Monday, January 31, 2011

The Tale of a Gorilla Hunter

I was on a mission. 

I was well beyond the level requirement of 40 that was required to obtain my first mount.  I was level 46 when I finally raised up enough money to buy my first mount ever.  I had already bought my mount and was saving enough gold for the riding skill itself.  I had wandered the flattend landside for far too long on my own feet.  I was a rogue and count often use my sprint ability to cover a few seconds of extra space, but nothing was like being able to get my first ground mount.  Finally I would be able to move faster around doing these quests.  The Barrens was spread so far and covering everything on foot was miserable.  And poor Manrik's wife.

I was on a mission.

I had to collect more items to sell for raising enough gold to purchase that riding skill.  I had my mind set on farming some Jungle Thunderer's in Stranglethorn Vale.  These apes dropped a grey item that vendored for 6 silver and 8 copper, which seemed like a lot to me at the time.  I was a rogue leatherworking skinner.  The Jungle Thunderers could be skinned into Heavy Leather, Thick  Leather, and Heavy Hides.  I would farm these apes until my bags were full of Coarse Gorilla Hairs, Large Fangs, Chipped Gorilla Teeth, and Gorilla Fangs.  I would vendor everything except for the Large Fangs because I vaguely remember looking for those when I was working on my Leatherworking Profession. 

And My Mission Changed

Then I recalled it was for those cool blue bracers.  I looked at the recipe and saw I already held most of the materials.  These Apes had been supplying me with Large Fangs, Heavy Leather, and Heavy Hides.  Farming some leathers for previously skilling up the leatherworking profession had left me with extra leathers. 

I then found a stack of Small Lustrous Pearls in my bank.  A few stacks of Raptor Hides from another zone of farming were also already stored in the bank because, "One day I might use these."  Combining it all together, I was able to craft a few pairs of Barbaric Bracers

And it all changed there...

Barbaric Bracers then became the very first profession item I ever crafted and sold on the Auction House. I still sell them to this day at great profits, but I do none of the farming. The auction house feeds me what I need.
What was your defining moment when the lightbulb came on?

8 comments:

  1. The lightbulb went on very early for me. I've played a ton of different mmorpg's and there was a moment when I realised that the more gold/wealth you have the more powerful your gear could get because you could afford it. I've been sitting on a huge pile of ingame currency ever since. I've always loved to 'play' with ingame economies and see how I can dominate them or tear them down completely. I still have to move over to EVE to check that out but since i'm more of a fantasy style mmo player I think that move will take a while to make.

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  2. I leveled LW almost entirely without the auction house... and didn't sell anything, either vendored what I made or disenchanted it. Then I got into Alchemy, adn realized how great and unique Swiftness potions were... and that was my first serious production line.

    Was always scared of the Auction House, I figured it was for the 'serious' players, not for 10 hours a week me... but because I don't have 'fallback' and 'profit margins' and will just take any profit whenever I decide to sell, it works great for me. I finally got into it with Alchemy and later with Netherweave Bags, ended up loving it... now I spend about 4 hours of my 10 in a week just sitting at the AH (now over in the Tauren section of Org) and sifting through looking for deals

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  3. It was back in the beginning of the burning crusade, when a friend boasted he had a lot of gold from jewelcrafting. I had just got my warrior max level and so I started saving up and buying one expensive JC pattern at a time.

    I would only buy one pattern at a time, and the raw materials, and not buy the next pattern until I had made enough profit to purchase it. I was scanning and posting everything by hand with a pen and paper!

    My lightbulb moment was when I realised that I actually had the majority of those very expensive patterns, and that I was making a lot of gold!

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  4. I was a level 14 warrior with mining. I had gathered copper ore, smelted it and then didn't know what to do with so I went to the AH and posted the copper bars. I remember listing them for 2 gold a stack and happy about making 10 gold, as to this point I had never been above 2 gold. The next day I was in the AH about to post a stack of copper ore when I noticed they were priced for under 1 gold a stack...it then hit me. What if I bought the cheap ones and then listed them for 2 gold like imdid yesterday? I could double my gold by doing nothing, so I did it and the next day I had 20 gold instead of 10.

    I then made it a game and within 1 month I took a paltry 20 gold and turned it into 2500 gold. I never looked back and later I would abandon mining at level 200 and never farmed a day since then for 5+ years.

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  5. Not sure I ever had any single moment, but the begining of the cash cow game was eaely wrath. Friends talked me into leveling my pally tank who was a BS/ENG... ouch expesive to level those 2... I had never gotten epic flying either. So, of with my zapthrottle mote extractor to farm fire in sholazar. BAM, i was making decent gold, 10 eternals/hour of FIRE, that sold for 45-75 gold each... big money at the time. so i was finally able to use the turbo-charged copter... then I started into maintenance mode, and usually had several K. wrath out Cata in. New toon new server, no help, fresh start... Ding 415K in about 2 months. Now its on... going for a million. Ego pushed me to make gold so i was not dependant on friends to get my new alt started. they had transfered and race changed, i rerolled... that toon has all the trimmings, 310% speed and all that stuff. I just dont buy gear. I make it a point with my ego to "earn" my gear in raids or PVP. Now back down to about 50K, but... about 30+ DMC to sell for the next month. going for a million, pretty much on DMCs alone. read my blog for more...

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  6. I had only one toon at the time, a Skinning/Leatherworker. I was in the AH buying some Light Leather for some crafting. Making my own gear, feeling pretty good that I was getting a fresh new +5 Agi Chest or some such AWESOME green item, when I accidentally bought a stack of 10 Light Hide.

    Oops.

    What to do with these? Well, I could cure them--needed the skill up as I recall.

    When I went back to the AH to list them I saw the other Cured Light Hides were all selling individually for more than I mistakenly paid for the whole stack.

    I sold them all in a day.

    From there it was just a matter of Google'ing "how to earn gold in WoW" and I was off and running.

    I remember when I hit 1,000 gold. I thought I was a king.

    Lol, nice memories. Thanks for the post Cold.

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  7. Mine was late BC and I had been playing for only a few months. I was lamenting being broke when a guildie mentioned selling some of the greens I had on the AH. I did some searching on the internet and stumbled upon auctioneer. Much trial and error later, I had flipped my way to 25k and thought I had the world by the tail. It wasn't until Wrath, when the flipping market started dying off, that I started looking seriously at my profs. Now I sometimes spend 25k on mats without a second thought. Not quite to gold cap yet.. approaching 500k.

    Love your stuff Cold, keep up the awesome work.

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  8. Mine was mid Wrath after I had been playing for almost 2 years already with barely enough gold to afford my flasks and repairs for raiding.

    I was lvling an alt mage and decided to give him tailoring and enchanting because they seemed like pretty magey professions to have. I was lvling tailoring using only what I picked up while questing and using the items I made to disenchant and then lvl enchanting. Up until about lvl 150 of each I was just blowing the enchants on my own soulbound items simply to get the level ups.

    I can't remember how it happened but at some point I stumbled upon enchanting vellums so I started putting my enchants onto them. I chucked a few up on the auction house and lo-and-behold they all sold and I had more gold than ever before!

    And I haven't looked back since. Cheers for the walk down memory lane Cold.

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