Cross Realm Auction Houses For WoW?



Cross Realm Auction Houses Coming To A WoW Server Near You?

Cross Realm Auction Houses For WoW?

While reading through the recent WoW Developers Ask Me Anything (WoW AMA) on Reddit, I stumbled upon the mention of the possible merging of WoW auction houses across realms in the future.  Tom Chilton, Game Director for World of Warcraft, posted (source):

"...I can imagine a future where we might decide to make auction houses cross-server.  It's not something to jump into lightly, but there may be ways to design a cross-realm auction house that ensures a viable economy without getting 'too big'."

Back in February, when I read Fox's notion of making the World of Warcraft auction house global for all servers, I thought he was off his nutter.  I still disagree with every bit of his reasoning regarding merging the WoW auction houses.  While we may never see a completely global auction house, the possibility of merged auction houses across multiple servers is now a legitimate possibility from the words of the game's director. 

I've never been a chicken-little who thinks the sky is falling, but I just gotta say this:

THE SKY IS FALLING!  THE SKY IS FALLING!  THE SKY IS FALLING!

DON'T DO IT BLIZZARD!

Cross Realm Auction Houses Are Bad For Sellers

Why make auction houses merge across multiple realms?  To "help out" those players stuck on low and medium pop servers who have less items to shop from on their auction house.  Ugh!  If you are on a lower pop server, then you can create your own market and control that markets prices much easier than on a higher pop server with more competition.  Obviously, that statement is from the mind of a WoW gold making goblin.  Overall though, the buyers would be the ones to benefit most from a cross realm auction house.  And that leaves the gold making goblins the ones who will be hit the hardest by merging auction houses.

Merging multiple servers (possibly just limiting the merger to within your current Battlegroup) will prove to be nothing more than a nightmare for nearly anyone involved in making gold in WoW.  Sure you can candy coat the idea of having more buyers for your goods and a bigger pool of resources to purchase from, but with more servers merged into a single auction house, you exponentially explode your amount of competition!  And with more competition comes even more lowly Kobolds.

It's not as simple as comparing the benefits of a large population server to those of a low pop server.  Of course things sell faster on a larger population server, but you also have more competition in your markets.  Now when you merge multiple pre-established servers with pre-established WoW gold makers in multiple markets into a single cross realm auction house, things are bound to get ugly.  Crazy dumb Kobolds are invading many markets already on individual servers, so when we merge more servers together, they will take over even more and more markets and drive the prices even lower. 

Many of you have abandoned the Glyph market already because of the mindless undercutting bloodbaths that are oh so common in the Glyph market.  Now merge 10 servers into one and you've got that same type of behavior in every market.  Even your precious niche markets that you may be the only seller in are going to be invaded by multiple goblins from multiple servers that also have that same niche market or rare pattern.  Every rare or obsolete pattern that you use to make gold off of due to minimal competition on your server is no longer going to belong to you alone or a handful of competitors.  Do we really want every market to turn into the Glyph market?  I sure don't. 

Merger servers into a cross realm auction house will only cause us to have to work harder for even less profits, if we can still profit at all.  You think undercutting is bad now?  Try battling it with 10 times as many players in all of your markets.  Please Blizzard, make these thoughts go away.  Say it isn't so!
What Do You Think Of The Cross Realm Auction House Idea For WoW?

Check out some of my Squidoo lenses:  Alliance Vs Horde - Come Vote! | Diablo 3 Gifts For Gamers | Getting Started Podcasting 101 | Play Money - Must Read For Auctioneers | Auction House Junkies | Flipping WoW CEs For Profit

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

Making Money Off Of The WoW Collector's Edition - Reader Submission

Making Money Off Of The WoW Collector's Editions
I received an email from a reader that I would like some help answering.  If you are knowledgeable in this area, please consider leaving your opinion or ideas as well in the comments so we can help her determine a course of action.  I will respond with my own ideas and thoughts on the topic, but really would appreciate other opinions as well.  Here is the emailed question:

Hey Cold,


First off, I'd like to thank you for your fantastic blog. You've helped me make lots of money in WoW and it has generally been a fun, helpful addition to my WoW experience. Anyway, this might be out of your area of expertise, but I thought I'd throw this question your way anyway.

I have two sealed Collector's Edition copies of Wrath of the Lich King and have been wondering if there is an optimal time to sell them. In general the price has increased slowly since 2008 but it seems to be staying around $250 lately. Since it's pretty clear the value of mini pets will increase with the release of Mists of Pandaria, I was thinking perhaps the value of all Collector's Editions will simultaneously increase but that's nothing more than novice speculation.

Have you paid any attention to this and do you have any thoughts on when the best time to sell my CE's are?


Have a good one,


Natasha aka Shamette on Kilrogg - US PvE

My Opinion On Selling The Collector's Editions Box Sets

Thanks Natasha for the great email submission.  Your question really got me thinking deeper as this isn't an area I have actual experience in.  I myself have never bought a WoW Collector's Edition set and I also don't purchase the companion pets or mounts from the Blizzard store.  Well, not for myself anyways, as I have purchased them for giveaways and contests on the blogs.  So I had to dig a little deeper and look into the proposed question:

Do you have any thoughts on when is the best time to sell my Collector's Editions?

Breaking it down...

What holds the value in the Collector's Edition boxed sets?  The game itself? Not much as the price drops over time on older expansions.

The music CD, art book, and other goodies?  Nope - Doubt it, as we can't give that stuff away on our Auction House Junkies giveaways. 

So what's left? The Collector's Edition only companion pets!  Much like the WoW Trading Card Game loot card mounts and pets, these CE vanity pets can sell for top dollar on eBay or other TCG sites.  So, I assume the majority of the value of the older Collector's Editions is held by the rare Collector's Edition pets and not much else.

Now when is the best time to sell these?  Assuming that the value increase over time as more and more of the out of print World of Warcraft Collector's Editions are opened and the pet codes are claimed.  So the longer you wait, the more codes are claimed and the less there are left available.  This gradual drop in supply is coupled with a gradual increase in the price of the CE boxed sets. 

Now, fast forward to the upcoming WoW Mists of Pandaria expansion.  What do we know about companion pets?  The majority of the in game companion pets will become BoE, can be leveled, then can be sold on the AH or traded to other players.  All from the upcoming MoP Battle Pet System.  The Battle Pet System still has many unanswered questions, but we do know that most pets will become tradeable.  I say most, because it was specifically stated that the majority of the pets would be tradeable, but not all. 

So, are the Collector's Edition pets going to be some of the few that are left untouched?  If so, we can speculate that the value of these CE pets and their respective CE boxed sets would continue to rise, much like they are now.  If they are made part of the Battle Pet System and are tradeable, then you can bet that the price of the CE box sets will crash.  Why?  Because those same CE pets would be able to be purchased off of the in game WoW auction house with in game gold.

Current Pricing at Amazon:
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Collector's Edition- $64.61
World Of Warcraft Burning Crusade Collector's Edition - $219.99
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Collector's Edition - $149.99
Diablo III: Collector's Edition - $99.99 Pre-Order (See the Diablo 3 Collector's Edition Contents here)

When to sell the CE boxed sets?  It's hard to say exactly since we don't know the fate of the CE pets in Mists of Pandaria.  Taking the lower risk approach, I would say sell them before Mists of Pandaria.  If you are willing to gamble, hang on and see what happens once the Pet Battle System launches.  If you bought them to sell for real cash, to the safe out and sell them ahead of time.  If you wait until MoP, you may be stuck only able to sell them for in game gold on the auction house.  Or Natasha, since you have two, sell one now and hold onto the other.  Or you can always wait a little longer until we have more information disclosed on the specifics of the Battle Pet System and can look ahead and determine value for these and other companion pets.

The Diablo 3 Collector's Edition is going to also include an in game WoW companion Pet, which could present a real world money making opportunity should they be spared from the Battle Pet trading system in Mists of Pandaria.

What does everyone else think on this topic?

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Mists of Pandaria Wishes: A BoA Fillable Bag

Here is my own submission into the Cold's Gold Factory Gold Blogging Carnival for January 2011.  If you are interested in participating in this month's gold blogging carnival, be sure to get your carnival entry post written and posted live to your blog today or tommorrow (and email me the link) as the carnivals run on the 11th of each month.

The topic for the January gold blogging carnival is:

"If you could add 1 item or feature to the Mists of Pandaria WoW expansion, what would it be and why?"

There are many ideas that I came up with as possibilities for additions to the Mists of Pandaria expansion of World of Warcraft.  After much thought, the item I would most like to see added to WoW is a Bind-On-Account Fillable Bag, with true cross-server transferability. 

The Bind-On-Account Fillable Bag

We as World of Warcraft players are definately in need of a BoA Fillable Bag.  Currently the BoA system is broken, as you can only mail BoA items to characters on the same account if they are on the same server.  The current BoA items, like Heirlooms and the Satchel of Exotic Mysteries, are technically only Bind-on-Server, so that must be fixed for my BoA Fillable Bag idea to work properly.

Blizzard has been indirectly promoting the playing of alts by making everything so much easier in the game.  Lately we have seen an increase in the number of players that have multiple characters and many of those characters are leveled and geared close behind their main character.  Blizzard has made it easier to level and much easier for those alts to get gear.  With the new announcements of opening battlegrounds and the raid finder to cross server, those alts will have an even easier time finding things to do in game.  That's all fine and dandy, but what about people who play alts on multiple servers or alts on both sides of WoW's factions?

Getting items to your other alts on the opposing faction is a chore.  Unless you have access to a second account, any cross faction exchange through the neutral auction house does come with the risk of our items being sniped out from under you.  Even with a second account it is possible to have your goods bought out from under you, although the second account option makes the risk much lower.  The cross faction Satchel trick is a help, but is still highly limited.  If we had a BoA bag that we could actually add items or gold into, the process would be safe and simple for getting items over to the other faction. 

If we could load up a bag with items, gold, or gear to send to an alt on another server, then we would have a lot more options for redistributing our wealth across multiple servers and characters.  Wouldn't it be great to roll a new character on your friend's server and then have a BoA bag waiting in your mailbox full of the NW Bags, Heirlooms, and starter cash that you need to get started leveling in style?  I doubt Blizzard wants us to do this, as it could be exploited to establish a gold selling business across multiple servers.  Even if gold wasn't allowed to be sent, I would still be excited to be able to send items in a new BoA bag to my alts. 

If a BoA Fillable Bag was introduced into WoW, I'm thinking it would be the type of item that Blizzard would charge real money to purchase.  I'd pay $10 for a 20 slot bag that I could use to mail items and / or gold cross faction and cross server.  It would be much nicer if we got a BoA Fillable Bag introduced into the MoP expansion that was Craftable! 

Wouldn't a BoA Bag that you can add items into to mail to your alts regardless of their faction or server location be a nice addition to the game?

Be sure to check back here January 11th for the full January edition of the Gold Blogging Carnival.

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.

Which Epic Gems Cuts To Buy First For WoW Gold Profits?

Note: Epic Gems In Patch 4.3 Are Going to Drop Inside Of Raids (Info just released today Sept 19th).  This post was written as speculation on epic gems prior to the announcement.  You can still benefit from this post, if you are a newer Jewelcrafter looking for which rare patterns to start selling.  The gem pre-fixes are the same for rare gems and epic gems.  Pyrite is Fool's Gold after all.  What is still up in the air is whether the raid boss dropped epic gems will be dropping as cut or uncut epic gems.

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Which Epic Gem Cut Recipes Should I Get First?

If WoW Patch 4.3 brings us Epic Gems as we are hoping for, many of us will have a surplus of saved up Jewelcrafting daily tokens from Jewelcrafting dailies ready to spend on the new epic gem cuts.  Hopefully Blizzard sticks with the same epic gem recipe formula and makes the cut epic gem patterns available for Jewelcrafting tokens.  It is speculated that each epic gem recipe will require 5-6 Jewelcrafting tokens.  (Remember everything is pure speculation at this point.)  If epic gems do come to World of Warcraft within Patch 4.3, there will be another massive wave of gold making opportunities.  Which patterns / recipes / cuts should you buy first to maximize your investment of Jewelcrafting tokens?

The Gem Array at The Undermine Journal is a great starting place for deciding which gem cuts to sell.  When using the Gem Array at The Undermine Journal, you can get a quick snapshot of the current gem cuts and what they are selling for on your server.  Remember that every server is different.  What sells for top gold on your server may sell for much less gold on another.  There can even be heavy price fluctuations between each faction's auction houses on your same server.

Epic Gem Cut Recipe Choices

Epic gem cut patterns, regardless of how they are introduced into WoW, will not all be available to you as soon as they are added to the game.  Which epic gem recipe cuts you purchase first is very important for maximizing your gold making possibilities.  Buy the correct epic gem cuts early on and you can make a hefty chunk of WoW gold.  Buy the wrong epic gem cuts and you may squander away some major gold making chances.

I would suggest starting with purchasing the recipes for the main epic gem cuts for each color.  By main cuts I mean the epic gem patterns that tend to sell in great volumes because of the awesome and highly desired gem stat combinations.  I suggest that you first acquire 1 epic gem cut in each color, as well as all 3 of the major red gems that provide solid primary stat boosts.

Main Cuts To Buy First:

Red

• Bold (+ Strength)
• Brilliant (+ Intelligence)
• Delicate (+ Agility)

Blue

• Solid (+ Stamina)
• Rigid (+ Hit)

Yellow

• Fractured (+ Mastery)
• Smooth (+ Critical)

Purple

• Purified (+ Int and + Spirit)
• Veiled (+ Int and + Hit Rating)

Green

• Jagged (+ Crit and + Stamina)
• Puissant (+ Mastery and + Stamina)

Orange

• Reckless (+ Int and + Haste)
• Potent (+Int and + Crit)

Prismatic

• The New Tear (+ All Stats)  - This is going to be a nice gold making epic gem cut and it is going to be a major gold maker for those that took my advice and stocked up on cheap Chimera's Eyes. 

I would grab all 3 of the red gems, then work on getting at least 1 in every color (so you don't have epic gems piling up on you waiting for a epic gem cut pattern of the chosen color).  Once you have all 3 red epic gem cuts and 1 in each color, then you should start looking to expand even further.  An options of starting out filling an epic gem niche market early into the days following the release of the epic gems could be a very profitable adventure as most players will head for the main cuts first.  If you pick up some of the main cuts and then focus on a specific niche (like the tanking or PvP niches) you may see less competition and more profits.  So pick your patterns wisely, plan ahead and venture on into the gold making bonanza that will be epic gems.


Enjoy The Posts Here at Cold's Gold Factory? Check Out Cold's Mysterious Fortune Card Mastery Gold Making Guide To Get You Started In A Unique Niche. 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 Gold Guide For The Best All-Around WoW Gold Making Guide.

Fire Prism Strategy and Epic Gem Speculation

Will Fire Prism Contain Epic Gems?

The Fire Prism

A Fire Prism is crafted by Jewelcrafters and is limited to crafting only one per day.  The Fire Prism takes 3 of each uncommon gem to craft and is therefore a very expensive Jewelcrafting item to craft.  Those gems can be used in more efficient ways to make a profit on the World of Warcraft auction houses in Azeroth.  The benefit of crafting the Fire Prism is that it will produce multiple rare gems and a chance at containing a Chimera's Eye.  The rare gems contained inside the Fire Prism rarely are worth the value of the uncommon gems being used to create the Fire Prism.  Of course, you can get the occasional nice Fire Prism that contains 3 Inferno Rubies and a Chimera's Eye in the 1 Fire Prism, but those are rare occurances. 

Epic Gems Speculation

There is much speculation about the introduction of epic gems into the current World of Warcraft player environment.  As of right now there is no evidence of anything related to epic gems and the epic gem patterns.  Everything is purely speculative at this point in regards to epic gems.

• When will epic gems be introduced into WoW?
• Will epic gems even be added?
• If epic gems are added, where will they come from?
• If epic gems are added, who will sell the epic gems recipes?
• What will be the required currency for buying the epic gem recipes?
• Will Pyrite Ore be prospected into epic gems?
• Will Fire Prism have a chance to create epic gems?

Fire Prism To Contain Epic Gems?

Today we are looking at the Fire Prism and speculating on the future of epic gems coming from inside Fire Prisms.  I know of at least one follower that has been stockpiling his Fire Prisms unopened in the bank.  Currently he has around 50 unopened Fire Prisms stored up.  Why?  In Wrath of the Lich King, Icy Prism had the ability to create epic wrath gems when opened.  Assuming the similar fate for the Cataclsym equivalent, Fire Prisms will probably have a chance to create epic Cataclysm gems when opened. 

If epic gem creation is patched and added to Fire Prisms, then the Fire Prism will be a much more profitable item to craft, especially when epic gems are first introduced and the demand is outrageously high.  This reader will have a lot of Fire Prisms all ready to be opened with a chance for each Fire Prism to contain epic gems.  These epic gems could provide the jump start and early advantage to profitting from the first days of epic gem sales.

I am in agreement that eventually Fire Prisms will have a chance to contain epic gems.  Of course this is speculation, but it is based off of the historical change to Icy Prisms.  The area that I start to ponder is whether the pre-crafted Fire Prisms will contain the epic gems.  When are the contents of the Fire Prism set?  Is it when the item is created or are the contents set when the Fire Prism is opened?  I don't know for sure, so I haven't been crafting any Fire Prisms myself to store for later.  This is an option for consideration, if you like to take risks.  At this point I can't say that it is a guaranteed effective strategy, but is an option for you to consider.  It could be worth stocking up the unopened Fire Prisms or it could be a waste of materials and bank space.  We just don't know yet, but that's what speculation is all about.  It's trying to figure out ahead of time what we think will eventually happen with epic gems.

Anyone else been secretly stockpiling these unopened Fire Prisms?

Got any other fresh ideasin regards to epic gems speculation?

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Runecloth Surplus Solution

Are You Overloaded On Runecloth?

Some of us stocked up a bunch of Runecloth prior to The Shattering in hopes of selling the stacks of Runecloth for reputation turn ins to new goblins and worgens.  Then Blizzard throws us a curveball and creates championing tabards for all of the player races.  Now we are stuck with a bunch of runecloth in our banks.  This was something that Wes had talked about on the Auction House Junkies podcast as well.  Maybe you are in the same boat as we are?

How To Move Your Runecloth

The market for selling unbolted stacks of Runecloth hasn't been favorable to flip these for a profit.  You may have success selling off your Runecloth as Bolts of Runecloth, but I would take a different approach.

The most profitable way to utilize runecloth on most servers would be to follow these easy steps.

1. Have your tailor bolt it up into Bolts of Runecloth.
2. Buy up a bunch of Runethread.
3. Craft Runecloth Headbands.
4. Send them to your Enchanter. (Bonus if you are an Enchanter / Tailor)
5. Disenchant all of the Runecloth Headbands.
6. Either sell your raw enchanting materials
7. or Use them in BoA and Twink Enchanting scrolls for sale on the Auction House.

Why is this the most profitable alternative?  Because most servers are seeing a spike in demand due to a low volume of Vanilla enchanting materials (as I previously revealed), especially Illusion Dust, Greater Eternal Essences, and Large Brilliant Shards.  Runecloth Headbands will only disenchant into these 3 great materials to sell on the auction house.

6 Bolts of Runecloth and 2 Runethread combine to create 1 Runecloth Headband.

Runecloth Headband Disenchant Table

1. 1-2 Illusion Dust - 74%
2. 1-2 Greater Eternal Essence - 23%
3. 1 Large Brilliant Shard - 3%

Depending on the price of stacks of Runecloth on your server and the going rate for these Vanilla enchanting materials, this may be a viable profit option to invest in.  Like the obsidium shuffle, this is a bit labor intensive, but can be eased if you are an Enchanter / Tailor.

Glass Fishing Bobber Potential

Glass Fishing Bobber Is Bugged

This week I received a tweet (Follow me @SSmith0911) from a follower asking about my thoughts on the Glass Fishing Bobber Speculation.  Truth be told, I had no idea what he was talking about.  So I had to look into the item and see what the fuss is.  The Glass Fishing Bobber is broken.  Clicking it does nothing and it is supposed to be fixed in a future patch or hotfix.  Currently it is still broken.

Glass Fishing Bobber is an item that is sometimes (5%) obtained from within the New Cataclysm Fishing daily quest reward Bag of Shiny Things. 

Item Speculation

The speculation arises because it is unclear what the item actually will do.  It is a level one item that awards +15 Fishing, but does it add a permanent skill gain?  Is it a temporary buff?  Is it only going to be usable when applied to a fishing pole?  Is it a consumable?  No one really knows for sure, but I am leaning towards this item being a temporary buff and not worth much at all. 

The Glass Fishing Bobber is a level 1 item and only has a 5% drop chance from within the bags.  When clicked on the item effect on wowhead it comes up as a temporary buff.  If it is just a temporary buff, ten why is it only found 15% of the time?  Hence people are speculating and hoping that it turns into a permanent buff item when fixed.

My Advice

So my advice would be to save any of these bobbers you get from your fishing reward bags.  I wouldn't go out of my way to hunt these down, but if you see them for a few gold, then they may be worth picking up and hoping for a positive result once they are patched.


You can follow the discussion over on the Consortium Forums - New Speculation Play: Glass Fishing Bobbers.  If you haven't been to the Consortium Forums, then I highly recommend that you sign up and join the discussions.

Free Knot Quest Removal and Potential Profits

Free Knot For His Recipes

Free Knot Being Removed
The repeatable quest Free Knot has been confirmed as being removed in Cataclysm as part of the Dire Maul dungeon changes.  Knot Thimblejack is the goblin chained up in Dire Maul North.  Many people are freeing him to get the Steamweedle Cartel reputation while trying to finish the Insane in the Membrane feat of strength.  Once he is free, Knot's Thimblejack's Cache can be looted.  This box of goodies will contain 1 crafting recipe.  There are 5 BoP patterns and 4 BoE patterns.  These 4 patterns can be sold on the auction house.  There isn't much market for these old vanilla recipes, but their value could raise massively, if they are no longer obtainable.  Thistle Tea is a recipe that is now obsolete and brings in heavy prices for those lucky enough to still have the recipe unlearned.  The 4 recipes from Knot's cache could be worth buying for cheap and holding to flip.  I have seen these patterns dropping as low as 50g.  At that low, it's not much of a gamble at all.  I suggest stocking away a few of each, if you can find them for a nice low price and let's see what happens in Cataclysm.

Knot Thimblejack's Cache Patterns
These 4 BoE patterns only come from Knot's Cache:

1. Pattern: Belt of the Archmage
2. Pattern: Chromatic Cloak
3. Pattern: Hide of the Wild
4. Pattern: Shifting Cloak