Rags To Riches In WoW - Horde Style: Day 1

Again I find myself all alone in a brand new place. And I'm as poor as a ball of pocket lint.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

The Plan

Just like in my first series on going from rags to riches in the World of Warcraft, my goal is to prove that you don't need a lot of coin to start making a lot of coin in the WoW Auction House. All you need are the strategies and tools I write about in this blog along with your own smarts.

The last time I did this experiment I picked a realm that was similar to one that I was familiar with. I shot over to Warcraft Realms to take a look at population and AH activity for U.S. realms and picked Exodar. But I knew that the next time I wanted to do things a bit differently. I didn't want to hand pick the realm.

Instead I had it picked for me - Blade's Edge. Sellia's comment in the final post of the first series planted the seed that led to this series. Naturally that also means I'm blaming him if anything goes wrong.

/grin

If you read the preamble to this series you'll see that I went into this rather willy-nilly (I almost scrapped the series), but my goals are pretty much the same...

• Over 100 gold in my pocket (with plenty more in the AH)
  
• Best gear for my level
  
• Show how anyone can turn a little extra time in the AH into gobs of gold
  

The Toon

In addition to flipping for riches at the AH, I want to have a little extra fun and will be leveling this toon up. So I want to pick a class and race I'll enjoy.

And nothing brings a smile like hurling large balls of fire at mobs or sheeping anything that moves in Warsong Gulch. That's right, I'm rolling a Mage. My very first toon was a Mage and I played him horribly. He's still going through therapy to get rid of his twitch. I'm going mage because I want to know what it's like to play one well.

Since Orcs and Tauren look silly in dresses, Undead creep me out and Trolls just don't do it for me, I'm going with a Blood Elf. Female this time. I might be poor but I sure am pretty.

Don't hate me because I'm beautiful.

The Action

Let's get this party started...


I have zero copper. Zilch. Nada. And there's no "you've got mail" icon showing which is more than a little depressing. Being I'm part of a new faction, and therefore new race, I have no idea where anything is. I'm lost.

/whimper
/pull myself together

OK, there are two things I need to do: generate some seed coin and get a first scan of the AH using Auctioneer.

The best way to generate some initial funds is through the two best coin making professions there are for the beginner: mining and skinning. At low levels, there's nothing else that will bring in more silver (maybe even a little gold). I'll need to be level 5 to learn them. Sooooo....

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding and ding.

I'm off to Silvermoon to hit the AH. I go through Falconwing Square and ask where I can learn Skinning which I learn on the way to Silvermoon. Once in Silvermoon I head right to the miners and get that taken care of.

And then I see it.



/sound trumpets

My goal is really to get a first scan of the AH so I can start building that Auctioneer database. There's also 7 silver and 33 copper burning a hole in my pocket and I'm hoping to start my flipping career ASAP. Woot!

I perform two scans. One using Auctioneer Classic (AC) and the other using Auctioneer Advanced (AA). I'll use the search functionality in AC for my initial bargain hunting. AA scans will help during posting and browsing for bargains that AC might not pick up.

Once AC is done scanning here's my first search on Trade Goods...



Interesting. At first blush things are MUCH more expensive than I'm used too, but I need to be careful about making assumptions based on one scan. Without historical data there's no way to know whether most of this information is accurate (Spider's Silk going for nearly 3 gold!?!?!). What I can count on are some high volume items like cloths, metals, etc.

I'm a little gun shy right now because I want my coin to turn over fast. The deals that I do see aren't convincing me and I want to keep my coin for deposits. Instead I post the 20 Linen Cloth I have along with two Small Eggs....and I'm floored. These eggs are going for 13 silver each. Each! Those flying things around here drop eggs like mad so that will be a nice bonus as I can skin them too. I'm not going to farm, but I'll definitely make sure I'm running through the countryside on my way from quest to quest.

So I head back out to quest a little, skin a little and mine very, very little. Um, there aren't a whole lot of mountains around here so Copper isn't exactly abundant.

By the time I'm done for the day this is what I post in the AH:

Linen Cloth x20 18.2s
Small Egg x2 23s
Small Egg x4 38s
Small Egg x4 38s
Small Egg x4 38s
Small Egg x4 38s
Small Egg x4 38s
Small Egg x4 38s
Small Egg x4 38s
Small Egg x4 38s
Small Egg x1 9.5s
Light Leather x13 27.82s
Linen Cloth x7 6.37s
Malachite x1 9.89s
Rough Stone x10 6.1s
Copper Bar x7 83.65s

...and I buy my first bargain! Here she is (number before slash is what I paid and the number after is what I posted it for)...

Light Leather x11 4s/23.65s

Boy that felt good. Well, now that Day 1 is official done there's only one last thing to do...