Mysterious Fortune Cards
Mysterious Fortune Cards have become one of my most profitable markets within World of Warcraft and the Azerothian Auction Houses. Barking for sales has become a very fun way to play the game for me as well. My posts on these Mysterious Fortune Cards spurred a lot of discussion on blogs and gold forums. The posts on Mysterious Fortune Cards Preview, Fortune Card Bait N Switch, and Fortune Card Barking Tactics have all 3 moved into my top 10 most popular blog posts of all time! So starting the discussion before Cataclysm spurred a lot of discussion, interest, and sales of these highly profitable Inscription made Mysterious Fortune Cards.
In case you have been living under a rock these past few weeks, here is a recap of the entire gold blogosphere and the discussions on Mysterious Fortune Cards. This should serve to help any of you getting into this hot topic late.
Cold's Gold Factory - 5 Part Series on Mysterious Fortune Cards
Gnome of Zurich did a Fortune Cards post in response to Wukam's guest post.
Sterling of the Consortium did a great post comparing the Fortune Cards to pull tabs.
Xeroaze of The Tipper Copper has great ideas on Fortune Card Barking Tips.
Also check out Cold's Blog Azeroth Secret Santa Guest Post at Nicegrl.com on Mysterious Fortune Cards - What's The Hype? This is an excellent overview I did as my guest post on a non-gold making blog.
Here's some more articles from around the Gold Blogosphere on the topic of Mysterious Fortune Cards
Zoxy of Trading With Zoxy: How Zoxy Made 20k Gold In One Day
Faid of Nerf Faids: Hops on Mysterious Fortune Card Bandwagon
Breevok at CSAAHF: Fortune Cards - A Simple Perspective
Euripides at WoW Insider: Take The Mysterious Fortune Card House Advantage
Mageshadow at JMTC: Making a Fortune From Mysterious Fortune Cards
Alto at Alto's Goldish Advice: The New WoW Crack
Cindia of The Golden Muse: Random Rewards From Mysterious Fortune Cards
This list is not mean to be fullyinclusive of every post on Mysterious Fortune Cards. These are the most popular posts on the topic. Apologies to anyone I missed. Feel free to post a link in the comments section, if you also did a post on Mysterious Fortune Cards.
So has anyone found a 5000 gold jackpot winner yet?
As of the Hotfix on Tuesday the 18th, I've seen 4 5k Winners in 3 days. They haven't mention any improvement in the odds, but I believe the odds have been increased. Hell, I own 2 of the 5k cards myself.
Mysterious Fortune Cards have become one of my most profitable markets within World of Warcraft and the Azerothian Auction Houses. Barking for sales has become a very fun way to play the game for me as well. My posts on these Mysterious Fortune Cards spurred a lot of discussion on blogs and gold forums. The posts on Mysterious Fortune Cards Preview, Fortune Card Bait N Switch, and Fortune Card Barking Tactics have all 3 moved into my top 10 most popular blog posts of all time! So starting the discussion before Cataclysm spurred a lot of discussion, interest, and sales of these highly profitable Inscription made Mysterious Fortune Cards.
In case you have been living under a rock these past few weeks, here is a recap of the entire gold blogosphere and the discussions on Mysterious Fortune Cards. This should serve to help any of you getting into this hot topic late.
Cold's Gold Factory - 5 Part Series on Mysterious Fortune Cards
- Cataclysm Item Preview: Fortune Cards and Fortune Cookies
- Mysterious Fortune Cards Barking Tips - Great Tactics For Trade Chat Advertisements
- Fortune Card Bait and Switch Tactics - Get 'Em Hooked and Raise the Price
- Dealing With Undercutters
- The 5k Epic Fortune Card and Why You Should Own One
Gnome of Zurich did a Fortune Cards post in response to Wukam's guest post.
Sterling of the Consortium did a great post comparing the Fortune Cards to pull tabs.
Xeroaze of The Tipper Copper has great ideas on Fortune Card Barking Tips.
Also check out Cold's Blog Azeroth Secret Santa Guest Post at Nicegrl.com on Mysterious Fortune Cards - What's The Hype? This is an excellent overview I did as my guest post on a non-gold making blog.
Here's some more articles from around the Gold Blogosphere on the topic of Mysterious Fortune Cards
Zoxy of Trading With Zoxy: How Zoxy Made 20k Gold In One Day
Faid of Nerf Faids: Hops on Mysterious Fortune Card Bandwagon
Breevok at CSAAHF: Fortune Cards - A Simple Perspective
Euripides at WoW Insider: Take The Mysterious Fortune Card House Advantage
Mageshadow at JMTC: Making a Fortune From Mysterious Fortune Cards
Alto at Alto's Goldish Advice: The New WoW Crack
Cindia of The Golden Muse: Random Rewards From Mysterious Fortune Cards
This list is not mean to be fullyinclusive of every post on Mysterious Fortune Cards. These are the most popular posts on the topic. Apologies to anyone I missed. Feel free to post a link in the comments section, if you also did a post on Mysterious Fortune Cards.
So has anyone found a 5000 gold jackpot winner yet?
As of the Hotfix on Tuesday the 18th, I've seen 4 5k Winners in 3 days. They haven't mention any improvement in the odds, but I believe the odds have been increased. Hell, I own 2 of the 5k cards myself.
No, however every time I make a batch (100ish) I will open 10 or so just to try. I hit a 1K, but that's about it. Talk about adrenaline when I saw the epic card come up when opening though. I can see how people catch on to the hype...
ReplyDeleteThanks for the mention in the article! ALTOs Gold"ish" Advice- The Worst WoW Blog Ever!
The market has at least temporarily crashed on my server with cards going down to the 12g and too many competitors willing to sell at that point.
ReplyDeleteAt least in my server I took a few days off since a couple of undercutters appeared. I decided to take a break and wait for the prices to rise.
ReplyDelete4 days later and prices are actually lower. The problem is that my competition are not barking, so their cards just stay there without selling. Therefore they kept lowering the prices.
I posted only 69 @ 25g last night, different stacks and barked and they started selling again. Hopefully the AH cleared so I can rise the price back up to 35g.
I have had several people claim to have gotten the 5kg card. I will flip a few myself as im doing the posting and barking. Best I have seen is 20g personally. I found that the best barking technique includes a link to the 5k card which you can get from wowhead as long as someone has seen the card on your server.
ReplyDeleteFunny that Alto and I have the same philosophy. I open 10% of what I craft. I hit a 500g early on but nothing more than 10g since. I guess the pusher got hooked on the drug, eh? lol
ReplyDeleteThe cookies generally sell much better on my server but I have not paid attention to this market as I should. I will watch more closely over the next few days. I will also invest in this product more, and produce and bark more consistently.
As an aside, the title of your recent post using the phrase "bait and switch" really put me off. The connotation is one of acting unethically (even illegally as "bait and switch" is a known felony for certain financial products like insurance and securities).
A traditional "bait and switch" is more like fraud--one advertises a Mysterious Fortune card but when he trade with the person he gives them a USED card worth 10s. He "baited" them with an enticing offer and "switched" the product to defraud them.
After reading all the posts linked here, I now think the concept you are promoting is what I would call an "inducement offer".
I'll use a real life example. And no funny comments, I know I'm a lucky guy!!
Victoria's Secret sends my wife a mailer every month or so for a free item (bra, panties, whatever). She has to go into the store and select the item. They know that if she's in the store she is more likely to spend on other things, so the free item is an inducement (in more ways than one, lol).
Your strategy is similar in that you are attempting to influence future behavior (sales and return business) with an introductory offer, which I don't think is "bait and switch". Just a consideration, but maybe refer to this as an introductory offer or something like that.
Thanks for a consolidated post. Made it really easy to review all this at one time.
@Kammler
ReplyDeleteI liked "bait n switch" for the title because I felt it was more of a Hooking Headline to draw readers in.
As I hinted at above, I am working up a post about dealing with the undercutters. So stay tuned!
I sold around 2000 of these cards before moving on to making the Darkmoon cards. Those haven't been very lucrative, so I may go back. The price on my server for the T1 herbs still rarely drops below 125g/stack.
ReplyDeleteI've seen a couple of the 5k cards. I bought one off a guy for 6k just to have it. After a week, I went to list it on the AH and the listing fee was 3000g!!! So, I backed off that idea. I did find a guy who wanted it for 6k, so moved it on to him.
Lol, as soon as I comment noting the strength of the bag market on my server, I log on to find a crapload of bags at 10g. That'll teach me.
ReplyDeleteTypically I'm all about covering multiple markets, so ordinarily I wouldn't make a comment like this. But even at 35g sales (our server typically has them around 20g each), making the fortune cards is not worth the time to bark and move them.
ReplyDeleteUsing APM summary, I have been target crafting any glyphs that are posted above 200g, and as a result am averaging at least 20k per day just on glyphs, with multiple days over 35k throughout the expansion. With profit margins that high on glyphs, making fortune cards is just not a good use of herbs/time.
It seems like the scribes on my server (except two primary competitors) have gotten out of the business of glyphs, and until there is more competition, or more/cheaper herbs, I won't be bothering with the fortune cards at all.
@Michael
ReplyDeleteMost of us are barking WHILE we are doing our normal glyph post / repost routine. So its sales from glyphs and cards, silly.
Mysterious Fortune Cards require Blackfallow Ink and only 1 glyph requires the same ink, so I have no clue what you are talking about as a better use of inks on glyphs.
Even at 20 gold a card they are very profitable.
At 20g per card any herbs stacks you buy under 100g = profitable from selling the 5 cards they will make, plus the extra inferno inks you get from milling are 100% profit. I sell these inks for 150g each. So for an 80g stack of herbs, the cards earn roughly 20g profit and the infernos 150g each. Do the math.
No offense, but you don't seem to understand this market at all.
No offense taken. And maybe I'm not understanding your market. My point is that I just prefer to use the herbs I buy for something with a much greater profit margin, as I see that as a better use of my gold making time.
ReplyDeleteIf I wasn't able to sell all the glyphs I'm making, then sure, it makes sense to diversify into the Fortune Cards. But, when Glyphs are selling so well, why would I use limited materials (at my target threshold) on something that has a smaller profit margin?
The Inferno Inks don't factor in, since I'm milling for those regardless of whether I make glyphs or fortune cards.
So, if I spend 100g on herbs and make two glyphs that sell for 200g each (that's my current average), that's 300g profit, not including Inferno Inks.
If I use those same inks and make six fortune cards which sell for 20g each, I made a 20g profit, not including Inferno Inks. 300g profit, or 20g profit... Yeah, do the math.
By the way, this is all based on the idea of using the ink trader. Sure, you can find cheaper herbs for the lower level inks for even greater glyph profits, but it's slightly more work, AND you miss out on the Infernos. And the supply on Cata herbs is much more plentiful.
My server is solid at 30-35g but herbs cost like 120-130.. so there is profit but you would have to sell a ton. The extra procs of Burning Embers make it profitable though. I leveled inscription for free making cards. I also offered to mill peoples stacks of herbs if they let me keep the Burning Embers.. and I would make "free" cards for them.
ReplyDeleteIf I made a 5K card for myself I would keep it and not sell it. I mean when you are barkering is it not SOOOO much better if you can say "Get Mysterious cards win [5k card]." Not sure if I can link it some other way in the chat?
@SirFWALGMan
ReplyDeleteJust go to Wowhead and find the 5k item page. There is a little red button to link it ingame. It is to the right of the image usually. Just copy that code and make a macro. Then you can hit the macro and the link to the 5k card will appear for you to create trade chat links with.
Hope that helps.
Very nice post about MFC's! I've had some good fun barking these cards lately when i've been bored of my usual auctioneering routine.
ReplyDelete