TSM Tutorial Video: How to Create TSM Auction Groups From Crafting Module

TSM Video Tutorials:

How to Create TSM Auction Groups 

Using The Crafting Module

TSM Tutorial Video On How To Make Auction Groups For Crafters

I was reading questions from redditors over on Reddit the other day and I noticed a discussion where some readers where asking:

"How to add something into a TSM group that I don't currently have in my bag?"

That's a great question and a hard one to explain in just words, so I agreed to create a walk through for the process of creating TSM auction groups.  This TSM tutorial was designed to show that you can use your recipe crafting list as the source for creating your TSM auction groups.  Some auction house markets it is easier or makes more sense to create your auction groups in TSM by using the items in your bag.  For the crafting professions, it is easier to create those TSM auction groups by using the TSM Crafting Module that is already integrated into Trade Skill Master.


So I created my very first video and uploaded it to YouTube.  You can use the player above or follow this link:  TSM Tutorial - Create TSM Auction Groups For Crafters.

This TSM Tutorial Video Shows:

• How To Create Categories
• How To Create Auction Groups In TSM
• How To Create Auction Groups From The Recipe Module
• How To Create Auction Groups Without Needing The Items In Your Bag
• Duration, Threshold, Fallback, Max Price, and More Group Settings
• How To Rename Your TSM Auction Groups

Shout out to Nev over at Auction House Addict, who originally taught these TSM tips to me when I too thought you had to create or own everything you wanted to add to an auction group.  Thanks Nev! 

Pass It On

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

MoP Reputation Guide For Crafters

MoP Reputation Grinding Guide For Crafters

Mists of Pandaria brought us back to the world of grinding for our profession crafters' recipes, similar to how it was during Vanilla WoW or more recently, how we ground for our Firelands Dailies awarded recipes.  Being locked behind reputation grinds helps to keep some competition out of the specific markets, but it can be quite a chore to unlock all of the gated recipes across your army of crafting alts.  This grind is even worse if you tend to support your crafting professions with the matching gathering profession (Ex: Blacksmith/Miner, Skinner/Leatherworker), like I prefer. 

As I've just completed the reputation grinds on my main and my first level 90 alt, I've got a long road ahead of me to unlock each and every gated recipe.  So I've compiled this reputation grinding guide for quickly indentifying which alt crafter needs to get leveled and start grinding even more reputations.  The Grand Commendations addition in Patch 5.1 has been amazing at helping me comple faction grinds on my alternate crafters.  Those that are level 90 and grinding faction rep obviously benefit, but even the level 85 alts that have just started leveling get the boost from quest awarded reputations, which adds up to a nice bonus by the time I reach level 90.  It really is a nice headstart that gets those first few levels of reputation awards unlocked that much faster.

Professions & What They Need To Unlock

Blacksmithing - The Klaxxi
Enchanting - Golden Lotus -> August Celestials & Shado-Pan
Tailoring - Golden Lotus -> August Celestials
Leatherworking - Golden Lotus
Jewelcrafting - Order of the Cloud Serpent
Cooking - The Anglers & The Tillers
Engineering, Inscription, & Alchemy - None

What Factions Award Profession Recipes

The Lorewalkers - Can unlock the Lorewalker's Lodestone & the Lorewalker's Map, although the required currency is better spent with Brann Bronzebeard, if you are still chasing the Vial of Sands Recipe or unlocking Archaelogy pets and mounts.
The Klaxxi - Blacksmithing recipes are awarded via Klaxxi reputation, including the Living Steel Belt Buckle, Living Steel Weapon Chain, Ghost Iron Shield Spike, and other gear crafting recipes.
Golden Lotus - Golden Lotus is the precursor required to unlock both the Shado-Pan and the August Celestials daily quest hubs.  Also awards Some Tailoring and Leatherworking patterns (Spellthreads and gear included).
Shado-Pan - Awards Enchanting Recipes.
The August Celestials - Tailoring craftable recipe for the Royal Satchel Bag and more Enchanting Recipes.
Order of the Cloud Serpent - Here's where you get the Jewelcrafting Mount recipes.
The Anglers - 2 Cooking Recipes
The Tillers -  2 Cooking Recipes and Increased Farm Size

Hopefully this helps you to plan ahead and streamline your leveling and grinding process.  For example, If you have a Blacksmith, you are better off wrapping up the tail end of your leveling to 90 process by completing the chains in Townlong Steppes and the Dread Wastes that lead to getting a headstart unlocking the rather long pre-quest chain for unlocking the Klaxxi reputation daily quests. 

Plan ahead wisely and you will save yourself a lot of time and hassle.

You can also check out Nev's post on the similar topic:  Level 90! Now What?

Check out some of my Squidoo lenses:  Alliance Vs Horde - Come Vote! | Diablo 3 Gifts For Gamers | Getting Started Podcasting 101 | Play Money by Julian Dibble | Auction House Junkies | Fluxx - My Fav Card Game | Flipping WoW CEs

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

Market Strategy Comparisons | Cold's Gold Blogging Carnival

Cold's Gold Blogging Carnivals

Cold's Gold Blogging Carnival - 2012

Welcome to another 2012 edition of Cold's Gold Blogging Carnival. These carnivals will continue to take place the 11th day of every month and will be hosted here at Cold's Gold Factory. All World of Warcraft bloggers are welcome to participate and feedback both here and on the original authors' sites is strongly encouraged. So show some support and please leave some feedback in the comments section. These bloggers put a lot of time and hard work into these blogging carnival posts so please tell them what you think.

If you would like to be included in the next month's carnival, please review the guidelines for Cold's Gold Blogging Carnivals and submit your live post link via email (ssmith0911 at live dot com) before the 10th of the month. Read up on the benefits of participating in blogging carnivals at my other blog designed to help new bloggers, Blogging Vitals.  (Lots of tips for those of you starting out or interested in blogging.)  Articles for the CGF carnival are listed in the order they are received. Thank you to all the bloggers participating in this months carnival!

If you are not a blogger, you can still participate in the monthly carnivals as you can have a post hosted at Goldgrubs.com. Now I present to you this month's participants answering the question:

Compare & Contrast Markets And How Your Strategies Differ In Each.

Compare & Contrast Art of The Gold by Focushot of Hunter Mastery

Auction House Gold Making Strategies by Marcus Ty of Journal of Marcus Ty

Different Markets, Different Tactics by Nev of Auction House Addict

1000k In 65 Days Making Gold Before Mists Of Pandaria by Farli of The Overcut

Glyphs And Transmog by Gold Shield of Gold Shields

Auction Durations 12 vs 24 vs 48 Hours by Cold of Cold's Gold Factory

Market Comparison by Wes of Capped by Cata

Thanks again to all of this month's participants.  Be sure to check back later for next month's carnival topic and remember to look for next month's gold blogging carnival on the 11th.  If you have a topic idea, don't be afraid to send it in.  We may use your idea, which will get you proper credit as well.  

Until next month,

Keep on Keepin' On!



If you enjoy the monthly carnivals, spread the word and help support the carnival as at grows:

***********************

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.

Patch 4.3 Stockpiling To Make Gold In WoW

Patch 4.3 Stockpiling To Make Gold In WoW

WoW Patch 4.3 - Plan Ahead

Patch 4.3 In A Nutshell

World of Warcraft Patch 4.3 will be here in no time as it's expected to go live in early December.  With any major patch comes opportunities to make gold in WoW.  Patch 4.3 will be the final major content patch in the Cataclysm expansion era so this will be the last big chance for making a ton of gold quickly.  Patch 4.3 is bringing in major content upgrades.  The Looking-For-Raid Tool, a new raid, and new dungeons that drop high item level gear will all contribute to a massive spike in demand for item enhancements. 

Craftable PvP gear will also see a nice surge as the PvP patterns get buffed yet again.  We still have no word on where the Alchemy Transmute patterns for Epic Gems will be obtained, but we do know that the Tome of Burning Jewels and the Epic Gems recipe cuts will be available in major cities.  Holiday pets are going from soulbound to BoE; the first one we should see moving hands is the BoE Sinister Squashling.  Inscription is getting 1 new glyph and it is learned from Minor Inscription Research.  Heavenly Shards are going to be more easily acquired thanks to the new Maelstrom Shatter also coming in Patch 4.3.  We also will be seeing the new Darkmoon Faire after Patch 4.3, but not until the January Faire.  Dream of Chaos is being changed to only require 4 Chaos Orbs and Chaos Orbs will be tradeable / sellable after Patch 4.3.  Alchemy Transmutation specialization quests are being updated and will be much more expensive as they will require crafting Cataclysm crafted profession items.

Preparing For Patch 4.3

In Patch 4.3 there are a few ways to make gold in WoW that are going away or changing.  Prior to the big Patch, you should be unloading all of your current Bloodthirsty PvP crafted gear.  The recipes we already have will be getting upgraded, but the already crafted gear will not.  For this reason, you want to dump all the gear you currently have crafted and don't craft anymore unless you know you can sell it prior to the change.  Again, don't craft the new pieces until after Patch 4.3.  Get your materials together and be ready to craft on patch day.

The new Glyph of Shadow will be discovered through Minor Inscription Research, so have your materials ready on your scribe to do 1 day of research.  Also having Lion's Ink (required by the new glyph) ready to craft the new glyph, will save you paying the higher prices that should appear on the AH. 

Patch 4.3 is killing off the old Darkmoon Faire Prize Ticket redemption system and replacing it with an all new system and a new currency.  So use all of your tickets before the fair and if you like to make Dense Grinding Stones for cheap tickets, get on it!  This will be the last chance to use the prizes as a chance at rare recipes and low level blue gear.  I also recommend picking up any of the moderately priced rare recipes that can come from the DMF Prizes.  After the new Faire system is implemented, those rare patterns will be even more rare.  I've already snatched up a few myself.  Hopefully, you have already been liquidating your supplies of DMF cards and trinkets as they are on the decline and will drop even further.

Stuff To Stockpile For Patch 4.3

All of your normal item enhancement materials across the board should see an increase in prices as the demand skyrockets for a couple of weeks after the patch.  Anything used to craft the PvP gear will be good to stockpile so you can craft your sets using the materials from pre-patch prices.

Due to all of the gear upgrades coming from the new content as well as the PvP gear change, I would stock up and plan to sell a lot of high end enchants, all leg armors, All PvP gear (craft post-patch), Flintlocke's Woodchuckers,  Ebonsteel Belt Buckles, Gems (rares should sell best still until we find out more on raw epic gem drop sources), companion pets (always a big seller when more players return for patches), and Mysterious Fortune Cards (patch time brings returning players, so it's another great time to bark for a ton of sales).

I have also been stockpiling cheap Heartblossom in hopes it is required in the red epic gem transmutes.  If not, I can always use it for Glyphs, Dusts, and Mysterious Fortune Cards.

Stocking up these items and you can't go wrong. 

• Maelstrom Crystals (for enchants and shattering into shards).
• Embersilk Cloth, Savage Leather, Elementium Ores / Bars, Volatiles.
• Scopes, Buckles, Enchants, and Gems.

Enjoy The Posts Here at Cold's Gold Factory? Check Out Cold's Mysterious Fortune Card Mastery Gold Making Guide. Also Check Out The Teenager's Gold Guide To Get Started With Learning The Auction House As A Younger Player Or Check Out My New Favorite All Around WoW Gold Making Guide or the PvP and Gold making Combo.

Crafting Component Manipulation To Scare Off Competition

Crafting Component Manipulation

Today let's go over an advanced technique for making gold in WoW, the manipulation of component pricing.  The whole point of manipulating the price of crafting components is to scare off competition from entering your market.  This is done by falsely making a craftable item appear to be unprofitable.  This technique works on players that can't craft the crafting components themselves and also works on players that use WoW add-ons to tell them what items are profitable and which ones are not.

What Do You Mean By Components?

Crafting components are required in many of the WoW profession crafting recipes.  Any craftable item that is used for another crafting recipe is a crafting component.  Engineering, while my favorite profession overall, is the most annoying as a crafter.  Why?  The majority of the most profitable recipes all have multiple components.  This leads to extra crafting time, more chances for errors, and a wide variety of crafting material requirements.  This is why many Engineers look for the intermediate crafted components on the auction house to save time crafting their finished product.

Here is a great example of a component heavy recipe:  Tranquil Mechanical Yeti.

The Tranquil Mechanical Yeti recipe calls for:

• 1 Cured Rugged Hide
• 2 Globe of Water
• 1 Gold Power Core
• 4 Thorium Widgets
• 2 Truesilver Transformers

Four of the 5 required items for the Tranquil Mechanical Yeti are crafting components.

Manipulation Of Component Prices

Add-ons like Little Sparky's Workshop and Tradeskill Master's Crafting Module are great add-ons for judging what items are worth crafting.  These add-ons help you save time researching and adding up the crafting costs yourself.  You can't always trust these add-ons when you are looking at craftable items that take components.  The add-ons are going to look at the cost for the components on the auction house when figuring the crafting cost.  They don't always break down what the costs would be to craft those components yourself.  The Undermine Journal use to do the same thing.  It used to show the total crafting cost from add the materials and components together.  Now you can safely break down each component to see if you can produce your components cheaper than the already crafted ones that are for sale on the auction house.

Hopefully you already are taking steps to ensure that you are using the cheapest crafting methods to help keep your costs down.  Lower costs translate to higher profits and wider profitable pricing options.

A great example of one market I use this strategy in is the Arcanite Rod market. 

• I sell Arcanite Rods for 150 gold.
• I sell Arcanite Bars for 75 gold.
• The Arcanite Rod Recipe requires 3 Arcanite Bars and 1 Dense Grinding Stone.

Doing the quick math based on auction house prices, the Arcanite Rod would not be worth crafting.  Little Sparkey's Workshop would tell you that you would lose gold by crafting this item since your investment of 3 75 gold Arcanite Bars is more than the selling price of the Arcanite Rod.  A smart goblin will see through this false pricing and know that the item is indeed profitable.  By transmuting your own Arcanite Bars with your Alchemist, that price will drop far below the price of buying the component items yourself. 

The true crafting cost for the Arcanite Rod would be the total of:

• 3 Thorium Ore
• 3 Arcane Crystals
• 4 Dense Stone

Breaking those component parts down completely to their raw materials and crafting each component yourself will save you a ton of gold.  That unprofitable Arcanite Rod is now a very profitable option.  Anyone who relies strictly on add-ons or on purchasing components made by others is succeptable to being fooled into passing on this market.  I list a lot of components on the auction house for much higher than they cost to craft, just to skew the data that the add-ons collect and to fool unexperienced players looking to invade my markets.  Engineering pets is a good market to exploit this technique because of the heavy component requirements for the pets. 

Using the earlier example of the Tranquil Mechanical Yeti, you can jack the false market prices up on Gold Power Cores, Truesilver Transformers, and Thorium Widgets to make the Yeti appear unprofitable.  I sell Cured Heavy Hides for 75 gold each as well, to scare others away from my Barbaric Bracer market.  And when another lazy or uninformed player comes along and buys your components at their stupid high prices, you've just created a new market for yourself with a nice high profit margin.

So today I hope you've learned 3 lessons.

1. Always look to see if it is cheaper to buy a pre-crafted component off the auction house or if it is cheaper to craft the component yourself.
2. Play around with some component pricing manipulation and see if you can limit the amount of new competition jumping into your markets.
3. You have to be smarter than your add-ons.  Automation is good, but not always the most accurate.

Check out the post When Auctioneer Lies I Turn A Profit for a similar add-on exploiting tip.

Enjoy The Posts Here at Cold's Gold Factory? Check Out Cold's Mysterious Fortune Card Mastery Gold Making Guide. Also Check Out The Teenager's Gold Guide To Get Started With Learning The Auction House As A Younger Player Or Check Out My New Favorite All Around WoW Gold Making Guide or the PvP and Gold making Combo.

Is There A New Profession In The Mists Of Pandaria WoW Expansion?

WoW Expansions And New Professions

The Burning Crusade expansion introduced Jewelcrafting as a new profession.
The Wrath of the Lich King expansion brought us the Inscription profession.
The Cataclysm expansion brought the Archaeology profession to World of Warcraft.

Is there a new profession coming in Mists of Pandaria (MoP)?

"No new professions are planned."

You are getting the pet battle system instead of a new profession.  At least we have another class being added, which will bring extra sales opportunities.  Cooking is supposed to get specializations.  Blizzard has removed most of the other profession specializations.  Now they are adding one, and to Cooking of all things?


Enjoy The Posts Here at Cold's Gold Factory? Check Out Cold's Mysterious Fortune Card Mastery Gold Making Guide. Also Check Out The Teenager's Gold Guide To Get Started With Learning The Auction House As A Younger Player Or Check Out My New Favorite All Around WoW Gold Making Guide or the PvP and Gold Making Combo.

Reader Submission: Multiple Markets, Chimera's Eyes, & How To Make More Gold

Reader Submission / Assistance With Gold Making

Here is an email I received from a reader at Cold's Gold Factory and an avid listener of The Auction House Junkies Podcast.  Read along and follow my responses at the end of this post.  Got questions or ideas you would like covered?  Send em in!

Cold,

I heard of your site from your podcast, Auction House Junkies. I’m a goldmaking addict. I’ll log in some nights and just play at the Auction House for hours and not even venture out into WoW. I currently have just over 1 million gold liquid. Much more in commodities. I just enjoy it immensely. Your suggestions for diversification amongst the professions and jumping in and out of markets at key times have been very helpful. I thoroughly enjoy listening to the podcasts both while I’m gaming and in my car driving to and from work. I have yet to find a podcast to match yours. I do listen to the others you recommend. I just wish there were more of them.

I enjoy your suggestions for upcoming patch changes and how to take advantage of the market during that time period. I have taken your advice and been investing Chimera’s Eyes, buying up any for what I consider cheap. One of the biggest contributions you have made to my goldmaking has been the Undermine Journal. That site is AWESOME! I have my profile set up observing the different commodity prices all the time. I haven’t downloaded the addon yet. Do you use the addon?

I have an engineer btw. :P But, I haven’t used that profession in my goldmaking, yet. I’ll make more of an effort.

I would be interested to know what other markets I could try out. I’m sure there’s portions of markets I’m not using that I am unaware of. These are the crafting professions I have at 525 and what aspects of each I use in my goldmaking:

• Jewelcrafting (Rare gems. Waiting for Epic gems. Very saturated on my server.)
• 3 Alchemists – I have 1 of each: Potion Master, Elixir Master, Transmute Master (All potions, flasks, & elixirs)
• Tailoring (Netherweave Bags, Frostweave Bags, Cloth Lvl 80 gear, Embersilk Bags)
• Leatherworking (I don’t do anything in this market)
• 2 Inscriptionists (Mysterious Fortune Cards, Glyphs, occasional Darkmoon Card)
• Blacksmithing (I don’t do anything in this market)
• Engineering (I don’t do anything in this market)
• 2 Enchanters (Do Obsidium shuffle and sell Enchanting mats. Don’t do much in the scroll market, but I’ve kind of wanted to.)

I also have several gatherers (Skinners, Miners, Herbalists). But, I’m not that into farming. Would rather sit at the AH and make gold.
Anyways, keep doing what you do!

Thanks!

Ryan
Ixaon (pronounced Zion) on Cenarius

Thanks for the email submission, Ryan.  I appreciate the kind words about my site and our podcast.  Look out for a new episode of Auction House Junkies soon.  Wes (of CappedByCata.com) and I are planning on recording this weekend as my computer is back and working better than ever.  Thanks again to all the generous and helpful readers and listeners that assisted with either donating funds or purchasing guides to help me raise the funds to get the computer fixed.

Chimera's Eyes may not be used in creating a new Prismatic Gem after all.  We've just found out that Epic Gems will only drop from raid bosses.  We still don't know if those gems that will be dropping are going to be pre-cut or are going to be required to be cut my Jewelcrafters.  So it is possible that Chimera's Eyes could be used in a recipe, if the epic gems are not soulbound and drop in their raw forms.  I was buying up Chimera's Eyes as well and only at cheap prices as I suggested.  Now we may have to find another route to unload those Chimera's Eyes, but that's a post for another day. 

Looking over your markets and professions that you use for making gold in WoW, I will give the following ideas for expanding into other markets.

• Jewelcrafter - Look into buying Dragon's Eyes and selling Nightmare's Tears and other WotLK rare and epic gems.  Try Delicate Copper Wires too.
• Tailoring - Rich Purple Silk Shirts (very rare pattern) are great. I'm still the only provider and have raised my prices to 35 gold per rare crafted shirt and sales are still coming in.  Add the pattern to your Undermine Journal watch list and snatch it up for cheap.  Highly recommended!
• Leatherworking - Are Leg Armors and Leather PvP sets dead on your server?  Have you looked into Mammoth Mining Bags?  Barbaric Bracers and Deviate Scale Belts (if you go the pattern before it became obsolete) are also major sellers.
• Enchanting - Start hunting for mispriced lvl 82+ blues to Disenchant and sell as Heavenly Shards.  you gotta start selling scrolls as many of the Enchants will earn you more sold as a scroll than if you just sold the Enchanting materials raw.  Try some of the Twink / BoA enchants to get started safely and then expand into rare and high end enchants.  Anytime there is a massive influx of new gear Enchants can make sales in the same ballpark as Gem sales.  Also check out some cheap ways to craft and disenchant to create Infinite Dust (The WotLK dust).  I am Shuffling Saronite Ore from my pre-Cataclysm guild bank stockpiles into Infinite Dust, which I am selling singles and stacks at 10 gold per Infinite Dust.  As already mentioned, the wave of alts and levelers are buying it up in droves.  I had to spend a whole Sunday (this last weekend) Shuffling Saronite Ores into Infinite Dust just to keep my stock up with the massive wave of Infinite Dust sales. 
• Blacksmithing - You are leaving a lot of money on the table by not utilizing your Blacksmith more.  Enchanting Rods are still a huge seller, especially now with many players leveling alts and new professions.  PvP Plate mail and Tanking gear are also solid options.  I also use my BS/ Miner to make a hefty profit selling Hardened Elementium Bars when Elementium Ore dips stupidly cheap.
• Engineering - It isn't as hard to make gold with Engineering as many players make it out to be (they probably exagerate the difficulty to scare competitor's away).  All of the Engineering crafted pets are good to start crafting.  The new Gun from the Firelands unlocked recipe is a nice way to bring in a big chunk of gold at once and use up some of those extra Chaos Orbs.  The new scopes are still selling well along with Ethers, Fused Wirings, Bolts, Khorium Power Cores, Adamantite Frames and other odd ball items.
• Alchemy - Never forget about transmuting Arcanite Bars.  Materials are cheap and I am currently selling a lot of Arcanite Bars at 75 gold for a single Arcanite Bar and they are selling 5-10 times a night in the overnight market.

So I hope those ideas help either jog your memory of a forgotten market or help you find a new market to make gold in WoW.  Thanks again for the reader submission!

Enjoy The Posts Here at Cold's Gold Factory? Check Out Cold's Mysterious Fortune Card Mastery Gold Making Guide To Get You Started. Also Check Out The Teenager's Gold Guide To Get Started With Learning The Auction House As A Younger Player Or Check Out My New Favorite All Around WoW Gold Making Guide.

How New Goblins Can Edge Out Veteran Auctioneers

Young Goblins and Veteran Auctioneers

The Army of Alts

Having multiple World of Warcraft characters is a very important advantage in playing the World of Warcraft auction house.  By having multiple characters that cover multiple crafting professions, you can weather the highs and lows of market swings and won't be stuck selling your items at a less than ideal price.  I recommend having multiple Ideal Alts that are created with a specific role to perform within your army of alternate characters (alts).  This helps you to focus on being more efficient with your gold making stream.  This includes both farming characters and profession characters.   

Gaining An Edge On Other Players

As a new entry into the auction house side of the game you can gain a slight advantage over the old veterans.  If you plan your army of alts properly you can create an ideal efficient combination of characters, racial traits, professions, classes, factions and guild names that can potentially outperform the combinations of the veteran players.  Why?  Many of the older players are stuck in our old routines and patterns and don't want to waste the time to level another profession all over again just for a slight speed or time advantage. 

With a better combination of alternate characters, you can create a speedier process that uses less time per action.  Time is a factor in determining the efficiency of a process.  Therefore, you could create a more efficient process, which gives the potential to run more smoothly and successfully and also require less of a time investment to reach the same output.  "Time is money, friend."

What Ideal Alts Combination Wins?

The absolute perfect combination of alt characters isn't known.  The perfect ideal alt combination is going to be different for each player, since we all like to play the game slightly different.  So we can't compare the results we would get versus the results another player would receive.  We can only analyze the results against our own processes.  So start thinking about your plans for your other character slots.  Do you have every professsion covered?  Do you have a plan for getting the other professions covered?  Think about your profession combinations and your open character slots and create some of the best Ideal Alts that you can.  You too can gain an edge over another player, who is still running an inefficient gold making operation just because it is the process he is used to running.  Think Smart.  Think Ahead.  Think Efficiency.

Enjoy The Posts Here at Cold's Gold Factory? Check Out Cold's Mysterious Fortune Card Mastery Gold Making Guide To Get You Started. This Guide Can Be Applied To Multiple Markets Not Just Barking MFCs.  Check out Wes's Birthday Celebration at Capped by Cata For a Discount Code.

Image Credit: http://www.goblinsearch.com/kidnapped340.jpg

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! 

Power Leveling Professions



WoW Power Leveling Question

 Question and Answer From Goldgrub's

Over at the great new gold making resource site, Goldgrubs.com, is where I and a handful of other writers are working together to help those players that are brand new to the auction house.  Players that are just getting started working in the auction house, or farming, or learning the trade of flipping have a different set of questions and concerns that those of you that are already in the business and understand the basics of the auction house.  Over at Goldgrubs Goblin Academy we write content that is geared towards the beginners.  Establish gold makers are welcome to come and share your understanding and knowledge with those that are just getting started.

There was a good question over at Goldgrub's Goblin Academy on a post I did on Buying WoW Gold.  Since it was an off topic question, I chose to answer it as a blog post.  I feel that others may be interested in my answer to the same question. 

How Do You Feel About Powerleveling A Toon Or A Profession,
Whether You Are a New Player Or A Hardcore Vet?

Power Leveling Services

Just like with buying WoW Gold, paying for a power leveling serive is a bad idea.  If you are giving your account info and password to anyone, then you are putting your character at risk.  Even if you paid for the service and they power leveled your character, chances are one night when you are asleep your account will be drained by the same players.  Don't do it.  Never share your account info with anyone.

Power Leveling A Profession

My stance on power leveling your professions is pretty simple.  I don't power level my professions quickly, because it usually is a waste of gold.  Player that power level their professions or change professions a lot are usually wasting a ton of gold.  Many times when power leveling you are stuck paying the current auction house prices of the required materials.  The time that you save by power leveling is going to cost you in the end, unless you carefully pre-buy your required materials over time, while picking the materials up at regular or low prices.  When I think of power leveling, I instantly think of wasting extra gold just to quickly level a profession.

A wiser option yet, is the profession leveling strategy that I have written about before.  I call it the Common Commodity Crafting strategy.  This older post explains how I prefer to make my profession leveling profitable, and not just for skill points.  Ever level to max profession skill and then start making a bunch of items in that profession to sell?  I like to make as many of those items for profession skill ups on the way to maximum.

Who wants to disagree that believes power leveling is a good idea for professions?  It would only be worth it if you are able to make up all the extra you spent maxing out the profession quickly, due to having a sole share of a market.  In this day and age, that won't last long and you risk losing out on your super fast profession leveling investment.

Twilight Highlands Vendor Nerf

Twilight Highlands Vendors


BEWARE:  Prepare for a flood of competition in the major markets for Leatherworking, Tailoring, Enchanting, and Blacksmithing.  And the Engineering Cogwheels Market is now completely dead.  Why you ask?

In Patch 4.1, they added new vendors in the respective profession shops in all major cities.  Yeah sucks, I know.  Well, sucks for those of us that have been pushing our alts to level 84 in order to even be able to obtain the end game crafting patterns.  Prior to the WoW Patch 4.1 change, you had to be level 84, then complete a quest chain in order to unlock the high end profession vendors in Dragonmaw Port.  This was an excellent way to limit the number of crafters in the professions that were represented in the Twilight Highlands, but now that gate has been opened wide.

In Patch 4.1, new vendors are in the major cities offering players the same recipes that were previously exclusive to the Twilight Highlands vendors.  Currently you only need to be level 75 to pick up the same recipes, since you have to be 75 to get to last tier of the crafting professions.  This means there will be a ton of new characters entering into the markets that were previously gated.

Leg Armors, Ebonsteel Belt Buckles, Cogwheels, high end enchants, high end craftable PvP gear and everything else is going to get much more competitive once players start to realize these new vendors are in the major cities.

One thing to note is that only recipes and cogwheels are included in this change.  The materials from the Inscription supplier were not included in this Patch 4.1 change, but they could be added in the future.  Don't buy too many in case they are later added to the major cities as well.

Blizzard is supposed to rolling out new PvP craftables as the arena seasons change, so I'm assuming this is the first step of that plan.  Can we can assume that the new recipes will be the ones available on the Twilight Vendors while the old versions get moved to the major city vendors?

So currently there is no need to go visit the metal trader, the shard trader, the cloth trader, the cogwheel trader, or the leather trader in Twilight Highlands.

PS:  I broke this store first on my newsletter and have given a few other newsletter first information releases. 
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What are your thoughts on this change?  Good?  Bad?  

Auction House Management | Multiple Income Threads

Which Way To Go First?

Multiple Income Threads

Diversify.  You've heard it time and time again from every WoW gold blogger in the World of Warcraft blogosphere.  In order to have more options to make gold, you need to have multiple alts and multiple profession coverage.  Having more options helps weather against declining or unprofitable markets.  Being diverse allows you to jump in markets as they are selling at acceptable rates or jump out when the selling price is unacceptable.  Having multiple characters that you use daily can get to be a major task and even worse if you are not organized or planing effectively.

An email we received at Auction House Junkies had the following question included.

"Managing multiple threads of income and what your typical log-on sessions are like, in regard to managing your AH stuff. I know you shuffle ore and such with your JC. What other markets do you bounce around to when those particular markets just aren't working that day?"

Character: Athanas (pronounced Athen-us)

Server: Kul Tiras

A Typical Auctioneering Day

Here is my basic schedule of how I approach the auction house with my alts.  Just to clarify, I do not have a specific character that is just a banking or auctioning toon.  All of my characters make items and list them themselves on the auction house.  I don't send everything to one character and have that character do all of the posting and money collecting.  Each of my characters works together to craft items and mail materials back and forth (if not in the main guild bank).  They all have a ton of gold and buy their own materials.  So here is what my typical auction house daily routine is like.

Auction House Routine

1. Always first thing I do is Check the Jewelcrafting Daily Quest.
2. Complete the JC daily and save the JC token (I'm stockpiling in hopes of epic gem patterns being purchased with the current JC tokens).
3. If the JC daily requires gems, I list the raw gems for the JC daily on the AH is stacks of 3 and as singles.
4. Collect previous day's gold, unsold blue rings, gems, etc from mail and repost.
5. Check market rate of Mysterious Fortune Cards and post some if price is acceptable.
6. Do a full scan for Auctioneer to learn current market values.
7. Do a vendor scan search for mispriced items to buy out and vendor for easy gold.
8. Check snatch list.
9. Log off Jewelcrafter and Log in Alchemist.
10. Alchemist does either the Living Elements transmute or the Truegold transmute.  I always want to have at least 1 Truegold pre-crafted so I can use my Free Truegold Procs Tactic anytime I see someone buying a Truegold cooldown in trade chat.
11. Check Volatiles Market and post any that are in short supply or in a price spike.
12. Post some Mysterious Fortune Cards at prices both above and below the MFC prices of my Jewelcrafter.  This creates an illusion of undercutting competition (but the competition is actually an alt).
13. Send trade chat a couple of Mysterious Fortune Card Barks.
14. Collect previous day's gold, unsold items and repost.
15. Check stock of vendor recipes and repost up to 3 of each.  My Alchemist is also my flipper of all the vendor cooking recipes that I flip.  Restock my Clam Bar Recipes and Sporeling Snack Recipes 5 each. Check for Glowcaps and Spores.
16. Bark MFCs.
17. Check Arcanite Bar market and restock as necessary.
18. Log off and Log in Mage.
19. Mage is a tailor and makes NW Bags mainly.  She is also on the lookout for certain Vanilla WoW crafting items.  She is also my alt that does the companion pet flipping and ports around and restocks recipes and pets in all continents of World of Warcraft.
20. Collect previous day's gold and unsold items then relist.
21. Log out and Log in Blacksmith.
22. Blacksmith collects previous day's gold and unsold items.
23. Crafts and reposts as needed enchanting rods and materials.
24. Searches for Dense Stones for the Darkmoon Faire.
25. Crafts Dense Grinding Stones and mails to my main for storage.
26. Log off and Log in Enchanter / Tailor.
27. Collect previous day's gold and unsold items.
28. Craft to refill stock, then restock auction house.
29. Disenchant any items recieved from other characters sent to be disenchanted.
30. Restock enchanting materials, Rich Purple Silk Shirts, etc.  This alt is also my blues poster.  She does all the disenchanting, storing, and selling of all enchanting related items, but also does the flipping of all BoE blue weapons and armor found by all of my characters.
31. Log off and log in my heavy hitter, my Scribe.
32. Scribe collects massive golds from the previous day.
33. Collect unsold glyphs, Darkmoon Decks and Cards, and Mysterious Fortune Cards.
34. Post MFCs on the auction house staggered in between the other 2 alts that are also selling the MFCs to appear as if there are now 3 of us at war undercutting.
35. Let the barking begin.  I will stay on my scribe manually barking as often as I can varying my barks the whole time.  I bark while scanning, I bark while crafting, I bark while searching, I bark while making deals from trade chat.  I bark while posting glyphs.  You get the picture.  Bonus when someone in trade chat yells your name and says "you're already being undercut on the auction house".  Yup, looks like my alt is making some sales too.  Keep barking.
36. Do a full scan and then relist glyphs.  Keep barking.
37. Craft restock as needed.  Keep barking.
38. Send one last bark before I Log off and Log in my main to run a daily heroic.

Wait!  What about all the Obsidium Shuffling?  Well, I shuffle my ores while I am either watching sports on tv or am recording Auction House Junkies with Wes from Capped by Cata.  As far as searches for items and materials, etc.  I do those general things while I am crafting since we are now able to craft with the auction house window open.  And if I'm on my jewelcrafter, then I will also do some prospecting while I am in the auction house browsing and looking for deals and steals.

So Athanas, there you go.  There's a look into the core of a typical auctioneering play session of mine.  I say "core" because I obviously deviate based on price fluctuations, market trends, hot items, patch notes, in game holidays, etc. but that is the "core" of where I usually start looking for ways to make gold.  Hope it triggers some ideas for you.

Image Credit:  http://www.markmallett.com/

Multiple Profession Coverage in WoW

Multiple Profession Coverage

I'd like to take some time to discuss having multiple professions on your alternate characters along with covering the same professions on multiple characters.  We had a listener comment on the Auction House Junkies Gold Making Podcast page that I will be addressing as well.

"I heard you guys talking about leveling the same profession on multiple characers.  Do you guys have EVERY profession covered?  I feel like I'm wasting time having alts with the same profession..."        -Rinbair

Some players like to have multiple characters with the same profession, while others like to cover all professions with their characters on the same World of Warcraft server.  A third type of player likes to cover all professions AND have multiples of the same profession on various characters, often at the expense of gathering professions.

What type of player are you?

1. Don't Have All Professions Covered.
2. Have All Professions Covered.
3. Have Multiples of the Same Profession.
4. Have All Professions Covered and Multiples of the Same Crafting Profession.
5. Have All Crafting Professions Covered with Multiples of Only Gathering Professions.

Multiple Professions

Myself, I have all professions covered with multiples of each gathering profession and an extra tailor for more dreamcloth cooldowns.  Although neither tailor is yet high enough to craft dreamcloth, that was the original plan upon set-up.  Originally one was shadowcloth specialization and the other was spellfire spec.

I would take a guess that the most common profession that players have on multiple alternate characters is the Alchemist.  I myself have 2 alchemists.  The main alchemist is transmute spec, and the other was intended to be either potion or flask spec, but it just hasn't been profitable to switch away from a 2nd transmutation spec alchemist yet.  The main benefits of having multiple alchemists is that their daily cooldowns are some of the easiest and most profitable cooldowns to use to make an easy profit.  I have heard of players with 5-6 alchemists on the same server due to this.

Diversity & Flexibility

While it is still possible to make plenty of gold with only 1 character and 2 professions on that single character, having multiple professions covered opens up so many more possibilities for profiting through the auction houses in World of Warcraft. 

By having multiple professions you are diversifying your ability to make gold.  Having just a few professions covered is viable, but not as secure of an option as having all professions covered.  If you can easily move out of one market and into another you are protecting yourself should an auction house camper invade into your sales and profits. 

You also are more flexible and can profit from various methods by crafting different poducts.  Should Blizzard patch / hotfix / nerf something that is very profitable for you, if you have multiple characters with multiple profession coverage, then you won't be as affected by the changes.  Just image if you were a single character with Alchemy and Enchanting making tons of profit off of disenchanting your epic alchemist trinkets for maelstrom crystals.  Then blizzard nerfs you by making those same trinkets not able to be disenchanted.  If this was your only source of income, then your would be screwed.  If you have multiple professions covered, then you can just move onto a different method.

Unique Playstyles

There is no perfect set-up or solution when it comes to setting up your characters and your professions.  Everyone has a unique playstyle, so you set up is going to be different from mine.  Some players like to have specific combinations on specific races.  Others cover all professions.  Some like to find the easiest and most profitable profession and then have multiples of that single profession.  Some like myself, like to have each character self supportive and tend to give each character 1 crafting and 1 gathering profession.  Others pick 2 gathering professions up until they hit max level, then immediately power level 2 crafting professions.

What it all boils down to when picking your profession set-up is what your playstyle is, how much time you want to devote to crafting and gathering, how much total playtime ou have, and just plain personal preference.  There is no right or wrong set-up when it comes to making gold off the auction house in World of Warcraft.

Check out what my Auction House Junkies podcast partner, Wes, has to say on this same topic.
Multiple Professions Don't Get Overwhelmed over at Capped by Cata

What are your thoughts or preferences when setting up your alternate characters?

Cataclysm Profession Strategy : Common Commodity Crafting



"Thanksgiving is over.  It's time to work on our Cataclysm strategy."

Cataclysm Professions Race

The World of Warcraft Gold Blogging Community is all buzzing about what professions to level first. Gathering is going to very popular once Cataclysm releases as many players will be willing to spend hundreds of gold on resources on their quest to the world or server first achievements. Dual gathering is also feasable with the new ability to track herbs and ores together without the macro requirement. Some players are wanting to reach the highest level recipes before others as an attempt to monopolize specific high end profession craftables. Others are just racing for the server first requirement without much thought into whether its is profitable to do so.

Cold's Cataclysm Common Commodity Crafting Strategy

Cold's Gold Factory will not be pushing for any server first attempts. Why not? In my opinion it is a major waste of gold, another gold sink that costs extra gold just to light up an achievement box. I will be following the same strategy I have used on all my characters and my profession leveling strategy in Cataclysm will be no different. Power leveling is a very wasteful approach when in comes to leveling the World of Warcraft crafting professions. The Common Commodity Crafting Strategy focuses on looking for "sweet spots" in your crafting recipes list.

Profession Sweet Spots
These "sweet spots" are items that you know are going to sell on the auction house. These "sweet spots" or "common commodities" can appear anywhere within your recipe lists. Every profession has these "sweet spots" of common commodities that you will probably be mass producing eventually. Why not use Cold's Common Commodity Crafting Strategy to grind those sweet spots for profession skill gains while you can get skill-ups? I grind these "sweet spot" common commodities until the recipe is grey, thus milking every skill point out of them. A lot of poorly planned characters just follow a power leveling guide to get to max skill, then look for ways to make gold from the profession. They may turn around and mass produce these common commodities for profits after blowing through a bare minimum the first time while power levelling through. This power leveling approach is very wasteful, poorly thought out, and a major expense. Cold's Common Commodity Strategy is much more profitable and more of a timed careful efficient approach to leveling professions. Cataclysm will be no different. There will be a fast and expensive way to level your professions and there will be a slower more efficient and more profitable approach: Cold's Cataclysm Common Commodity Crafting.

 

Common Commodities
What exactly are these common commodities? The common commodities or "sweet spots" are any item in your recipe lists that you know will continue to be in demand over the course of the expansion regardless of where they are located in the crafting list. Sometimes these common commodities are available long before the maximum skill level of the profession. Using the Common Commodities Crafting Strategy, I craft these typs of items until they become grey and are no longer offering profession skill-ups. Can you think of some of these common commodities that you probably have already crafted time and time again? Some excellent examples from craftable items are:

1. Any BoE craftable pet
2. Belt buckles, shield spikes, weapon chains
3. Enchanting rods
4. Meta gem transmutes
5. Bags
6. Leg armors
7. Transmuted bars
8. Specialty cloth

Can you think of any other examples of craftables that would be common commodities?

 

Image Credit: http://ewpopwatch.files.wordpress.com