Finally a new official gold sink in patch 3.3, in the form of a new 24-slot bag sold by Haris Pilton. This is only 2 extra slots in comparison to [Glacial Bag].

• [Portable Hole] – 3000g (Haris Pilton located in Shattrath City)

More mini-pets are added to the Breanni NPC in Dalaran.

• Calico Cat – 50g
• Albino Snake – 50g

[Arctic Fur]can now be purchased from Braeg Stoutbeard in Dalaran for 10x [Heavy Borean Leather]. This will tie both prices together as in 40g for furs will mean leather will go for 4g each. However what will most likely happen is that prices for [Heavy Borean Leather] will increase.

Boubouille from MMO-Champion.com says:

This will probably be enough to rise the price of the leather to a point where people won’t be able to buy it from the AH and craft items to sell them back to NPCs for a profit.

Full list of ilvl 264 epic patterns, most likely obtained from the new Icecrown Raid instance.

• 18 new ilevel 264 patterns

Four new ilevel 251 Kirin Tor Rings have been added.

• [Runed Band of the Kirin Tor]
• [Runed Loop of the Kirin Tor]
• [Runed Ring of the Kirin Tor]
• [Runed Signet of the Kirin Tor]

Now a question for the readers; What type of official gold sink would you like to be added to the game and how much gold/currency would it cost?

I’m Sovash of Korgath-US, on the Alliance side. I’ve played a LOT of Red Alert 2, Supreme Commander, Counterstrike, Team Fortress 2 and Final Fantasy games. I’ve competed in 1v1 / 2v2 Red Alert 2 (and Yuri’s Revenge) tournaments in Toronto back in the day, but never quite got past the semi-finals.

World of Warcraft is my first ever MMO game, and I’ve been playing it since December of 2007. I started going for the gold cap seriously at some point in July of 2009, and achieved it about a week before Halloween of the same year. Wasn’t trying to do it in record time or anything, just wanted to do it.

Do you raid or PvP most? Both? How do you enjoy the game?

I generally raid a couple of nights a week, but nothing serious these days. Since I started playing WoW I’ve usually been in pretty serious raiding guilds, generally as the main tank. After 2 years of pushing progression raids, and obsessing over minute stat increases, I just lost interest in raiding, and the associated BS that goes with it around the time that Ulduar came out.

My idea of PVP is sapping level 30’s, chucking snowballs at them and vanishing when the sap wears off on my rogue, or putting a DOT and a stun on a lowbie just to see if he can figure out how to get out of it before he dies. I suggest that everyone try it at least once, it’s absolutely diabolical.

Why did you choose to collect this amount of gold?

WoW isn’t the kind of game you can “beat”, in the same sense that you can “beat” a traditional RPG like The Elder Scrolls or whatever. You can’t progress through it, down the last boss and you’re done. The best you can possibly hope for is to down the CURRENT last boss (Illidan, Yogg-Saron, etc) and have yourself geared out in all Best in Slot items before the next content patch comes out. It’s an endless cycle of repetition that, by design, will never end.

So I was thinking about the Sid Mieyer’s Civilization games, and remembered that you had like 7 different conditions to achieve victory. You could go for the Conquest Victory by conquering all the other nations, the Diplomatic Victory by negotiation world peace, or the Economic Victory by hording enough cash. I figured that if I could get gold capped, that would be a personal economic victory in WoW, that was something I could actually pull off by myself, without having to worry about someone I had no control over ’standing in the fire’ and ruining it for me.

How did you go about getting to the 214k? Did you use professions? Auction House arbitrage? Any creative ideas?

I mostly used Jewelcrafting and Inscription. Dabbled in Blacksmithing, Alchemy to reduce the cost of my supplies for my JC market, Enchanting, and a little Engineering.

For Jewelcrafting, the strategy I used was as simple as it is effective.

1) Buy raw gems for a price at least 5 gold cheaper then the cheapest cut gem on the AH. AND / OR buy out all the saronite / titanium ore that’s below your comfort zone.

2) Craft

3) If theres a ton of JC competition logged in, then wait for a while (on an alt) and see if they log out, if it looks clear then post away.

4) Log in a few hours later, collect profit, and repeat the process.

I started in JC by going out of my way to buy / farm the blue quality gem patterns that I personally would use as a Paladin / Death Knight tank. I figured that if I was using them, then there’s bound to be other people that would also use them. I didn’t know what a PVP warlock or priest would use, so I researched them before I went into that niche market. And of course identifying the heavy weights that were already in JC market, and adding them to my friends list.

If something sold, I’d make 2 more of it, and repost. Got to the point where I had 5 of every blue quality gem in the game listed, and 3 of all the ‘good’ epic gems listed. I know it sounds simple, but it works on a long enough timeline. The real trick was actually getting my hands on all the patterns, and learning about what classes and specs that are completely alien to me would buy. That’s about it. Jewelcrafting is a licence to print money if you pay attention.

For Inscription, I used the same general tactics as I did for JC, only much more aggressively. In JC you can post a gem for like 50 gold more then your competition, and if it’s a good gem, it’ll PROBABLY sell on a raid night. For Inscription, you absolutely MUST be the lowest price if you want to make any sales.

I started inscription when I was about 1/2 way to the gold cap, purely from Jewelcrafting and I wanted to take over the glyph market the day I started seriously posting. I didn’t actually start seriously posting glyphs until I had:

- Around 4000 Inks of the Sea, that cost me less then 1 gold 50 silver a piece.

- around 75% of all the glyph designs in my skill book. If I could do it all over again, I’d wait it out till 100%

- 5 of each glyph ready to post

Getting this kind of stock pile ready to go took about a month or so buying cheap herbs in /trade from farmers, and finding deals in the AH, posted by people who obviously have no idea how much their herbs were actually worth.

I wasn’t in a hurry to jump into a new market, I’d post 1 of each glyph every day, just to test the waters. See who undercut me, and add them to my friends list, so I could keep an eye on their habits. I’d log into other alts and follow them around in Ironforge, see how they ran their business, get an idea what mods they were using from how long it took them to cancel and repost their warez, and learn when the best time to post would be when I made my move.

My inscription strategies were mainly to deny the competition of getting cheap herbs (I’d dry out the AH herbs, and steal their farmers), and to make sure that no matter how hard they tried, they would never make a serious profit off their hard work. I’d carpet bomb the market without warning, and for weeks on end posting 5-10 of every glyph in the game for about 50 silver more then it cost me to make. The customers loved it, and bought their favorite glyphs off me faster then I could repost on raid nights, the competition bought me out to pad their own inventories, thinking this was a one time deal, and prices would shoot back up tomorrow, which of course they didn’t. Once people started to give up, I’d crank the prices back up to 100g a glyph, and repeat the process when the rabble came back in.

If you’ve ever heard of the 80/20 rule, where 80% of your profits come from 20% of your effort, it’s totally true. I made around 80% my gold from JC, but I spent 80% of my effort on Inscription.

How did you learn to do it?

From my time competing in Command and Conquer tournaments, I used the strategy of denying my opponent resources, and winning without prolonged fighting. The most important thing to me, was to destroy their Ore Trucks as fast as possible, and to send my own well defended Ore Trucks into their territory to further deny them access to their own resources immediately afterwards. Without ore trucks, they couldn’t generate any funds, and without and funds, they couldn’t fight back when my tanks came rolling in. Not the BEST or imaginative strategy ever, but dangerously effective, and almost always ensured a quick win.

It kinda translated into WoW. If I can deny the competition from getting cheap mats in the AH, and convince their farmers to sell to me, instead of them, AND deny them from making any profit for long enough, then they’ll give up eventually. It just wouldn’t be worth their time to run their industry for a loss / break even / minimal profit per day.

I’ve read all gold making blogs out there, and found that most of the strategies they talked about only really worked if you had a very specific set of circumstances in your favor. Like a lot of Inscription blogs for example, the main theme is:

1) find a farmer to sell you 100 stacks of herbs twice a day, for 1/10th of the going price in your servers auction house

2) mill them and make inks

3) sell glyphs at AH a low enough price that your competition can’t afford to compete with you.

4) Profit!

If you actually pull that off, then wow, that’s awesome. I sure couldn’t! At least not indefinitely.

So I took a lot of what I found out in the blogosphere and modified, and refined it to the point where it was my own method that would work on my server, with my resources and play style. A pinch of Gelvon, a tablespoon of Markco, stir into a liter of Boiling Sovash, serves 4.

What addons, if any, do you use to help you make gold?

- Altoholic – to keep track of my inventory at any given time.

- Skillit – (the lil’ sparky release, not the official one you’d find on curse)

- Quick Auctions 2 – for super fast posting and canceling

- Auctionator – for when I get stuff that I want to manually set a price for, and for buying out auctions in bulk

- Kev’s Queue Tool – for fast restocking

- Postal – for opening all my mail

- Auditor – to keep track of profits and expenses

- Lil’ Sparky’s Workshop – So I can get an idea how much profit I can expect from bulk crafting per item.

- A few macros for prospecting, milling, and reloading my UI.

Are you still going for more gold? If so, do you have a new goal? Are you close?

I’m going to finally make some gear for my toons that I play on, and probably try to collect some more of the epic JC patterns before they become irrelevant, and finish off my meta gem collection.

My goal was to get gold capped, and I’m happy leaving it at that for the moment. I have the screenshot to prove it, and an interview on a high profile WoW Economics website, I’m completely satisfied where I am now. This is more gold then I can ever see myself, or any rational person ever spending. I’ll probably re-enter the AH from time to time to top the funds off to stay gold capped as I’m buying things, but I don’t have any plans to shoot for 500,000 gold or a million gold any time soon.

I’m still active in the Auction house with my gem market, just to keep a steady low-hassle income, but I’ve abandoned inscription and the other markets.

Do many people know you have this amount of gold?

All of my old guild (Grown Ups) knows, and most of the people that I currently raid / goof around with with know. In my own mind, I’m assuming that every one of those people who I have told has told a few people, and they told a few other people, so by now all of Korgath must know.

The day I got gold capped, I broke my own rule of not talking to the competition, and sent a whisper to them all telling them that I achieved my goal, and they didn’t have to worry about me any more, and to wish them well in game, and outside of the game. Turns out that the people I’ve been fighting against tooth and nail for the past few months are all really good and friendly people, I actually felt a little bad about the whole thing afterwards.

Did you spend your gold on fun things? What have you bought? What things would you like to buy?

Not really. On my way to the gold cap, I bought all of the Ulduar and Crusader Coliseum blacksmithing patterns for myself (although crafting the actual items for my toons was always an expense that I could never quite justify). I’m not the kind of guy that wants to spam the trade channel with “BS LFW – Have all patterns in the game” or anything, so instead of a business investment (which is how I justified the purchases at the time) it really turned out to be a vanity thing for my own sense of trade skill completion.

I have a real-life friend on the server that I “Epic’d out” the day he hit 80 (in exchange for a night of beer and chicken wings at the pub), and I got him his epic flying training, but that’s about it, really.

I think a large part of what makes people who are gold capped who they are, is self restraint and not wasting money on things they can do themselves. Take a look at Donald Trump for example, the guy has more money then anyone, and he cuts his own hair for crying out loud.

Just because you have enough gold to buy a chopper and all sorts of vanity items, does not mean that you can AFFORD it. If I were to buy all the expensive vanity items in the game as soon as I had enough gold to enable me to do so, I wouldn’t be anywhere near gold capped now. Friends ask me all the time how I got gold capped, and my usual answer is “I don’t waste my gold on things I don’t need. I don’t have a thousand mounts or vanity pets because I don’t need them.”.

Do you have any special tips that you would like to share?

- Always take whatever gold making advice you get from blogs or word of mouth with a grain of salt. It’s mostly anecdotal evidence that their system works. Farming titanium ore isn’t always gonna be the best way to make gold, neither is Jewelcrafting or inscripting. Fads come and go. I’ve given a few details on how my industry works in this interview so far, and the reader might be be thinking “this Sov guy is full of it” at some points. And the reader is right, this system works for me, under my exact set of conditions, not theirs. My method might sound completely insane to anyone else. Best I can say is “Hey, worked for me”, and dare the reader to modify my system to work in his/her conditions, or better yet, devise their own, and do it their way.

- Keep up with the latest patch notes! For example, miners that knew that Titanium ore was going to be prospectable in the last content patch held on to their stocks of the ore, and sold it for 1000% the going rate the day the patch came out.

- Always be mindful of the truths that have always been around, and will always be around. Like holding on to enchanting mats for the new arena season, or selling your flasks / gems / enchants around the same time people are getting ready for a raid. Timing is literally everything. You’re always going to sell more flasks at around 8-9pm on Tuesdays and Wednesdays before the guilds zone into a raid then you are at Sunday morning at 6 am.

- If you’re just entering a new market, try your best to stay under the “Market Kingpin’s” radar until you’re prepared for a fight. People that have been in their market for a while, and are there to make gold don’t keep their friends on their friends list, they keep people that they see as threats to their business on their friends list. If someone undercuts me by a couple of silver on like 5 auctions, I’m not going to waste a friends slot on them, odds are I’m probably not even going to notice it. But if they undercut me by a few copper, on a few hundred auctions, then they’ve got my attention, and I’m going to keep an eye on them, and post my next batch after they log out.

- Never reply to any mails, or whispers you may get from your competition, and restrain any urge you may feel to contact them for any reason. Once you start talking to them, you’re more likely to emphasize with them, and compromise. That’s the first step on the road of failure.

- Do your homework before you buy a new pattern, if your crafting things. Everyone knows that Red gems sell for the most gold per sale, but not everyone knows that the purple and orange gems sell in the highest volume, and aren’t generally as flooded as the red gem market. Start by crafting and selling the items that you would personally use. If you’re a tank, and a jewelcrafter, then start out by crafting and selling the gems that you already have in your gem sockets on your own gear, for example. If YOU’RE using them, then theres a very good chance that someone else would want them too – at a price, of course!

- If you have a dedicated farmer, then treat them like your best friend. Don’t give them any reason to go over and work for the enemy. “Accidentally” over pay them sometimes, send them some class / spec appropriate BOE gear, gems or enchants every now and then (if their not Chinese gold farming bots) with a thank you note. If they go away one day, to help the enemy, then you’re in a position of disadvantage. Don’t let that happen.

- A really fun tactic I used in Inscription was changing my goal from making profit, to breaking even. Glyphs that were 20 gold yesterday, would be posted by me for 2 gold tomorrow and for days at a time, then I’d put the prices back up. This had a devastating psychological effect of making my competition (and my actual friends, until I told them in a burst of laughter) think that I must have some kind of overwhelming advantage for getting my materials. I didn’t, I never did. I was just changing the rules of the game, without telling anyone. People will usually come to the natural logical conclusion when theres a big shift in pricing in their markets, they will generally not, however assume that someone is just plain f***ing around.

Do you have any fun stories from when you were grinding?

I didn’t really grind much. I’d do the occasional “Two Pull Stratholme” or “One Pull Stockades” on my protection paladin every now and then for fun / to show off.

There was this one time though, I was leveling tailoring on my alt, for the purpose of making cloth items, then disenchanting them, and some level 5 sent me a pm saying that he thought the pants my toon was wearing looked really cool, and he wanted to buy them off me for 10 gold. I forget what the pants exactly were, but I remember that they were cloth or leather pants that I bought from some vendor in Stormwind for like 4 copper, definitely not the kind that were bind on pickup/equip. So I sold them the 4 copper pants for 10 gold, sure beats my previous record of a 20000% mark up (http://greedygoblin.blogspot.com/2009/10/morons-of-week-2_25.html)

What was the best deal you ever came across?

About a month or so after the epic gems came out in WotLK, I guess someone forgot to update their auctioneer database or something, and I got 25 stacks of titanium ore for 15 gold a STACK.

I also found an Orb of Deception on the AH for 150 gold, I snapped it up, and resold it for 2000 about 5 minutes later.

Do you remember any of your worst deals?

Yeah, it just happened pretty recently, and it really contrasts the previous question. I checked my Auditor data and saw that I was 3000 away from the gold cap, so I went into profiteering overdrive, and sold out my entire inventory for break-neck prices. I had an “addon malfunction”, and ended up selling 4 Tankards o’ Terror for 25 gold each, instead of the going price of 800ish each. I added them to the wrong Quick Auction category that I made because I was in a rush and wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing at the time. Someone bought them all out immediately after I posted them, and I sent him a congratulatory PM laughing about my mistake.

What are your future plans with WoW?

I really don’t know. I quit hardcore raiding to get into hardcore profiteering in the AH, and I don’t really feel like raiding ‘full time’ anymore. PVP is out of the question as I really can’t stand it.

Thank you for taking the time to do this interview for Warcraft Econ. Do you have any last words?

- Never compromise. For any reason.

- Don’t waste your gold on things that you don’t need. I’m gold capped, and I still don’t see any reason why I’d want to collect pets, or mounts or whatever it is that people spend their gold on. I just don’t think about them.

- Patience, restraint, and intelligence (in the military sense of the word) are the three biggest factors of making your own fortune.

- Read The Art of War, and The Rules of Acquisition (Yes, the Ferengi bible from Star Trek Deep Space 9), and you’ll never lose in the AH.

Please tell us a little about yourself and your gaming experience.

I’m Laike (screen name) and I play on Horde side Kel’Thuzad US. I’ve been gaming for as long as I remember. I’m mainly an FPS player, but some how I fell in love with WoW, so 3 and a half years later, I’m still trapped in Azeroth.

Do you raid or PvP most? Both? How do you enjoy the game?

I raid twice a week for 4 hours a raid with my guild. I used to PVP a lot in battlegrounds, but frankly I’m not a huge fan anymore. I can’t shake the feeling of “I could be playing [FPS of the moment] or something…” when I PVP these days. Plus, I was never a fan on Arena in the first place. Other than that, I get on to do my auctions and that is about it.

Why did you choose to collect this amount of gold?

I started playing around on the AH on an alt server. Then I made about 5000g in 24 hours with literally only a lvl 30 character on the server when the dual spec patch hit live. I was addicted after that. I used to be famous in my old guild during TBC for grinding for gold, especially by fishing for primal water. So when I moved my main to a new server, I changed his leather working and skinning for Inscription/Jewel crafting and decided to make a conscious effort to stop being the butt end of the Chinese farmer (yes, I really am Chinese) jokes and start making gold the lazy way.

How did you go about getting to the 214k?  Did you use professions? Auction House arbitrage? Any creative ideas?

I used Inscription by selling glyphs on the AH mainly, I pick up odd inscription and JC jobs on trade, but that’s about it. Nothing fancy or groundbreaking.

How did you learn to do it?

Mostly from experimentation. My main tactics and theories I picked up on my own, but they were definitely refined by reading Warcraft economy blogs.

What addons, if any, do you use to help you make gold?

I used Quickauctions2 for the actual posting and canceling of my auctions, Auctioneer, Lilisparkysworkshop, ATSW, and Altoholic for glyph stocking, and Postal to get everything out of the mail.

Are you still going for more gold? If so, do you have a new goal? Are you close?

Yes, but I have slowed down a bit since I hit my goal of earning the gold cap. Mostly because Borderlands was released and I’ve been busy with that. I don’t have a new goal in mind, but I do intend to continue earning gold because I recently adopted two friends who I am sugar mama-ing, so I still gotta make gold and make sure they can play with relative financial freedom.

Do many people know you have this amount of gold?

Only my current guild, some people from my old server, and my WoW playing friends know about my in game income.

Did you spend your gold on fun things? What have you bought? What things would you like to buy?

Definitely, I have a this money is digital and it theoretically could disappear tomorrow with out a trace if Blizzard pulled the plug on the server. So I might as well enjoy it attitude. Plus, there’s A LOT less guilt in spending digital gold than real life money, especially in tough times like right now. I bought a bunch of pets to hit my 75 pet achievement, expensive mounts for myself, friends, and as a give away raffle to my guild. But since I got the pets and the mounts I wanted, I’ve just been giving it to friends who need the money.

Do you have any special tips that you would like to share?

Persistence. It’s probably the most overlooked key to making money. I don’t care what sort of strategy you’ve got up your sleeves, if you don’t have the persistence to see it through, you won’t bring in the big bucks, period. A good house needs a good foundation. I see a lot of people give up too early or get distracted and lose sight of their goal of bringing in big money.

Do you have any fun stories from when you were grinding?

Actually, I do! I used to grind like crazy before I transferred to my new server about six months ago. I was particularly nuts during TBC. On my old server, there was this particularly obnoxious feral druid who had the most annoying habit of camping grind spots and areas for dailies and ambushing people out of the blue. The minute the tables turned on him, he’d run off to the closest cliff, jump, fall out of combat and fly away. I was fishing up primal water one time around in Nagrand before raid one time, and this guy jumped me. It was such great timing because a lot of raiders were logging on and doing raid preps, and EVERYONE on the horde had a bone to pick with this druid. The next thing I knew, half our raiders were swarming the Throne of Elements camping this guy. Vengeance tastes so sweet!

What was the best deal you ever came across?

I wouldn’t call it a deal, but that night when dual spec dropped onto the live servers, and I managed to net 5k in 48 hours with only a level 30ish characters is the one that will always stick out in my mind.

Do you remember any of your worst deals?

On the server I was cutting my teeth, I saw a stack of Arctic Fur for what I thought was really cheap on the AH. Ended up the arctic fur market crashed the next day. I left the server before Arctic Fur ever bounced back so I gave the stack to a friend.

What are your future plans with WoW?

I intend to continue with the AH and hopefully finish off H-ToC with my guild soon.

Thank you for taking the time to do this interview for Warcraft Econ. Do you have any last words?

Thanks for doing this blog! I really love what you guys are doing, keep up the great work!

Author: Zerohour

A post was made on Elitist Jerks this past month discussing GDKP raids, which is essentially raiding as a 10 or 25 man group and instead of using /roll or DKP, you use gold as the currency to purchase the items available for looting.  You can read the entire story here:  http://elitistjerks.com/f15/t77416-gdkp_run_discussion_spread_your_server/
 
The idea behind this form of raiding is to bring several different types of players together:

Those that have the gear but need the gold
Those that lack the gear but have the gold
Those that have the gear and gold but just want to help
 
A quick background, this method of raid loot distribution is popular in Korea and started back in BC, and has slowly made its way to Non-Oceanic servers.  These forms of runs are not new. Guilds have been selling items to players since Vanilla.  When run properly and with the appropriate raid-composition these can be smooth and quick ways to earn several thousand gold or part with several thousand gold and get an item that you truly want.  It completely removes RNG and rewards you for your gold making acumen.  I would suggest reading the entire Elitist Jerks thread before proceeding as it has a good number of thoughts and ideas that cover the topic entirely.
 
The raid leaders are typically well known people on the server.  I would discourage bringing only your own guild members as this will not yield a good pot.  You will want to track down the wealthiest players on your server that want to spend gold.  One thing to note is that if a person collecting the gold decides to make off with the pot, the GMs will intervene and distribute the gold and ban the offending account.  This is something good to know and for everyone else to know when raiding this way.
 
I personally scored the Twilight Drake in a recent GDKP Sarth run, which was something I wanted but couldn’t get because my old guild stopped running it months ago and my new guild has a priority system regarding mounts that made it impossible to ever receive.  The members of that particular run all earned almost 1,000 gold each for 30 minutes of their time.
 
You can GDKP any raid instance, but the most profitable will be the newer content although it may prove difficult to get people that have the gear and aren’t locked out because their guild ran the instance earlier in the week.  Additionally, you will need to balance the raid properly.  You will want well geared tanks that know what they are doing, and healers that are capable. Gear score does very little for this and should not be considered.  It’s going to come down to player skill.
 
Along the lines of skill, if you are in a run and people are expecting to be carried 100%, you must set expectations that this will not be the case.  If a person isn’t willing to pull their weight then you are better off sitting them out.  The best possible person to have in the raid is a person that performs, needs gear, and has the gold to spend.  You will have to use good judgment to insure that the raid goes well.  Once you get a successful run going, the concept will spread like wildfire and people will be begging to go.
 
Because this site is also about spending the gold, I would encourage those of you in a nice gold position to inquire with your server’s top guilds about organizing these types of runs.  Most runs are always done on off nights and require availability.

So now that we had some time for us to gather up patch 3.3 and PTR information, here is a compilation of econ related changes:

New Dungeon System

In the upcoming content patch there are many new additions and improvements. Perhaps one of the largest changes is the introduction of the new dungeon system. This new system will be available for all dungeons. A “Dungeons” button will replace the Looking For Group feature currently available in-game, and provides additional benefits to those who use it. (Source)

• Join as a Group or Solo
• Cross-Realm Instances/Grouping
• Instance Teleporting
• Smarter Group Matching
• Daily Random Dungeons
• Repeat Random Dungeons
• Choose Multiple Dungeons
• Vote Kick system
• Lovin’ the PUG Bonuses
• Looking For Raid
• Need Before Greed Updated
• Group Disenchanting

The main thing here is that the new dungeon changes will allow players to run the same one more than once through a “Random Dungeon Selection” feature. More badges, enchanting materials, and the usual changes that come with more players running instances. Expect prices to come down on various badges and materials. For more information on these changes, Blizzard’s official site has the news.

Emblems in 3.3

The Daily Random Heroic will award two Emblems of Frost upon completion (can be done once a day). The Daily Random normal dungeon will award two Emblems of Triumph upon completion (can be done once a day). If players continue to select “Random” via the Dungeon System when running Heroic dungeons after the Daily Random Heroic dungeon has been completed, they will receive two additional Emblems of Triumph for each random Heroic dungeon completed.

Emblems of Frost will drop in the 10- and 25-player Icecrown Citadel raid… and perhaps if another boss stumbles into the Vault he’ll drop them as well. (Source)

If you complete the Daily Random Heroic dungeon for the day to earn two Emblems of Frost in addition to the Emblems of Triumph which drop off of each Heroic boss, you can continue to select the “Random” option for Heroics in the Dungeon System. Doing so will award you with two Emblems of Triumph upon completion of each dungeon in addition to the Emblems of Triumph which drop off of each Heroic boss. (Source)

Northrend’s New Kalu’ak Fishing Derby

ElsAnglin.com has more information on this new fishing addition.

ilvl 264 Crafted Items

Current list of PTR crafted items which use [Primordial Saronite] which we assume drops in the new Icecrown Raid. [Primordial Saronite] is also the currency used to buy the new patterns as well.

Shadowmourne Legendary

• Item – Shadowmourne Legendary – Your weapon swings have a chance to drain a Soul Fragment from their victims. When you have acquired 10 Soul Fragments you wil unleash the Souls of the Damned, dealing 6840 to 7560 shadow damage split between all enemies within 8 yards.
• Soul Fragment – Gained a Soul Fragment. When 10 Soul Fragments are accumulated, they will release, triggering the Souls of the Damned.
• Souls of the Damned – Deals 6840 to 7560 Shadow damage, split between all enemies within 8 yards of the impact crater.

Somewhere out there, there are players that will pay extraordinary amounts of gold for this item. We would like to hear about it if this person is you!

Head/Shoulders enchant Heirlooms

Head and Shoulders enchant are now Heirlooms and can be mailed to your other characters. (Source)

• Arcanum of Torment
• Arcanum of Burning Mysteries
• Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector
• Arcanum of Blissful Mending
• Arcanum of the Savage Gladiator
• Arcanum of the Savage Gladiator
• Greater Inscription of the Axe
• Greater Inscription of the Crag
• Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle
• Greater Inscription of the Storm

Inscription Techniques

Blizzard finally introduced Inscription patterns and you won’t have to run your Northrend Inscription Research for the 3094309th time. For the moment, the 3 new glyphs recipes are sold by the Inscription Supplies NPC in Dalaran. (Source)

• Technique: Glyph of Eternal Water
• Technique: Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation
• Technique: Glyph of Quick Decay

Professions

• Transmute: Titanium no longer has a cooldown
• Enchant Gloves – Angler – Permanently enchant gloves to increase fishing skill by 5.
• Master’s Inscription of the Crag now adds 70 spell power and 8 mana every 5 sec. (Up from 6 mana)

Mini-Pets

• Hatchlings: Leaping, Darting, Razormaw, and Ravasaur Hatchlings no longer drop from their associated rare creatures. Instead, there are now rare nests that spawn which contain these hatchlings. For example, the Leaping Hatchling can now be found in Takk’s Nest rather than as a drop from Takk the Leaper.

Please tell us a little about yourself and your gaming experience.

Hi there! I’m Coire and I play on the server Arathor EU. I started playing WoW in May 05 and haven’t had a break since then. I started off on Horde, initially on the server Skullcrusher, but soon after my whole guild transferred to Balnazzar, where I’ve had my perhaps best days of WoW with the guild Mysterious. If any of you out there is reading this, Hi! Oh and I play Alliance now by the way.

Do you raid or PvP most? Both? How do you enjoy the game?

I must admit I haven’t entered an arena fight since late TBC. I generally enjoy PvP though, but I tend to get angry and frustrated when we meet somebody who’s just better than us. Hence why I more or less quit PvP. What I like to the in the game is to raid. I play a healer and find nothing more satisfying than watching those Grid frames bounce up and down. Recently, however, a large portion of my in-game time has been spent making gold.

Why did you choose to collect this amount of gold?

It started off as a sort of fun project between me and good friend of mine (you know who you are). He had shown me Greedy Goblin and soon after we became addicted readers. Later we found sites such as JMTC and we found ourselves addicted to goldmaking (well, at least I did). After I had made 20, 50 and 100k, 214 seemed like a fun goal.

How did you go about getting to the 214k? Did you use professions? Auction House arbitrage? Any creative ideas?

Most of my profits have been made through inscription, but in the beginning I also made some Netherweave Bags and some twink enchanting scrolls. Whenever our natural progress in Ulduar allows it, I have been farming Freya’s room for Frost Lotus.

How did you learn to do it?

The idea with Freya’s room I came up with myself more or less. The rest is thanks to the Greedy Goblin.

What addons, if any, do you use to help you make gold?

In the beginning I used all addons that the Greedy Goblin uses (Auctioneer, LilSparky’s Workshop etc.), but since I found Quick Auctions 2 a while back on the JMTC forums, I’ve never looked back once.

Are you still going for more gold? If so, do you have a new goal? Are you close?

Right now I don’t have an actual goal in the game. I’ve thought about a few alternatives, but have yet to come up with something definitive. However, I’m not quitting making gold right away.

Do many people know you have this amount of gold?

My guild knows it and a few of my friends. If I told the majority of my friends what I had done, I’m not sure they’d talk to me anymore.

Did you spend your gold on fun things? What have you bought? What things would you like to buy?

So far I have bought a chopper. I might invest into a Swift Spectral Tiger if I find somebody who’d like to sell, but right now I’m not planning on buying anything additional.

Do you have any special tips that you would like to share?

Not really, no. Gold-making is really straight forward once you get the hang of it. It’s getting into the market that’s difficult. Especially if it’s an established server with a lot of goblins.

Do you have any fun stories from when you were grinding?

Not really, no. I never enjoyed grinding.

What was the best deal you ever came across?

Nothing particular I can think of.

Do you remember any of your worst deals?

Haven’t really had any. I generally don’t do speculative gold-making.

What are your future plans with WoW?

Don’t know. For now, make more gold!

Alright everyone – the p/w for the form is “Rockfleece”

From what i hear the dust rates have been increased by ~1 across the board, so just change the following:

Under the reference tab:
C4 WAS 1.5 – Change to 2.5

C13 WAS 3.5 Change to 4.5

I will submit an updated version when i get a chance.

Download:

• Prospecting Spreadsheet (.xls) – DOWNLOAD *Not Updated

The Warcraft Econ Hall of Fame is a column featuring the few elite players that have hit the World of Warcraft gold cap of 214,748 gold 36 silver 46 copper. We have with us , Yureina of Wyrmrest Accord-US, who will be sharing their stories with us today.

Please tell us a little about yourself and your gaming experience.

Harro! I am Yureina of Wyrmrest Accord (RP)-US. I have been playing WoW for close to 5 years now, and have gone through many names, servers, and styles of play. My rogue Lucillia was my major PvP character that I played during the old honor system days, reaching rank 12 with them on the 2.0 patch day (Grr!). My warrior Ralkar/Theyra has opened the Gates of Ahn’Qiraj and done a rather massive amount of raiding during the pre-BC and BC days. I also, being a RP server native, am a player that has dabbled in role-play from time to time, accepting the somewhat diminished status of RP servers for PvE and PvP to enjoy the atmosphere that those types of servers bring. Since the 3.0 patch just before Wrath’s release however, my heart has been set on my priest Yureina and I have been playing that character ever since.

During all of this PvP, PvE, and RP business, I also put a lot of energy into making gold. For the majority of the time I played WoW, gold was something I needed to pay for my huge raiding expenses. Despite the costs that raiding brought, I always maintained one key policy: My gold total always had to increase, regardless of how much extra time it took to get more than I needed to use. During the Pre-BC and BC days, I was a mass-gatherer, daily quester for reputations, and an alt leveler. Places like Burning Steppes, Nagrand, and the Isle of Quel’Danas were places I frequently visited in my quest to make sure I always made more gold than I was spending.

With the onset of Wrath, I began to increasingly move towards profession-based forms of income. Though gathering and dailies did still occur, especially during the early days of Wrath when I went and did dailies for reputations for my Priest, I ended up doing much more disenchanting and selling those materials, bringing in lots of income during the early months of Wrath. By now however, through a process I’ll mention later on here, I have completely converted to profession-based crafting as my chief source of income.

At present, I am, I guess, a “casual” player on one of the more underdeveloped servers in WoW in terms of PvE and PvP. Though sometimes I seriously consider moving off and getting back into the mainstream raiding scene, I have been relatively happy on Wyrmrest Accord and I enjoy the large amount of free time I have to play with my friends, make gold, and do whatever else I wish to do. Though my future in WoW is highly uncertain, I am confident that I will be able to enjoy my time playing until Blizzard stops making stuff for this game, regardless of what I choose to do with my game time in the future.

Do you raid or PvP most? Both? How do you enjoy the game?

As I mentioned above, I have floated between PvE and PvP throughout my playing experiences, though PvE has tended to dominate my thoughts and plans. I still plan on doing a lot of raiding no matter what else I plan on doing in WoW, but I have recently been considering getting back into the PvP scene on my Priest or Rogue (or both!) and going for Battlemaster, Arena Master, or just plain entertainment. Above all I enjoy two things in my WoW experience: playing with people I like and achievement hunting. While I fully understand that my choice of playing on a poorly progressed RP server limits my chances of fulfilling PvE or PvP aspirations, I have accepted this and I enjoy myself as much as I can with what I have. Besides, I really don’t want to pay for anymore character transfers.

Why did you choose to collect this amount of gold?

Although I always have held gold-making as a priority, it never truly began to dominate my thoughts and actions until May of this year (5 months ago). During that time, I had walked out of a raiding guild I was in because the guild leader of that guild began acting in an imperialistic and arrogant manner towards the server community. It was also a bad guild simply to be in because of poor work ethic, officer corruption, and, to use Gevlon’s term, was full of M&S (Morons and Slackers). My then former guild leader took my departure very verypersonally, and sent me an in-game whisper saying that he was going to “make [my] economic life in WoW as painful as possible.”

At the time that this guy threatened me (May 1st, 2009), I had 78,500 gold and got my gold from either occasional mining of my warrior or daily quests, but mostly from large-scale disenchanting on my priest. With the resources of a raiding guild behind him, my hostile former-GM began to cut into my disenchanting business, effectively putting me out of business by providing the mats for cheaper than I could afford. He also went looking around on some of my old servers to try to dig up dirt on me from my past guild leaders in an attempt to try to run me off of the server.

With the threat having proved serious, I began looking for alternatives to my disenchanting business with the hope of not only defying this man’s plans, but to possibly turn the tables on him as well. It was during this time of crisis that I discovered Gevlon’s “Greedy Goblin” blog, and it was there that I got the idea that would dictate my gold system, and very much my playstyle, for the next four months. Now, Gevlon used Inscription as his primary source of income and he scoffed at the idea of leveling other alts to move into other professions. For me however, I already had these other alts leveled up from years of playing WoW, the gold base to quickly powerlevel several professions at once, and now the drive to do to all this thanks to the threat I was facing. I would borrow much from Gevlon, but most of my efforts would be of my own creation and style.

It was through my own drive and the ideas I got from Gevlon’s blog that in mid May I began undertaking something that I would later call an “Industrial revolution.” Ending years of tradition, I dropped Mining on my warrior and took up Jewelcrafting, quickly powerleveling it and starting to produce cut gems on a large scale. At the same time, I also followed Gevlon’s path and powerleveled Inscription on my rogue, both to gain its income, but also to strike into my former GM’s other major source of income: Glyphs. I also went and began using my Priest’s other profession (Tailoring) and my other various mid 70 alts for their own professions, such as Alchemy and Engineering.

By mid July I had made significant advances in the Gem, Glyph, Spellthread, and Enchanted Scroll markets. My former GM, defeated on the AH and from within his guild thanks to his own character flaws, transferred off to parts unknown. With his departure I regained my disenchanting business I had lost in May and gained a virtual monopoly in the Glyph business. Still, being on a weak RP server with poor progression and a weak economy, my income was somewhat sluggish. I was hampered by low demand and various AH campers fighting over the already low amount of purchases being made for crafter goods. However, my luck was soon about to change.

With the arrival of Patch 3.2 in early August, I entered a period of boom that brought me surging ahead with massive levels of income. Where I had been making about 1,500g a day before, I was now making over 10,000g a day during the patch week. On one day in particular (August 8th), I made 17,307g, the greatest single-day gain I have ever seen. I breezed past the gold cap in mid-August and kept going until the end of the month. By September 1st, 4 months since I had began my economic experiment, I had reached the total of 271,000g, almost 200,000g more than I had been at on May 1st and over 110,000g more than I had had just a month before. I had accomplished my goal of finding an alternative to my disenchanting business that had succeeded beyond my wildest imaginings.

How did you go about getting to the 214k? Did you use professions?Auction House arbitrage? Any creative ideas?

For the first four years of playing this game, my income could be described as having been primarily farming and daily quest-driven, with rare uses of professions. During those days, I had not considered profession use to be a worthy alternative – or even practical. By today however, I have effectively converted to 99% industry work, with only slight amounts of income coming from raiding or some dailies I do when bored (or going for a Chef hat!). Although during my spree to reach the gold cap I used all of professions I had available to me, I have since cut back to using basically just two professions, Inscription and Jewelcrafting, to make my gold.

My crafting businesses, which are currently dominated by my Glyph and Gem industries, have several different methods. While my Glyph industry is basically a carbon-copy of Gevlon’s own techniques, my Gem business (my biggest by far) was a mix of Gevlon’s style and my own methods. Instead of posting once every two days, I post my gems every day, cutting new gems to fill the holes in my “net”. My undercut percentage varies from 10 to 20%, sometimes going as deep as 50% if a monopolist has wildly inflated the price thanks to a lack of other competition. I also do not consistently post at the same time of the day, in an effort to confuse AH campers who probably have added me to their friends list. While the Glyph industry allows for other Glyph posters to gain some success once my Glyphs sell, my Gem industry is done on a larger scale and effectively kills off “casual” crafters because I post a very large array of gems for prices far lower than most gem posters are willing to accept.

How did you learn to do it?

As mentioned above, much of the ideas I gathered came from Gevlon’s blog “Greedy Goblin”, but some of the tricks I picked up, such as varying my auction posting times or using a wide array of professions, came from my own experience. Still, the Greedy Goblin blog got me started on the crafting gold business, and so Gevlon very much deserves the majority of the credit for pointing me towards “The Goblin Way.”

What addons, if any, do you use to help you make gold?

Auctioneer, Possessions, WhoHas, Lil’Sparky’s Workshop, Postal, and Auditor. This is more or less what Gevlon suggested to use for add-ons, and they have served me very well. I threw in Auditor because I use this to keep track of my daily income levels. Having such a diversified economy, I always try to make sure I am making positive gains everyday, and Auditor helps me track that. Of these add-ons, I would say that Auctioneer and Lil’Sparky’s Workshop have proven the most valuable towards profession-based goldmaking.

Are you still going for more gold? If so, do you have a new goal? Are you close?

I’m… not sure. I had been planning to “retire” starting in September until Faction Changed rolled around and I could move all my operations to Horde. Well, Faction Changes ended up coming out MUCH sooner than I expected, so I went through a crash-faction change that saw me take somewhat heavy gold losses (95,000 in mats and AH cuts) during the move. I rebooted my industries after my very short retirement, and have now returned to my pre-faction change levels. Being exclusively Horde now, I have found a great guild that I’m raiding with and a lot of opportunities to play my Priest and alts however I please.

I’ve been seriously considering stopping at where I am (275,000g), since I have nothing else left to buy that I want and I have no reason to really make any more gold. Still, I think what’s stopping me from slowing down or closing my industry is because those businesses have very much become a major part of my server’s economy. If I shut stuff down, it will hurt the server community as prices rise to their earlier levels – often double the prices they are at now. At the same time, I really don’t want to be doing this stuff forever, so I would like to stop at some point. The future of my gold machine remains uncertain.

Do many people know you have this amount of gold?

Yes, they do. My tendency towards deep undercutting and my public confrontation with my former GM put me on the radar of Wyrmrest’s community, since he was hated by the community as much as by me. Since before I began my businesses the server’s markets were often monopolized by single posters, people have credited me for making the prices on my server much lower and fairer, with the untold losses that brings upon the casual crafters who were pushed out. I get virtually no hate mail or hate tells, but I have had people whisper me asking if I “really do control the AH,” which I give a negative answer for, even if it could be true. On Wyrmrest, I have two nicknames that characterize my actions on the AH, with “The Empire” being the most common. The other, given by people who are worried about what I am doing to the economy, is simply “Rei-Mart.”

Did you spend your gold on fun things? What have you bought? What things would you like to buy?

Although I did not take this from him, I, like Gevlon, have little to no taste in vanity spending. I am as frugal in life as I am in WoW, and so aside from having bought a Chopper to simply make my transfer process easier, I have no vanity pets or mounts on my characters. I did buy Epic Flying for all seven of my 80’s, but that was through each character’s own independent gold income, and was something I did when I was trying to lose gold for the faction change. My three top characters (Priest, Warrior, Rogue) all have shiny titles (Magic Seeker, Scarab Lord, General) and cool mounts to go along with them, so I never see the need to buy Mammoths or Elwynn lambs. Besides, I don’t need a mammoth to let people know “Hey, I’m rich!,” because they already know.

Do you have any special tips that you would like to share?

Don’t be afraid of the big bad AH campers! So long as you don’t hurt yourself in the process, you can, through consistent undercutting, drive them out the market eventually. Once you have done this, you can make moolah from the loss of that competition. The AH is a place of winners and losers, so keep striving to be a winner and eventually you can get there through hard work and perseverance.

Do you have any fun stories from when you were grinding?

Perhaps the best story I have is about a week after patch 3.2 came out, I exhausted my uncut gem supply, having been bought out by the tide of demand for gems that came with that patch. Well, when I stopped posting my gems, the cut gem prices started to skyrocket since they didn’t have my competition anymore. People then started to whisper me and say “Please Rei! Please start posting gems again! These prices are crazy!” The result is that a few days later I came to “save the day” and bring down the gem prices again to their “normal” levels. I found it amusing that I was being praised and being called a nice person when I was doing a very self-interested and greedy act. It made me feel very warm and fuzzy inside, not to mention wealthier.

What was the best deal you ever came across?

Around when I was trying to buy up the Alliance AH in preparation for faction changes, I found on my Inscription Rogue that someone had posted about 150 stacks of herbs for well below (13g/stack) my standard buying price for herbs (20g/stack). I immediately bought all of the stacks out and started milling. When I was done and began to start turning these into Inks, I found that the same guy had posted another 150 stacks of the same herbs! I ended up going through this process of milling, finding more herbs posted by this guy, and milling some more for about 6 hours until this guy wasn’t posting herbs anymore. Only now, a full month later, am I finally beginning to dry up the enormous reserves of Ink I built up on that day.

Do you remember any of your worst deals?

Before I got into my industries, I had tried at one point to monopolize the Greater Cosmic Essence market by buying it up and relisting it for a higher price because it looked like there was wild undercutting going on. I bought out about 9,000g worth of Greater Cosmics, only to find that people were simply relisting below me. I managed to break even on this deal, but it was almost a disaster. The lesson was learned: Don’t try to buy people out and monopolize a market. They might have more of the stuff sitting in their bank.

What are your future plans with WoW?

As mentioned before, I currently am in a state of chaos in my planning for the future for WoW. Being an achievement nut, I am thinking of going for Battlemaster and the PvP stuff next for me free time, as well as continuing my raiding activities. I also (probably) will still continue my gold activities until it stops being fun, and then I’ll be able to sit back, relax, and enjoy myself without ever worrying about farming ever again.

Thank you for taking the time to do this interview for Warcraft Econ. Do you have any last words?

Sorry for saying so much here! It is just what I do!

More seriously, for those who are trying to get themselves up towards the gold cap or simply a “comfortable” gold total where they don’t have to farm anymore, don’t be discouraged because you are on a “bad” server. Just because the economy on your server is relatively weak or there are a lot of barriers that make it difficult to sell, don’t give up! It is possible to do, and when you reach the magic number you are seeking, you will feel all the better for it because you managed to triumph over those obstacles.

Cheers!

-Rei

The Warcraft Econ Hall of Fame is a column featuring the few elite players that have hit the World of Warcraft gold cap of 214,748 gold 36 silver 46 copper. We have with us , Gnomatter of Twinkletoes of Kul Tiras-EU, who will be sharing their stories with us today.

Please tell us a little about yourself and your gaming experience.

Well my main is a Night Elf Shadow Priest called Twinkletoes but after a recent move to Nagrand EU I am now Twinkletwo. I’ve been playing games for as long as I can remember and got into online gaming through Unreal Tournament which I played with some friends in the European Ladder. As UT died out we moved to Guild Wars and then quickly into WOW.

My Wow carrier has really been focused on PvE. I started life in Kul Tiras EU and moved my way up to the #1 hardcore guild. A new job and the realisation of what it takes to be a hardcore raider soon meant I joined a social. A night time job and a wife means I now play with the only European PvE Daytime Raiding Guild (Project Aurora) on Eu Nagrand.

I only discovered the art of money making in wow as I became interested in market economics, physiology and other real world trading skills. I took what I was learning in the real world and started to apply it to Wow. Much of the theory I was learning could be practised in Wow and I found it started making me gold.

With a little research I found that leveraging Professions was by far the most reliable and consistent way to make repeated amounts of gold. Buying and selling Epix, farming mats all made healthy amounts of gold but they were not reliable sources of income or were too time consuming.

For EU Kul Tiras, Jewelcrafting was by far the easiest way to make gold. Ore was in plentiful supply and Gems were the new must have items. Many a night was spent prospecting Adamantite Ore, then Saronite Ore and now onto Titanium Ore.

Real simple things such as understanding supply and demand for specific items has helped me recognize when to buy and when to sell. Buying mats when they are at their cheapest and selling the result at their most profitable helped me move from 10k to 300k+.

Fast forward to today and my main, Twinkle, has switched to Tailoring and Alchemy purely for raiding purposes. My other alts are the classic JC & Enchanting combo as well as a DK tank with mining (for the buff) & Inscription. With high level Inscription there are of course an army of bank alts to sell my wares (currently 5!).

What addons, if any, do you use to help you make gold?

Auctioneer for market prices and batch posting random loot and enchant mats.

Skillet and LSW for crafting items

Postal for the mailbox

Altaholic lets me see what’s on other chars so my mains can craft the necessary items

Quick Auctions 2 to bulk post Gems and Glyphs

KevToolQueue to manage the bulk crafting Glyphs across alts.

Are you still going for more gold? If so, do you have a new goal? Are you close?

My initial goal was to get epic flying mounts for my mains, then 100k seemed like a good target, then onto the gold cap. Once you have reached 100k you have probably found a method and market which makes you a steady stream of income; from there it’s about optimisation and protecting your market.

Do many people know you have this amount of gold?

Yes, my guildies know I’m gold capped and I am an MVP on the JMTC forums. I took a decision when I hit the gold cap to start sharing my knowledge and help others who struggle with gold.

Did you spend your gold on fun things? What have you bought? What things would you like to buy?

I bought my mains epic flyers, the rings and various BOE epix when they were at reasonable prices. I would love for Blizzard to introduce some extra gold sinks however this also needs to be balanced against stopping people buying gold.

Do you have any special tips that you would like to share?

My most valuable tip would be to read the patch notes and find what to store and what to sell. Do your AH scan daily so you find the market value of things and understand the buying patterns of the masses. If you supply raiders with flasks, food, etc post items right before raids start. If your into the mass market then post on the weekends when more people are online.

Do you have any fun stories from when you were grinding?

Very few, the auction house can be a boring place at times. I do enjoy trading 100k+ to beggars and then going AFK….that never seems to get old.

What was the best deal you ever came across?

Deals are rare as most people know the market price for items and unless you live on the AH they pass you by.

The best overall deal has to be pre 3.2 when I invested big into Titanium Ore. They were going for 100 – 150g a stack pre 3.2 and currently sit at around 400g+. I didn’t sell one stack though, I prospected all 600+ stacks and my JC learnt all the new patterns before the day was out. I then sat in Stormwind selling cut Epic Gems on the AH and trade for the next 2 days. There was a magic few hours when I simply couldn’t keep up with the demand. I was selling gems at 400g a pop and the second they went up they were sold. I made my investment back in no time and sat on pure profit from then on in.

Do you remember any of your worst deals?

I tried to get into the BOE Epix market and was hurt badly. Most of the epix I bought were instantly undercut when I posted them and they were festering in my bag / AH for weeks. This was due to bad research and blindly trusting Auctioneers values.

What are your future plans with WoW?

I’m winding down my auctioneering on Kul Tiras and gradually purchasing materials to transfer chars over to Nagrand. A change of scenery means I may not go into the markets as heavy as I used to. Logging onto all those alts to get mail and repost takes time for gold which I don’t really need.

Like many reading this I’m in the “lame duck” period where WotLK is all but done and Cataclysm is a year away. Let’s see what new patches bring.

Thank you for taking the time to do this interview for Warcraft Econ. Do you have any last words?

Thanks, it was fun. My last words are to shamelessly promote my guild (Project Aurora on EU-Nagrand) so we get more daytime raiders and read the JMTC forums where there is a whole community of gold capped players just waiting to help.

The Warcraft Econ Hall of Fame is a column featuring the few elite players that have hit the World of Warcraft gold cap of 214,748 gold 36 silver 46 copper. We have with us , Suna of Darrowmere-US, who will be sharing their stories with us today.

Please tell us a little about yourself and your gaming experience.

My MMO experience started out with EQ. I was never really that involved with raiding or PVE and actually spent a lot of my time in the East Commons trading with people. Gold was fairly meaningless to me in EQ so I worked mostly with trades. That’s what I enjoyed. If people in my guild needed something they would talk to me and I would get it. When I quit the game I sold my 50 ranger and all my stuff for about $4000 to someone who claimed to be a professional baseball player. I used the money to tour Europe for a month.

Following EQ I went to DAoC which to this day remains my favorite MMO. I loved the game. Eventually though, as will happen in most games, my friends left and I lost interest. The game as I knew it faded away but before giving up completely I figured out a way to make large amounts of gold. I don’t remember how much gold I had when I quit but I do remember selling it for roughly $2500, which I used to to go Turkey.

I probably sound like a gold seller now but I’ve never played a game with intentions of selling gold or items.

I started out on Darrowmere (US) when the server opened up. Strangely enough it was the South Park episode that got me and some friends from DAoC re-interested. This was just before TBC was released and Darrowmere was a new server. My only experience in WoW prior to this was a level 20ish priest I played at release. I spent level 1-60 doing as much PVP as I could. I hated dungeons and raiding sounded like the most boring waste of time ever. When TBC was released my entire PVP oriented guild rerolled to another server and I lost interest in PVP. I spent the next few months leveling to 70 and making new friends. At some point I decided to go JCing which is when my massive amounts of gold started happening. I was the only JCer on my server who had all the rare TBC gems so I could set the price as high as I wanted on many cuts. When I took a break from the game back in June of 2008 I had ~136,000 gold. I came back sometime in the spring this year and decided to go for the gold (cap).

Do you raid or PvP most? Both? How do you enjoy the game?

I raid mostly. PVP hasn’t interested me since Season 3. I enjoy world PVP at times.

Why did you choose to collect this amount of gold?

I was more than halfway there when I came back to WoW so I just sorta did it to see if I could.

How did you go about getting to the 214k? Did you use professions? Auction House arbitrage? Any creative ideas?

My goal of reaching the gold cap came in two phases.

TBC:

I started out as a miner/skinner and dropped skinning for JCing since mining was such a good match up. Nobody on my server seemed interested in JCing so I started collecting designs and cornering the market. I spent a lot of time in Nagrand farming adamantite ore since there were no chinese farmers at the time and profits on prospecting was so high. For at least a month or two I was the only player with the Runed\Teardrop living ruby, Solid Star of Elune, and Glowing Nightseye cuts. I could sell these for 60-70g all day. If a design for one of these popped up for sale on the AH I would buy it and give it to someone I knew wasn’t playing the AH. I would also work with other players to keep the prices high. I left for a while in the spring of 2008, gave away 80k gold to my friends, and played Warhammer for a while.

WOLK:

When I came back the state of the JC market was terrible. Ore was fairly expensive and everyone had the new designs because of the token system. Worst of all my remaining 56k gold did nothing for me in regards to getting new designs. I actually didn’t bother with the JC daily for at least a month because I hate daily quests in general. After a while though I got into the game more and started up with the old “Cartel”. Some people worked with me and we got the market going again. It’s not hard to get people to see the logic in undercutting by 1 copper vs. 5-10g as was previously happening. Why sell a gem for 40g if you can sell it for 49.99.99g? Nobody seems to look at the price anyway so as long as you’re on top in the AH, you win the sale. I would list my gems about 2-3 times a day and use what I learned in TBC to my advantage. I never list more than 2-3 at a time and I never undercut by more than a copper. It’s unnecessary.

After getting most of the designs I could I started selling pretty heavily. My server is a relatively low population server. It’s not hard to figure out when people are buying gems. I also figured out that guys who can’t speak english very well will sell ore and eternals for really cheap and these guys would easily support my ore addiction easily. At one point I had 3-4 guys I suspect were chinese farmers selling me tons of ore, eternals, and later on herbs at dirt cheap prices. They’d get banned every 2-3 weeks or so and come back a week later and say “hello, I am <previous characters name>. Do you want ores?” Of course I do!

The JC market would occasionally be invaded by new people who just wanted to liquidate their mats to pay for epic mounts. When this happened I would just stop listing until prices bounced back. Enchanting mats were always easy gold but boring to make and DE. Nobles cards were easy gold as well since I could get herbs so cheap. To be honest, the main reason I like WoW tradeskills and making gold here is because I like to gamble. I enjoy prospecting as much as selling gold because it’s basically a gamble. The same for Darkmoone Cards. I love making 50-60 at a time and just seeing what I get.

How did you learn to do it?

I listed constantly for a while, making sure I was on top, and this allowed me to figure out when people were buying and I could use that to my advantage. Making gold in WoW for me has always been about when to sell as opposed to what to sell.

What addons, if any, do you use to help you make gold.

Auctioneer mostly. I also use some macros for milling, disenchanting, and prospecting so that I only have to push the number 1 over and over.

Are you still going for more gold? If so, do you have a new goal? Are you close?

I’m always going for more gold but only because I enjoy the gamble. I have no new goals really other than to play the market.

Do many people know you have this amount of gold?

Mostly my guild and a few people who tried to trade me when I reached the cap.

Did you spend your gold on fun things? What have you bought? What things would you like to buy?

I spent a lot on non-combat pets so I could get the 75 pet achievement. I’d love to find someone who could sell me trading card game items for WoW gold. I also plan to buy Travelling Mammoths for all my level 40s as I get them to that level. It was great to see my 52 priest mount up on one in WSG and getting two other guys to ride with me to the flagroom.

Do you have any special tips that you would like to share?

• Figure out when people are buying. It’s not always what to sell, but when to sell it. Don’t lowball just to try to sell faster. People buy when they need stuff, not when it’s cheap.
• On lower/mid population servers you can actually learn how to control the market and decide the price things sell for if you have the gold to do so.
• My rule of thumb when selling gems is list 2-3 at a time (12 hour listings) and only undercut by 1 copper. Do this 2-3 times a day. Anymore of an undercut is silly unless you’re trying to lowball and control the market. If someone is undercutting you repeatedly, stop listing 2-3 at a time and list 1.
• Figure out your lowest possible price prior to listing. If someone gets into a bidding war with you, drive them down as low as you can while still maintaining profit. If they buy you out, you still made gold. If they undercut you then, buy them out. This works best on consumables.

Do you have any fun stories from when you were grinding?

I used to be called the leader of the Darrowmere Jewelcrafting Cartel back in TBC.

I once had a guy undercut me every 5 minutes so I just listed all my stuff really low and bought him out then resold his stuff for 3x what I paid.

What was the best deal you ever came across?

Nobles deck for 500g. I think someone left a 0 off when listing. I sold it for 6k the next day.

Either that…or the Titanium Ore I had been collecting for 2 months prior to the prospecting changes. I think I had about 120 stacks of Titanium Ore the day 3.2 hit. I had been paying 60-70g a stack. I typically buy raw mats when they’re cheap, just in case.

Do you remember any of your worst deals?

I once spent 900g on a TBC gem design because I wasn’t paying attention and thought it was the WoLK version.

What are your future plans with WoW?

Continue raiding. Continue making gold. Get every epic gem design. I might write a guide or a blog about making gold.

Thank you for taking the time to do this interview for Warcraft Econ. Do you have any last words?

I wish Blizzard would make an achievement and give a title for hitting the cap! Thanks for reading.