20 Days Of Gold Making - Day 4 & 5 - To Bank Alt Or Not?

This entry is part of a series of gold making posts answering the questions in the 20 Days of Gold Making Challenge started by Nev over at Auction House Addict.  If you also blog, then be sure to check out the gold blogging challenge for post topic ideas.

20 Days Of Gold Making (Days 4 & 5)

Do You Use A Banker Alt / Guild?  When Did You Start Using It & Why?

This is one major area where I differ from a lot of other World of Warcraft gold makers.  I don't use bank alts.  Sure, I have guilds that are just overflow & stockpile storage banks, but I definately do not have a dedicated banker. 

All of my characters are crafters, so they each are responsible for purchasing their own materials, crafting their products and listing them on the auction house themselves.  Why?

Why Each Alt Sells Their Own Items:

1. Inventory Management - It's much easier to see when you are low on stock when on the characters that creates and stores the items themselves instead of digging through add-on info that is only as accurate as the last time you logged every alt of yours and pulled every single item out of each mailbox.  How often is that?  Never.
2. WYSIWYG Purchasing - Everyone buys their own materials.  No need to worry about who has what, who needs what, and who to mail more stuff to.  They just buy their own supplies, use their own, and store their own.
3. Less Mailbox Jams - Each mailbox is much more manageable when broken down into 1-2 professions per character.  Glyphs are bad enough to relist alone, I wouldn't want hundreds of other items mixed into the expired auctions with them.
4. Easier Relisting On Remote AH - Much smaller expired lists per auctioneer means I have more relisting options from my multiple mailboxes, instead of everything locked behind the next 50 expired auction mails.
5. Time Saver - Less time mailing materials and finished products around, smaller mailbox back ups, and a quicker inventory assessment all speed up the time required to keep crafting and selling streamlined.

These are my own personal preferences, but many others go with a dedicated bank alt or two.  I don't see the benefit of cramming everything onto a couple of alts to do all of the ugly work.  In my opinion it's actually slower to send everything to one alt who gets stuck collecting, sorting, taking inventory, posting, and relisting all on his own. 

Day 5 Question Is:  Do You Keep The Same Banker Alt Or Do You Change Them Up & Why?

Since, I don't even use a banker alt, I'll be skipping this question.


Recommended Guides: Secret Gold Guide | Journal of Marcus Ty | WoW Secrets

Guild Challenges & Random Invite Guild Reflections

Make More Gold With Guild Challenges

The Passive Income Random Invite Guild - Looking Back

The original plan for the all random invite guild was to be as hands off as possible.  Outside of performing the random invites while already performing my auction house duties, I didn't no much at all to promote ways for the guild to make extra income.  I was trying to see just how much passive gold I could make with a completely hands off approach.  I didn't really promote any ways to have the guild earning me extra gold.

I made a modest 17k gold from my random invite guild as it leveled to guild level 25.  The 17k gold was a nice bonus, but the real motivation and main benefit was the accumulation of all the guild perks.  These days there are some guild perks, like Bountiful Bags, that a serious gold maker needs to obtain to remain competitive with other sellers.  My true goal was to level my own pre-existing guild to level 25 on the work of the random invitees.  The passive income experiment, was just a bonus to see how much extra gold I could make at the same time.  Now what if I wanted to try to get as much income out of the guild as possible while it leveled. What would I do different?

Getting More Gold Out Of Your Guild

One of the first things I would change to promote more earning of gold by guild members for the guild bank, would be to promote the guild challenges.  The guild challenges were added in WoW Patch 4.1 and are awesome for your guild in both the gold and guild experience departments.  In order to get gold from the guild challenges, your guild must be at least guild level 5 and the challenge participants must be at least honored reputation with the guild.  Each completed guild challenge awards a nice chunk of gold and an amazing chunk of guild experience.  So promoting guild challenges helps with earning gold into the guild bank as well as helping the guild to level up faster.   Faster guild leveling means the unlocking of more guild perks earlier, which can lead to more savings and even more earnings. 

The nice thing is you can complete 7 guild dungeon challenges, 1 raid guild challenge, and 3 battleground guild challenges per week.  That gold and experience will add up quickly.  The best part is that any level characters can participate as long as they are the relevant levels for the challenges.  So a lowbie dungeon farming 3 man guild team can really rack up the gold and guild experience for you.  All I did in my guild was put up a message of the day asking members to form a guild challenge dungeon run if they were bored.  With some planning and promotion, this could have been a nice focus for making extra gold with the guild.  As the guild hits maximum guild level, there is no need for extra guild experience, so the guild challenges provide more gold per completion (similar to how questing at max leveling awards extra gold).  It's actually double the gold reward for guild challenges when your guild hits maximum guild level!

Guild Challenge Awards At Guild Levels 5 - 24

• Dungeon Runs (7/wk) : 125 gold per & 300,000 guild xp
• Raid Runs (1/wk) : 500 gold per & 3 million guild xp
• Battleground Runs (3/wk) : 250 gold per & 1.5 million guild xp

Guild Challenge Gold Awards At Guild Level 25

• Dungeon Runs (7/wk) : 250 gold per
• Raid Runs (1/wk) : 1000 gold per
• Battleground Runs (3/wk) : 500 gold per

Looking back at this idea, but also wanting to keep a hands off approach, I could have appointed a guild challenge promoter.  There were many players within the random invite guild that were active on a weekly and often daily basis.  The guild had some main characters within the members.  I could have hired someone to actively promote and manage guild runs or to promote guild grouping for completing guild challenges.  Since the guild challenges pay decent gold each, I could agree to hire a guild member that organizes the runs and then split the earned amount with that promoter.  The active promoter should be able to increase the earnings from guild challenges each week by increasing the frequency at which they are completed.  My guild did 17 guild challenges during the leveling process.  An active guild challenge promoter should be able to increase that completion rate by much more, which would make the gold splitting a profitable venture.   

So think about the options of hiring a guild challenge coordinator to ramp up you guild challenge completion and gold earning potential for your own guild.

Enjoy The Posts Here at Cold's Gold Factory? Check Out Cold's Mysterious Fortune Card Mastery Gold Making Guide. Also Check Out My New Favorite All Around WoW Gold Making Guide and J!inx - Clothing For Gamers And Geeks.

Random Invite Guild Hits Level 25

WoW Guild Level 25

DING! - Random Guild Level 25

The All Random Invite Guild Experiment

The random invite guild has just achieved the goal I set out to attain within the World of Warcraft Cataclysm experiment.  I didn't get my guild of all random invites rolling until a month or two into the Cataclysm expansion.  The premise for this experiment was simple.  Could I level a guild to the maximum Guild Level 25 from only random invites and just how viable would it be to have a guild earning a passive income?  The notion of earning a passive income with a guild was a new possibility with the addition of the Cataclysm introduced guild leveling and guild perks systems.  So I started on my quest to build a guild full of random invitees and see just how successful it would become.

Taking time to be direct within the guild information was one of the main objectives that helped me fulfill my goal without misleading any of the guild members.  The guild charter showed that the guild was never intended to be an end game guild.  The basic understanding was that the guild was there as a symbiotic relationship.  The guild provides the great guild perks for it's members while they level and in return, the guild earns a small commission through the passive income guild perks.  I also would receive the benefit of having others level the guild for me without performing any real guild master duties.  The guild was pitched as a home to park your alts or to use just for free guild perks.  It was also pitched as the perfect guild for non-social players and soloers who wanted guild perks, but wanted to avoid the drama associated with most guilds. 

The Controversy

The experiment did not come without it's own share of controversy.  I was questioned for this type of experiment, notably all from other bloggers, commentors, and forum dwellers.  Not a single complaint from a single member in the random invite guild.  Sure some players would gripe about getting a random invite, but once in they were cool.  We are now Guild Level 25 and I still have yet to hear a complaint about my guild system from anyone who was or is in the guild itself.  NOT A SINGLE COMPLAINT IN A YEAR. I have actually been thanked by many players for offering a guild up for solo-ers and non-socials to have a place to get guild perks too without the drama.  Yet, the ignorant outsiders looking in have called me:

• an amoral bastard
• rude
• a blood sucking leech
• a dirty rat
• dodgy
• desperate

Questions arose over keeping the guild perk earned gold, but most attacks came from me offering up the 7th guild tab as an exchange tab for member use.  This allowed me to not only collect the Cash Flow perk earned gold, but to also find needed materials on occasion hiding within that 7th guild tab.  Sometimes I would hunt an item on the auction house only to find it bare.  On occasion I would be lucky enough to find the item deposited into the designated guild exchange tab.  In this area, guild members could deposit unwanted items or take items for their own use.  The downside to this exchange tab was the constant maintenance to clear out the garbage just to make space for new items.  It was the earlier guild members that had requested that a guild bank tab be unlocked for guild exchange use.  I would keep it clear of garbage items by doing occasional maintenance on the tabs contents.

The Results

Let's take a look at the final numbers.

Total Liquid Gold In Guild Bank: 11,765 gold.
Total Guild Gold Spent On Self Repairs: 5,223 gold.
(only I have access for repairs)
Total Gold Earned From Guild: 16,988 gold.

Current Guild Roster: 960 Members
Level 85s: 88
Total Guild Challenges Completed: 17

So I made almost 17k from the passive income guild perks and members forming their own guild dungeon groups for guild challenges. I haven't paid out of pocket for repairs since the random invite guild hit guild level 5.  The random invite guild has been a rather easy undertaking and would have been even easier had I started earlier in the expansion or prior to Cataclysm's launch.  An interesting finding has been the number of max level players that stick with the guild once hitting level 85.  I guess they don't want to lose their guild perks and start grinding guild reputation over again.  I am going to keep the members in the guild and continue to let them earn gold for me, as opposed to kicking them all now that the guild is maxed.  Why not let them earn for me into the Mists of Pandaria expansion.  This is a symbiotic relationship worth keeping.

Enjoy The Posts Here at Cold's Gold Factory? Check Out Cold's Mysterious Fortune Card Mastery Gold Making Guide. Also Check Out My New Favorite All Around WoW Gold Making Guide and J!inx - Clothing For Gamers And Geeks.

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?

Passive Income | Guild Invite All Macro

Passive Income

Passive Income is possible from the Guild Perk Cash Flow, which is available at Guild Level 5.  Anaalius of Anaalius.com recently posted about the possibilities of Passive Gold Making and the Cash Flow Perk.  A couple of weeks into Cataclysm, I decided to give this a shot of my own. 

I already am the guildmaster of many guild banks.  On my main character I invited a bunch of random level characters to my guild in an experiment to see if I could get others to level my main guild up without actually running it like a guild.  I want guild perks, but I don't want to be tied to a real guild with any type of duties or expectations.  I created the guild for using other players to advance my guild level, while also taking advatnage of the various guild perks that come with leveling a guild.

The Guild Mantra

The guild is nothing but a place for leveling and alternate characters to benefit from guild perks while leveling.  There are no guild officers.  No one is allowed to even see what's in the guild bank, much less withdraw from it.  Everyone is free to invite.  Everyone is free to leave the guild at will.  We do nothing together as a guild.  We are a bunch of solo-ers that are leveling the guild for perks.  I invite people at random and use a Guild Invite All Macro to speed the process.

How I Do Guild Invites:

I do random searches with the /who search within World of Warcraft.  Using generic searches like these:

• /who (pick a player race)
• /who (pick a class)
• /who (pick a dungeon)
• /who (pick a combo of letters)

I do these random searches while in flight.  Once the /who list results are generated I just tap the Guild Invite All Macro button, which invites all of the unguilded results to the guild.

Guild Invite All Macro

Here is the exact code that I use for my Single Tap Invite All on My /who List Macro:

This code is for Horde characters.  Alliance players need to change ORGISH to COMMON in the macro code. 

This code makes forming your guild of random people (who are going to be raising your guild level, earning you guild perks, and depositing a percentage of all their looted coin into your guild bank) rather painless.  Patch 4.1 notes have even been updated to state that the guild % coin looted report will be removed from the display.  Soon people won't even know that they are helping fund the guild bank.

As long as you are up front and honest about what you are doing, you shouldn't get many complainers.  If you do get some whiners, a guild kick is an easy solution.

Cash Flow Rank 2 is available at Guild Level 16.  That's  going to be a long ways away seeing as we have barely cleared Guild Level 5.  Regardless, Rank 1 is providing free easy gold within my coffers.

Do You Have A Guild Working For You Or Are You Just Working For Someone Else?

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.

Loremaster Gets Easier & 2 more Gbank Tabs in Cataclysm

New Guild Achievement in Cataclysm:

 •Guild Vault (wip) - Purchased all 8 guild bank tabs.

So looks like we are getting 2 more Guildbank tabs in Cataclysm.

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•Loremaster of Eastern Kingdoms and Loremaster of Kalimdor no longer requires you to complete a given amount of quests anymore. You now have to complete the achievements for each zone to get the Loremaster title.

•All the WoW classic zones now have their own quests achievement: Arathi Highlands Quests, Badlands Quests, Blasted Lands Quests, Burning Steppes Quests, etc ...
 
So Loremaster will be a ton easier since each zone will have its on checklist like current day Burning Crusade and Northrend zones already do.

QUICK TIP

Just a quick tip here:

Recently, while trying to gather guild signatures for a new alt guildbank, I found that (on my server at least) it was much easier to gather the signatures by randomly spamming guildless characters with the guild charter than it was to actually shout in trade chat that I was paying for signatures.  I was offering 5g and later on 10g and was getting no one to bait that way. So I ended up paying less than my original expectations as I listed on my Guild Bank Pricing Chart

GBank Price Chart

10g charter & 5g per signature. Use this quick reference when purchasing pre-made guilds to convert to auctioneer storage.
Costs to create:
1 Tab: 160g
2 Tab: 410
3 Tab: 910
4 Tab: 1910
5 Tab: 4410
6 Tab: 9410

As Cata approaches ppl may be selling guilds cheap to take advantage of the upcoming guild talents.