forward to seeing you on warcraft econ. I'd say to drop a few markets completely. Out of the ones you listed I'd think that DE'ing for profit takes the most effort for the least amount of income. Still keep working your favorite markets and not just the hot items. At this point the only real goal you could have on the AH is 2 million or 50 million. You've proven you can hit a million so it's now just a matter of time before you double up. Do what's fun.
ReplyDelete