Found Cheap Enchanted Leather? Try Shifting Cloaks

Epic Shifting Cloak

Shifting Cloak

Pattern Removed
Back before The Shattering prior to Cataclysm, there was a goblin named Knot Thimblejack that was held captive in the Dire Maul North instance.  Once you freed Knot, you could open Knot Thimblejack's Cache and loot the crafting supplies contained inside.  On rare occasion you could find rare and epic Vanilla WoW crafting patterns, like the epic craftable pattern for Shifting Cloak.  Knot's Cache has been removed from the game and the epic patterns that only dropped from the Cache are all now unobtainable

Materials Changed
After The Shattering, the world was in such a new state that many of the old materials required for crafting the epic Shifting Cloak were also effected.  Guardian Stones, which used to be required in the Shifting Cloak recipe, dropped from a mob that was removed from the World of Warcraft.  Shifting Cloak used to also require multiple Skin of Shadow, which was a Bind on Pick-Up crafting material.  Scholomance saw a drastic level requirement change in Cataclysm and Skin of Shadows has now been completely removed from all crafting recipes, thus making it a completely obsolete item for crafting.

So the required materials for crafting a Shifting Cloak have been changed to only require 1 Rune Thread and 10 Enchanted Leather, which leaves us plenty of room for profit.  The removal of the bound crafting material also makes this a much easier item to produce in larger quantities as farming for Skin of Shadow is no longer required.

Enchanted Leather

Enchanted Leather is made from 1 Rugged Leather and 1 Lesser Eternal Essence.  You may think to yourself, "Why would anyone waste Eternal Essences on Enchanted Leather?"  Players leveling their Enchanting profession often craft 10 or more of these as they are easy skill points while grinding up Enchanting.  These enchanters have no real use for these Enchanted Leathers and the Enchanted Leather can often be found dumped on the auction house for much less than the cost to craft them.

Looking at The Undermine Journal shows that Enchanted Leather is sold for ridiculously low prices on most World of Warcraft servers.  The ability to snatch up cheap Enchanted Leather from the auction house makes the Shifting Cloak an option for your Leatherworker, if you are lucky enough to have this now unobtainable pattern.

While Shifting Cloak is quickly replaced when questing in Outlands, it will still sell because players love their purple epics.  There may not even be any of the Outlands cloaks on the auction house and the Shifting Cloak is a great option for leveling or twinking rogues, hunters, and druids.  Depending on how cheap you are able to obtain your Enchanted Leather, you may be able to offer a much more competitive price when compared to the highly priced Outlands cloaks.

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Today is the FINAL DAY to enter into the 2 giveaways here at Cold's Gold Factory.  Follow this link for more information on how to enter for your chances at a free Mysterious Fortune Card Mastery Gold Making Guide.  Winners will be announced tommorrow, so be sure to check back to see if you are one of the 2 lucky winners.

Patch 4.2 Inferno Ruby Cuts - Sell Now or Holdout?

Patch 4.2 Is Here

Patch 4.2 is here already, which brings an end to stockpiling for Patch 4.2.  Now is the time to unload some of your stockpiled items and turn those items into profits!  One of the most popular items to stockpile for Patch 4.2 has been Inferno Rubies.  Many bloggers discussed transmuting Inferno Rubies from Heartblossom and Carnelian, saving them from Elementium shuffling, or just buying them when the raw price is low.  Inferno Rubies are always a great investment because of the wave of demand that comes any time a new patch contains upgrades.  Combine that with the end of the arena season and the upgrade of PvP gear patterns and you have a lot of players looking for gems for new gear.

Stockpiling

On a side note, I would like to discuss the whole stockpiling philosophy.  One of the common mistakes I often see when stockpiling is from players blindly following advice on what to stockpile.  It happened with Saronite Ore at the End of Wrath and happened with the beginning of Cataclysm.  One of the most important things to have figured out early into your stockpiling endeavor is to know when and how you are going to utilize those stockpiled items.  You don't want to be stockpiling without a good action plan and or an exit strategy.  Knowing when to unload your stockpiled items is equally important as choosing the right items to stock up on.

Inferno Ruby Cuts - Sell Now Or Hold Out?

Stocking up on Inferno Rubies was a great idea, since the red gems are the best sellers on probably every server in World of Warcraft.  The problem comes when everyone else is stockpiling the same Inferno Rubies. Since most people understand that red gems sell the best and are some of the quickest movers, many other people have also stockpiled Inferno Rubies.  While there is a major demand spike, there also are a lot of suppliers of those same red gems thanks to stockpiling efforts.  This leads to an initial period of heavy competition with lower prices than are expected due to the excess supply of Inferno Rubies.  

Patch 4.1 Observations

In Patch 4.1, I observed the same typical price fluctuations for high demand items that were stockpiled and then unloaded after the patch.  On my server, Patch 4.1's first day saw the Inferno Ruby cuts selling for around 60-75 gold each.  The price dipped as low as 45-50 gold for most red cuts, then started to make a gradual climb.  By the 1st weekend, the cut Inferno Rubies had risen to around 150g each and continued to rise to around 200-225 gold the second week.  The price leveled out to around 120-140 gold per Inferno Ruby cut by the end of the week.

Selling on day 1 of the Patch, may not be the best time to sell due to the extra competition.  The demand is high after a patch, but the supplies are super high as well.  The market can easily become saturated as the people who read blogs and only understand basic concepts start to sell all cut red gems after the patch because that is what the blogs said to do.  Stockpile Inferno Rubies and then sell cut Inferno Rubies after the patch is all the beginning auctioneer could comprehend.  These guys battling it out on the auction house dropped the prices of the cut gems lower than they were selling for prior to the patch!

Wrapping It Up

So in closing, if the prices aren't nice enough yet to meet your expectation, then don't sell yet.  A more experienced auctioneer will wait out the initial supply dump and hold onto their gems to sell for premium prices once the massive supply of Inferno Rubies starts to dwindle.  Some bloggers would argue and say that, "as long as your making a profit, keep selling every day."  In my opinion, that is very poor advice.  Why sell for 50 gold today what you can sell in 3 days for 200 gold each?  By choosing to compete in the lower priced times, you are doing nothing but contributing to the prices staying lower for longer.  Just like when you are posting on the AH, if your markets items are priced higher, you may be more likely to list the auction for 48 hours.  When the price is okay, but not ideal, you may only list for 24 or 12 hour auction duration.  When the price is barely over profitable I hope you are either waiting for the price to rebound or are resetting the market.  You aren't wasting all of your time working for coppers are you?  

On the flipside, if you see the red gems at a nice low price, thanks to gems now stacking, I would buy up some for later use since there isn't the major bag or bank space issues anymore.

World of Warcraft Patch 4.2 Gold Blogging Recap

World of Warcraft Patch 4.2 could be upon us as early as today, well at least in the USA.  Here's a handy little recap of some of the best gold making strategies and articles to help keep you busy during the Tuesday maintenance.  So get your ideas refreshed and get your action plan ready, just in case the WoW servers come back up and Patch 4.2 is on us today!

Selection of Reading Material Regarding WoW Patch 4.2

• Craftable PvP Gear Upgrades in Patch 4.2 Alto's Goldish Advice
• Patch 4.2 and The Book of Glyph Mastery Change Alto's Goldish Advice
• Preparing My Army of Alts for Patch 4.2 Cold's Gold Factory
• Are Stackable Gems A Positive or Negative? Cold's Gold Factory
• Patch 4.2 New Engineering Craftables Cold's Gold Factory
• The Anti-Stockpile Strategy Nerf Faids
• Tuesday Nights Are Mega Sales Nights Goldgrubs Goblin Academy
• Making Cheap Inferno Rubies For Patch 4.2 Power World: Gold
• The New Obsidium Floor Pricein Patch 4.2 Power World: Gold
• Landslide and Hurricane for Patch 4.2 Capped By Cata
• Revisiting Volatile Fire for Patch 4.2 Capped by Cata
• Catering To A DPS Centric World of Warcraft Capped by Cata
• My Patch 4.2 Stockpile Anaalius Hunt For Gold
• 4 Ways To Make Gold in Patch 4.2 Anaalius Hunt For Gold
• Truegold Preperation for 4.2 Kuja's Gold Mine
• Fate of Crafted Epics in Patch 4.2 Player Vs Auction House

If you have a great article regarding Patch 4.2 that I have missed, then leave a comment with a link to your article.  If you are a bored blogger on this Tuesday, don't forget to get your July entry for the Blogging Carnival finished and submitted.

Auction House Junkies Episode #11

Auction House Junkies

The Auction House Junkies | WoW Gold Making Podcast Episode #11 is now live.  Get it from one of the following sites.

• Official Homepage of Auction House Junkies
• iTunes for Auction House Junkies Episodes
• The PodBean AHJ Host Feed

In AHJ Episode #11, Wes and I discuss some crazy and fun topics.  Of course we talk about Patch 4.2 and more.



Auction House Junkies Episode #11

• Free WoW Accounts and what to do with them.
• Patch 4.2 Plan of Attack
• School Kids Syndrome and The Release of The Swarm of School Age Competition
• The CappedByCata Newsletter and Flion Giveaway
• The Best Buy Laptop Scheme
• Stuff From Twitter @SSmith0911 & @cappedbycata  Follow Us With These Handy Links.
• Patch 4.2 Stockpiling, Wise or a Waste?
• Racing For Patch 4.2 and New Profession Patterns.
• E-Mail and Twitter Questions
• More Good Stuff!

Hope You Enjoy The Show!  We enjoyed recording it for you all.

Best Uses For Your Free Warcraft Account

Free WoW Accounts For Veterans

Blizzard Awards Free Warcraft Accounts

This week Blizzard has been sending out emails awarding veteran players with a free World of Warcraft account code.  These were sent via email to your Blizzard Battlenet linked mail address.  In order to qualify, you had to check the box [ ] "I would like to receive special promtions and offers" in your Battlenet account.

There have been many inquiries to Blizzard and around the World of Warcraft community trying to decipher whether these emails were legit WoW account codes from Blizzard or were just another batch of nice looking phishing scams.  I myself actually deleted my code thinking to myself, "Damn!  These phishing emails are getting much nice looking."  It turns out that these are legit emails and legit Free World of Warcraft Account Codes as Alto has already posted.  Blizzard has also stated that they are happy that many players were skeptical and warning others that these emails might be phishing scams, but they are legitimate.  So no worries about getting your account hacked.

So the free Warcraft accounts from Blizzard are legit, but now what?

Is It A Trial Account?

Blizzard has given these free accounts out to us veterans, but what all is included in this free WoW account? This is a full version account, not a trial account. That's a big plus.

World of Warcraft Classic Trial Account Restrictions

•  A level cap of 20.
• A maximum of 10 gold.
• Trade skills are capped at 100 ranks.
• Inability to trade via the auction house, mailbox, or player-to-player.
• In-Game public chat channels will be unavailable. (Players will still be able to communicate using say, party, or whispers).
• Characters will be unable to create or join existing guilds.
• Accounts will no longer be able to whisper other players unless they have been added to those players' friends lists or have received a whisper from them first.
• Characters will not be able to invite players into a party.
• Characters will not be able to join parties with other players above level 20.
• Voice Chat is disabled on trial accounts.
• Realms with login queues will give priority to customers with retail accounts.
• Will not be eligible for any Character Transfer service.
• RealID features are disabled on trial accounts.

So there is a huge difference between a trial account and a full version WoW account.  These free account codes are for full classic World of Warcraft accounts, which increases the value of this account for an established player.

Best Uses For Your Free WoW Account

Blizzard has given these free accounts out to us veterans, but what all is included in this free WoW account? This is a full version account, not a trial account. That's a big plus.

What Blizzard Wants
Blizzard may appear to be being generous in giving away free full access accounts to veterans, disguising it as a reward for veteran players.  Yeah right!  A full classic account with 30 days included game time only runs about $10 almost anywhere and often can be purchased for $5.  Blizzard really isn't giving us as much as you may first think.  This free account gives you a free 30 days of game time, but then what?  You guessed it.  You have to pay for a monthly subscription or purchase 60-day WoW game time cards to keep it going.  Blizzard wants us to give this account code to a friend to entice them to get hooked like the rest of us, so they can increase their subscriber numbers (which have dropped this last quarter).  This is a pretty good marketing strategy in my opinion.

What Goblins Should Do
Another option for the free World of Warcraft full version game account is to utilize it for yourself.  Ever thought of getting into cross faction trading on your server?  Well now is the time to give it a shot!

This free 30 days of a second account is all the safety you need to get your own cross faction trading business going.  On your main account you can create a character that belongs to the other faction and then make a character on the new account of that same opposing faction.  With the 2 characters on 2 seperate accounts you can multi-box and transfer items to the othr faction via the neutral auction house.  With 2 accounts you can post and immediately buy with a very minimal risk of someone sniping your auctions.  Need gold to get you started on the other side?  Mail your main account cross faction trader some Satchels of Exotic Mysteries with the gold and items left inside.

With a second account for 30 days, you can safely take advantage of the other factions markets, which can lead to some big price savings if materials are less costly on the enemy auction house.  You also can take advantage of the price variations on faction craftables and get started moving Lamps and Lanterns across factions.  You can make an absolute killing moving and selling companion pets and faction specific recipes to the other faction.

I am going to petition Blizzard to get my free WoW account code email resent so I can take advantage of this opportunity.  I never do any cross faction trading because I don't want to purchase a second account.  This offer gives me 30 days to stock up and get my Horde guild banks stocked full of Alliance goodies to move throught the year and beyond.

As a Horde only player, with a second 30 day alliance account, I would use this offer to fully stock a Horde guild bank with tons of alliance only recipes and pets - Argent Tournament Pets, Lamps / Lanterns, Kittens, Moths, etc.  Another great use is to do the quick Alliance quest for the Roasted Moongraze Tenderloin recipe over and over on multiple Alliance lowbies just for the pattern to transfer back to the Horde side, where it goes for hundreds of gold. 

This free WoW account offer is a great opportunity to get involved in whol new ways to make gold on your server via the other factions auction house.

Anyone got another creative use for this WoW account?

PS:  You could also use this account to knock out some of those old unfinished PvP achievements if you get creative and can turbo-level a character on the new account.

WoW Patch 4.2 Stackable Gems - Good or Bad?

Cut Gems Will Stack

In World of Warcraft Patch 4.2, we finally will be able to stack cut gems in stack sizes of 20.  Jewelcrafters everywhere will be dancing in the streets!  The player base has been wanting this change implemented for as long as the Jewelcrafting profession has existed.  So this will obviously be great for saving bag space, but what else does it mean?  Will stackable cut gems lead to more sales?  Less sales?  No difference?

From The Crafters View, Stackable Gems Will...

• Decrease required bag space for crafting multiple gems for posting.
• Greatly lighten the space requirement for storage of multiple cut gems.
• Decrease the amount of crafting sessions.
• Allow crafting larger quantities ahead of time.
• Speed up the overall auction house process for gem sellers.
• Allow cut gems to be sold in stacks.  I do NOT recommend listing stacks of cut gems.
• Allow bigger batches of cutting and tipping in bulk.  Great when tipping for cuts that you don't personally have on your Jewelcrafting alt.
• Speed up reposting of gems from your stacks, instead of doing the mailbox - auction house run.
• Increase competition and undercutting as players have more pre-made cut gems to AH PvP with.
• Be accompanied by lower listing fees for posting your cut gems on the auction house.
• May end up trashing the market and turning it into an undercutting auction house camping market (like the glyph market) due to bigger bags, stackable cut gems, lower listing fees, etc.
• Make buying out low priced cut gems for later flipping more viable of a profit strategy.
• Make it harder to reset the market for specific gems.

From The Buyers View, Stackable Cut Gems Will...

• Allow the pre-raid purchase of multiple gems, without sacrificing bag space.
• Prevent hearths back to town for gear upgrades, when you can bring them along before the raid starts.
• Clear up some guild bank storage space.
• Allow cherry picking of gems at low prices to store for later use.

Will Stackable Cut Gems Affect Prices?

This question is a tough one to answer.  Will the stackable gems effect prices?  As Wes likes to say, "It's depends."  Yeah.  It depends.  Every server can have a different market response to this Jewelcrafting change.  Some servers may see a price drop.  Others can see a spike.  Others could have no change.

To really gauge the effect that this change has on your server, you can't judge until after the first couple of weeks of WoW Patch 4.2 have passed.  As soon as Patch 4.2 releases onto the live World of Warcraft servers, demand will spike for all gems as raiders are getting new gear upgrades and looking for new gems.  There is always an explosion of sales immediately following a patch that includes new content and new gear.  So you must wait until that Patch wave of gem sales is over to truly see if there is an effect on the cut gem markets on the auction house.

As you may have derived from the listing above, I am inclined to believe that the overall price of cut gems level out lower than before the introduction of stackable cut gems.  Think about it.  With stackable gems, there will be more players crafting full stacks of cut gems for their auction house business to save time .  If you normally post 3 of a gem and repost those when you get undercut, you no longer will be needing to cancel and repost.  You have pre-cut gems already in your new JC bags that you can immediately undercut with.  

As sales start to slow, there will be more crafters with excess gems to post against all of the other crafters with stacks of gems.  If more players cut gems in large stacks, then you can't help but see a price drop as the supply increases.  Some players will be crafting full stacks of poor selling gems, which will further drive the prices down.  It is possible that players will buy extra gems to have on them prior to raids, but I doubt this extra demand will trumph the price dropping hammer of cut gems being able to stack in lots of 20.  Hopefully we won't see a major undercutting war market wide like we currently have in all areas of the glyph market.

What do you guys and gals think will happen when gems are able to stack?

Don't forget to get your newsletter and comment entries in for your chance to win one of two MFC Mastery Gold Making guides that I am giving away at the end of the month.

Frost Lord Ahune Cloak Drops Increase Enchant Sales

Midsummer Fire Festival

The Midsummer Fire Festival is now in full swing on all World of Warcraft gaming servers.  While this WoW holiday is a great time for leveling alts with Midsummer Bonfires, it is also a great time to make some easy gold from those Midsummer bonfires, Fire Festival Dailies (torch tossing and torch throwing), and killing the yearly holiday boss, Frost Lord Ahune.

Cloak Drops From Frost Lord Ahune

With the ease of running the 5 man Holiday Dailies to kill the Frost Lord Ahune, many characters will be getting easy to obtain upgrades for their back gear slot.  These cloaks are not the absolute best available and many main characters already have epic cloaks from reputation purchases with the various Cataclysm factions in World of Warcraft.  The majority of players that will be needing and equipping these new epic cloaks will be alt characters. 

Since most of the players equipping these new cloaks will be alts, I wouldn't focus on posting the top end enchants for cloaks.  These alts will be more likely to purchase the next best enchant over the best in slot cloak enchant.  With Patch 4.2 coming soon and new raid content on the horizon, not many players are shelling out the big bucks for enchants or gems.  So this could be a great way to dump off some of the extra enchanting materials you may have stockpiled from all of the obisium ore shuffling.

So take a peek at the auction house and see if you can make some headway into the clock enchants market during the short Midsummer holiday season.

Anyone else seeing sales of upgrade items slacking off as players wait out the new Patch 4.2?

 

Help Out A Younger Reader

Robbie Clark has been a reader here at Cold's Gold Factory for a long time now.  I have spoken with him before and he has always been a great supporter of the site.  Today he sent me a little request for help with getting some readers to take a survey for his high school paper. 

Here is the request and a little more about the research project:

Hi my name is Robbie Clark and I am currently completing high school. For one of my subjects I have to complete a major research project worth 40% of my final marks. The hypothesis for my project is that "adolescent males are partaking in pseudo–rites of passage involving role-playing games as compensation for a lack of definitive rites of passage within Western Culture." For this research project I am conducting a survey as part of my primary research.

This survey is set up on survey monkey which you can find here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JJ9ZWC8 was wondering if you could help me with this, if maybe you could please complete the survey if you have the time.

Also i was wondering maybe if it was at all possible to link the survey in a post? Because i know you are awesome :) Any help at all would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you Cold for all the effort you put into Cold's Gold Factory it has provided absolutely amazing advice consistently and i love the podcast! Especially I loved all the barking advice for the fortune cards, I was the first on my server to do it and I made a killing! Thank you for your time. Please Feel free to contact me on this email.

You readers are also members of his target audience for the study so please visit his survey and help him compile data for his research project. I completed the survey and it took no longer than 5 minutes. So help a younger reader out and tell him I sent you! Thanks for being such a great auction house junkie Robbie!  Glad to Help!

Supplying Your World of Warcraft Raiders

Today I present to you a guest post by a new writer, Addaron of Zul'jin.  Addaron has some great ideas for more guest posts so be sure to look out for more posts by him soon.  Anyone is welcome to submit a guest post to see your ideas go live on the blog here at Cold's Gold Factory.  You don't have to be a blogger (Addaron isn't).  Maybe you are thinking of becoming a blogger and want to give it a try.  Guest posting is a good way to get your feet wet.  Then I will link to your site should you happen to start a blog at a later date.  We are also looking for writers for Goldgrub's Goblin Academy, if you are interested in writing about gold making or leveling tips, check it out.  And on with the guest post...

"Who Hit Me With That Mr. T Mohawk Grenade?"

Supplying Your Raiders


On every server one of the dominant market forces are the raiding guilds. For the purpose of this article, a raider is anyone who raids every week, regardless of how or with who, or to what result. The key concept behind supplying raiders are consumables. Depending on the guild they are in, their consumables can vary a lot. As an example, my guild is fairly socialist, in that we supply feasts, flasks, repairs, gems, and enchants to our raiders, with most other guilds providing similar levels of support. This means potions and specific buff foods (some dual wielders eat hit food, some tanks eat dodge food) is what the major responsibility of most raiders are and my sales log backs up that theory.

Potions


The easiest way to tap into the raider market is with potions. Since raids are serious business, only cataclysm potions are ever bought in any volume, so having a 500+ skill potion master is an excellent starting point.

Buff Potions (Tol'vir, Volcano, Golembood) sell well and and in reasonable volumes. Mainly to guilds who are on a lot of progression kills. Casual farm content raiders rarely use them, due to the price. The exception I notice is Baradin Hold, to inflate DPS Epeens.

Restoration Potions (Mythical Mana, Mythical Healing, Concentration) Sell in even higher volumes, but tend to be more expensive to make. As with anything make sure you keep an eye on your costs, since the mythical potions take 3 herbs. The concentration potions(which as a Hard Mode raid healer I use exclusively) seem to be the slowest selling of the lot, and often have the fiercest competition. This might just be my server though.

Armor Potions are a trap, It took me months to sell the first 2 stacks I made, and I am sure I lost more on deposits that I made when they finally sold. Don't brew, buy or speculate on these potions. Only VERY hardcore tanks ever use these, even then they tend to set up private supply deals within their guild.

Buff Foods

It's a fair assumption that every single raid will have a feast dropped, making all the foods that compete with the +60 food a bit of a write off, and the +90 foods marginal at best. In my experience the only three foods that are reliably profitable on raid day are the + 90 hit(grilled Dragon), +90 dodge (Mushroom Sauce Mudfish), and the +90 spirit (Delicious Sagefish Tail). These foods are again, mainly bought by serious progression raiders, and often in medium high volume. The prices here are very volatile. Some weeks being a quarter the price of others. While there is money to be made, feel free to stay out of it if it is below your material cost, since it will likely bounce right back. As a side note, if you are already in the fortune card market, consider keeping a few stacks of fortune cookies on the AH too, since they are the preferred food for people that change roles often.

When And How

You may have noticed that their is a bit of a divide between the habits of progression raiders and weekend raiders. This is no inference of skill, just play style. Some terrible players raid 4 nights a week with full consumables, and some top tier world first guilds raid regular modes on their alts with nothing but feasts. Since the raid schedule resets on Tuesday, expect to sell mainly to progression raiders (Lots of buff potions and specific foods) Tuesday to Thursday, and the much more wide open market of weekend raiders (Flasks, some of all potions, all foods, gems, enchants) Friday -Sunday. One final note, expect to make about 60% of your weekly consumable sales in about 5 hours on Tuesday.  This is the best time to be an aggressive AH camper.

Posting Politely

A mark of knowing your market is keeping your margins rich by not over posting. I tend to try to keep 8 stacks of 5 potions up during peak hours. Some types a bit less and for whatever reason MUCH more Tol'vir potions, depending on expected sales. The other thing to avoid is posting the wrong sized auctions. For potions 2-10 per auction, and for foods 10-20 is reasonable. One at a time is spammy, and gets ignored a lot, and stacks of 20 potions are always at the bottom of the list and look more expensive at 100-350 gold for a stack, so only tend to be bought if they are noticeably below market price.

Pricing to win

Since you are selling to raiders, typically they should have 5k-100k+ gold on hand and are in something of a hurry, the absolute price of what you post is irrelevant, so long as it is the lowest. Undercutting by a single copper is always the right answer with raid consumables. I assume it varies with server, but in my experience a fall back price of 15g/potion (75G for five) sells well when I have a monopoly, but higher and you see a lot of “LF Alchemist'' in trade chat.

In closing, people who are Raiders are mainly people who play a lot and will sometimes act like Farmers, Twinks, PvPers, or Questers, but the scope of this post is to position yourself to sell to people who raid with consumables. Gem and enchant selling is also pretty heavily influenced by raiders, but that tends to be a whole different industry, with different cycles and behaviours. Selling buff potions is how I got into recreational gold making, and if you are shiny new to it, I would recommend focusing on just a few potions / foods and get to know your markets. Expand from there.

Midsummer Fire Festival | Ideal Holiday For Leveling Alts

Midsummer Fire Festival

Yes, it is that time of year again. The Midsummer Fire Festival has just begun and World of Warcraft players all over Azeroth are extinguishing flames, juggling torches, and farming Frost Lord Ahune. This year Frostlord Ahune appears as a level 87 elite with upgraded loot. The current cloak drops from Frost Lord Ahune are item level 353 epics are a great and easy upgrade for your alts that aren't geared out yet.

Pump Up Those Alts

One of the best uses for this holiday is to take advantage of all of the daily quests, Ahune daily summoning quests, and extinguishing and honoring all of the Alliance and Horde bonfires.  The bonfire quests alone are worth an absolute ton of experience and during the Midsummer Fire Festival you can also obtain a buff that adds +10% extra experience for killing mobs also.  The bonfire quests provide an easy way to collect gold and hefty experience from running around Azeroth.  If you have epic 310% flight, then visiting all of the Fire Festival bonfires is an absolute joke.  Don't forget you can go to Northrend and honor and extinguish fires out there, even though there is no achievement for the Northrend fires.  The Midsummer Fire Festival quests are also a great way to rack up some easy guild experience.

The Fire Festival couldn't have came at a better time.  World of Warcraft players should be leveling their alts prior to the release of Patch 4.2 in order to prepare for the Patch 4.2 daily hub requirements. 

Guild Bank Skimming and Cash Flow Update

Cash Flow?

Cash Flow Guild Perk and Passive Income

One of the benefits of having a guild of at least guild level 10 is the free gold from the Cash Flow guild perk.  Anytime a member of your guild loots a mob or chest, or receives a split of coins in a dungeon group or party, an extra 10% goes directly into the guild bank.  Since the change in Patch 4.1, there is no longer a text display of this extra coin that is earned by the guild.  They removed the text log output that showed "An extra Xg Xs Xc was deposited into the guild bank."  This is extra gold, not a tax on the looted gold.  Guild members that loot still get the same amount of gold as if they weren't in a gold.  It is just a bonus 10% for the guild bank.

Some guild leaders use this money to pay for guild crafting materials or guild member or officer repairs.  I have previously written about my passive guild income project for the guild.  I use a random invite all guild macro to do nothing but provide a place for leveling characters and alts to benefit from guild perks.  As a side bonus, the free bonus gold from the Cash Flow perk has been earning me a passive income.

My guild of all random invitees has recently hit guild level 10 and is pushing for guild level 11 soon.  The gold from the Cash Flow perk has earned me around 3k of free gold between leveling from level 5 to level 10.  The 3000 free gold is a nice bonus so far.  I am looking forward to more easy passive gold.

The 7th Guild Bank Slot

The first 6 guild tabs are completely blocked off from being viewed by anyone but my main character and alternate characters.  I purchased the 7th guild bank tab for the guild and opened it up for guild member use.  Any character is allowed to deposit items into the 7th guild bank tab and is allowed to withdrawal up to 2 items per day.  This guild bank slot was opened up for the guild members to be able to deposit items that other guild members could use.  It is sort of like the free penny containers near cash registers in real life.  "Need a penny take one, have a penny leave one."

The biggest problem with utilizing the bank tab this way is it tends to fill up quickly as players deposit much more than they actually withdrawal.  So periodically, I have to go through the 7th guild bank slot and remove any junk items that have been deposited in there.  I often clear out full bags of garbage that goes straight to the vendor.  Players will deposit anything into this tab, not knowing what is and isn't worth passing on.

The flipside of this strategy allows me to look into the 7th guild bank slot and basically skim anything that is of actual value to be used in crafting or in auction house profiteering.  I have found full stacks of Illusion Dust and Greater Eternal Essences in this tab.  I have also found Rare Patterns and other valuables.  I very rarely skim out of this guild bank tab, unless I have to go and clean out the garbage items.  The occasional good find makes it worth the extra effort of maintaining the garbage to either vendor or send to my Enchanter for disenchanting.

So if you are finding your playtime cut short this summer or the dang school kids have raided your markets and you are looking for a new income source, give the passive income gold making guild option a try.  You may be pleasantly surprised by how much passive gold you can make.  And the nice items you can skim out of the public guild bank tabs are a great perk too.

Anyone else got a guild bank set up for a passive income stream?

Top 9 Uses For The Remote Auction House

The Remote Auction House

The Remote Auction House exists in both mobile and web-based versions.  For just $2.99 a month you can get access to the WoW auction house from just about anywhere without being inside the Warcraft of Warcraft game.  Although you are limited to 200 transactions per day, this is a great tool that I have used very effectively in the past.  I have let my current Remote Auction House subscription lapse as I have been focusing on blogging more in my free time.  Be sure to check out Goldgrub's Goblin Academy, a new World of Warcraft teaching site, designed with the brand new goldmaker and new Warcraft players in mind.  If you are a long standing goblin, you are welcome to come help out the newer players with comments or you can also apply for a writing postion or consider guest posting for Goldgrub's Goblin Academy.

Top 9 Uses For The WoW Remote Auction House

Here are the 9 best uses for the remote auction house as determined from my past experiences with the Remote Auction House. 

1. Jewelcrafting Dailies - If you have a friend or guild member on your server that can tip you off to which JC daily quest is the current live quest on your server, you can post your stacks of 3 uncut Cataclysm gems during the day while stuck at work.  You will see better sales than just posting them when you are off work and everyone else is doing the same thing.  Also works for posting the Wrath JC Daily quest gem as well as the Wrath cooking daily required foods.
2. Easy Neutral Auction House Sales - The Remote Auction House provides the fastest way to run a Pet Shop Business, Faction Recipe Flipping, or any other cross faction business by using the neutral auction house.  With the Remote Auction House, posting and buying from the neutral AH takes, just the click of a different tab without having to physically locate your character at one of the terminals in the game.  When combined with the ability to post auctions from within your bank and mailbox, you can run a successful neutral auction house bussiness without every setting foot (or paw) near the actual neutral auction house terminals within World of Warcraft.
3. Snatching Cheap Goods - The Remote Auction House is awesome for grabbing super low priced items (especially rare patterns) when you can't play (like you are at work).  Set up market notifications with The Undermine Journal and when you get the email warning you one of your watch list items is available, you can hop onto the Remote Auction House and snatch it up before another WoW player grabs it.  I love using this tactic for super rare patterns.
4. Super Fast Gold Collection - The Remote Auction House has an awesome feature.  Just hit the "Collect All Gold" button to grab all the gold from your sold and expired WoW auctions.  One click and it is all collected from the mail for the current character.  No having to wait and reload the mailbox over and over is a great time saver.  Warning:  Collecting gold with the Remote Auction House will throw off any of your statistical data of add ons, like Beancounter or MySales.
5. Relisting High Priced Items - Some items are just going to take many days to sell and relisting them over and over is key to their eventual sales.  Since the remote auction house limits your daily transactions to 200, using those limited posts and purchases on big ticket items is ideal.  Get that super rare pattern relisted before you get home from work.
6. Get A Head Start On Posting - So you are stuck at work still and having nothing to do.  You are just waiting for the time clock to roll around before you can head home and start posting and relisting for your nightly routine.  With the Remote Auction House you can get a jump on those postings before you head home for the night!
7. Stealth Posting - Another great benefit in the battle of auction house espionage is the ability to stealth post.  In other words, you are not logged into World of Warcraft while posting on the Remote Auction House.  This prevents your competition from seeing when you are online and limits their chances at quickly undercutting you right after you post.
8. Exploiting The Remote AH Bugs - Everything about the remote auction house hasn't been completely tested and sometimes bugs allow you to post things on the remote auction house that you can't normally with the in game auction house.  You may recall me posting Lovely Charm Bracelets on the auction house and being the only seller, because they aren't postable on the AH.  This bug made me some nice gold earnings.
9. World of Warcraft At Work - Can't get enough World of Warcraft?  Do you eat, sleep, and breath World of Warcraft?  Well, with the Remote Auction House you can continue your addiction at work too.  Don't let the boss see you posting items on the auction house when you should be working!

What's Your Drug Of Choice?

This topic was supplied by Mark Phelps in the comments of the Warcraft Free Giveaways post, where you can enter my MFC Mastery gold guide giveaway by supplying a topic suggestion in the comments.  Thanks for the great topic idea Mark!

Anyone have any other great uses for the web or mobile remote auction house?

The Alt Army Preparation For Patch 4.2 Dailies

Warcraft Patch 4.2 - Are You Ready?

The Regrowth Dailies In Patch 4.2

When Patch 4.2 goes live on the World of Warcraft servers there will be a new set of daily quests with associated reputation that will be added to The Regrowth in Mount Hyjal as a new daily quest hub.  This reputation will be associated with new vendors.  It will be these vendors that will provide you with the new epic patterns for the new epic craftable gear, like the new Patch 4.2 Engineering Recipes.  Wowhead has a great breakdown of all of the new daily quests being added in WoW Patch 4.2.

Many of you may have slacked off on leveling your alts with crafting professions once the Twilight Highlands vendors got nerfed in Patch 4.1.  That Twilight Highlands vendor change brought all of the recipes from those vendors into major cities.  This change allows the current high end craftables to be obtained at level 75 and also removed the requirement of having to start the pre-quests to unlock those vendors only obtainable at level 84.  I did warn earlier that I would not stop leveling as I speculated that those same Twilight Highlands vendors may hold newer recipes in the future.

Preparing For Patch 4.2 Quests and Dailies

There are now 2 main limiting factors for acquiring the new dailies and therefore the new epic crafting patterns.  What are the 2 requirements?

1. You must quest in Mount Hyjal and complete the quests up to and including Aessina's Miracle.  Check out Sinshroud's post on unlocking the Patch 4.2 dailies for some tips and an add-on to help.
2. You must obtain level 85 to unlock the new pre-quests to unlock the Hyjal daily quests.  Damnit!  I just learned this today too, when researching the Wowhead article.

So in preparation for the new Firelands content and the new daily quests, I have been making sure all of my crafters have completed up to the Aessina's Miracle quest chain.  Looking deeper today I found the 2nd requirement.  The chain to unlock the dailies starts with a Level 85 required quest.  Doh!  Now I have to level every one of these characters that have lagged behind in level also.  With the talk of Patch 4.2 being released anywhre from 1-4 weeks away, do not waste any more time.  Get all of your crafting characters to level 85 and do the required Hyjal quest chains on the way to 85. 

Why?  You don't want to be left behind by more prepared players.  Those of us with characters at level 85 and the quest chain already unlocked are just waiting to start the new quests and dailies.  Once the earned reputation is enough to get the new patterns, the prepared players will be the ones with the first recipes and the first wave of the new BoE epic craftables.  You want to be prepared and ready to go or you will be left behind and miss the opportunity to be the lone seller for the new epics until others catch up. Catch up fast with a Warcraft leveling guide.

So hopefully you took my advice and were continuing to level your crafting alts.  Now to just finish off leveling my last 3 crafters to level 85 and complete the quests up to and including Aessina's Miracle. 

How I Am Preparing For Patch 4.2

I haven't been doing too much preparation gold wise for Patch 4.2 as I am busy with leveling my army of alts.  I am sticking to some basic strategies for Patch 4.2 and am really waiting of Patch 4.3 to make a bigger gold push as hopefully thats when epic gems are coming.  Here's what I'm doing currently for Patch 4.2 preparation.

• Leveling Alts to Level 85.
• Finishing Aessina's Miracle Chain on Alts.
• Farming Chaos Orbs in Heroic Dungeons.
• Truegold Transmutes
• Dream Cloth Cooldowns
• Look For Cheap Volatiles
• Transmuting Inferno Rubies

Don't Wait - Get Started Now!  Patch 4.2 Could Drop On You Early!  Happy Leveling! 

Choking Your WoW Auction House Competition

Competition Got You In A Choke Hold?

Warcraft Auction House Competition

So you have been plugging along making nice profits in the World of Warcraft auction house selling profession crafted goods.  Then one day some other player comes along and starts to undercut your auction house listings.  You think to yourself, "Damnit!  Where did this new competitor come from?"  An undercutting war may start, which forces the prices down further and further, and this new competitor is eating into your previously more profitable market.  Or worse yet, every time you list or relist your acutions there is an auctio house camper that is constantly undercutting you.  Now you scream to yourself, "When will these damn school kids be back to school!"  Argh!  Not for another 3 months! 

Yes, it's that dreaded time of year, where competition is going to give you a headache.  If you can't compete with the unlimited playtime of the school kids that are out for summer break, then you need to look into new ways to protect your market.  It isn't time to roll over and give up your market.  It's time to choke your competition out of your markets!

Tips For Choking Competition Out Of Your Niche Market

Limiting Crafting Materials - Most crafting auctioneers tend to purchase their materials from the auction house as opposed to farming their own raw materials.  Most of your niche market craftables have 1 or 2 items required in the crafting recipe that are either more rare or less abundant on the aution house.  By simple buying all of those materials that show up on the auction house you are limiting your competitions ability to purchase from the auction house.  If you deny them the hard to get resources, then they won't have a complete materials set to craft and compete within your market.  You may be buying these materials already for you own crafting, but make sure to buy them all out also.

Here are a few examples of niche market items and what materials you can buy up to deny your competition. 

• Tranquil Mechanical Yeti - Globe of Water & Elemental Earth
• Lil Smoky - Core of Earth
• Deviate Scale Belt - Perfect Deviate Scales
• Barbaric Bracers - Large Fangs & Heavy Hides
• Spidersilk Boots - Spider's Silk 

Protecting Your Rare Patterns - If you are in a niche market that requires learning the recipe from a rare pattern, then you should also be on the lookout for when that same pattern comes up for sale on the auction house.  If you are watching the auction house, be sure to snatch up other copies that appear of the same rare pattern for your market.  If you find another pattern, you can either transfer it cross faction to keep the pattern away from your same faction competition or you can re-list it and price it so expensive that only a completionist collector would buy it. 

As many of you great readers already know, I am the sole provider of Rich Purple Silk Shirts on my server's auction house.  This is a great niche market because the pattern is super rare and the material cost is very low compared to the final sale prices of my Rich Purple Silk Shirts.  Even though I already have this pattern, I am constantly searching for it on the auction house.  Why?  You got it!  If no one else can buy the pattern, then they can't compete with me.  Keeping those rare patterns away from other players is a great way to limit your auction house competition. 


Craft It Cheaper - Some auctioneers make the mistake of buying pre-crafted intermediate items off of the auction house in addition to raw materials.  Why?  Not everyone has access to all of the professions.  When an item requires multiple professions to craft a final product, some players are stuck buying those crafted materials on the auction house.  You want to always break down every component of the required materials because often times you can craft it way cheaper yourself.  Always see if you can get a cheaper route to the same end product.  Maybe it is cheaper to buy ores and smelt yourself.  Maybe it is cheaper to buy the ores already smelted.  Don't forget to look at all your options to cut costs where possible.
 
Example:  The engineering crafted Pet Bombling takes Fused Wiring to craft.  If you don't have a jewelcrafter, then you are stuck buying the completed Fused Wiring off the auction house as opposed to making them yourself.  If you have the jewlcrafter, then you can make your Pet Bomblings for much cheaper.
 
Anyone else have any good tips for limiting your competition?

Dark Jade and Shadow Crystal Return To Value

Dark Jade and Shadow Crystal

Oh how I loathed thee...

If you were using your jewelcrafter during the Wrath of the Lich King expansion era, then you probably hated Dark Jade and Shadow Crystal as much as I did.  These were useful for damn near nothing, yet they continued to pile up as a bi-product of the Saronite Shuffle.  The Saronite Shuffle was the way to shuffle Saronite Ore back in Wrath of the Lich King, similar to how we currently shuffle Obsidium Ores. 

The problem with the Saronite Shuffle was that it wasn't as efficient as the current Obsidium Shuffle.  Today you will see bloggers and players complaining about their stacks of Zephyrite gems and what to do with them, but this is nothing compared to the problems we had finding uses for Dark Jade and Shadow Crystals.  The Dark Jade could be sold on days when it was required for the Dalaran jewelcrafting daily, but unlike the current Cataclysm JC dailies, only 1 was required.  This method wasn't the most effective way to unload the tons of Dark Jades, as all Saronite Ore prospectors were also accumulating stack after stack of Dark Jade and Shadow Crystals.  The only other option was crafting the focusing crystals, which never caught on over here at my server.

Both Dark Jade and Shadow Crystal continued to pile up in guild banks and character banks everywhere.  Some players would resort to just vendoring these gems as they were next to worthless.  There wasn't a way to shuffle them into jewelry for disenchanting for a profit.  The only real use of Dark Jade and Shadow Crystal was in the daily cooldown for crafting Icy Prisms, but being limited to 1 per day didn't help the massive stockpiles of Dark Jade and Shadow Crystal.

Icy Prism Cooldown Removal

Then things changed.  With the release of World of Warcraft Patch 4.1, came the removal of the Icy Prism cooldown and many of us rejoiced.  Why?  Because now we had a way to utilize all of those extra Dark Jades and Shadow Crystals.  I never sold any of my Shadow Crystals or Dark Jades to the vendors.  I tucked all of my stacks away in a guild bank and let them sit.  I originally planned on selling the stacks to players leveling Jewelcrafting as a new Profession in Cataclysm, but sales didn't work there either.  So back in the bank they went.  Since the removal of the Icy Prism cooldown, I have been making great profits in the Wrath Jewelcrafting gems markets.  There aren't many competitiors, if any.  I am glad that I saved these horrible gems from Wrath because they are now useful in crafting Icy Prisms.  My old stacks of both Shadow Crystal and Dark Jade are almost completely exhausted.

I'm not just using them for my own Icy Prisms.  As other players got fed up with these gems and vendored them at the end of Wrath of the Lich King, I have been able to sell some of my gems on the auction house as singles for other JCs looking to make Icy Prisms.  These same Dark Jades and Shadow Crystals that at the end of Wrath couldn't be sold for a single gold piece, are now selling on my server for 8-10 gold each.  This is why I like to stockpile materials that may be used eventually, as opposed to vendoring then to save the bank space.  (When you have 6-7 guild banks, space isn't a real issue anyway.)  If you are a stockpiler or a hoarder, be sure to periodically clean out your banks, as you don't want items decaying in your banks.

Sometimes its good to be a hoarder, as Blizzard may make a change that will allow you to profit from your stockpile. 

Anyone else been unloading these darn Dark Jades and Shadow Crystals?

Winged Guardian Giveaway | Authenticator Giveaway | WoW Gold Guide Giveaway

Contests and Giveaways

Right now there are a couple of great giveaways going on over at a pair of the top gold making resource sites.  Wes of Capped by Cata and Alto of Alto's Goldish Advise are both giving away some nice World of Warcraft swag.  Good things come in 3s, so I am adding a contest of my own.  Make sure to check out the links below and get your entries in before time expires.

Win a Winged Guardian (Flion)


My good buddy Wes (and co-host on the awesome Auction House Junkies Podcast) has just started a free daily gold tips newsletter over at Capped By Cata.  All you have to do to enter for your chance at the $25 new Blizzard store purchased mount is head over to Wes's site and sign up for his newsletter.  I myself use a newsletter here.  Newsletters are great for making sure you never miss a post.  They are even helpful for reading gold blog posts on your phone or your work email (If you can't read gold blogs at work).  Follow this link for more details on his contest and to sign up for Wes's newsletter.
Win a Winged Guardian Flying Mount


Win a Blizzard Authenticator

Another good bud of mine is in the giving spirit too.  Alto, author of the self proclaimed Best WoW Gold Guide Ever and co-host on the Addicted 2 Azeroth Podcast, is giving away a Blizzard World of Warcraft Authenticator.  All you have to do is follow the link below and leave a comment.  Hurry though, giveaway entries end this Sunday.
Phishing Scams and WoW Authenticator Giveaway


Win a Mysterious Fortune Card Mastery Gold Guide

Good things come in waves of 3, so I am adding a 3rd contest to the ones above.  My first World of Warcraft gold making guide, Mysterious Fortune Card Mastery, has been received well and is helping at least 52 buyers make gold selling my favorite Cataclysm craftable, Mysterious Fortune Cards.  So now I am going to give away 2 of these great WoW gold making guides to my faithful readers!

There are 2 ways to enter for your chance to win a Mysterious Fortune Card Mastery gold guide.  You can

• Sign up for my newsletter.  Make sure to confirm the verification email that will be sent once you subscribe and add my email to your white list or contacts to assure you will be getting your posts delivered to your inbox.  Already enrolled in the newsletter?  Well, you're already entered!
• Leave a comment on this page with an answer to this question, "What topic would you like to see covered in a blog post from the gold blogs?"  Topic ideas or direct questions either one are fine.  Try to be specific because other bloggers will check these comments for ideas to write about.  Coming up with a good topic, could find your name given credit in a future blog post either here or elsewhere.

Both the newsletter and the comments contest / giveaway will each award 1 winner.  So doing both gets you entered in each contest.  One winner will come from the newsletter and another will come from the comments.
Both the newsletter giveaway and the commenting giveaway will end at the end of the month and winners will be chosen at random and announced on July 1st. 

Don't forget to sign up for the Cold's Gold Factory Free Daily Gold Tips Newsletter and get my tips straight to your email inbox.  (Great for those of you who want to read at work, but have websense blocking your computer.)

Are You Saving Your Shiny Rewards?

Goldgrub da Goblin Warrior

A Shiny Reward

One of the most profitable rewards, monetarily speaking, of any quest in all of World of Warcraft is the loot from the "A Shiny Reward" quest.  This is a short 2 part quest chain that begins within the new 5-man Heroic Zul-Gurub.  Part 1 of the quest chain is the "Booty Bay's Interests" quest, which starts from the Goblin Overseer Blingbang.

Quest Chain Part 1:  Booty Bay's Interestes -  Kill Jin'do the Godbreaker in H-ZG and collect the quest item.
Quest Chain Part 2:  A Shiny Reward - Find the treasure chest at Janeiro's Point NW of Booty Bay. (Inside the Statue)

Upon quest completion, you will receive:

• 9 gold 40 silver
• Black Ice - sells for 100 gold to a vendor
• Tarnished Crown -  sells for 22g 17s 50c
• Gem Studded Bracelets - sells for 33g 3s 87c
• Golden Necklace - sells for 10g 37s 50c

If you sell all 4 items to a vendor, then this quest's rewards combined with the gold from the quest will earn you a whopping total of 174g 98s 87c.  Pretty nice payday for a single quest.  Did you sell yours to the vendor?

Breaking Down The Shiny Rewards

Black Ice - This hefty diamond ring will get you 100 gold from any vendor.  Unfortunately, this ring is bind on pickup, so you can only flash your new bling bling ring on your level 85 that completed the quest.  It is a visible ring that can be seen on your character.  It is huge and it does sparkle on your hand.  Being BoP limits our options for this one though.

Tarnished Crown - This one can be seen in the image above on my Goblin Warrior Twink, Goldgrub.  It doesn't bind to your character at all.  So you can trade it, sell it, equip it, move it from character to character, etc.  This is a nice one to sell to low level twinks that can't wear anything on their head gear slot.

Gem Studded Bracelets - Like the crown, it doesn't bind at all.  Another one to sell to lower level characters.  Bank alts can pimp out with these glamorous bracelets.  They may bring considerably more value on a role-playing server (as would any of these).  Not that great for level 1 twinks though as they don't accept many enchants.

Golden Necklace - The least valuable of all 3 of the non-binding shiny rewards as this one gives no visible character display on the item.  Really just for decking out a bank alt's neck slot.  Shouldn't sell for as good of a mark-up as the other two.

Server and Faction Transfer Options

All 3 shiny rewards (Golden Necklace, Gem Studded Bracelets, and Tarnished Crown) have something peculiar about them as well.  They are all stackable and will stack to a stack size of 20!  What does that matter?  Think deeper...give up?  Ok.  With the ability to stack 20 of these at once it creates a great item for server transferring or faction transferring.  You get 20 gem studded bracelets x 33+ gold each = over 660g of vendorable loot in a single bag slot.  That is some pretty good gold per bag slot ratio for a player looking to transfer and take as much gold as possible, or for a player looking to faction transfer and bring some quick sources of starter cash. 

Shiny Rewards Speculation

The Black Ice diamond ring is bind-on-pickup, but would be so much more valuable if it was bind on equip and could be sold.  What if blizzard changed it to bind-on-equip?  I doubt they would change it to bind-on-equip.  They might change it to Bind-on-Account though, so saving it could get it on your pimped out banker toon later.  Can't hurt to save it away though instead of selling to the vendor.

I am saving all 3 of my Shiny Rewards that don't bind.  Why?  Remember how valuable the Red Bandit Mask was?  This could eventually become as rare as those items, should something change with the quest.  Maybe once Patch 4.2 is released, they will remove this quest altogether.  Blizzard has done stranger things.  Maybe one day these super sexy twink / bank alt items will no longer be obtainable and you will wish you hadn't sold yours to the vendors.  We can toss em in the bank and hang onto them for safe keeping.  I mean who needs a lousy extra 175g anyways at level 85.  We can only hope they go the way of the other vanity items that have been removed.  I'm playing it safe and banked mine.  

Did you bank em or did you sell yours to the vendors?

That Dreaded Time Of Year Again

Schools Out For The Summer

School's Out - Cons

Yes it's that dreaded time of year again when high schools and colleges have recessed for the summer session.  Most schools are either already out or will be wrapping up their school year soon.  The high schools and grade schools here in St. Louis have just let out.  Why do I say "that dreaded time of year" again? 

Well, if you don't already know that there is an increase in players over the summer months.  Some people will claim that more players take time off during the summer months and this results in less players.  This may be true for guilds, when getting a raid group together can be tougher over the summer months, due to summer vacations and more family outings, and holidays. 

Overall though, nearly every World of Warcraft server will see an influx of both new and returing players.  There will be many more players online during the weekdays as there is no school in session.  I call it "that dreaded time of year" because by the end of the summer, I will be ready for these kids to get back to school.  Why?  The increase in players with more available playtime means increased competition.  And from my experience, there will be a lot more auction house camping during the week days.  So competition will be more fierce the next few months in many markets. 

Maybe you used to own a market completely, but now someone has invaded your market and undercuts you every time you post a new item.  Might be a school kid with no time limitations.  You could be in for a nasty dog fight.  By the end of the summer session you too will be ready for these kids to get back to school and get out of our auction house markets!

Schools Out - Pros

Not everything related to an increase of players is bad.  There are a few benefits to an influx of new players.  Earlier I wrote about waiting until schools are out to start stockpiling for Patch 4.2.  With the increased competition, prices tend to drop.  This is especially true with farmed materials.  No one can compete with a botting farmer like a school kid with unlimited playtime.  So start looking for those farmed items that will drop in prices.

It's also a good time to start breaking out any old leveling gear that hasn't already sold.  New players or players rolling alts due to the lack of raiding will be looking for easy gear upgrades on the auction house.  Another good seller will be those profession chokepoint items that are needed to level a profession (like mercurial adamantite).  New players bring new professions that need leveled, so be ready to supply them the items they need.  A good example for a blacksmith to profit off of new players with new professions is with the production of the enchanting rods for aspiring Enchanters.  Don't stop with just supplying the rods.  Try to supply other items needed for enchanting rods.

Also the glyph market may see a resurgence in sales over the summer months.  Continue to be on the lookout for those odd craftings items that uneducated new players will be tossing on the auction house at prices below their true value, like Spider's Silk, Perfect Deviate Scales, and Arcane Crystals.

So try not to let the increased competition get the best of you.  You may have a tougher time in your regular markets, so start looking for new markets to branch out into to further diversify your profit making options.

Fishing: Stendel's Bane & Wedding Band

Location of Stendel's Pond in Westfall

Fishing For Stendel's Bane

Wes over at CappedbyCata recently did a nice post on maximizing your secondary professions.  It's been a while since I have mentioned anything for the Warcraft fishermen out there, so today's post will follow suit.  Here's a tip, I bet you didn't know about.

Stendel's Bane is a rare catch from fishing at Stendel's Pond in Westfall.  Stendel's Pond is located North-East of Moonbrook as shown on the Westfall map above.  Although it is in a much easier location to reach for Alliance WoW players, Horde players may want to make the trek over to Westfall as well.  The Stendel's Bane fish is a rare caught fish, so some RNG luck is involved.  If you get even luckier, you may find something valuable within the stomach of your Stendel's Bane.




Stendel's Wedding Band from Stendel's Bane

 Stendel's Wedding Band
Once you are lucky enough to catch your rare Stendel's Bane, you get to open it up and see just how lucky you are.  Inside the belly of this rare little fish you will find some nightcrawlers, bright baubles, and cooked brilliant smallfish.  (Don't ask me how those raw fished got cooked inside this fish's belly.)  You also will find a fishing rod buff item, the Reinforced Fishing Line, which can be used as a ghetto +1 fishing buff, if you don't have the +5 line from winning the Booty Bay fishing derby.  Another option is to add the +1 buff onto a Strong Fishing Pole (buy from vendors) to sell for extra profit on the auction house to newer fisherman.
 
Stendel's Bane can also rarely reward Stendel's Wedding Band.  This ring may look like a piece of junk at first sight, but it's not.  It is Bind-On-Equip so it can be traded or sold to other Warcraft players.  The real benefit is for level 11-14 twinks as the +5 crit rating at level 11 is equal to +6.19% crit.  Level 11 twinks love this ring.  The wedding band is not unique either, so a level 11 twink could wear a matching pair of these Wedding Bands for +12.38% critical strike chance! 
 
The Undermine Journal shows the listed values for Stendel's Wedding Band ranging from 120 to 1500 gold for this blue twink ring.  Obviously, if you have a low level twink market on your server, you will have a much better chance of selling Stendel's Wedding Band.
 
PS:  For all your fishing questions or to just learn more, the best site around for fishermen and fisherwomen is over at El's Extreme Anglin'.

July Topic For Cold's Gold Blogging Carnival

Cold's Gold Blogging Carnivals: July 11th Topic

 These blogging carnivals are excellent resources for our readers to get some excellent nuggets of knowledge all in one place. They are also excellent tools for bloggers to get recognized and start to drive traffic from our sites to yours. I highly recommend participating in these blogging carnivals as your submission's will tend to be some of the most visited content on your site. Be sure to read about the benefits of blogging carnivals, if you are undecided about participating in Cold's Gold Blogging Carnival.

What Is a Blogging Carnival?

A blogging carnival is a compilation of blog posts all created around one specific topic, which is chosen by the host site. Entries into the carnival are submitted to the host. The host then organizes the posts into one big post with links back to the original articles on the participating author's sites.

Rules for Cold's Gold Factory Blogging Carnivals

• Create the entire post on your own site and go ahead and post it live. (You don't have to wait until the last few days before the entry is due.)
• Send me an email with a link to your post. SSmith0911 (at) live (dot) com
• Submissions must be in by the 10th of each month.
• All carnivals will go live on Cold's Gold Factory on the 11th of each month.
• All World of Warcraft bloggers are invited to participate. You don't have to author a gold making blog, but you need to follow the set topic.
• Each post written for the carnival should begin with a link with the anchor text "Cold's Gold Blogging Carnival" and link to http://coldsgoldfactory.blogspot.com/p/colds-gold-blogging-carnivals.html

Learn more about the importance of proper anchor text here. Linking to the above page with the proper anchor text in each carnival entry will help to drive traffic to the gold blogging carnival and in turn drive more traffic to your entries.

July 11th Blogging Carnival Topic

Create Your Own Ideal Alt

The Ideals Alts Series has concluded and I now open the door for the other bloggers to create their own Ideal Alt.  For this carnival, your assignment is to create a single template for a gold making alt.  Choose the race, class, and professions to maximize the potential of a specific role that an alt could perform.  Explain the role and why you made the choices you did.  What's this WoW Alt character's purpose?  Remember that readers will be returning to this post for ideas once they are looking to make a new alt.  Have fun with this one!  You can review the Ideal Alts Series below for an idea.  I mainly covered some various types of farmers.  There are still plenty of alt ideas to cover for the blogging carnival.

Ideal Alts Series
■Ideal Alts Series Intro | Wes’s Building A Better Bank Alt
■The Dungeon Farmer – An Ideal Heroic Farming Alt
■The Collector – An Ideal Vendor Flipping and Pet Selling Alt
■The Herder – An Ideal AoE Farmer Alt
■The Low Level Dungeon Farmer – An Ideal Alt For Farming Low Level Instances
■The Solo Raider and World Boss Killer
I highly recommend participating in this blogging carnival as this topic will be revisited by new readers and will continue to bring you traffic to your site long after the carnival is over.