What To Stockpile For Mists Of Pandaria | Cata to MoP Stockpiling

Stockpiling For Mists of Pandaria

Stockpiling For Mists Of Pandaria

Is it too early to Stockpile for MoP?  The Cataclysm expansion has come to a lull and Diablo 3 is on the horizon, but it is definitely not too early to start thinking about stockpiling for Mists of Pandaria.  Have you thought about what you will be stocking up on?  When the new WoW expansion launches, we will see another profitable mass influx of players joining the game.  These players will be a mix of brand new players and returning players.  Many players will be wanting to try the new monk class or the new Panda race.  New players and new characters bring an increased demand for many items like those required for profession leveling or items that enhance or speed the leveling process.  There will be many markets that will return to being viable simply because of the population growths that always occur following a new expansion's release.  Remember a major patch or a previous WoW expansion launch when you ran out of something that was a goldmine at the time?  Did you wish you had stockpiled more of them?  Or maybe you hadn't even stockpiled at all and the auction house prices had gone through the roof on you.  Don't let your competition choke you out of the auction house because you forgot to stockpile!  It is time to think ahead to tank advantage of this major market cycle in WoW.

Raw Materials

With any new character population explosion there will be an increased need for all raw materials required for leveling a character's professions.  Ores, Herbs, and Leather will all see an increase in demand at the beginning of MoP as players level there professions.  As the expansion continues farther past the launch and there are less characters in the leveling zones, the lower level raw materials prices will start to climb as there are less players and bots farming those areas for raw materials.  Most players and bots will move on to the new MoP raw materials.

Anything that you will be needing to level a profession or to continue a niche market it is a good choice for your MoP stockpile.  If you are looking for good money makers to sell quickly, then you should focus on raw materials that are choke points to leveling a profession.  You can even make WoW inflation work in your favor, by stocking up on raw materials at today's prices and then selling the crafted good at the later inflated market rate.

Leather is currently hard to come by on my server and I only predict that it will get worse, unless we see a nice influx of monks, pandas, and new characters coming in as skinners.  Even then, the demand for leather and leather crafted goods will skyrocket with all of the monks in MoP.  Remember the rush on Plate when Death Knights were added?

Inks

What is the best item for any scribe to stock up on?  Inks are the main focus of a Scribe's stockpile.  Why Inks?  Versatility!  We know that the glyph system is getting another major overhaul, so crafting a bunch of glyphs ahead of time could be a flawed plan.  Every time there is a glyph overhaul, we get glyphs that don't survive any changes.  These glyphs turn into vendor trash.  Any of these you have pre-crafted that you can't get rid of will be wasted potential profits.  Saving Inks in your stockpile for MoP will keep you versatile.  The Inscription exchange vendors like Jessica Sellers should be utilized prior to the new expansion. The vendors will be changed to require the newest MoP Inks so any stockpiling of the various Inks should be done ahead of the expansion.  If you forget, you will be stuck with a bunch of Blackfallow Inks.  So remember to visit the Ink exchanging npcs prior to MoP.  These vendors can be changed in pre-expansion patches as well, so start thinking ahead.

Catering To New Characters

There are many markets that will see a spike in demand because of all the new characters entering the game.  Selling to new characters in Cataclysm, made me a massive chunk of gold.  Planning and thinking ahead to what these new characters will be wanting to buy is an important step in the process of making gold off low level and new characters that should be started soon.  If you plan on making certain gear that new players will want, you might want to be stockpiling the harder to find materials in your MoP stockpile.  Leather gear will be at a premium because of the increased demand that monks will bring to the economy.  I would highly recommend starting your leather stockpiling now.  Barbaric Bracers, Deviate Scale Belts, Toughened Leather Gloves, and other low level Leatherworking niches should be vibrant again.  Many of these take some harder to find materials that should be stockpiled now, if you are planning on hitting those markets.  Good low level green items that have the proper stat combinations will also be good items to flip to the leveling monks and other leather wearing classes.

Bags are always a huge seller when expansions bring a character population explosion.  Remember to sell the profession specific bags as well.  The bags required by the various professions have always been great investments,especially the mining bags.

The population explosion is also another great time to start or resume MFC Barking.  Barking is always more effective the more players are hearing your barks, so expansion launches are great times to bark.  You don't have to limit barking to just Mysterious Fortune Cards.  Adventurer's Journals are another great item to sell to  leveling characters.


Check out my Top 6 Items To Craft For All The Monks Coming In MoP

Hedging Against MoP Inflation

Inflation is coming in MoP.  The item most succeptable to inflation is liquid gold.  That's why building a stockpile for MoP is so important.  By choosing items to buy as inflation hedges we buy specific items now that we will hopefully be able to sell for much more into the next expansion.  Historically, good choices have been hard to obtain items like rare and hard-to-get companion pets, mounts, and expensive vanity items.  With MoP bringing us the battle pet system, I still think pets are a no brainer here.  Stocking up on the rare pets should bring a nice payout in Mists of Pandaria.  I would also keep an eye out for nicely priced rare mounts like Poseidus.  Less players will be in his zone and his price should inflate and be a nice hedge against inflation.

Now that we have more news on the Battle Pet System, don't miss my new posts on:

• Master List Of Companion Pets Turning Rare & Where To Get Them All
• Why You Should Be Dumping Your Holiday Pets

Have You started Your MoP Stockpile Yet?

Alliance Or Horde?  Come Vote!

Be Sure To Check Out Cold's Mysterious Fortune Card Mastery Gold Making Guide. Also Check Out My Favorite All Around WoW Gold Making Guide or the PvP and Gold Making Combo and J!inx - Clothing For Gamers And Geeks.

Recap: Top Blog Posts From February

February Popular Posts At Cold's Gold Factory

Each month, I like to do a quick wrap-up of the top posts from the previous month.  This helps bring attention to some of the most discussed or the most visited blog posts here at Cold's Gold Factory and it is especially helpful for new or returning readers to find great posts that they may have missed.

By a longshot, the most popular posts from the month of February were the posts dealing with the Love Is In The Air holiday event and farming the needed Lovely Charms. 

Best Place To Farm Lovely Charms 2012 - This holiday specific blog post was designed to bring attention to my favorite Lovely Charm farming location and killing Slags.  While Throne of Tides may be prefer by some, I prefer the Slags myself.

Making Gold With Lovely Charm Farming - The debate stirring post.  Which is more time efficient: Farming all the Charms to make Bracelets or using the daily holiday event quests to gather your Love tokens?

Goblinism From The Early Years And Beyond - This was a fun post to write and showed just a handful of the ways I've learned to hustle over the earlier years of my life.

Using Inflation In WoW To Make More Gold - Here I discuss the strategy of using inflation to your advantage by buying materials now for the selling crafted products after the prices inflate.

Guild Challenges & Reflections On The Random Invite Guild - The all random invite guild hit the level 25 guild level cap and this was my summary post on just how much gold I made passively.  I also discuss how I could have promoted more guild challenges to earn extra gold each week.

Auction House Junkies February Recap

During February we released 2 new episodes of The Auction House Junkies podcast.  I also created and displayed The Auction House Junkies Cast Member Photo so you can see what the three of us look like, well sort of - LOL.  I also debuted the Auction House Junkies Swag Shop on Zazzle and the Auction House Junkies Official Squidoo Page, where you can vote on your favorite cast member, leave show topic ideas, and answer polls and questions.  Be sure to stop by and check them out.

AHJ - Episode #24: Cold Plays Mono-Blue - The guys pushed the time up and called me just as I started a MTGO tournament where I had drafted an all Blue Deck for sealed.

AHJ - Episode #25: French Dip - The infamous French Dip sandwich show.



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

2 New Features Added To WoW That Are Nice Additions

2 Nice New Features Added To WoW

There have been a couple of nice additions to the World of Warcraft UI that make our life a little easier.  I'm not sure how long these 2 changes have been live in WoW or what path they were added in, but I believe it has been within the last couple of patches.  I had just recently noticed both of these changes and I have been using them since I discovered the changes.  Maybe you are like me and missed the additions in the patch notes, so I present them to you today.



New Auction House UI Feature - Crafted Armor View

 Crafted Recipe Armor Viewing

Crafted recipe armor viewing is a nice addition to the auction house user interface in WoW.  What exactly do I mean by "crafted recipe armor viewing"?  Previously, when searching the rare Bind-on-Pick-up crafting recipes on the auction house, we were unable to see what the finished crafted product would look like.  You had to go to wowhead and search for the item and pray someone had submitted a screenshot of the crafted item.  Sometimes there was no screenshot to even refer to and if there was, it probably looks different on your character's race than it does on the example image. 

With the change to the standard auction house UI, that is now longer an issue.  You can Control-Left Click on any weapon or armor recipe listed in the auction house to see what the crafted item would look like on your character.  If you take a look at the image above, you will see what I mean.  The character image shows her naked with just the Boots of Utter Darkness equipped.  This is a nice addition that makes it much easier to determine what a crafted item looks like prior to buying the recipe, which is great for your own mogging needs (since many are BoP recipes) or for finding recipe based items to craft for Transmogrification.

New Search Backpack Feature In WoW

Backpack Search Feature

The second nice feature that has been added to the game is the backpack search function.  While it may not seem very useful it does come in handy once you know it is there!  At the top of your open main backpack screen you should see a search window.  You can enter in anything you want and the items that match your search will stay visible, while the non-matching items will be darkened out.  Check the image above.  You can see I did a search for "ranger" gear in my bags.  This made it super fast and easy to see that I only had the Chest and Legs on me.  While this isn't a huge change, it is very effective at cutting down your time when hunting for specific items within your bags.  This has been very helpful when building and sorting set pieces to sell for transmogrification buyers.

Anyone found any better uses for these two additions to WoW?

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.

How To Make Gold During End Of Expansion Lulls | Up & Down Markets

How To Make WoW Gold During The End Of The Expansion

Cataclysm has ran it's course.  The final Cataclysm content patch has already been deployed to live servers for a while now.  The servers are less busy.  Competition is less fierce in many markets.  End game raids are being conquered.  Players are taking time off until Mists of Pandaria launches.  Welcome to the lull that we see at every expansion's end.  The Diablo 3 release date has been announced, so we can expect to see even more of a decline in the WoW population once Diablo 3 launches in 2 months. 

With the expansion ending the players activities in game tend to change.  Understanding how these changes affect the demand for items on the WoW auction house, will help you to supply items in the markets with increased demand.  Staying out of or cutting back on other markets may be a wise choice this late in the expansion.  Remember that every server is unique and not all server's will follow the same trends, but there are many similarities that can be generalized.  Let's look deeper at how to make gold during the end of an expansion.

Increased Demand Markets

These are markets that always see an increase in demand.  This increased demand can result in more sales and / or higher purchase prices.

1. Netherweave, Frostweave, & Embersilk Bags - Bored players are rolling new alts.  These leveling characters need bags and many can afford the more expensive bags instead of just the standard NW Bags.
2. Profession Bags - New characters pick up new profesions and they need bags too.
3. Profession Leveling Items / Choke Point Materials - The materials needed to level a profession are good sellers as players are leveling their alts up prior to the expansion, when it will become more expensive.
4. Blacksmithing Rods For Enchanters - Enchanting Rods and their required materials are a good seller as players roll Enchanting alts and need the rods to level up.
5. Vanity Items - The combination of less things to do and less items to buy, leads to larger gold reserves.  Players with extra gold are more willing to spend that gold on high ticket vanity items like companion pets, mounts, and gear for transmogrification.
6. Glyphs - New alts and returning Scroll of Resurrection 80's need glyphs.
7. BoA / Twink Enchants - New characters with new BoA gear for leveling quickly will buy up the BiS enchants for the heirloom gear.  These same enchants are good for twink characters and twinking is always more popular during expansions lulls when players are bored and trying new things.

Decreased Demand Markets

The decreased demand markets can get ugly in no time.  As demand dries up, you see less sales.  As less sales are made, undercutting amongst competition gets worse and drives the prices down.  Those items that do sell, end up selling for less gold per sale.

1. Raid Consumables - Flasks, Foods, Potions etc. as they aren't required for LFR and more players are beating the end raid content.  Also summer is coming and WoW raid teams tend to fall apart during summer vacations.
2. End Game Upgrades - Gems, Enchants, Belt Buckles, etc. will lose demand the closer we get to Mists of Pandaria. 
3. Darkmoon Faire Cards, Decks, Trinkets, & Inferno Ink - They have dropped enough already, but the value will continue to decline.  Inferno Ink is already a damn near dead market and it will only get worse.
4. Last Tier of Raw Materials - Cata Ores, Herbs, And Leathers will all drop in value as more players are on alts and are gathering while they level.  A drop in player population also means less buyers, which contributes to auction house flooding by bots and ultimately leads to drops in prices.  You may already be seeing the prices trending downwards on your server.

Expansions End Is Stockpiling Time

There are many factors that lead to the dropping in prices of raw materials at the end of an expansion.  It never fails.  Remember the great market crashes prior to Cataclysm? The prices will drop as more players pick up gathering professions on alts or are out in the World of Warcraft leveling new characters or Ideal Alts.  Less players will be requiring the materials as the prices of the end products are dropping with less demand.  When the prices start to bottom out and reach their lowest points, it is time to build your stockpile for going into the new Mists of Pandaria expansion.  Stay tuned for the next Gold Blogging Carnival here at Cold's Gold Factory, where the discussion topic is on Stockpiling and Inflation Hedging for MoP.

The discussion in the comments is getting good.  
Be sure to weigh in with your own opinions or share your experiences.

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.

April Gold Blogging Carnival Topic - 2012

Cold's Gold Blogging Carnival - April 2012 Topic

A big thanks to all of the participants who submitted entries for last month's blogging carnival. Hopefully you will continue to participate in the monthly shared topics. Participation from newer bloggers is also highly encouraged. Everyone is welcome to write a post for the blogging carnivals at Cold's Gold Factory. Again, thank you to all the bloggers who submitted posts for the March Topic: Looking Back & Learning From It. If you missed the March carnival, be sure to check it out!

What If I Don't Have A Blog And I Want To Participate?

If you don't have your own site, you can still participate in the gold blogging carnivals. Sometimes a topic may tickle your fancy or you may have a unique spin on a blogging carnival topic that you would like to have read by others. Well, you are in luck. There are sites that will post and host your content as a guest post. Just follow the normal blogging carnival rules that the others follow and get your post hosted and live prior to the carnival. Then, just submit the link to me for inclusion in the upcoming gold blogging carnival.

The  friendly sites willing to host your content are:

1. Goldgrub's Goblin Academy - Contact: Me (Cold)

  

April 2012 Gold Blogging Carnival Topic

The upcoming WoW expansion Mists of Pandaria is coming.  Don't be left out in the cold.  Mists of Pandaria is bringing new talent changes, a new monk player class, and the intriguing WoW Battle Pet System.  You must plan ahead, if you intend to make gold like a boss during the first few months of the new WoW expansion.  Not only do we need a plan for our stockpiles, but we also need an inflation battling strategy.  Which brings me to the April Topic:

 What Is Your Stockpiling Plan For Profiting & Hedging Against Inflation in MoP?

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.

March Blogging Carnival - Looking Back & Learning From It

Cold's Gold blogging Carnival - March Edition

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:

Using your knowledge that you have gained from auction house experience:  If you were starting over as a gold maker, what is one thing you would do differently than the first time, and why?

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

Don't Stop Farming by Farli of The Overcut

Wide Horizons by Shannon of Shannon's Shenanigans

Making Gold In WoW | Looking Back For Improvements by Cold of Goldgrub's Goblin Academy

Improvements by Epidermuss of Wrags To Riches

If I Knew Then What I Know Now by Nev Of Auction House Addict

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!

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.

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?

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

Using Inflation To Make More Gold In WoW

Inflation in WoW - Prepare or Lose

Inflation Basics In WoW
Inflation is a term that describes the erosion in purchasing power of a currency.  As more currency (gold in WoW) is readily available, prices tend to go up.  The resulting problem is that the value of that currency gets weaker as the same amount of currency can't buy as much as it used to be able to buy.  Inflation is a great threat to the value of your stockpile of liquid gold in World of Warcraft.  If you just sit on your gold from expansion to expansion, it loses value.  The same amount of gold will be able to buy you less in the future.

In·fla·tion - A persistent, substantial rise in the general level of prices related to an increase in the volume of money and resulting in the loss of value of currency (opposed to deflation).

In World of Warcraft, the inflation gets worse as more expansions are released.  Quests give more gold, looted items sell for more, higher level character corpses loot for more coin, bosses and creatures drop more gold, and these all help contributed to more gold being more easily attainable.  Players start to have more personal gold than before, even if they are not using any ways to make gold in the auction house or with professions.  It's just simply easier to get more gold.  Since players can easily obtain more gold, they are able to spend more on the same items. 

Using Inflation To Make Extra Gold

Combating inflation is a strategy we must prepare for at the end of an expansion.  Liquid gold is affected most by inflation.  The value of the gold piece will continue to go down.  To combat the devaluing of the currency, we have to invest more of our liquid gold into commodities.  We can make an inflation hedge by buying commodities that we know will increase in value.  If we buy at today's price and sell at a future inflated price, we can not only make a profit, but we have protected that invested gold from the devaluing effects on inflation.  The key is to make inflation hedges with commodities that will rise in value.  Good examples are hard to obtain pets (think Argent Tourney pets), farmed commodities, rare mounts, etc.  Before the new expansion drops, we will be devoting an entire episode of Auction House Junkies to inflation and inflation hedging. 

The formula for using inflation to your own advantage is pretty straightforward.

Buy Materials Now At Today's Prices, Then Sell Your Crafted Goods At A Later Date At The Inflated Rate.

I will use my own Netherweave Bag stockpile as an example.

I stockpiled around 7-8 entire guild tabs full of Bolts of Netherweave Cloth during mid-Wrath of the Lich King.  I paid around 4-6 gold average per stack of Netherweave Cloth when I made the stockpile.  At the time Netherweave Bags were selling for 9-11 gold each.  Today, at Cataclysm's end I am still working off of that same massive stockpile that cost me much less than the current value of 8-12 gold per stack of Netherweave cloth.  Currently Netherweave Bags are selling for 15-25 gold each on my server.  So by forming a prepatch stockpile, I was able to lock in my crafting costs at the older cheaper rate.  I was (and still am) able to sell the resulting crafted items at the current new inflated rate.  And I can also undercut deeper than competitors who are stuck crafting from the current inflated materials rate. 

So have you started to think ahead to Mists of Pandaria and what items to be buying as your inflation hedges?

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.

March Topic For Cold's Gold Blogging Carnival

Cold's Gold Blogging Carnivals

Cold's Gold Blogging Carnival - March 2012 Topic

A big thanks to all of the participants who submitted entries for last month's blogging carnival. Hopefully you will continue to participate in the monthly shared topics.  Participation from newer bloggers is also highly encouraged.  Everyone is welcome to write a post for the blogging carnivals at Cold's Gold Factory.  Again, thank you to all the bloggers who submitted posts for the February Topic: Favorite Locations In WoW.  If you missed the Februay carnival, be sure to check it out!

What If I Don't Have A Blog And I Want To Participate?

 If you don't have your own site, then you can still participate in the gold blogging carnivals. Sometimes a topic may tickle your fancy or you may have a unique spin on a blogging carnival topic that you would like to have read by others. Well, you are in luck. There are main sites that will post and host your content as a guest post. Just following the normal blogging carnival rules that the others follow and get your post hosted and live prior to the carnival. Then, just submit the link to me for inclusion in the upcoming gold blogging carnival.

The friendly sites willing to host your content are:

• Goldgrub's Goblin Academy - Contact: Me (Cold)

March 2012 Gold Blogging Carnival Topic

We've all went through those phases of learning the ins and outs of becoming a successful gold maker in World of Warcraft.  A lot of us were self taught or learned on the basis of trial and error.  As more experienced auctioneers, we all have realizations of things we used to do that may seem silly or inefficient when compared to our current strategies.  Which brings me to the March Topic:

 

Using your knowledge that you have gained from auction house experience:  If you were starting over as a gold maker, what is one thing you would do differently than the first time, and why?

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.

Goblinism From The Early Years And Beyond

Born A Hustler

Goblin Through And Through

While talking with a peer over Skype the other day, I realized something spectacular.  I have been a goblin for much longer than I have been playing World of Warcraft.  I've pretty much practised the art of goblinism most of my life, including both adulthood and adolescence.  I learned some of the strategies for haggling, marketing, barking, sales, and pricing way back early on in my childhood.  I have always been one to look for chances to profit by providing desired goods or services when I see a demand arise.  Let's take a look back through some of my past real life goblinism ideas and strategies.

2nd Grade Playground Hustler

One of my earliest grade school memories, brings me back to the early adolescent years.  In 2nd grade (at age 6), I got my first sense of running my own business as my mother set me up to hawk her homemade crochet items and pencil toppers to other children at school.  She would craft up a batch of little fuzzy animals, flowers, or cartoon characters and I would take them in my book bag and try to sell them to the other kids on the playground.  We then expanded to selling crocheted book marks and crosses as well.  This lasted for a few months, until the school principal confiscated my goods one day, called my mom into the school, and I was banned from "soliciting items for sale on school grounds".  Well, it wasn't like we were even turning a profit on these sales.  I think my mother was just coming up with an interesting way for me to be interactive with the other kids at school.  This playground hustling did give me some early exposure to the wheeling and dealing of crafted items for real world coins.

The Candy Man

In 5th and 6th grades, I remember a great money making project that I underwent. One day while with my father at the local automotive parts supplier, I noticed a box of candy bars on the front counter.  The sign said these Heath Bars were on sale 5 for $1 and my 9 year old brain immediately thought of how much profit I could make selling these candy bars at school.  The candy bars in the vending machine were 60 cents each and I could get these for only 20 cents each.  Cha-ching!  So I convinced my dad to buy me $5 worth of these Heath bars.  I then took them to school and sold them out of my backpack for 50 cents apiece.  Netting me almost 30 cents per sale, for a 20 cent investment.  Once the first batch sold, I went back to the store and re-invested all of my profits into buying more candy bars.  This worked well until everyone got sick of eating the same Heath bars, as they longed for variety.  So more lessons in goblinism were learned.  You can over saturate your market and lower the demand for your product.  Diversification is also a must because when the demand dries up in your market, you need another market to fall back on.

Sales Competition Dominater

All throughout my years of schooling, I have been damn near unstoppable when it came to school sale contests.  I always had a nature for completing the sales and I owe it all to my ability to come up with creative and persuasive ways to sell the fund raising products.  This was the earliest forms of learning the art of barking that is so prevalent in my MFC sales in WoW.  I had worked up a system that had strangers wanting to help me complete the sale.  How?  It's all in the wording.

While other kids were selling "candy bars for $1 to raise funds for the school", I was doing much better than that lame sales pitch.  My sales pitch was this:

"Would you like to buy a candy bar to help the school band?"  It's harder to say no to "helping the band" than it is to "wanna buy a candy bar".  Then when they would say, "Sure, how much?" I would respond, "Two for two dollars!"  Guess how many I would sell?  Yup, 2 or more per customer.  Genius right?  Well, my pitch was so good, even diabetics and people who hated candy would hand me cash donations or buy the candy bar and then give it to me to eat. 

While other kids were wasting their time walking door to door trying to sell their candy, I had a better set-up.  I camped out on the sidewalk in front of the US Post Office.  I had far more potential customers cross my path in front of the Post Office, than when I foolishly was going door to door.  So make sure to position yourself for the most potential for exposure to buyers.

The School Supply Fence

In Junior High School (6-8th), I set up my own business operating as a fence.  Other students would come to me with orders for items they wanted or needed and I would procure them through a network of thieves, then sell them to the other students at a cheaper than retail price.  So when someone needed a scientific calculator, a protractor, or compass, etc they would put their order in and I would fill it the next morning.  This was fine and dandy until I got caught shoplifting from the local grocery store.  Well, that idea was bad to begin with, but growing up poor will stretch your moral limits.  I did learn a lesson though.  You can't break the rules or you will get caught no matter how crafty you think you are.

The Car Trunk Pack Dealer

Continuing on with hustling ideas while in college, I came up with another great idea.  I was a huge Magic the Gathering player in high school, college, and graduate school.  I was even ranked as high as 17th in the World in Type 1 (called Legendary now).  To support my gaming purchases, I would buy cases of unopened Magic cards at the discounted case rate.  I would then sell the individual sealed packs to all of my friends (and even strangers too) for cheaper than the cost of buying the packs for retail price.  Was a nice was to support my own gaming addiction within elements of the game itself.  Eventually I built up enough stock that I had various booster packs and starter packs filling the trunk of my car.  I would approach shoppers I saw in stores and invite them out to my trunk store to take a look for cheaper prices and tax free buying!  Win-win for everyone.  Another important lesson learned too.  Why not remove a member of the supply chain to make more profit yourself?

I've also been a black market item hustler from within the Diablo 2 scene on eBay and a bulk vinyl buyer who broke lots into singles for massive profit gains when I was into spinning records and DJing myself.  I've talked about both of those previously, so I won't go over them again here.  I've learned a lot from real life hustling that I have been able to apply my WoW gold making tactics and I've also learned a lot of ways to apply my gold making skills to real life.

Have you learned anything in 1 world that you've applied in the other? (virtual vs real worlds)

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.

Zygor & MFC Mastery On Sale Now

2 Special Savings Just For You!


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"Cold is with out a doubt the most knowledgeable person out there when it comes to selling Mysterious Fortune Cards. He was the first to identify the market and he is always seemingly "one step ahead" of everyone else when it comes to selling these cards. Time and again he has come up with new and innovative ways to sell them in massive numbers. Whenever I want to increase my sales numbers for these cards I look to Cold. You should too."

-Bangkok Bill

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Until 11:59pm on February 16th, you can also get all the highly acclaimed World of Warcraft Zygor guides (excludes Dungeon Guide Pre-orders) at a DEEP DISCOUNT - 40% OFF!

Zygor has long been the best leveling guide out there!
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Here's where you can grab your Zygor copies at a discount.


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Feb 2012 Gold Blogging Carnival - Favorite Locations In WoW

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 leave them some comments.

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. Articles 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. And without further ado, I present to you this month's participants answering the question:

What Is A Favorite Location Of Yours In WoW?

Epidermuss of Wrags To Riches
City of Peace / Forged In The Heat Of A Furnace

Vile of Vile's Golden Auctions
Vile's Bread N Butter

Cold of Cold's Gold Factory
My Scribe's Favorite WoW Gold Making Spot

Maxi of Maximoney's Gold Blog
Strategically Sound Toon Placement

George of The Mana Cooler Podcast
That Hit The Spot


Thanks for all of the entries and new participants. Glad to have ya back, George.  See you all again next month!  Send in your carnival topic ideas - bloggers and readers alike!

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.

Making Gold With Lovely Charm Farming | How Many Lovebird Mounts Can You Buy For 2700 Charms?

Making Gold With Lovely Charms

Tons of players are out looking for the best spots for farming the Lovely Charms.  Since both the new Swift Lovebird mount and the Truesilver-Shafter Arrow Peddlefeet companion pet are able to be sold to other players, the Love Is In The Air holiday provides a couple of new ways to make gold in WoW. 

Since the new mount costs 270 Love Tokens, just how many Lovely Charms do you need to farm?

If you answered 2700, then you are wrong.  Sure, you could farm up 2700 Lovely Charms and convert them to 270 Lovely Charm Bracelets, then covert the Bracelets at a 1:1 ratio into Lovely Tokens.  That is the craziest, most wasteful shit I have ever heard of though!  Well, TIME TIME TO GET YOUR LEARN ON.  This post is to help all of you that haven't done your homework on just how many Lovely Charms you should be farming to get the new Swift Lovebird mount.

It is a common misconception that I have seen all over twitter, on other's blogs, and in forum posts that it takes 2700 Lovely Charms to get a mount.  Yeah, if you want to earn your mount the most inefficient way possible!  It really takes far less Lovely Charms than that to get the new Swift Lovebird mount. Way less actually!

Let's dig into the numbers a little deeper.

• 10 Lovely Charms Make 1 Lovely Charm Bracelet.
• 1 Lovely Charm Bracelet Trades For 1 Love Token.
• The Swift Lovebird Mount Costs 270 Love Tokens.
• There Are 6 Daily Quests That Each Award 5 Love Tokens.
• 4 Of These Quests Are Capital City Turn Ins That Require 1 Lovely Charm Bracelet.
• You Can Earn 30 Love Tokens Per Day Just Doing The Dailies.
• Love Is In The Air Runs For 15 Days (Feb 5th - Feb 19th)
• The Holiday Boss Reward, Heart Shaped Box has a chance to contain 10 Love Tokens.

Using the above facts, care to rethink your answer?  It's not 2700 Lovely Charms per Swift Lovebird, if you do it the smart way.  Isn't goblinism about finding the best and cheapest ways to make the most profit the most efficiently?  Leave the most inefficient ways to the ignorant, uninformed, or the downright lazy.

30 Love Tokens per day from the 6 Dailies, which only require 4 Lovely Charm Bracelets per day, means you only need to farm up 360 Lovely Charms if you only did the Daily Quests.  It would take 9 days of doing nothing but the daily quests to get the Swift Lovebird mount that costs 270 Love Tokens.  When you add in running the daily holiday boss, you can shorten that time for each 10 pack of Love Tokens you get out of your Heart Shaped Box.

So the answer to "How Many Lovely Charms Do I Need To Farm For The Swift Lovebird Mount?" is 360 Lovely Charms maximum.  Take 10 off of that total for every Heart Shaped Box that awards you the 10 Love Tokens.

360 vs 2700 is quite the difference.  So while the fool is buying 1 mount for 2700 Lovely Charms, the wise man is buying 7 Swift Lovebirds on 7 different alts for the same price with enough leftovers to get 4 Truesilver-Shafted Arrows as well.  So don't listen to the fools out there.  Listen to this wise man!

Random Tips for Selling Multiple Lovebird Mounts

• You only need 1 Lovely Charm farming character (not required to farm on each alt).
• You can transfer Lovely Charm Bracelets through your guild bank.
• Lovely Charm Bracelets cannot be mailed.
• Lovely Charm Bracelets wrapped in wrapping paper CAN be mailed!
• Any level character can do the dailies. (A joke on a Mage with ports.)
• You must be 84 to join the holiday dungeon queue to try for extra Love Tokens.
• Don't be a fool and sell the mounts and pets during the holiday.
• The value will be higher once they are no longer obtainable (for a year).

I hope this post helps you save some time and effort in your Lovely Charm farming strategy.  Be sure to check out my favorite spot to farm Lovely Charms, which also lists tons of great spots in the comments as well.

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.

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Best Place To Farm Lovely Charms - WoW 2012

Best Place To Farm Lovely Charms - Slags In Halls of Lightning

Love Is In The Air - New Ways To Make Gold In WoW

The World of Warcraft annual Valentine's Day holiday event is now live on WoW's servers.  This year the Love Is In The Air event has brought us a couple of great new ways to make gold in WoW.  Mage's can make some easy gold selling portals to all of the players traveling to each of the major cities for the daily quest turn ins, but that is chump change compared to the other 2 ways to make gold in WoW.

Following suit after all of the other recent holiday changes, the Truesilver Shafted Arrow (awards Peddlefeet companion pet) is now BoE and tradable / sellable on the auction house.  The Toxic Wasteling, which has a chance to drop from your heart shaped box that is awarded from the Apothecaries holiday boss, has not been changed to BoE.  There has also been a new addition to the holiday vendors.  They now sell a new BoE sellable mount, the Swift Lovebird.  With a bit of a time investment you can purchase pets and mounts to sell on the auction house.  The Peddlefeet pet costs 40 Love Tokens and the new mount costs 270 Love Tokens.

Lovely Charms & Lovely Charms Bracelets

The Love Tokens that are used as the holiday currency for purchasing the companion pets and mounts are awarded from completing the daily holiday quests.  Each day you need to do the 5 daily quests. Each quest awards 5 Love Tokens.  There is 1 random daily and once quest for each of the 4 capital cities leaders to turn in a Lovely Charm Bracelet.  Each Bracelet requires 10 Lovely Charms.  You can farm the Lovely Charms to create your own Bracelets or you can buy the completed Bracelets from other players.  You can also exchange 1 Lovely Charm Bracelet for a single Love Token at the vendor, but this is a very inefficient use of your Lovely Charms.

Best Place to Farm Lovely Charms

When you ask most players "Where is the best place to farm for Lovely Charms?", the majority of players will  reply that Icecrown is the best zone for farming the Lovely Charms.  Sure, there are a lot of great areas with tightly packed creatures to kill for Lovely Charms, but there is a major drawback to farming charms in Icecrown.  Icecrown is riddled with competition.  Everyone else is there farming Lovely Charms too, which leads to inefficient farming.  Let's look at a private better place to farm for Lovely Charms:  the Halls of Lightning dungeon from Wrath of the Lich King.

Farming Lovely Charms 2012 - Slags In Halls Of Lightning

SLAGS - In Halls of Lightning - Normal Mode

The Slags, within the dungeon Halls of Lightning, make the ideal targets for farming for Lovely Charms.  These guys are located just past the 1st boss, which is easily accessible to any level 85.  On regular dungeon mode these Slags are only level 79, which is the lowest level a creature can be to appear as green and still award Lovely Charms to a level 85 character.  These slags die super easy since they each have less than 16k health total, as they are non-elites.  The slags respawn rate is super fast, fast enough that you can almost go non-stop killing them.  The downside is that there is no loot on their corpses, but that's actually a benefit to me as I don't get slowed down by looting.

After clearing my way to the Slag pit I farmed the Slags for Lovely Charms non-stop for an entire hour.  I collected 281 Lovely Charms in just 1 solid hour of farming!  One tip I can share about farming these the Slags in HoL is that even though they may be spread out all over the room, the majority of them tend to spawn from specific spawns points that surround the center column in the room.  They spawn in at these spawn points and then move to their patrol points.  So if you have an AoE effect, make sure you are dropping it over top of these spawn points.  That way you will pick up respawns as soon as they pop up, which increases your speed and efficiency at farming the Lovely Charms.

My current plan is to use my Deathknight main to farm the Slags in Halls of Lightning to get a ton of the Lovely Charms.  Then I will send sets of Lovely Charm Bracelets to multiple alts to complete the holiday dailies each day.  When I have enough Love Tokens, I will hopefully be able to purchase multiple mounts and pets for sale on the WoW auction house.  I will hang on to the companion pets until Mists of Pandaria brings us the Battle Pet System when the companion pet market value will peak, and will wait to unload the holiday mounts until they are no longer attainable.

Don't miss the post on Just How Many Mounts Can I Buy For 2700 Lovely Charms? You may be shocked at the answer.

Anyone else already working on a similar plan?

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.

Top Blog Posts From January 2012

Recap Of Popular January Posts

Here is a look back into some of the most popular posts from January 2012 here at Cold's Gold Factory.

The Random Invite Guild Hits Guild Level 25 - The anti-social all random invite guild reaches the guild cap and passively earns me 17,000 gold along the way.  In a follow-up post, I discuss how promoting Guild Challenges for gold making could have greatly increased those earnings from the guild.

My Scribe's Favorite WoW Gold Making Spot - As an entry into the February Gold Blogging Carnival, I go over one of my secret spots for efficient gold making in World of Warcraft, the Orgrimmar Troll Auction Hut.  A location every Horde Scribe should know and love thanks to the close proximity of all things Inscription.

Looking Ahead To Battle Pets In WoW's Mists of Pandaria - Looking ahead to WoW's upcoming expansion, Mists of Pandaria, and what will be some of the determining factors in placing value on companion pets and the Battle Pet System.

Population Cycles and Mysterious Fortune Card Barking - Touching back on barking and selling Mysterious Fortune Cards and looking at times that sales will spike to coincide with population spikes.  Mysterious Fortune Cards will never become obsolete, but some times they sell much better than others.

The Lunar Festival Cross Faction Exchange Markets - The Lunar Festival brings in both Horde and Alliance Lanterns.  Selling them to the faction that can earn and purchase them is foolish, while selling them cross faction brings major profits.

Murloc Scale Belts & Slimy Murloc Scales - Bringing attention to a rare crafting material used for a Best-in-Slot twink belt.  Funny thing is that players who have never twinked are pretty clueless about twinking gear and the respective twink markets. 

These were the most popular posts from last month.  If you missed them the first go around, be sure to check them out now as there are some great articles in this batch. 

On another note:  Be sure to check out the Auction House Junkies staff photo, now hosted at AuctionHouseJunkies.com for a good laugh.  :)

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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 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.

The Lunar Festival Cross Faction Pet Exchange

Lunar Festival Brings New BoE Pets

New Lunar Festival Pets

We have been seeing some fresh changes to the World of Warcraft in game holidays, which have included some nice additions.  Currently, the Lunar Festival is underway throughout all of Azeroth.  The most notable change to this year's Lunar Festival has been the addition of two new companion pets, the Lunar Lantern and the Festival Lantern. 

• Lunar Lantern - Costs 50 Coins of Ancestry - Alliance
• Festival Lantern - Costs 50 Coins of Ancestry - Horde

Each of these new companion pets from the Lunar Festival require 50 Coins of Ancestry to purchase from the Lunar Festival vendors.  Each character is only able to purchase one of the pets, as they are restricted by faction.  The Lunar Lantern is only purchasable by Alliance players; the Festival Lantern is only sold to Horde characters.  Both of these pets are Bind on Equip and can be traded, mailed, or sold on the auction house. 

Lunar Festival Cross Faction Pet Exchange

Due to the limiting nature of vendors that only sell specific pets to each of WoW's player factions, these new companion pets make great targets for cross faction exchanges, much like the Enchanting crafted lamps & lanterns.  Just because a Lunar Lantern is only sold to Alliance players, doesn't mean that your Horde character can't have one too.  It is just going to be either harder or more expensive to obtain the Alliance Lantern on a Horde character.  The required time commitment just to obtain the 50 Coins of Ancestry to purchase these pets is also another benefit in raising the value of these items.  If you don't value your time much, you could earn the coins and then buy these pets on multiple characters just to have more to sell on the auction house. A wiser way to profit on these new pets is to transfer them across factions to sell for a nice profitable mark-up.

Using my own server's prices as an example, you can see the large potential profit margins from performing some cross faction arbitrage. 

• Festival Lantern (Horde) is selling for 8.3k Horde side, but 25k Alliance side.
• Lunar Lantern (Alliance) is selling for 4k on the Alliance auction house, but 12k on the Horde side.

So simply buying the lanterns on one faction and moving them over to sell on the other faction's auction house should result in some nice profits.  Try to find the pets as the auction house is slightly flooded and the prices are dropping.  The lower you can snatch the pets up for, the more wiggle room you have when setting your prices up for profitting.  The prices of the pets should come down as the holiday nears its end in a week or so, but should rise once the holiday is over and the pets won't be available again until next year's Lunar Festival.  Then the Mists of Pandarian expansion will add the battle pets system and the demand for all pets will explode.  BoE holiday pets like the Sinister Squashling, Lunar & Festival Lanterns, and Winter's Veil pets should all be great items for hedging against the impending new expansion inflation as well.

So make sure you are selling your pets on the auction house that will give you the most profits per sale.  Don't just settle for selling your pets on the same faction that can already buy them anyway.  Move them to the other half of your server for more efficient golden profits.

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.