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The Consortium and Wind Traders
Have you been to consortium.stormspire.net yet?  This is a bustling forum with the majority of gold bloggers freely discussing ideas, strategies, speculations, and much more.  There is even a section for private "Wind Traders" discussion.  Only 2 Wind traders are allowed per server (1 Horde & 1 Alliance).  There are RSS Feeds from the major gold blogs so it's also a good place to find new authors to read.  If you go and sign up to join our community, please mention Cold as your referrer.  (No benefit to me - just tracking.)  The admin, Sterling, runs an un-named featured gold blog on the sites main page as well.  Sterling has been banging out some great topics, so don't miss out.

Consortium Hot Topics
Instead of trying to paraphrase or discuss topics that are already fully engaged on the forums, I will instead provide you with some links and summaries of some excellent topics on the consortium forums.  Enjoy!

1. Item's You Should Have In Your Snatch List - This is the mega list of snatch items of rare recipes and items for flipping.  Read this Snatch List and review my Undermine Journal Notifications post.  Combine the knowledge and reap huge rewards!
2. Sinshroud's Guide To Monitoring Your Competition's Cross Faction Trading as an extension of Sterling's Shady Business - Cross Faction Trading post. -  Excellent articles for anyone interested in the neutral auction house business.
3. Tips and Tricks For Archaeology - nice basic guide by Kiseki.

There are a ton of great guides and posts.  The community is also good at continuing the discussions.  So check it out, if you haven't yet.  It's a great place for some new fresh ideas.

**This post sponsored by Skewter's Goblin and Worgen Leveling Guides - Beat the race to server first with these cheap and helpful guides.**

Pilgrim's Bounty - Easy Cooking Skills & Sales

Cheap Cooking Skill Ups

Pilgrim's Bounty will run November 22nd to November 28th. This World of Warcraft holiday event is a great time to raise the cooking skills of any characters that haven't been levelling their cooking. Maybe you haven't even rasie your cooking skill on your main. This will be the time to raise you cooking skills. By using just the 5 recipes only sold during Pilgrim's Bounty, you can raise your cooking skill to around 350. The final recipe turns grey at 355. This method only uses materials bought during the holiday and is the most efficient way to level cooking.

Selling Cooking Recipes
Pilgrim's Bounty is also another great time to sell cooking recipes. Since many people will use this holiday to level cooking cheaply, they will also be looking to purchase other recipes to continue to raise their cooking skill higher. Since the easy skill-ups end around skill 340-350, focus on posting various recipes that start around this cooking level. It is also a great time to unload some meats and fish that you don't need. Prices will jump as people leveling cooking need raw materials to cook.

JMTC Markco's Challenge For Gold Blogs

Markco's Challenge
Markco of Just My Two Copper has issued a challenge to all of us gold bloggers.  Today I answer the call.  Here are the questions that he has challenged us to answer:

1. What was your first post ever? Why did you write it? (don't use an intro post)
2. What was your favorite post and why?
3. What was your least favorite post and why?
4. Find a reader comment you like and respond to it regarding one of your posts. Call them out and thank them for the comment.
5. Ask your readers to pick a post they found useful on your site.

1)  First Post
The Wintergrasp Shuffle - Outdated information as of Patch 4.0.1, but was a very useful post detailing the shuffling of honor points into cut gems.  I wanted to start the blog off with a juicy tidbit of information as I was raking in the gold with this strategy.  I also wanted to inform readers of how I think and string ideas together across multiple professions.

2)  Favorite Post
Blacksmith Lockpicking with the follow-up Blacksmith Lockpicking Revisted - When I wrote the original post, I was in a severe case of bloggage (blogger's writer's blog).  I was looking for an idea that I hadn't seen elsewhere, yet was very useful.  Then the idea to focus on blacksmith lockpicking came to me.  I hadn't actually been doing this myself at all.  The topic got me curious to see what the break even point would be for blacksmiths that "wasted" bars on keys to open locks.  It turned out that this was an excellent way to make easy profits and I had been ignoring this market all together.  The follow-up post was a great example of how lucrative this could be and supported my original post very well.  I really like these posts as I actually taught myself something in the process of looking for a topic.

3)  Least Favorite Post
Saving Money With Pre-paid Game Time Cards was meant to be a helpful post on how (in some states) you can save money by purchasing (non-taxable) game time cards instead of using the subscription renewals (which charge tax).  Unfortunately, the post was taken as nothing but a referral to an affiliate program (Amazon).  I guess people thought I was baiting them to buy cards through my link.  It was really just an informative post, but the comments showed that readers didn't understand my point very well.  The Time To Pre-Order Cataclsym post was received much better, but still stirred some debate on forums and blogs I read.  I still say screw the digital download and get the release date delivery.

4)  Reader Comment
I published my Stocking Up For Children's Week post 3-4 weeks before the start of the event.  The follow-up post about Exploiting Children's Week had a comment from "Joe" that really made me feel that people weren't just reading the blog.  They were reading and implementing.  He followed my advice and was able to turn 50g into 2k gold.  This was the first post that showed that my blog was actualy helping others.  I don't think I have any other comments from this "Joe", but here's a big "THANK YOU" to him.  You really helped light a fire in me for blogging as it was now obvious that I acually was helping others.

5)  Please Comment
You the readers are why I write this blog.  I enjoy spreading my crazy thoughts around the blogosphere.

What blog posts did you guys find useful or enjoyable?

X-53 Touring Rocket From Trade Chat - Update

X-53 Touring Rocket

X-53 Refer A Friend Deal
Remember my post X-53 From Trade Chat?  In September, I paid 15k gold for a X-53 Touring Rocket and 1 month of game time.  Some of the posted comments warned of this "common scam." Some were expecting that this deal was made with stolen credit cards and would be reversed.  This would have left me without my 15k gold and without my new mount.

Deal or Scam?
My free game time from this deal just expired today and I am still the owner of this mount.  This was a legit deal so I got a free month of game time and the Recruit-a-Friend mount for 15k gold pieces.  The mount is really nice as it behaves just like the Headless Horseman's Mount.  It can be used as both a land mount and a flying mount. Just another riding option in my quest for the Mountain of Mounts achievement.

Recipes, Schematics, and Patterns Oh My!

Pattern Prices Are Dropping
Last Friday I wrote about how markets are crashing as Cataclysm nears.  Today I would like to discuss one specific market that you may be overlooking.  Low level recipes for all professions have been plummeting in price on the auction house.  High end recipes are also dropping in price, but those are going to continue to lose value.  High end recipes are good to snatch up, if you are a collector, but the high end craftable recipes won't make you hardly any money either by flipping or by crafting those items.  Low end recipes are dropping so low in price that they will be another good option for flipping once the Cataclysm arrives in the World of Warcraft.

Undervalued Patterns
If you use the add-on Auctioneer, then you have no doubt been seeing a lot of low end recipes showing up within the blue percentage color indicator showing that they are grossly underpriced for their actual value.  If you haven't already noticed, then do a scan and a quick look into the many pages of recipes for sale on the auction house.  Many of the low level patterns are showing up as a good purchase price.  Many of these patterns are dropping in value as most players already have most patterns for their crafters.  I'm not talking about super rare patterns that are mistakenly posted for the wrong buyout price.  If you are interested in tracking super rare patterns or items, then review my post on using The Undermine Journal to track super rare items.

Demand Will Return Soon
As soon as Cataclysm is released we will see a huge influx of both new and old players. 

1. Many old players will return to the game to explore the new changes.
2. Many players that have just been sitting out the last month or two will return.
3. The game will draw a lot of brand new players.
4. Many players will roll new characters to experience the new goblin and worgen races.
5. Many players will be leveling new professions.

All of these will contribute to a much higher demand for low level recipes that are currently hitting insanely low prices.  Many of these low level recipes will sell to new crafters looking for new recipes.  Some recipes sell very well because the materials required to gain professions skill-ups are much cheaper than the standard trainer learned recipes.  Players that tend to level their professions casually buy these patterns more than those that power level.  They may buy a pattern because they have more options to use for skill-ups or it fits better into what materials they currently possess.

Prices So Low You Can't Pass Up
World drop patterns or quest reward patterns that are not selling are hitting low prices of just a few silvers.  You can't pass these deals up.  I just bought a few Recipe: Discolored Healing Potion alchemy recipes for 6 silver each.  These are a Horde only quest reward and have been selling for 22-25g on the neutral auction house as there is no other way for an alliance character to obtain one.  So snatch up all those horribly low priced patterns and save then to unload in a month for far more than the silvers you will pay for them now.  If only these dang things stacked.

Why You Should Save Your Deeprock Salt

Preserved Holly Machine

Deeprock Salt & Winter Veil
Deeprock Salt spikes in demand one time every year.  This happens during the Feast of Winter Veil every December.  After completing the Metzen The Reindeer quest chain, a follow-up quest becomes available.  This quest, The Hero of the Day, requires 5 gold and 1 Deeprock Salt in order to award 5 Preserved Holly.  (Note:  Refined Deeprock Salt won't work, so any leather workers that have already ran their salt through a salt shaker have missed this opportunity.)  The preserved holly are just for flavor and are pretty worthless.  The real reason to complete this quest is because the reindeer chain quests and The Hero Of The Day quest all count towards the 3000 Quests Completed achievement.

Converting Those Salts To Gold
If you haven't figured it out yet, I love to rape the auction house for massive profits by planning ahead each and every holiday season.  Must be the evil goblin coming out of me.  Start now by looking on your auction house for deeprock salt.  Anything super cheap or in big stacks at a good price go ahead and buy it out.  On my server, they are going for 4.2g per stack, which is dirt cheap compared to what I will mark them up to when the time is right.  If you want to farm some, click on the Deeprock salt link (First word in this article) and it will list all the mobs that can drop the deeprock salt.  Knot Thimblejack's cache in Dire Maul North is also a good source for these salts, which may result in a few nice priced stacks on the auction house as people are rushing to finish their insane title currently.  Store all your deeprock salts until the night before Winter Veil.

You should always post your highway robbery priced demand spiked holiday goods the night before the holiday and on a 48 hour sale.  This insures against problems getting to post in case their are server delays.  You want to be the first and only one to have these posted once the holiday goes live at 3am server time.  You do know that all holidays start at 3am right?  So posting the morning or afternoon of the holiday start date has already lost you a ton of sales.  When you buy these salts up now, then post the eve of the holiday while setting your own prices, you can easily bring in 25g per deeprock salt.  They will sell and they will sell well.  They always do, until some idiot comes along and throws his up for 5g each.  By that point though, you've already sold pages of them at your crazy prices.  You can then undercut him or buy him out to raise your prices back up, until too many copycats try to get in on the holiday sales.  It's fun to watch these late comers fight over undercutting each other down to 1-2g or less per salt, while you continue to laugh as you sold 80 of them for 25g each while everyone was still asleep.  This works particularly well if you are on a server with an aussie presense or a lot of overnight / late players.

Got any stories of Winter Veil price gouging?

Ins And Outs Of Guest Posts

Guest Posting
Here at Cold's Gold Factory I like to feature other writers as guest posters in order to help them create traffic to their site as well as pick their brains for new ideas.  I have had several guest posts here and have also posted as a guest on various other blogs.  This post will serve to get you up to date on the guests that Cold's Gold Factory has featured as well as informing you of the guest posts I have provided on other sites, in case you missed them or can't get enough of Cold's Nuggets of Knowledge.  If you would like to be featured as a guest poster, just contact Cold's Gold Factory for more information or to submit a topic idea.

Guests of Cold's Gold Factory

1. Markco of Just My Two Copper :  Twinking in Cataclysm
2. Mageshadow of  The Gnomish Coin : Selling Flowers
3. Inkobah of TwinkInfo : Making Gold Off Cataclysm (most popular response to a guest post)
4. Wes of CappedByCata : Mining Profits In Cataclysm

Thanks to all the previous guest posters.  I look forward to more guest postings in the future once Cataclysm drops.  I also welcome newcomers to the gold blogging scene to submit guest posts as well.

Cold's Guest Posts Elsewhere

1. Twink Gears To Profit On @ Just My Two Copper
2. The Spectral Vendor @ The Gnomish Coin
3. End of Expansion Blues and Preparations for Cataclysm @ Capped By Cata
4. Professions In Cataclysm @ Just Another Goblin

Thanks for the hosts that allowed me to guest post or swap posts.  Anyone else interested in a guest post just shoot me an invite or a swap idea.  Thanks to everyone for their help and support as Cold's Gold Factory continues to grow.  Please feel free to share my site within your social networks to help continue the growth.

Demon Forged Breastplate: Learn It Now

Quest Removed
The quest, The Demon Forge, that rewards the blacksmithing pattern Plans: Demon Forged Breastplate will no longer be available in Cataclysm.  If you have a blacksmith and do not know this pattern yet, I would go ahead and complete the quest to get the pattern and learn it.  Whether Blizzard removes the recipe itself is yet to be seen.  Lately they have removed a lot of patterns from our previously learned crafting recipes, so this recipe may get the axe as well.  Once you have this recipe learned, go ahead and farm the BOP demonic runes and craft a few of these excellent leveling chest pieces in case the ability to craft them gets removed.  If these are no longer craftable in a few weeks, the value will rise as this is the top leveling chest piece for aoe farming and leveling paladins.

Pally Leveling Uber Gear
The demon forged breastplate is the absolute best AoE farming and leveling chest piece for insanely fast herding and killing of mobs.  This chestpiece has a chance to proc a heal-over-time that is also a damage over time spell, basically a drain life type spell.  Why is this so powerful?  The proc can trigger off multiple mobs at once and it scales upwards with spellpower on both the damage and the healing components.  This is even better than before thanks to the new changes with the talent system.  All protection paladins get Touched By Light, which adds 60% of their strength as additional spellpower and helps to buff the spell coefficient of the demon-forged breastplate. 

Selling Points
In the early days of The Burning Crusade, my paladin would solo farm a mess load of undead in the undead fields with this chest paired with a skullflame shield.  You can sell these chest pieces for a nice price, especially if you can snag a skulllame shield to sell as a combo.  Attach a shield spike to the shield and you have some serious AoE farming ability.  It's so good that when I would lose connection, I would log back in and the 8-10 mobs that were on me when I dropped connection would all be piled up around me dead.  You've got to love killing while disconnected.  With a little promotion these sell for nice profits and should see much interest on the horde side when the tauren paladins become playable.  So learn the recipe, if you don't have it yet, before it is no longer learnable and potentially not craftable.

Paladin Gear Combos
If you are going to level a new paladin, trust me get the uber combo:  Demon-Forged Breastplate (with enchant of choice - I like the +heal +mana one for less downtime), Skullflame Shield (with the best shield spike you can get), and a speed enchant on your boots for easier herding.  You can solo insane amounts of mobs at a time.  Add a weapon with a built in drain effect and /or a lifestealing or crusader enchant and it realy gets crazy.  Then if you like this kind of AoE herding, you can grab the Sporegar poisoning shield next.  Or if you are ridiculous like me, get all the mobs around you maxed on poison DoTs from the Lichen Shield, then swap back to your Skullflame Shield as the poison ticks away.

Day of the Dead, Bread of the Dead, Marionette Pet

Catrina during Day of the Dead

Day of the Dead Walk Through
Day of the Dead is a 2 day holiday that runs on November 1st-2nd.   You can get an achievement and a temporary pet companion.  You also can make some profits off of lazy or clueless players.

Notes: The Marionette is only a temporary pet. It will disappear after the Day of the Dead event is over.

1. From a cooking supplier and any innkeeper, purchase Ice Cold Milk and Simple Flour.
2. Go to your race's major city's graveyard. Orcs to Orgrimmar, Humans to Goldshire, Night Elves to Darnassus, Blood Elves to Silvermoon, ect.
3. Target Catrina and /dance for your achievement, Dead Man's Party.
4. Purchase two Orange Marigolds from the Day of the Dead vendor.
5. Use one of the Marigolds to see the ghosts of the graveyard. Find the quest giver and accept the quest The Grateful Dead.
6. Acquire Bread of the Dead. You can purchase the recipe from the Day of the Dead vendor, Chapman, or just find someone hanging around with extra bread.
7. Use one of the Marigolds again to see the ghosts and turn in the quest to get your Macabre Marionette pet.

Making Gold
You would be amazed at the number of people who either are too lazy or too time crunched to cook their own bread of the dead.  You can craft and sell these for some easy money during the event and all they require to create is ice cold milk and flour.  You can sell milk and flower on the auction house, but unfortunately these breads cannot be sold on the auction house.  Barking in trade will get you some sales though.  As with any World of Warcraft holiday, setting up shop early will yield the most customers and potential profits.

Happy Halloween

The day is here when the little goblins will be out begging for treats and sweets as night time nears.  Happy Halloween boys and ghouls!

Hallow's End is in its final day.  Be sure to read my earlier post about profiteering and Hallow's End wand zaps from earlier this month.  Don't toss those wands.  They can be used all year long for the achievement seekers, are a suitable costume to sell to the nomal savory deviate delight buyers, and can be used for some super easy gold early into next years Hallow's End world holiday event.  As with any of the in game holiday events, planning is the key to profiting early in the events.  So save those wands for Day 1 of next year and start cracking down on stockpiling for Winter's Veil.  Be ahead of the crowd and plan for the next holidays now.

Haute Club Membership Card

Haute Club Membership
The Haute Club Membership Card is a completely worthless item, but it sells.  It can even sell for crazy marked up prices.  I have no idea who buys these pieces of junk.  There is no in game use for them.  I found a few stacked in a freshly purchased guild bank.  So I tossed them on the auction house and they sold for around 10g each and sold within a couple hours of posting.  All of them sold.


Haute Club Membership Card Drops
The Haute Club Membership Card only drops from some of the mobs in The Plaguelands: The Scarlet Enclave, which is the deathknight starting area.  The Citizens of New Avalon and the New Avalon Councilmen are the best sources, but Mayor Quimby, Scarlet Commander Rodrick and High Inquisitor Valroth also can drop the membership cards.


I don't recommend farming these, but if you happen to get some while doing the deathknight starter quests hang onto them.  They are very helpful for getting starter cash for your new deathknight.  Just post the membership cards onto your auction house.  If you see one for a few coppers on the auction house, be sure to snatch it up for an easy flip.  Again, no idea who buys these things, but they do sell.

Cataclysm Nears As Markets Crash

Expansions End
Cataclysm is only 5 and a half weeks away.  Some players are starting to unload their materials for super low prices.  As the expansion nears it's end, the market is definately turning in the favor of buyers.  Prices are dropping as supply is overtaking demand.  Many players have started to liquidate items from their banks in order to make room for items that will be better options for holding or increasing in value as an attempt to hedge against inflation.  Some items are dropping so far in value that you shouldn't attempt to even craft them.  Some banker guilds are dissolving and the guilds are going up for sale as players move to bigger guilds to take advantage of the upcoming guild perks.  Now is the time to look for specials, cut deals, and snatch up those underpriced goods.

Special Prices
I have been taking advantage of this amazing drop in prices and have had to purchase yet another guild bank to helps store all of my goods.  Although I did pay 2000g for this new 4 slot guild bank, which is slightly higher than my Guild Bank Tab Price Chart, I was entirely out of storage space.  This price of 2000g was offset by the fact that the new bank I bought had over 2 tabs full of items including stacks of various cloths, potions, 1/2 a tab along of high level greens, a few blue items, bags, and ZG coins.  You should definately be on the lookout for cheap guild banks for your alts as many players are looking to join up with a new guild soon.  Saronite Ore isn't being used by many players lately, at least on my server, and I have been buying out pages of Saronite Ore for less than smelted vendor price (12.5g per stack).  Buying these ores at 10-11g is absolutely no risk at all since the bars vendor for 25g a stack and these are going to go up in value during Cataclysm.  Netherweave cloth is bottoming out as well, I'm seeing stacks reach as low as 2g when they used to go for 6-9g per stack.  Herb prices have dropped back to normal or below average pricing.  Borean leather is down.  Uncut gems, such as Forest Emerald, are dropping to below the vendor price of the cut version.  Rare WotLK gems vendor for 3g and their cut versions vendor for 4.5g.  Snatch up anything less than 4.5g, cut it, and just vendor it for an easy profit.  Eternal earths and regular gems are dropping plenty low to make crafting jewelry to vendor an easy afk money maker.  Be on the look out in all markets for these cheap deals and new ways to make easy profits and you too will be looking for another guild bank to hold all of your newly acquired goods.

Abyssal Bag And The Knights Of The Ebon Blade

Duchess Mynx

Abyssal Bag
Since Patch 4.0.1, Abyssal Bag is now a BoE 22 slot bag usable by anyone.  The abyssal bag was a warlock only bag that held soul shards.  Since the 4.0.1 patch, they are now a cheaper to craft version of the glacial bag and the abyssal bag doesn't have a cooldown. 

The glacial bag requires 4 ebonweave, 4 moonshroud  and 1 eternium thread.       
The abyssal bag requires only 4 ebonweave, 2 spellweave, and 1 eternium thread. 

Learning The Abyssal Bag Pattern
The tailoring pattern requires revered standing with the Ebon Blade faction in Icecrown and is available from Duchess Mynx, the Ebon Blade quartermaster in The Shadow Vault.  What if your tailor isn't your main and doesn't have the required reputation to purchase the pattern?  Well the Ebon Blade Commendation Badges are only 16 Justice points each and award 520 reputation.  So you may be able to top off that reputation with badges in order to learn the new version of the abyssal bag.

How To Make Gold In Cataclysm: New Characters

An Eruption of Gold

How To Make Gold In Cataclysm
Mining, Herbing, and Skinning will be big sources of gold early into the Cataclysm Expansion as people will pay primium prices.  The server first ability to craft items and gear that no one else can craft yet will be a huge advantage.  Knowing which items to mass produce to sell for quest completions will be a nice bonus.  Once the population starts acquiring epics and raid gear, the enchanters and jewelcrafters will be raking in the gold.  There are tons of ways to make gold in any new expansion, but what I will be focusing on is making gold off of new players and new characters.

New Players
New players are different from new characters.  A new player is someone who just logged in to play the game for the first time.  New characters are alternate characters of an already existing account.  New players tend to be clueless for the first few weeks of the game.  Some don't even know what the auction house is for months after they first start to level their first character.  New players tend to spend their gold foolishly because they just don't have the experience in game to know when to buy and when to wait.  Regardless there are things that even new players want to acquire quickly like bigger bags or a "cool glow" on their weapon.  New players, or Christmas Noobs as I like to call them, may have a stack of gold given to them from a real life friend who got them into the game.  So don't dismiss these new players as poor noobs with no income.  We can make gold off of these new players too.

New Characters
New characters can be created for all sorts of reasons.  There will be a ton of old players that will return to see the new content and changes from the Cataclysm expansion.  Many regular players will be rolling one of the new races, either Worgen or Goblin, or both.  Some players will be creating new race / class combos like a human hunter or a troll druid.  Some players will switch factions completely.  On my server the top Alliance raiding guild is all re-rolling as Horde come Cataclysm and forming a new Horde guild.  Some players will just decide that they are tired of their old main and will be leveling a new characters as their new main.  Some people will decide that they finally want to give in and roll a deathknight.  Twinking will return in Cataclysm, so many players will have an outlet for spending their masses of gold on a nice twink or two.  Any way you break it down, you must agree there will be a huge market for supplying new players as well as new characters.

What Do You New Players and Characters Buy
There are many items and markets that can be used to supply the soon to be exploding population of new players and new characters.  Here is a list of some of the strategies that I am going to be banking on.

1. Netherweave Bags - The standard of any new character, the surge in demand will push these to an all time high of sales and profits.
2. Profession Bags - Think of how many of these new characters will have a gathering skill.  Mining bags should sell very well, even to old characters that are gathering for the first weeks.  Goblin and Worgen racial bonuses will steer those races towards herbalism/alchemy and skinning respectively.
3. Twinks - Twinks are a whole market of their own.  This market will pick up later in the expansion, but for starters check out green gear that turns blue in Patch 4.03.  Stock up now buying the greens, to sell as blues in Cataclysm.
4. BoA Gear Enchants - BoA gear gets enchanted by the same enchants that 10-19 bracket twinks use.  New BoA gear is being added as old BoA gear won't work past level 81.  New BoA gear is being added through the guild vendor system to slots without current BoA gear (helm and cape).  Are you prepared with all the common Twink and BoA gear enchants on your enchanter?
5. Vanity Pets - When the population surges, the sale of vanity pets explodes as well, especially after any holiday events which reward a vanity pet, and we will be fresh into vanity pet season with all the forthcoming holidays, not to mention the gifts from Great Father Winter.
6. Quest Items - Quest items always sell well to new players questing.  I plan to keep a list once the data starts rolling in on what items are needed for quest completions.  This has always been an easy money maker for me and many times you don't need to be a high level crafter to profit in this market.
7. Glyphs - With the changes to the glyph system, all new players will be buying glyphs, as will any new characters that are created.  Old players returning to the game will log in to find out that they now need to go buy a ton of glyphs as well.  Glyphs sales should be even bigger that with patch 4.0.1, since many more people will be back playing the game and sheer numbers will raise the demand to highly profitable levels again.

Be Prepared

Hopefully, you are thinking about the new player / new character markets that you may have overlooked.  Best advice is always to be prepared!  Get you netherweave stockpile build and bolted.  Snatch those cheap greens that are turning to blues soon.  Get those glyphs crafted and ready to go.  Finish collecting those rare twink enchanting recipes you are missing.  Get you game plan together by planning ahead and then you can relax while the gold just keeps rolling in.  Maybe you too can catch some of the golden nuggets spewing forth from the Cataclysm volcanoes.  

What are you banking on for making gold in Cataclysm?

The Undermine Journal : Market Notifications

The Undermine Journal

The database over at The Undermine Journal is amazing.  Euripides did an awesome article on most of the features over at WoW Insider.  Here is a link to that article, Goldcapped: The Undermine Journal.  If your server hasn't been added yet, just make sure to vote daily to eventually see your server included.  My server has just recently been added, so I have finally been able to start using the great auction house tools provided my The Undermine Journal.

Market Notifications

The market notifications feature is one of my favorites.  This allows you to track specific items and then have an email sent to you as soon as the item becomes available on the auction house at the price threshold you set for that item.  After you search for the item, scroll down to just under the first 2 graphs to this section:

Market Notifications

Login to The Undermine Journal to view and set your market notifications for this item.

I have recently set up notifications for a list of specific rare patterns that I would like to find cheap to flip for big profits.  Using the market notification tools, I get notified as soon as they are posted on the AH.  I have already used this info to pick up a couple of rare patterns for horribly underpriced buyouts.  If you have email notification send to your cell phone or email notification on your computer, you can use the market notification tool to instantly grab those super cheap items as soon as they are listed on the auction house.  If you happen to get notifications while you are asleep, each notification includes a link to the Undermine Journal's item listing for your server, so you can check that the item is still available before logging in to buy it.

Here's what the email notification looks like:

Hello, Cold![Haunted Memento] on (Insert Your Server Here) Horde has reached a threshold that you've set:

The market price is under 500g 0s 0c. It is now 89g 0s 0c.

I had Haunted Memento set to notify me if it ever appeared below 500g.  Looks like at 2:30am someone posted one for 89g!  Dang it!  It was bought and relisted while I slept, but had this been posted while I was awake, I could have grabbed it thanks to my instant notification.  On super rare items, I just set the threshold to notify me when it appears at all.  I decide if the price is good after I see what it's posted at.

So head over to The Undermine Journal and get set up for those instant Market Notifications.  Anyone using their site for anything else?

Making Gold Off Cataclysm: Guest Post by Inkobah

Cataclysm Is Nearing

Today I have a special guest post from Inkobah of Twinkinfo.com.  You may recall his name from a posting I reproduced here titled:  Cataclysm: The Rebirth of Twinking (Part 1).  Inkobah is one of my favorite writers and I am excited to finally have a guest post by him.  If you are interested in twinks, make sure to learn about twinking, how to make a twink, and what twinks buy and use over at Twinkinfo.com. 

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Making Gold Off Cataclysm

The World (of Warcraft) is changing drastically. Soon the two original continents will look much different than we’ve gotten used to over the last 6 years, skills and spells are changing, stats and items are changing, new content will be added, and others will be taken away.

Within this post I’ll be tackling a topic very dear to our hearts: Making gold off Cataclysm. There’s many ways to do it, but here are my suggestions:

The best way to make money in Cataclysm is anticipating the changes that will cause item prices to go up (and avoiding items that will go down as a result of Cataclysm). Below are a few categories to take a look at to maximize your earnings when Cataclysm hits on December 7. But before we go there I want to encourage everyone to avoid the inflation bat!

Avoid the Inflation Bat!
What is the inflation bat? Well every time Blizzard has raised the level cap there has been major inflation in the game. Those that played back in “Vanilla” WoW will remember that you were amazingly rich if you had anything north of 1000g (now you can buy that much from the Chinamen for like $2.50). In BC the amount of gold available to players went up due to the increasing gold dropped by mobs and given by quests. It got worse when Blizzard implemented Daily Quests to the game, making it easy to get 100g+ by just doing a handful of quests. Then, it progressed with Lich King and will again wreak havoc on the economy once Cataclysm comes out.

Perhaps the best thing you can do to prepare for Cataclysm, is to avoid the inflation bat the best you can. How do you do that? Well, you have to find the right items to “invest” your gold in until after things settle down. By buying items that will increase in value in Cataclysm, you’ll be avoiding the inflation that will take your liquid assets and shrink them just because they’re liquid. Think about it this way, if you have 50k gold right now and just sit on 50k gold for three months you’ll have 50k gold (while everyone else will be surpassing you because of inflation). But if you have 50k gold right now and invest a good portion in goods that will increase in value come Cata, you could have exponentially more than 50k gold in three months.

It’s cool to have the gold cap on multiple characters for looks but practically it makes little sense because inflation will make that gold increasingly less valuable. I recommend that you keep some liquid assets (gold) because you’ll need it to buy goods you’ll need or pick up some sweet deals you run across, but most of your gold would be better served invested in goods that you can sell for a profit later. Also when you go to sell these items later mark them up! For instance, let’s say a stack of Copper Ore goes for 10g right now. In Cataclysm, that Ore needs to be priced at 15g + to compensate for inflation and the increased amount of gold in the server economy.

The key to avoiding the inflation bat successfully is finding the right goods that you know will increase in price. Investing in items like Primordial Saronite will be a bad investment as the value in Cata (and in the coming weeks) will tank tremendously. Below are a few areas where I would recommend you invest your gold in for the next couple months or so. It’s certainly not all the goods that should increase in value but here are a few.

Categories to Target

* Mats
Two new races (and new class/race combos) added to the game means all kinds of new characters running around on our realms. This means that materials for professions like Blacksmithing, Leatherworking, Enchanting, Tailoring, Jewelcrafting, etc. will skyrocket in demand. The risk to this investment is small, but the payoff will be smaller than some other investments.

* Greens turning into Blues
There are a handful of items that are currently Green that will be changing to Blue. I know Cold touched on a few of these items already. (Refresh your memory about Twink BoE gear changing from green to blue).  As dumb as it may sound, these items will increase in price if only because of the item quality (many are getting buffed as well). Don’t believe me? Remember when the very rare Hyacinth Macaw changed in item quality from White to Purple? The price skyrocketed while nothing changed on the item itself. This is a very safe investment, with a descent return on investment.

* Enchants/Glyphs/Gems/Patches
With all the new characters running around, created item enhancements will also increase in demand with Cataclysm. Also, this expansion is also being called a Rebirth to Twinking by many (including myself) so you should see many twinks running around post-Cataclysm looking for these goods. The risk to this investment is also pretty small, but I believe the payoff could be a bit higher than other investments (especially for items in high demand by twinks).

* Leveling items
Everyone assumes that leveling Blues/Purples are worthless these days and in Cataclysm due to BoA’s. This is not true! I make most of my money these days just buying and selling these items. The reason why it’s wrong is that a lot of people like to have good gear at their level and don’t understand it’s almost always a waste of money. They fall into the ill-fated logic that having good gear upgrades all the time will mean that I’ll level exponentially faster. Those of you that have been around a while know that gear helps but it’s usually not worth the gold (but don’t tell our potential customers that!). In addition, there’s a lot of people that don’t have BoA’s still so all slots are still profitable. With this method, try targeting items that are clearly intended for melee classes that also have Spirit on them (as the Spirit will be changed in Cataclysm to a more useful stat making them more useful and more valuable). Also there’s always people that see Blues/Purples and just buy it because of the item quality thinking it’s an amazing item. The risk to this investment is a bit higher, but the payoff for the right items will be high.

* Twink items
There is certainly some overlap between leveling items and twink items but the big difference is the price twinks will pay for items that are Best in Slot. I’ve seen twinks pay 10k+ more for 1 stat so they make sure they’ve got the best they can get. The scary thing is that there’s a lot of changes happening to twink gear right now and all the stats on Wowhead Beta, the Beta, Armory, and MMO-Champion appear to be inconclusive on what’s really happening. Many items that are currently are BiS are not going to be BiS in Cataclysm which is good if you are able to target the new BiS items and avoid the ones that will no longer be BiS. The risk to this category is high, but the reward can be very high with the influx of twinks that I think we’ll see post-Cata.

Monopolies
Another way to increase your ROI (return on investment) is to create monopolies with other players. I know there are different stands on this issue and I’ve even heard stories about people getting banned for doing this. There is nothing in the Blizzard ToS that would make this illegal (though very clearly illegal in real life) and I’ve never heard from Blizzard when I’ve done it. The way you do this is get a few buddies together to invest in similar items and make an agreement with all of those buddies to set your prices at the same when Cataclysm hits.

This works best and is generally foolproof with items that will be in very high demand. I’m disappointed that there are no new professions with this expansion because that’s the easiest way to create a monopoly by targeting the raw goods needed to level a new profession. I made a killing off monopolies the last two expansions by targeting ore and gems when BC came out and herbs with the last one. I was crossing my fingers that archaeology may require some raw goods but that will not be the case unfortunately.

Still there are areas where monopolies will always be possible. Find people you trust that are motivated to make gold (and have some capital to work with) and you’ll be good to go. Don’t freak out about the undercutters because if you pick the right area of the economy, the demand will far outweigh the supply that undercutters are able to sell.
Wrap-up
I hope these suggestions will help you to make a killing off of Cataclysm. I know I’ll be raking it in within the next few months and can’t wait for the big day. If you have success stories or your own suggested categories to target in preparation for Cataclysm please leave a comment. It’s an honor to blog for you guys. Thanks Cold for the invitation!

Cheers!

-Ink

Be sure to check out other great posts by Ink:
Inkobah's Guide to Auctioning
Cataclysm: The Rebirth of Twinking Part 1
Cataclysm: The Rebirth of Twinking Part 2

Glyph Prices Will Peak Again Before Cataclysm

Glyph Sales Will Rise Again

Selling Glyphs

Scribes have been making a killing selling glyphs to all characters. Prices are down already on some of the easier to learn glyphs. Do not worry. Prices on glyphs will peak again before Cataclysm. Scribes will be able to sell a ton of glyphs again upon the release of Cataclysm as new players join and old players roll new race alts. Another patch will soon increase the demand for glyphs again.

The Shattering
Patch 4.0.3 is also The Shattering event patch. Blue posts have already said the new race and class combos will be available with The Shattering patch. This opens up a whole new target audience for glyph sales. I definately expect to see some new characters spring up after the patch goes live. These new troll druids, human hunters, etc. will all be looking to stock their glyph books. If you didn't learn from the last patch, make sure to post your glyphs the Monday night before the patch, incase the server is down extra time again. Those of us that posted the night before saw a ton of sales with little competition as we planned ahead. If you have some glyphs that aren't fetching what you want for them, just wait until The Shattering patch goes live when prices should spike again.

Auction House Mistakes I Learned From

Mistakes Teach Us
Free Gold Tips and Tricks are posted here every day.  These are tried and true methods that work and speculative ideas about what could work.  Learning what to do comes with also learning what not to do.  Mistakes are the stepping stones to understanding.  When you understand what went wrong, you can focus on preventing repeated mistakes.  Here are two examples of things I've learned by screwing up.


Incorrect Pricing
Auction house gold making can quickly be derailed by incorrect pricing.  It only takes a couple of times posting items for the wrong price to learn a quick lesson.  Always check that you have posted your items at the correct price!  Once I was so excited to see that the10 Icescale Leg Armor I had just posted for 225g each had all just sold out within minutes of posting.  I quickly ran to the auction house to see who had bought them all only to see I had incorrectly posted them all for 25g each.  Ouch!  From then on, I always double check my auctions.  Good thing too.  I had accidentally posted a Captured Firefly for 15g instead of 15k, but caught it within seconds of posting.  That could have been a huge loss as I had paid 2k for it.


Buyouts Raise Prices
Don't buy out every low priced material you find.  Why?  I love to find great deals on the auction house.  Problem is I tend to buy all of the items priced below my purchasing threshold.  It took me forever to finally realize why there are only higher prices items re-listed after I do a big buyout.  Duh!  Now the cheapest one is above my threshold and new sellers will post their materials as close to that higher amount as possible.  It pays to leave a few on the auction house at low low prices.  Why?  The next bot farmer who comes along will post all of his goods below the lowest price.  This may lose you a few stacks of cheap materials, if another buyer snatches them up before a seller comes along, but trust me it is well worth the risk.  Sometimes you can really hit it big.  Just remember that every item you buy out at one price is pushing the next posters price that much higher for your next round of purchases.




This post was submitted for inclusion into the monthly blogging carnival at Just My Two Copper.
Image taken from The Word It Book by Armin Vit.

Reader Submission: Relics of Ulduar & Reputation In Cataclysm

Reader Submission from Lasse aka Dahmek of Turalyon-EU



Hello your hallowed Coldness. Off to a good start with a wordplay :D


My question is this: Do you see any profit in stocking up on Relic of Ulduar now?

What I am considering is the following:
1: The prices of Relic of Ulduar have dropped a lot since the introduction of shoulderarmors as BoA items.
2: Come Cataclysm, a lot of new Worgen/Goblin will be created. Some of these as new mains.
3: A small part of this "new" playerbase will be interested in achievements and reputation.
4: Buy Relic of Ulduar at insanely low prices now and cash in in Cataclysm.
5a: You could merely use AH as normal
5b: Do "/2 WTS complete Sons of Hodir rep package to exalted. Get your achievement now"

This was a short overview of what I've been thinking about. Relics of Ulduar is atm at 13.07 servertime ~25s a piece at my server, Turalyon-EU, and I see them lower sometimes. I figure you should be able to at least get 1g return a piece, possibly more with Cataclysm inflation.
Thank you for an excellent blog. I follow you daily, and you have quickly become my favorite blogger.
Kind regards from a fellow AH camper and golddigger.

Lasse aka Dahmek of Turalyon-EU

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Thanks Dahmek for the sumbission.  I highly welcome guest posters and reader submissions or questions.  Thanks again!

The real questions here are:

1. Will there be enough demand to flip the Relics for a profit?
2. Will people be continuing to collect these themselves?
3. Will they continue to be available on the auction house once Cataclysm releases?
4. Are there any recipes or items from the quartermaster that new players or alts will continue to want from the Son's of Hodir quartermaster?

These Relics drop off of mobs all over the Storm Peaks, but they also drop off mobs in The Halls of Stone and The Halls of Lightning so people will be receiving a small amount of them through the dungeon finder.  As far as people leveling in Stormpeaks, I would tend to think most players will skip The Storm Peaks and finish their leveling in Icecrown, due to the sheer number of dailies for various quest hubs and argent tournament quests.  So I would think that these may tend more towards drying up than be in constant supply.

There are a few reasons to continue with gaining reputation with The Son's of Hodir.  New characters will probably be wanting to grab the shoulder enchants, if they have no main to send them a BoA shoulder enchant.  Alts may skip the enchant altogether as it can't be used on BoA shoulder gear anyways.  Mount collectors will surely want to be able to purchase the 2 mounts that are available from the quartermaster.  Recipe collectors, may be after the patterns for +16 crit gem, Pattern: Glacial Bag, or Pattern: Mammoth Mining Bag.  Nothing really groundbreaking here.  So your main market you would be selling to includes Achievement Seekers, Mount Collectors, and Recipe Collectors.  Good news is, these kind of players tend to have money to blow on items.

Selling these in Cata may be a strategy for profit, but probably not much as your buying audience is pretty slim.  Although it probably is a low risk investment, if you can find the Relics cheaply, but you will have to continue to buy out them while you are selling these kits, in order to keep the value higher.  At least storage space wouldn't be an issue since you can stack 200 at a time. 

In my opinion, this could work, but I tend to like to focus on things that have a better return on investment to make it more worth my time.  Plus you can get to exhaulted fairly easily without even using these rep turn ins, since the dailies reward a nice chunk of rep each and you get more dailies opened the farther your progress with their reputation.

Thanks again and let me know what you decide to do.

Anyone else have any thoughts on the Relics of Ulduar strategy?

Hallow's End: Hallowed Wand Costume Profiteering

Hallowed Wand Costumes For Sale
Everyone who is working on The Masquerade Achievement needs to get a zap from each of the various hallowed wands.  There is a hallowed wand for each costume:  Bat, Ghost, Wisp, Leper Gnome, Pirate, Skeleton, and Wisp.  You will often see impatient players looking to buy these costume zaps in trade chat.  I myself set up a macro to shout periodically that I am selling hallowed wand costume zaps.  I charge 25g each or 3 for 60g.  Funny thing is I haven't even looted a single wand yet this year and I have made hundreds of gold from zapping the people who just can't wait until the holiday is closer to being over.  Yeah, if you wait you may not even have to buy any specific zaps as you can trade zaps, or get zapped for free while in dungeon groups.  As greedy little goblins, we offer these impatient ones our services to line our coin purses with their gold.

Save Your Wands
I haven't even got a wand yet this year and I'm making a lot of gold selling zaps, in between runs to the auction house and mailbox.  How?  Planning ahead.  Do not give wand zaps for free.  Do not zap people for fun.  Only trade zaps if you yourself need one for the achievement and the holiday end is looming near.  Do not delete your wands or waste their charges once the holiday is over.  Why?  The achievement doesn't even require the zaps during Hallow's End.  Yes that's right, I actually store these and sell some zaps during the year to people looking for a variation from the Savory Deviate Delights.  I also had a complete set of wands ready to go day 1 of the holiday, which is how I have been making the hundreds of gold during regular routines.  Hell, I been advertising Mistletoe Spirit Buffs for sale as well.  Those are from last year too.  If you have any of the old Hallowed Wand: Random from previous years, save those for people looking for a costume (Savory Deviate Delight buyers).  The random costume wands have been removed, but the zaps don't count for The Masquerade achievement.

Anyone else making gold off the impatient ones?

Netherweave Bags vs Faction Satchels in Cataclysm

Stormwind Quartermaster

Tailoring Warning
In case you missed it, last week over at Just My Two Copper, Miss Mediocre guest posted an excellent article entitled Cataclysm Profession Breakdown.  She has been researching within Cata Beta and has an excellent report on various things profession related.  Within the content of her tailoring section, she divulges an interesting addition on the Beta.  This little addition has stirred up quite the comments. (Disclaimer:  Remember not everything on Beta actually makes the cut, but this one probably will.)  Let me quote from her article.

"On the topic of bags, anyone expecting to sell lots of Netherweave bags come Cataclysm may be disappointed! New city quartermasters are found near the flight masters in all of the major cities and sell 16 slot satchels for only 1g80s if you are revered. The bags are "unique" so you can only have one of each, but that is still 5 satchels if you are revered with all of your faction's races (which happens pretty quick these days just by questing). I'm sure Netherweave bags will still sell, but I'm wondering if perhaps not as well, once players discover the quartermasters."

-Miss Mediocre

Faction Satchels
Here is an example of the "Faction Satchels" as I'm calling them:  Troll Faction Satchel.  As a correction to her original calculation, there are actually 6 satchels for each side, as Gilneas and Bilgewater are offering satchels as well.  So each character can get 6 dirt cheap 16 slot bags once revered with each city.  This is an interesting change, but should we as tailors be worried?  I myself have about 6 guild bank tabs filled with Netherweave Bolts just waiting to start the tailoring sweatshop into motion as I plan to profit heavily on bags come Cataclysm time.

Effects On Bag Sales
So will these newly introduced bags curb your ability to sell the endless amounts of Netherweave Bags?  Short answer:  I doubt it will affect sales much, if at all.  Why not?  Who are we targetting to buy all of our bags?  New characters are the primary targets.  New characters wanting to increase their bag space will want that increased carrying capacity long before they reach revered with a single faction much less all of them.  I can see those cheap satchels selling to people expanding their bank bag slots later on, thus lowering sales to those customers further into the expansion.  At the expansion's start though, there will be a ton of new characters looking for bags ASAP.  Old players will be rolling new characters too and these new satchels are bound to the character that buys them, so no benefit of being an older player in terms of helping out your new characters.  We already have bags that are even better than any 16slot BoA bag that could be implemented, so I doubt we will see any BoA bags created.  Read about how Mooncloth Bags and Traveler's Backpacks are better options.  Another key to remember is that Goblins and Worgens will be included in the actual Cataclysm expansion.  The shattering event will occur in a patch added prior to Cataclysm and blue posts have stated that the new racial/class combos will be released with the shattering patch.  So there will be some sales of netherweave bags picking up once that patch allows troll druids, human hunters, etc.  So all in all, I wouldn't worry one bit about netherweave bag sales.

Image provided by:  Miss Mediocre

Hallow's End, The Headless Horseman And Empty Loot-Filled Bags

Sinister Squashling

The New Holiday Loot Bag
Hallow's Eve is here and its time to farm for your mount from the Headless Horseman.  Just like Ahune and Coren Direbrew, the Headless Horseman is now accessible through the Looking-For-Dungeon queue.  And just as the other drops had changed, he now drops a Loot-Filled Pumpkin, which can contain your rare holiday drops.  This pumpkin can only be rewarded once per day per character for your sole chance per day at the rare items.  All of the same item level 200 epic rings still drop off of The Headless Horseman himself.  Within the pumpkin bag, you may find:

1. Sinister Squashling
2. Hallowed Helm
3. The Horseman's Horrific Helm
4. The Horseman's Baleful Blade
5. The Horseman's Reins
6. 1 of the Flying Brooms

You also can open your bag and find not a single thing in there and receive a message that reads, "There is no loot."  Nice - the Loot-Filled Bag contains no loot.  Great idea Blizzard.  Regardless, you get your 24 Justice Points (unless you are capped)  after you open the bag, so it does have something intangible within it.

Opening Chests
If you are running this daily, take advantage of the free port inside the SM Graveyard and make sure to check for any chests that have spawned inside the instance.  Often they are locked so bring along some seaforium or blacksmith keys, if you are not a rogue.  All the chests within any area of the Scarlet Monastary have a chance to drop some nice BOE twink gear, so they are worth a peek. 

Any luck getting your mount to drop?  I have mine from last year :)

How the MLB NLCS & ALCS Affect The Auction House

Where Is Everyone?
Have you started to notice the overall decline in players online, specifically the online player population on evenings and weekends appears to be way down.  Why?  It's Major League Baseball's playoff time.  We are down to just the Yankees, Rangers, Giants, and my life long devoted Philadelphia Phillies.  What does all this have to do with the auction house?  As I have been detailing over the life of this blog, real world major sporting events can drastically effect your server population.  This can lower your potential buyers during a major event, but also can help you make extra profits due to a lack of competition.  Some players will post their auctions just before the game starts, then may not log in until the next day due to the games running so long.

Past Sporting Events
I have made extra gold in sales during the Super Bowl, the Stanley Cup finals, the Kentucky Derby, and the list goes on.  I won the Booty Bay fishing derby during the opening Sunday of NFL football too!  With these excellent 4 baseball teams playing, there are some crazy expectations for viewers counts becasue the match ups are very intriguing and will be awesome to watch.  A lot of your competition will be taking time off during the games, posting before and after the games, or not logging on that day at all.  So I have enclosed the remaining game times.  You can use this to your advantage.  I would suspect that there will be a lot of competition the hour before the games start.  Wait until the game actually starts, then post all your auctions and you should have a better chance of selling more during the 3+ hour game time window.

All Times are in Eastern

Yankees vs Rangers


Game 3 10/18 Mon 8:00 PM
Game 4 10/19 Tue  8:00 PM
Game 5 10/20 Wed 4:00 PM
Game 6 10/22 Fri 8:00 PM  (If Needed)
Game 7 10/23 Sat 8:00 PM  (If Needed)
 
Giants vs Phillies
 
Game 3 10/19 Tues 4:00 PM
Game 4 10/20 Wed 7:30 PM
Game 5 10/21 Thur 7:30 PM
Game 6 10/23 Sat  3:30 PM  (If Needed)
Game 7 10/24 Sun 7:30 PM  (If Needed)

The 19th, 20th, and 23rd are possible dates for 2 games in 1 day.

World Series Schedule

Game 1 Wednesday, October 27 @ 7:30 PM
Game 2 Thursday, October 28 @ 7:30 PM
Game 3 Saturday, October 30 @ 6:30 PM
Game 4 Sunday, October 31 @ 8:00 PM
Game 5 Monday, November 1 @ 7:30 PM (If Needed)
Game 6 Wednesday, November 3 @ 7:30 PM (If Needed)
Game 7 Thursday, November 4 @ 7:30 PM (If Needed)

TheWorld Series is another excellent time to make some extra sales with decreased competition.  Goblins tend to be highly competitive.  Thus they also have a higher chance of watching competitive sports.

Double Gathering With The 4.0.1 New Mini-Map Changes

About Time

New Way To Track

A new mini-map UI was included within the newest Patch 4.0.1.  Now all players can select multiple options to be "tracking" within the mini-map.  Each trackable group on the mini-map has its own marker as well.  Previously we could only track 1 thing at a time.  I rolled a test character and confirmed that both Mining and Herbalism (or Find Herbs and Find Minerals) can both be shown on the mini-map together (see above image).  This is a very nice change.

Double Gathering

With this new change it is much easier to make an uber-farming character with both herbalism and mining simultaneously.  A macro to swap back and worth tracking types is no longer needed.  You now can see the nodes and herbs on your mini-map.  This now is the ideal set-up for making money while leveling because it just became much easier and not annoying.  If you were leveling a character with double gathering you would never have to pass up a mineral node or herb again.  This is much faster of a leveling combo than Herbalism or Mining and Skinning.  Removing skinning when thinking of speed.  A major drawback is the time it takes to skin.  So Double Gathering as Miner / Herbalist is the ideal choice for ease and speed purposes.  Both selling herbs and selling ores / bars are in constant demand on any server and the new gold standard when making money while leveling. 

Track Low Level Quests

You also can now turn on the ability to always track low level quests.  This is nice because if you were a miner or herbalist working on the Loremaster Achievement, you couldn't track low level quest givers and your nodes.  Now it is set it and forget it!  So the new mini-map changes that Blizzard gave us are a very nice addition indeed.



What Class And Race Combo Do You Think Is The Best For A Farming Only Alt?

Blog Readership Continues To Grow

Blog Growth
I have been hard at work trying to grow this blog into more of a discussion ground as well as a place for great tips on making in-game WoW gold.  As of this past Thursday, I have reached a first step in growth that I would like to share with you, my readers.  Views are now up to over 1000 a day.  Yeah, that is not much when compared to Markco, but it was my first goal to reach.

JMTC
Speaking of Markco, I would like to take this oppurtunity for his links and for including me in his recent post 5 New Gold Blogs To Watch Out For In Cata.  All 5 of the blogs listed have already become daily reads for me.  If you haven't check the others out, I highly suggest it.  You will even see some commenting back and forth with some other members of the gold blogging community.  And as Markco has already challenged you all, please be more interactive with your blog authors by providing comments and feedback.    Thanks again Markco for back-to-back posts with links to me on Thursday & Friday.

Gevlon
Never thought I would see the day that I got a silent nod from Gevlon of GreedyGoblin, but a few of us gold bloggers have made it into his blog reading list.  His high traffic volume has already showed benefits as my subscriptions have jumped and analytics is showing referrals in the hundreds from both greedygoblin and JMTC.  Thanks Gev!

Final Shout Outs
One thing I have been very pleased with is the book, Web Marketing for Dummies: All-In-One.  (Link Below)  This is a compilation book that I picked up and has been worth every penny.  Anyone serious about blogging needs to grab a copy of this thing ASAP.  It is such a good read and a great resource to keep once you finish reading the 8 books combined into one. 

The 8 Books included are:

1. Establishing a Web Presence
2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
3. Web Analytics
4. Online Advertising & Pay-Per-Click
5. E-Mail Marketing
6. Blogging and Podcasting
7. Social Media Marketing
8. Mobile Marketing

Look at those 8 topics!  What more could you ask for to get started?  Trust me here, it really does make things easier, especially if you are like me and are self teaching yourself.

Thanks to all of my readers for their comments, feedback, and continued following of the blog.  May we continue to learn together.  Please help share this blog's link with members of your online social networks so we can continue to grow and develop even more thoughtful discussion.