Waiting out the storm.

A month and a half after I reported my bot friend Trimact, it appears that Blizz has finally dropped the banhammer on him. Good for Blizz! And even better for my bottom line. I was planning on using strategies from Foo and Stokpile on how to eliminate heavy competition, but it appears that this guy is either gone, or planning on posting from another toon. We shall see.

However, I haven't been able to take advantage of this new opportunity just yet, because my hard drive died on me on Sunday. I'm still sorting out my options, but it looks like it may be another week before I can hop back into World of Warcraft. In the meantime, I'm making a little money in the real world and getting settled in to my new college schedule. (I'm glad there's a computer lab in the building where most of my classes are!)

I recently read an article about superstitions that players hold in World of Warcraft, like holding on to lucky charms of sorts, or sacrificing gnomes before a boss pull. I had never heard of the gnome thing before, but I guess that's because I haven't leveled an ally toon past level 25. I have, however, recently started carrying around some junk that some people would consider talismans. I found a Rabbit's Foot on my druid and sent it to Danebread. I also had a pleasant surprise when eating my fortune cookie: the 5k fortune card. I think my raid group was flabbergasted that I didn't vendor it, but decided it would live in my bags as a reminder of my economic goals. If I'm ever in a position where the 5,000g will make me or break me, then it'll be there, but I kind of hope that never happens.

Speaking of economic goals, I cleared 200k shortly before my hard drive crashed. I was going to make a post at the quarter-million mark, but that might be a while, depending on when I get a new hard drive. So hooray for me and my 200,000g! Bye for now guys, I'm off to learn about genetics.

Speculation and Steampunk

Nice hat.

"In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love." - Alfred Lord Tennyson

My fancy turned lightly to love in the springtime. Now it's almost August and I'm ready for romance to show up already - the sooner the better. The last time I was remotely serious about a relationship was in March, and that ended horribly. It was doomed from the beginning, much like my attempt to reset Truegold on the day after the Molten Front vendors were unlocked... just a poor choice on my part, despite my dogged efforts to make it work. She just wasn't right for me, and no matter how sweet and patient I was, it would never have worked because she wasn't a good fit for me at all.


(cue soundtrack)

So, today I'll tell you about one of my early speculative ventures. I stumbled across this one right around the time Cataclysm launched, before I started reading gold blogs. Although I later found out that Alto blogged about it, I feel cool that I figured it out on my own. See that lady pictured up there? Wouldn't you like to have a stylish top hat like that?

I stumbled upon the following recipe, no clue why or how, but I did: High Society Top Hat. Check out the mats: Bolt of Woolen Cloth (8), Heavy Leather (4), Black Dye (6), Green Dye (2), Fine Thread (6), Polished Bronze Rivet (8). Wait a minute, what's a Polished Bronze Rivet? Glad you asked! It's a 1-3% drop from pickpocketing Cataclysm-level humanoids, if Wowhead data is to be trusted. I've never looted a single one; I simply identified it as the hardest-to-find reagent in the High Society Top Hat recipe, and decided to gobble up all the Bronze Rivets I could find on the AH. Who wouldn't want to outfit their bank toons with a classy looking top hat?

That's a dandy idea, to be sure, but where does one acquire the pattern for such fine headgear? Well, nobody knows, not yet anyways. In patch 4.03, someone asked a GM, and was told that it's not available yet, but to be patient. That was patch 4.03, and we're still waiting. It's still possible that it could get added, or it's possible that it will never be implemented. I've picked up 3 stacks of them at 5g-20g apiece, and I'm okay with that investment, even if I end up having to vendor them for 2s50c eventually.

"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." - Wayne Gretzky

I realized why my love life hasn't taken off yet. I've been a huge flirt, as usual, but I haven't taken any steps towards an actual relationship. Since my failure in March, I've had a mental block towards actually falling in love. While it's true that I'll never get hurt that way, I'll also miss out on opportunities to grow and learn and love. I will always be of the opinion that love is worth taking a little risk.

However, that doesn't mean you can be reckless about it. The main reason why my last relationship felt so bad is that I kept trying to fix it when I should have just let it die. I was over-invested in it emotionally, while the object of my affections didn't seem to care one iota. In Azeroth, you'll get rich much faster if you take a few risks, but once in a while you make a bum investment. To keep this from wrecking you, don't invest more than you're willing to lose, and try to diversify so your not putting all your eggs in one basket, so to speak. I could go out and buy 6 guild tabs full of pyrite over the next week or two, but that would tie up my gold that I would rather spend on other ventures. Other ventures, which will be the subject of other blog entries in the future. Stay fresh, my friends, and don't be afraid to try new things, both in the Auction House and RL. Just remember to invest smart and diversify.

Speaking of trying new things, in the past two weeks, I went on dates with three girls, one of whom is quite interesting, and will be getting further attention.*wink*

Introducing Braindead Industries

Bloodsail Admiral Danebread, Captain of Braindead Industries

Welcome, friend. Today is the official launch of Braindead Industries, the journal where I share the tales of my quest for wealth and adventure. There are two reasons why I'm holding the official launch today. First, I have finally hoodwinked somebody into following my blog, and it's none other than fluxdada of Power Word: Gold. It's pretty exciting to be noticed by somebody you look up to! Second, I've finally finished fiddling around with my alts, and I'm ready to start making gold in earnest. Time for balls-to-the-wall, no-holds-barred wheeling and dealing; the Auction House is now my personal Everest, and I'm all geared up for the climb.

(cue soundtrack)

So, who or what is Braindead Industries? I'm glad you asked. I'd like to introduce the starting lineup:

Crafters of Braindead Industries

This week, I achieved one of my biggest goals in Azeroth: I maxed every crafting profession. From left to right, I have a JC/Enchanter, Scribe/LW, Engineer/BS, and Tailor/Alchemist. I've invested a lot of time in this "human capital" to get these various alts to level 75 and their tradeskills to 525. Now, I just have to put their professions to good use! The dashing undead pirate is my main Danebread, and the ruggedly handsome orc  Death Knight getting his boogie on is Xagoraphobe, his co-captain and Chief Financial Officer of Braindead Industries.

Bankers of Braindead Industries

Here we have my bankers and inexperienced alts. Between the four of them, I have two 4-slot guild banks and two 5-slot guild banks. As of right now, they're mostly empty, but when I find a good deal in bulk, like a couple hundred stacks of Azshara's Veil at half of the typical market value, it's nice to have a place to store it.

Right now, as far as capital goes, I have those four guild banks, some inks, a little bit of herb, some flasks and potions, a few sets of crafted Bloodthirsty gear, and a handful of stacks of each color of uncut rare gems. Oh, and about 20k liquid. I can only go up from here. Gold cap, here I come.

So, what can you expect from this blog? Fun stories of my journey to wealth and glory. I read an article recently about a group of prisoners at the Missouri Eastern Correctional Center who are rehearsing and staging a production of Hamlet. While these performers weren't very well educated and definitely not trained to perform Shakespeare, which I'm sure frustrated their director at times, she found that their personal experiences made their performances much more engaging and more real. Hamlet is a story about an emotional youngster contemplating vengeance, violence, and death: who better to relate to that kind of story than people who have tasted the consequences of such crimes of passion? Similarly, I'm not a trained professional when it comes to auction house domination. I'm just a passionate young goblin who happens to be a storyteller as well. Hopefully the young and old alike can find something valuable and entertaining from my adventures, even if I don't have the wisdom of the multi-millionaires to scry out future profits from the tea-leaf readings on the PTR. You can watch me struggle my way to the top and hopefully identify with my concerns, my thought processes, and my triumphs. I can't guarantee insider trading tips or profit-expanding advice, but I can give you my best shot at a fun read.

Time to hit the auction house. Hope you come back soon!

4.2 impressions

First off, my farmer hasn't been online when I've been online recently, and hasn't filled the last two orders I sent by in-game mail despite replying with mail of his own. And now that the patch has hit, I could really use some more ore to process and some damned Cinderbloom to make Steelskin Flasks from. So instead of getting all the herb I want for 25g a stack, it looks like I may be paying 45g a stack on the AH. I'm putting it off as long as I can, but I'm about to run out of those flasks.

Other than my farmer bumming out, I'm doing okay. I made TSM groups for gems and started putting my JC to use. I've been stockpiling my rares from prospecting, and timidly put a little of everything I've got on the AH. Our resident gem baron Trimact undercut me within the half hour... three times in a row. Looking at his Undermine Journal profile, it's looking like there's not much I can do about him. I knew he had more resources than I do, but the guy never sleeps, either, so I'm screwed. Unless I can pin him for botting, I suppose.

Enough whining! Flasks and potions, my only two winning markets, are selling like crazy today. I'm a little over a level away from 75 on the DK. And I have an extra-long weekend to enjoy the new patch! Class was cancelled Friday, I'm off work, and I'm gonna enjoy Firelands as much as possible. I already snagged my horde balloon pet and did the Thrall quests for the cloak. I'm happy as can be.

Personal Farmer?

I believe I have started a business relationship with a farmer that will supply me with most of my herb and ore needs: Elementium, Pyrite, Cinderbloom, Whiptail, and Volatile Life. I'm still working out the kinks, but I think this can be mutually beneficial and quite profitable on my end. We'll see how it works out.

In other news, I'm not quite ready for 4.2, but I don't think that matters much at this point. And whomever told me that lighting bonfires was good exp/hour, lied to me. I didn't measure it, but it sure felt like I could have been farther along had I quested through Northrend instead of done the bonfires. In any case, the fires are kinda boring, and I actually like questing. So that's how we're going to finish off my DK: 75 this week or bust!

Cancel/Repost made easy

So, I've set up a handful of groups in TSM, and figured out how to cancel and repost. This addon is so cool! I wish I knew how to use all the other functions, but that will come with time. I met my goals, even if my TSM epiphany came a bit later than I had hoped. The fire sale was a success and pulled in 5k for not a whole lot of effort. I'll repeat it again soon, because I want my guild banks completely empty. Anything that doesn't sell after 3 or 4 listings will be put in the bank alt's character bank space or vendored. My shaman is 75 and now has maxed Engineering. I'm gathering mats for my BS/LW leveling marathons. And while I haven't spent much time ingame this week, I'm feeling pretty fantastic about my gold making. I've burned the majority of my liquid gold, but with the new automated tools at my disposal, I bet I can turn my investments back into cash much easier.

New goals: more groups in TSM!

My first stockpile

Azshara's Veil had been lingering between 90-100g per stack for a week or two, and I was beginning to worry about when I'd be able to grab cheap mats for my next round of crafting flasks. Patiently I waited for prices to drop, and lo and behold they completely bottomed out. I picked up two and a half gbank tabs at 36g/stack, which took a third of my liquid gold. Probably not a wise decision in hindsight. I think I tend to work myself into a buying frenzy when I find a deal that good.

So, now I'm trickling those stacks out a dozen at a time, hoping to sell them for double or even triple what I paid for them, and hoping that someone dumps Twilight Jasmine soon so I can make some more int flasks. Cleaning out my gbanks so I can do more of this mass buying would be helpful, too. I still have almost 4 tabs that are just filled with scraps of leveling mats and other old-world junk in quantities too small to really make a difference. Now that school's out and the summer kiddies are leveling, maybe I can get rid of a lot of that on the AH.

Leveling my shaman 2 more levels and my DK 9 more levels should be at the top of my priorities list this week. But I might have to take some time to configure TSM before I get there. Herb and especially Volatile prices went up, so competition went down for flasks briefly, but now that I've started posting for higher prices I'm finding a couple more interlopers. It would be convenient if I had TSM set up to cancel/repost when the undercutters start moving in. I keep putting it off, but I need to bite the bullet. Reposting will be easier, posting more auctions will become easier, and I'll save time in just about everything if I can just use the tools I already have installed. There's a possibility I'll be going to the beach this weekend, so I will make it my goal to have flasks set up in TSM before I'll leave.

This stream-of-consciousness blogging is a bit odd, but at least I'm coming to conclusions as I type it out. In the future, I probably will have a set goal of something to say when I sit down to type, but today I just have some time to kill in the library between classes, so this is what you get. ;)

Goals: Set up flasks in TSM
Shaman to 75 (finally, derp)
Fire Sale from the Guild Bank for Lux Aurumque (isn't that a cool name for a guild? It means Golden Light in latin)

Oh, I have a blog?

Yep, and things are starting to take off in-game finally! I spent a couple months learning every glyph in the game, and soon I'll have a full-fledged glyph business running. I'm also on the cusp of getting 2 more toons to 75, opening up some more profession slots. Right now, I'm starting to increase my liquid gold with flasks. Volatiles are disappearing from the market, and I'm risking a little bit where I can on Pyrite Ore and Truegold. Nothing too exciting, other than the fact that I'm super stoked about cornering the flask market. I spent my first earnings on some Portable Holes and guild bank tabs, so now I have 3 guild banks with 4 tabs each. Not much to put in them yet, other than my Pyrite, but so far that's about a third of a tab, so not a whole lot. Anyways, I'll let you know when I've got something worth sharing!

Gotta start somewhere

What an awesome weekend! I got out of the house for most of the day on Saturday, and had a lot of fun with some old friends. But that means I didn't get quite as far on my Warcraft goals as originally projected. No worries though, I'm still doing quite well, and even if I wasn't, the RL benefits would still be totally worth it.

Here's what I've got so far:
1st Guild Bank: 2 tabs, mostly empty (previously held a ton of herbs - more on that later)
2nd Guild Bank: 5 tabs, tons of junk. Got this all for free a week ago. Not sure of any of this is worth much, as it's mostly old-world stuff, and nothing stands out so far, but I'm going to try to organize it and put it to use.
1st tab: Various DE mats
2nd tab: Potions, recipes
3rd tab: Meat
4th tab: Leathers
5th tab: Ores, gems
3rd Guild Bank: 2 tabs, completely empty. When I bought it, it was full of vendor trash and a couple low-level things that I disenchanted or sold off pretty quickly.
Specific assets and investments
900 Volatile Life (bought at 4g-5g apiece, hope the price goes up with the next patch. If not, I use them in my daily transmute.)
30-40 stacks of Dense Stone (hopefully buying more before the Faire comes)
15-20 stacks of Wool Cloth
18 Polished Bronze Rivets (buying as many as I can in anticipation of the Top Hat recipe)
3-4 stacks of Embersilk Bolts (for my Dreamcloth transmutes)
Volatiles for Dreamcloth and Living Elements transmutes
2 Dreamcloth (saving to make more pants, or perhaps spellthread later)
Volcanic Deck
Earthquake Deck
All Winds cards except 5
Flame-Ascended Pantaloons
Total cash on hand: 4568g

If you're wondering about the Dense Stone, I plan on turning them into Dense Grinding Stones and using them at the Darkmoon Faire to buy Greater Darkmoon Prize. It's cheap, the trash greens can be sold or disenchanted to cover your expenses, and you have a shot at rare recipes or twink gear that can sell for a pretty penny. I found this tip at The Consortium, and hope to give it a shot this Faire. I could use the rep anyways, so I don't have anything to lose, really.

As for that first guild bank, it was full of old herbs that I bought for cheap when prices dipped for Cataclysm. I sold a good deal of them when prices spiked after Cataclysm and people were leveling tradeskills en masse, but I had about half a tab left of Azeroth herbs, and half a tab of Northrend/Outlands herbs. Well, I decided this weekend to work on my inscription based on these two discoveries:

1. There are no glyphs that require the highest level of Inscription skill, so all glyphs can be made with a lvl 65 toon (like my DK!) at about 400 skill level.
2. There are tons of glyphs that can only be learned through daily research, so the sooner I start doing my Minor Inscription Research and Northrend Inscription Research, the quicker I can have a full arsenal of glyphs to profit from.

So, I took what herbs I had in that gbank, farmed up the rest of what I needed with the DK, then dropped herbalism, learned inscription, and leveled straight through until I learned Northrend Research. It was grueling. But, now I can start learning the 64 glyphs from Minor Research, 41 glyphs from Northrend Research, and 54 glyphs from Books of Glyph Mastery. That last one is going to be tough, because no one plays Lich King content anymore, and the books are nowhere to be found on my AH this weekend, and rarely found on other days.

Well, at least I have a scribe, and I can start investigating the glyph market. My shaman is at lvl 64 and ready for the Nagrand quests, which is still my favorite zone in BC. I've found a couple potential holes in the current AH market: vendor recipes, cloth twink/leveling gear, and certain vendor pets. We have plenty of Alliance pets like the cats and the moths, but no one's selling the Dalaran pets. I might be able to elbow my way into the Yeti pets, having done that quest on my shaman earlier this week. Oh, and I made a decent profit from someone leveling their BS. They decided to list 5 Truesilver Rod for 60s. I turned around and sold them one at a time for 25g. Success! Little by little, I'm going to make my fortune.

Goals: Shaman to Northrend by this weekend, Elder Title before it's too late.
Start selling the glyphs I leveled on, look into further glyph opportunities
Pick up vendor pets and recipes, start selling
Start figuring out production for cloth twink/leveling gear

The point of it all

Introduction
I'm creating this blog as a means of tracking my progress and gathering my thoughts concerning making gold in World of Warcraft. Perhaps eventually I will have acquired enough wisdom to impart to the rest of you, but for now I'm being entirely selfish and doing this all for myself. I need to start setting goals and accomplishing things in an organized manner, instead of the helter-skelter approach that I've defaulted to right now.

So, as a casual raider and collector of achievement points, non-combat pets, and crappy arena ratings, why am I moving into the gold-making business? Here are my reasons.

• I want to be able to afford rare pets and other toys for my main.
• I want to outfit my alts in top-notch BoE gear.
• I want to have enough cash to give generous gifts to my friends and guild. 
• I actually enjoy crafting and dealing on the Auction House.

I didn't intend for it to be that way, but that list is in order from least important to most important, now that I think about it. So, I'm going to look at that as my mission statement, or my core values that I fall back on. From here, I need to make specific goals, broken into manageable chunks, that I can shoot for on a regular basis. But first, I think I need to inventory what I've got to start with:

The Characters
85 Priest (Main) -- 525 Tailoring / 525 Alchemy
71 Warlock -- 450 Enchanting / 450 Jewelcrafting
65 Death Knight -- 450 Alchemy / 380 Herbalism
62 Shaman -- 338 Skinning / 300 Engineering
32 Rogue -- 148 Herbalism / 119 Inscription
16 Druid -- 72 Mining / 63 Herbalism
8 Mage -- nothing yet

Ideally, I think this is what I want them all to have at max level:

Priest -- Tailoring/Alchemy
Warlock -- Enchanting/Jewelcrafting
Death Knight -- Alchemy/Inscription
Shaman -- Skinning/Engineering
Rogue -- Leatherworking/Blacksmithing
Druid -- Mining/Herbalism
Mage -- Alchemy/Jewelcrafting

I plan on raiding with the Shaman and Priest, but I have no desire to play my DK, so I figured I can fill his bags with glyphs and cards. BS and LW are the lowest professions on my priority list, so they got stuck on my lowest-priority toon. I've got my work cut out for me! Now, as for which character to level first, the logical choice would be to get the Warlock capable of max JC/Enchant. However, I have a goal completely unrelated to gold making that supercedes that. I really, really want the Elder title on my shaman, so I'm going to be powerleveling him in an attempt to get to Northrend and finish all the Lunar Festival achievements before it's too late. Last weekend I got him from 52 to 59, so I'm not too worried about hitting that target.

Next blog, I'm taking inventory of the stuff that I've got spread out between my toons. Guild banks, cash on hand, mats on hand, etc. I was kind of stupid previously and put all my cash in Darkmoon Cards, so as I write this I have about 25k invested in that, and only 5k on hand. Makes it hard to do anything between now and the Faire! But, I will be better organized in the future, and make smarter investments, we can hope. That's why I'm doing this blog, right?

Goals: Shaman to Northrend by February 7. Elder title by February 12.
Blog later this weekend about stuff I have on hand.
Plan to identify which markets are most open that I can move into.